Armenia (region)

V

Ottoman Atrocities

Similar considerations of power politics involved Britain in Armenian affairs. In order to offset the role assumed by Russia as protector of Armenian Christendom, the British undertook to act as protector of the Armenians in present-day Turkey, which was at that time under British influence. As a result of such foreign intervention, factions appeared among the Armenians, stimulating the development of nationalism, but directing it along divergent paths. Part of the Armenian leadership emphasized loyalty to the Ottomans, but other groups engaged in activities the Ottomans considered subversive. Ottoman reprisals took the form of atrocities that shocked the world, including massacres of an estimated 200,000 Armenians in 1896 alone. Meanwhile the Russians, disturbed by the effect among Armenians of British propaganda against them, forbade the Armenians to speak their own language and to have their own schools and churches. They also deported various nationalist leaders to Siberia. British “protection” proved worthless.

During World War I (1914-1918) Armenia became a battleground for Russian and Ottoman armies. Between January and August 1916, the Russians conquered the greater part of Ottoman Armenia, but the revolution in 1917 forced their withdrawal, and the Ottomans reoccupied the country.

As the war raged on, Ottoman atrocities against Armenians increased, leading the government of the United States to send a formal note of protest to the Ottoman Empire on February 17, 1916. The Ottoman government ordered massive deportations of Armenians from their homelands in Ottoman-held territory mainly to the deserts of present-day Syria. Many Armenians perished from starvation and disease or were killed by Ottoman soldiers during the forced marches.

VI

Modern Armenia

On May 26, 1918, Armenians formerly under tsarist rule declared their independence, establishing the Armenian Autonomous Republic, which was recognized by the Allies in 1920.

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During the Greco-Turkish war of 1920-1922 the Armenians sided with the Greeks against the Turkish nationalist forces led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Again the victorious Turks inflicted severe reprisals on them. In addition, the Turks invaded the republic, which they had refused to recognize. A settlement was finally reached in 1921, by which the republic of Armenia ceded about half its lands in the Caucasus to the Turks. In 1922 the Armenian republic joined with the Soviet Socialist republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia to form the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (SFSR), which became one of the four original republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). A separate Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) was formed in 1936.

Claims of discrimination against the Armenian minority still residing in the Azerbaijan SSR led to widespread sectarian fighting in the 1980s. In 1990 the Supreme Soviet of Armenia declared the country a sovereign republic and elected Levon A. Ter-Petrossian, leader of the Pan-Armenian National Movement, as its president. In a referendum held on September 21, 1991, Armenia's voters approved a declaration of independence from the USSR. Two months later the new republic became a founding member of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave there, escalated into open warfare, as the Armenian army invaded and occupied the disputed territory in 1992.

See also Armenia (country).

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