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ABSTRACT
During the extermination process of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in the World War I, there were two related, but dynamically different forms of violence at work. The first of these can be termed “top-down” violence, in the form of government policies put into practice by the ruling Union and Progress Party through the decisions of its Central Committee. The other form, “bottom-up” violence, was perpetrated by local forces who took advantage of the possibilities and opportunities created by wartime conditions and central government decisions. The target of both types was the population of Ottoman Christians, and the Armenians, first and foremost. The origins of the “top-down” violence are to be found in the century of “accumulated experience” of the Ottoman regime in dealing with various Christian populations within its European territories and their demands for greater economic, social, and political rights, as well as the Great Power intervention on their behalf. Against this background, the Armenian genocide can be seen as a “preventive measure”. Its main purpose was the search for “permanent security”, and in this sense the article acts as a case study based on the theses found in Dirk Moses’ book The Problems of Genocide. As for the phenomenon of “bottom-up” violence, the article also presents a number of previously unpublished documents that give hints as to the role played by different groups—especially the Kurds in the Armenian genocide.
Acknowledgment
A special thanks to the anonymous reviewers and the editors of the Journal whose constructive critique contributed to the development of the arguments in the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 A. Dirk Moses, The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
2 Ibid., 42.
3 Rens Van Munster, “Securitization,” Oxford Bibliographies, 28 September 2020, https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0091.xml (visited 20 February 2022. On the concept of securitization please, see. Clara Eroukhmanoff, “Securization Theory: An Introduction,” E-International Relations, 14 January 2018, https://www.e-ir.info/2018/01/14/securitisation-theory-an-introduction/ (visited 16 February 2022)
4 In recent years, several studies have examined late Ottoman history with the paradigm of securitization. As an example, see İlkay Yilmaz, “Anti-Anarchism and Security Perceptions during the Hamidian Era,” Zapruder World: An International Journal for the History of Social Conflict, Vol. 1 (2014): https://zapruderworld.org/journal/past-volumes/volume-1/anti-anarchism-and-security-perceptions-during-the-hamidian-era/
5 For more on the relationship between nationalism, religious prejudice, and genocide, see Stephan H. Astourian, “Genocide Process: Reflections on the Armeno-Turkish Polarization,” in The Armenian Genocide, History Politics Ethics, ed. Richard Hovannisian (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1992), 53-80; and Astourian, “Modern Turkish Identity and the Armenian Genocide From Prejudice to Racist Nationalism”, in Remembrance and Denial The Case Armenian Genocide, ed. Richard Hovannisian (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1998), 23-51; Taner Akçam, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, (New York: Metropolitan, 2006), 19-47.
6 The differentiation between top-down and bottom-up distinctions are categories that have been created to show that various forms of violence have different dynamics. It is not being argued here either that the two forms of violence are mutually exclusive or demand rigid classification. In real life the distinctions are rarely so clear and well-defined. Rather, the phenomen of mass violence often contain aspects of both.
7 On the Great Powers policies during Armenian Genocide, see Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Although it is a separate discussion, I would simply like to note here that in this important work Bloxham’s approach differs from mine in several aspects.
8 What is being suggested here is neither a simple linear continuity nor an essentialist approach that claims some fixed genocidal intent among the Ottoman elite, unchanging over time and put into action whenever the opportunity arose. The “accumulated experience” argument being discussed here does not mean the static intention in a given actor, who possesses it as a result of certain ideological and cultural characteristics; rather, the ideas and behaviors of the actors that are formed in response to ever-changing events and developments. The Ottoman leadership was never monochromatic in its ideas and approaches regarding the Armenians. Moreover, the various views that they did possess gradually became more radicalized in response to events on the ground. Leonard S. Newman arguments on this subject is adequate here. He argues that it is incorrect to juxtapose “cognitive dispositions” (behaviours) against “situational factors” as contrasting poles. The role of situational factors is not limited to the exacerbation of previously predetermined behaviors and the activation of existing feelings, beliefs and ideologies. On the contrary, institutional, organizational, and situational developments form and transform behaviors. Leonard S. Newman, “What Is a ‘Social-Psychological’ Account of Perpetrator Behavior? The Person Versus the Situation in Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners,” in Understanding Genocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust, ed. Leonard S. Newman & Ralph Erber (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 43-68.
