Question

what was the difference between Armenians and other non-Muslim peoples living in the Ottoman Empire? Why were Armenians persecuted with a genocidal policy but Jews, etc were not?

Answer 1

The Armenians in the Ottoman Empire majorly associated themselves with the Armenian Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church. The religious stand was enhanced at a time when the Ottoman Empire was entirely under Sharia law and acted as an independent court of law. However, the Christian canon law and Jewish Halakha were accepted and were empire mandated to rule under its own laws. The Armenian Genocide was the massive ethnic cleansing and murder of more than one million Armenians.

 The genocide targeted the Armenians due to the defeat experienced in the Battle of Sarikamish in 1915, in which they were blamed for committing treachery hence the defeat. The Armenians were killed due to the assumption that they led to defeat in the war, and the Assyrians, Greeks, and Jews were spared (Ülker & Erol, 620). The indications of Armenian resistance provoked the disarming of the Armenian soldiers incorporated into the Ottoman Army and later was killed in large numbers. In 1915-16, Armenians remaining including the children, women, elderly and infirm were deported to the Syrian Desert. The genocide and deportation resulted in the formation of the Turkish ethnonational state.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Armenians in the Ottoman Empire majorly associated themselves with the Armenian Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church.