Spring 2021, Issue 1

International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies

ARTICLES

Robert Tatoyan
Pages 7-31

Abstract
References to the issues of the number of Western Armenians and the ratio of Armenians to other ethnic groups in Western Armenia on the eve of the Armenian Genocide occupy a special place in the context of processes related to drafting a peace agreement with the Ottoman Empire and Armenia’s delineation after WWI. These issues were tackled by diverse Armenian official and non-official organizations struggling for the formation of an integral Armenian state, as well as Turkish authorities manipulating, inter alia, also demographic arguments against the Armenian claim for Western Armenia and the Entente Powers (particularly the United States of America and Great Britain) needing statistical data for deciding the fate of the Ottoman Empire. In the post-war processes the long-distance controversy of the Armenian and Turkish sides over the issues in question can be figuratively characterized as one of the stages – “battles” of the “statistical war” that emerged after 1878, i.e. following the entry of the Armenian Question into the international diplomatic agenda.
This article aims to present and analyse the statistics on the number of Western Armenians and the ratio of Armenians in Western Armenia to other ethnic groups on the eve of the Armenian Genocide presented by Armenian and Turkish delegations at Paris Peace Conference, as well as data circulated by the US and British diplomacy. It will try to explain the connection between the delineation of Armenia and the number of Western Armenians, the demographic composition of Western Armenia on the eve of the Armenian Genocide. The calculations of the number of Western Armenians have had a certain effect on deliberations around demarcation of the border between the Republic of Armenia and the Ottoman Empire in the context of post-war world regulation.

Keywords: statistics, Western Armenians’ population figure, demography of the Ottoman Empire, Paris Peace Conference, Armenian question, Armenian Genocide.

Received on 23.10.2020
Accepted on 08.02.2021

Meline Mesropyan
Pages 33-47

Abstract
This article studies Diana Agabeg Apcar’s (1859-1937) perspective regarding the proposed American mandate over genocide-ravaged Armenia. It touches on aspects of historical empathy that are important in assessing the true nature of historical events. Through examining Diana Apcar’s correspondence with different individuals such as David Starr Jordan, Thomas J. Edmonds, Charles Albert Gobat as well as her articles related to this topic, this article aims to reveal the attitudes, opinions and mindset of this Armenian historical figure regarding the mandate issue.

Keywords: Armenian Genocide, American mandate, protectorate for Armenia, Paris Peace Conference, League of Nations, historical empathy.

Received on 17.02.2021
Accepted on 28.04.2021

Shushan R. Khachatryan
Pages 49-79

Abstract
It is a well-known fact that the Islamisation of Christian children in the Ottoman Empire has a long history. In the great majority of cases Islamisation was carried out forcibly, accompanied by the erasure of a child’s ethnic-religious identity for those who remembered it and totally hiding their ethnic roots and religious affiliation from those who didn’t. The whole process of cultivating a new identity and character was a matter of time and of contested methods.
This article identifies a problem area, raising questions and analyzing the role of Turkish intellectual Halidé Edip in the state policy of Turkification of Armenian children at the Antoura orphanage during the Armenian Genocide. It draws comparisons between the three memoirs of Armenian orphans from that orphanage that are known to date, those of Garnik Banean (Karnig Panian as written in his English language memoir), Harutyun Alboyajyan, and Melgon Petrosean and that written by Halidé Edip. As a result, certain essential differences, ploys, as well as facts disguised by Edip have been collected and presented in this article. Therefore, the research carried out identifies the problems areas relating to various aspects of the Antoura orphanage by raising new questions, offering explanations and new approaches as well as highlighting issues that need to be researched further.

Keywords: Armenian Genocide, Djemal Pasha, Halidé Edip, Adnan Adıvar, Antoura orphanage, Armenian orphans, Islamisation, eugenics.

Received on 05.02.2021
Accepted on 19.03.2021

Acknowledgment: The work was supported by the Science Committee of RA, in the frames of the research project № 19YR-6F036.

Joceline Chabot, Sylvia Kasparian
Pages 81-91

Abstract
In September 1922, the great fire of Smyrna drove more than 200,000 Armenian and Greek refugees to the wharves of that port city. They had fled to Smyrna to escape the massacres perpetrated by Turkish nationalist troops and now urgently needed humanitarian aid to relocate them to safety in Greece. In this article we examine the actions and the roles of humanitarian workers of the Near East Relief (NER) and the American Women’s Hospitals (AMH) working in Greece among these refugees deported from Smyrna. We highlight the central role of women doctors and nurses in their humanitarian efforts to save this population. Their actions, and the gratitude of their peers and government authorities, solidified their professional status in the context of profound changes to transnational humanitarianism after 1919.

Keywords: Humanitarian aid, Near East Relief, American Women’s Hospitals, Smyrna’s catastrophe, Armenian refugees, Greek refugees.

Received on 10.03.2021
Accepted on 29.04.2021

BOOK REVIEWS

Tehmine Martoyan
Pages 92-97

Artyom Tonoyan
Pages 98-100

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All works in the "International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies" are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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