9 The works of Hans Lukas Kieser, Hilmar Kaiser, Ümit Kurt, and Uğur Ümit Güngör are the first to come to mind: Hans-Lukas Kieser, “Dr. Mehmed Reshid (1873-1919): A Political Doctor,” Der Völkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah: The Armenian Genocide and the Shoah, ed. Hans-Lukas Kieser and Dominik J. Schaller (Zürich: Chronos, 2002), pp.245-280; Hilmar Kaiser, The Extermination of Armenians in the Diarbekir Region (Istanbul: Bilgi University Press, 2014); Ümit Kurt, The Armenians of Aintab The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2021); Uğur Ümit Üngör, “Center and Periphery in the Armenian Genocide: The case of Diyarbekir province”, in Hans-Lukas Kieser and Elmar Plozza (eds.), Der Völkermord an den Armeniern, die Türkei und Europa: The Armenian Genocide, Turkey and Europe, (Zürich: Chronos, 2006), 71-88; Hans-Lukas Kieser, Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Seyhan Bayraktar, and Thomas Schmutz, The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2019), in particular, the chapters by Hilmar Kaiser, Ümit Kurt and Mehmet Polatel.
10 In a recent study, Dr. Tuncay Şur and Dr. Yalçın Çakmak have argued that, despite all of the changes and deviations, this dynamic and changing relationship between the state and the tribes has played out within the shifting triad of “actor-ally-bandit” and that these relations have been formed along a shared axis they have terms “patronage” relations. “Patronage forms the principal pillar of the relationship between the state and the Kurdish tribes under their sovereignty.” Tuğçe Yılmaz, “Kürt Aşiretleri, Kurucu unsur mu, "aparat" mı?” Bianet, 4 July 2022, https://m.bianet.org/bianet/yasam/264101-kurt-asiretleri-kurucu-unsur-mu-aparat-mi [accessed: 5 July 2022]
11 Add to all this the difficulty presented by the paucity of written Kurdish sources on the subject. Any recollections of the period have been passed down orally by tribe members. The most common Kurdish practice of oral transmission of songs and stories is known as Dengbêj.
12 It is possible to observe this hatred and anger, especially among Kurdish intellectuals (Islamist, progressive, nationalist, etc.) who are in enamoured with their current 'victim' status. The campaign against Taner Akçam can be given as an example. After Akçam said in an interview that there was a practice of "primae noctis" among Kurdish aghas in ninteenth century, over 130 well-known Kurdish intellectuals of different ideological and political views issued a joint statement calling on him to apologize to the Kurds. In the wake of this public statement, events developed to the point of becoming a “lynching” in the public sphere. For publications on the affair, see https://serdargunes.wordpress.com/2021/05/13/taner-akcam-ve-kurtlerin-agalarin-ilk-gece-hakki-tartismalari/ Akçam’s response to the critiques, https://www.agos.com.tr/tr/yazi/25775/ilk-gece-hakki-ile-ilgili-bilgilere-kusbakisi-bir-bakis (to both sources accessed 5 July 2022.)
13 The debate on the Abdul Hamid massacres of 1894–97 might serve as a good example of our topic at hand. In early studies, the massacres were mainly explained in terms of a decision taken by the central government in Istanbul and implemented by security forces on the ground, including Kurdish Hamidiye regiments. In this model, the Kurds who participated in the massacres were merely a part of the state apparatus carrying out central orders. However, recent work has successfully demonstrated that the Kurds were not merely pawns carrying out orders; on the contrary, they often acted in the absence of, or despite government policies. See the special issue of Études arméniennes contemporaines, 10, (2018); The Massacres of the Hamidian Period (I): Global Narratives and Local Approaches, https://journals.openedition.org/eac/1300, Especially, Edip Gölbaşı, Ali Sipahi, Jelle Verheij’s articles, (accessed 21 July 2022).
14 For some examples, see: Fırat Aydınkaya, “Sıradan Kürtlerin Ermeni Soykırımı’na iştiraki meselesi”, Birikim Dergisi, no: 312 (April 2015): 18-26; [same author], “1880’den 1915’e Kürt Ermeni Hinterlandındaki Kısmi Soykırımdaki Kürt İştiraki Üzerine,” in Utanç ve Onur 1915–2015 Ermeni Soykırımı'nın 100. Yılı, ed. Nevzat Onaran, Onur Öztürk, C. Hakkı Zariç, Aydın Çubukçu (İstanbul: Evrensel Basım Yayın, 2015), 93-95; Sedat Ulugana, “Efendinin suçunu üstlenmek: Kürtler ve Ermeni soykırımı,” GazeteDuvar, 26 April 2020; Hovsep Hayreni, 1915 Bağlamında Kürt-Ermeni Tarih Muhasebesi ve Güncel Tartışmalar, (İstanbul: Belge Yayınları, 2015); Kürt Tarihi Dergisi, 1915 ve Kürtler, Özel Sayı, no. 18 (Mayıs-Haziran, 2015); Emre Can Dağlıoğlu, “Sorumluluk Kürtler ve Ermeniler”, Azad Alik, https://azadalik.com/2016/04/26/1915-sorumluluk-kurtler-ermeniler/#_ftnref22 (accessed 1 December 2020); Adnan Çelik, “Kürt Aydınlarının Siyasi Hatıratında 1915 ve Ermeniler,” Yeni Yaşam Gazetesi, Ocak-Şubat 2019. The full text: https://www.academia.edu/38520294/K%C3%BCrt_Ayd%C4%B1nlar%C4%B1n%C4%B1n_Siyasi_Hat%C4%B1rat%C4%B1nda_1915_ve_Ermeniler [accessed: 3 December 2020].
15 To give but one example: Adnan Çelik, Namık Kemal Dinç, Yüz Yıllık Ah! Toplumsal Hafızanın İzinde 1915 Diyarbekir (İstanbul: İsmail Beşikci Vakfı Yayınları, 2015). For a general overview on Kurdish memory work, see Adnan Çelik, “The Rise and Fall of Kurdish ‘Memory Work’ on the Armenian Genocide,” Kurdish Peace Network, 1 July 2022, https://www.kurdishpeace.org/research/civil-society/the-rise-and-fall-of-kurdish-memory-work-on-the-armenian-genocide/?fbclid=IwAR3DAs57ybDco66i9Adb7jk0RMNKCgrmwtGWhoep8A_q_fzqCj0_Grehfn4 (accessed 7 July 2022)
16 This is the title of the book, İlber Ortaylı, Imparatorluğun En Uzun Yüzyılı (Istanbul, 1983)
17 Both citations are from Şükrü Hanioğlu, Bir Siyasal Örgüt Olarak Osmanlı İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti ve Jön Türklük, 1889–1902 (Istanbul, 1985), 620, 633.
18 The subject of the Ottoman Pan-Turanist expanisonist policies and its relationship to the security concerns produced by territorial losses and the resulting “securitization” of all existing political problems of the Empire has been examined in many previous works and will thus not be repeated here. See, for instance, Akçam, A Shameful Act, 109-149.
19 For two examples of this type of order, see BOA.DH.ŞFR, no. 44/43 (15 August 1914); and BOA.DH.ŞFR, no. 45/115 (28 August 1914). [BOA.DH.ŞFR is the abbriviation for Ottoman Archive Interior Ministry Cipher Office.]
20 BOA.DH.ŞFR, 43/214 (10 August 1914). The number of soldiers in the labor battalions, including those who were employed at military depots was approximately150,000. Mehmet Beşikçi, The Ottoman Mobilization of Manpower in the First World War I Between Voluntarism and Resistance (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012), 112.
21 Order sent to all provinces, dated: 6 September 1914. BOA.DH.ŞFR., no. 44/200.
22 Askeri Tarih Belgeleri Dergisi, 31, no. 81 (Aralık, 1982): 3-8; Belge no. 1804.
23 Ibid., 39, Belge no. 1810.
24 Estimates for the number of Armenians killed in the Caucasus in the first months of the war vary from between 7,000 and 16,000. Approximately 21,000 Christians were killed between December 1914 and February 1915 in the campaigns conducted within Iran and Azerbaijan. Lepsius, Der Todesgang, 78-79. Raymond Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide A Complete History (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011), 221, 227.
25 Askeri Tarih Belgeleri Dergisi 31, no. 81 (December 1982), 27-29; Document no. 1808.
26 Cables from Bitlis Provincial Governor Mustafa, dated 18, 27 September 1914, BOA.DH.ŞFR., 441/33 and 442/36.
27 Cable from Van Provincial Governor Cevdet, dated 28/29 November 1914, BOA.DH.ŞFR., 451/19.
28 Cable from Erzurum Provincial Governor Tahsin, dated 17 November 1914, BOA.DH.ŞFR., 448/75.
29 Cables from Ottoman Interior Ministry, dated 18 and 29 November 1914, BOA.DH.ŞFR., 46/303.1 ve 47/236.
30 Cable from Erzurum Provincial Governor Tahsin relaying the decision of the Central Committee of the Erzurum branch of the Special Organization, dated 1 December 1914, BOA.DH.ŞFR. 451/62.
31 Askeri Tarih Belgeleri Dergisi 31, no. 81 (December 1982): 57-58; Document no. 1814.
32 Cable from the Provincial Governor of Erzurum, 20 December 1914, BOA.DH.ŞFR., 454/87.
33 Aram Andonyan, Medz Vojire (“The Great Crime”) (Boston: Bahag Printing House, 1921), 116-117.
34 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 455/45 (23 December 1914).
35 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 456/20 (31 December 1914).
36 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 463/80 (3 March 1915).
37 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 467/120 (18 April 1915). The italics are the author’s.
38 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 468/24, (19 April 1915).
39 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 468/66, (22 April 1915).
40 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 466/91 (29 Mart 1915).
41 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 468/70 (22 April 1915).
42 Certainly, it can be fairly said that the manner of leadership and direction of the central government played an influential role in the formation of political and social conditions in the region, and that local violence was realized at the urging or direction of the central authorities. But this claim cannot be used to deny the fact that the violence appeared as the product of local ethno-religious tension and social-economic conditions; in other words, a local dynamic was at play, and the decisions by actors on the ground were taken in accordance with their own wishes and preferences.
43 The difference in the central government’s policy toward the Assyrian Christians has been repeatedly shown in the works of David Gaunt: “In some respects, the treatment of the Assyrians differed from that of the Armenians. There was much less central government propaganda identifying the Assyrians as traitors, but provincial and local politicians spread such accusations in their jurisdictions. On occasion, the central government issued decrees that only Armenians should be deported, but this was ignored in the provinces, particularly in rural areas.” David Gaunt, “Ottoman Treatment of the Assyrians,” in Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek and Norman M. Naimark, ed., A Question of Genocide Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 246.
44 In the face of the evidence provided by these documents, namely, that the Assyrian population were to be exempted from the deportations, the contrasting claim that there were orders for their extermination but that they were destroyed, must remain within the realm of speculation. The genocide did not come about as the result of a single ‘extermination order’. The conclusion of genocide is drawn from the pattern emerging from the totality of documentation. Among there Prime Minister’s Archive (known as Ottoman Archive) one will not find a single document that directly orders the extermination of the Armenians, but even in lieu of such a ‘smoking gun’, the documents that can be found there very clearly show a pattern of orders and actions that point in the direction of genocide. There is no doubt that even if the central authority did not take direct decisions against the Assyrians, it did not expressly oppose or prevent massacres that were the product of local dynamics. Understanding the dynamic nature of center-periphery relations is crucial here. Just as the range of approaches that the center could take also played a role in determining the limits of the local forces' activism, the center also had to take into account the desires and expectations of the local forces it considered essential allies. It was an important choice for the center to remain silent and give indirect approval to the mobilizations of the local forces instead of adopting a policy that would completely confront them. And the Government seems to have acted in line with this choice. I would name this process as a “constant tacitly negotiations between peripherie and center.”
45 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 477/78, (27 June 1915).
46 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 54/228, (28 June 1915).
47 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 57/112, (25 October 1915).
48 On Dr. Reşit, see the articles in footnote 4 above as well as: Taner Akçam, The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 208-212; Ayhan Aktar and Abdülhamit Kırmızı, “Diyarbekir, 1915,” in Diyarbakır Tebliğleri (İstanbul: Hrant Dink Vakfı, 2013), 289–327
49 For more detailed information, see: Akçam, The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity.
50 For the characters and dynamics of local violence and the role of different agencies, see Christian Gerlach, Extremely Violent Societies, Mass Violence in the Twentieth-Century World (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
51 For a discussion of Kurdish-Assyrian relations during the period of the Bedirhans, see Hirmis Aboona, Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire (Ahmerst, MA, and New York: Cambria Press, 2008); David Gaunt, Naures Atto and Soner O. Barthoma (eds.), Let Them Not Return, Sayfo – The Genocide against the Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire, (New York, Oxford, Berghahn, 2017), Introduction, 1-33.
52 On the subject of development of Kurdish-Armenian relations, particularly in the province of Bitlis, over the 19th and early twentieth centuries, see Sedat Ulugana, Kürt-Ermeni Coğrafyasının Sosyopolitik Dönüşümü (1908-1914) Halidiler, Hamidiyeler, Bedirhaniler ve Taşnaklar, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2022).
53 Jwaideh, Kürt Milliyetçiliğinin Tarihi, 170-171.
54 Özoğlu, Osmanlı’da Kürt Milliyetçiliği, 139. For a different interpretation of the role of fear of Armenian domination in the Ubeydullah uprising and the accuracy of the utterance, see Soleimani, Ortadoğu’da İslam ve Çatışan Milliyetçilikler, 190-197.
55 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 422/011, Cable from Van Provincial Governor Tahsin, 23 March 1914.
56 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 422/113, Cable from Van Provincial Governor Tahsin, 2 April 1914.
57 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 424/15 (15 April 1914).
58 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 465/4 (14 March 1915).
59 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 465/110 (22 March 1915).
60 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 465/138 (23 March 1915).
61 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 51/130 (25 March 1915).
62 A significant gap in the documentation lies in the fact that the provincial governors and other local officiasl did not provide detailed information regarding the tribes or volunteer units perpetrating these attacks. At present we cannot know of which tribes the governors were speaking, but such information may well be learned through local studies.
63 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 471/57 (23 May 1915).
64 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 472/64 (24 May 1915).
65 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 472/69 (25 May 1915).
66 BOA.DH.ŞFR, 475/25 (12/13 June 1915).
67 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 472/36 (23 May 1915).
68 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 475/29 (13 June 1915).
69 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 476/45 (18/19 June 1915).
70 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 476/98 (21 June 1915).
71 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 479/107 (13 July 1915).
72 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 460/47, Cable from Van Provincial Governor Cevdet, dated: 6 February 1915.
73 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 472/67 (12 May 1915) and 482/83 (4 August 1915).
74 BOA.DH.ŞFR., 482/95 (5 August 1915). See also BOA.DH.ŞFR., 473/29 (30 May 1915).
75 Ottoman Orientalism is a subject that has been debated at length. See, for instance, Usama Makdisi, “Ottoman Orientalism,” American Historical Review 107, no. 3 (2002): 768-796; Selim Deringil, “ ‘They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery’: The Late Ottoman Empire and the Post-Colonial Debate,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 45, no. 2 (2003), 311-342.
76 Mark Levene, The Meaning of Genocide, Genocide in the Age of the Nation-State, vol. I (London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 120.
77 Yehoshua Robert Buchler, “ ‘Unworthy Behavior’: The Case of SS Officer Max Täubner,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 17, no. 3 (2003): 416.
78 Emmanuel Kreike, Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime against Humanity and Nature, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021). “Although plunder was sometimes sanctioned by the higher military commanders, often it was not. In September 1574, a dozen soldiers of the King’s army were put on trial in royalist Amsterdam because disguised as rebels, they had robbed farmers of their cattle for their personal profit” (28). “ … newly arrived soldiers eager for a share were difficult to control even when and where the crown’s officials sought to enforce the ordinances meant to limit Spanish soldiers’ destructive pillaging and killing. In 1549, the governor of Quito issued orders to prohibit robbing or severely punishing indigenous Americans and land seizures” (85).
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Taner Akçam
Taner Akçam is the Director of the Armenian Genocide Research Program at The UCLA Promise Armenian Institute. He is the author of more than ten scholarly works as well as numerous articles in Turkish, German, and English on Armenian Genocide and Turkish Nationalism. His well-most known books are A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (2006) and Young Turks’ “Crime Against Humanity”: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire (2012), which received several awards. Akçam’s latest book is Killing Orders: Talat Pasha’s Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide (2018)