More Russian Archival Documents Revealed In A New Publication By Mehmet Perinçek

Archival documents are the basic sources in understanding historical events. In the case of 1915 Relocation of Armenians Russian Archives bear particular importance. As I wrote a couple of times on this blog, Dr. Mehmet Perinçek has studied long years in these archives and brought back 800 pages with him. A number of books based on these documents had already been published by Kaynak Yayınları to date. A new title has been published recently: Ermeni Milliyetçiliğinin Serüveni: Taşnaklardan ASALA’ya Yeni Belgelerle. It is about Armenian nationalism. The author says it is not possible to comprehend the Armenian Question without the knowledge of history of the Dashnaksutyun Party. 

The authentic study contains some documents published for the first time in the world. There are also some visual materials published for the first time. In a sense, the history of Armenian nationalism is also  a response to genocide allegations on the 100th Anniversary of the tragic events.  

Some of the topics covered in the book are as follows:

• Grigor Artsruni  and Racist-Conniving Origins of  Armenian Nationalism
• Foundation of the Dashnaksutyun Party and its Activities in Turkey According to Russian Archival Documents  (1890-1915)

• Armenians in Tsarist Intelligence Reports at the eve of WWI
• A confidential letter of Russian Minister of Home Affairs: The "Bloody Road" to 1915
• The Report of Tbilisi Gendarmerie in Command: Lawlessness and Lies of Armenians ... 

• The Carnage and Plunder Policy of Armenian Chetes During WWI in the Proceedings of Russian Military Courts
• An Armenian Agent working for the Ottomans: Artur Aseyan
• Dashnaks and the Kurdish Question
• Nazi-Dashnak Collaboration During WWII 

I haven't seen the book yet, but I know earlier works of Perinçek. More unknown archival documents have been revealed. Therefore, I think this is an important study. I wish Turkish authors and publishers gave priority to translations into English to share their findings with the world as well.  

Kaynak Yayınları had earlier published Çarlık Polis Raporlarında Taşnaklar [Dashnaks in Tsarist Police Reports] in Turkish. The report (TsGAOR SSSR - now GARF in the new Russian Federation Archive) is dated 1908 and the appendices include Armenian documents such as Dashnaksutyun Party bylaw, program and the organization chart. The report stated that Dashnaks were aggressive, they hated other nations such as Turks and Russians and they were terrorists. It was also stated that they also took aim at Armenians who did not support them.

The ideals of Dashnaksutyun Party are nowadays kept alive by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation ARF. I understand Dashnaks, Hunchaks and other revolutionaries who wanted to found their own country on that piece of land, although they did not hold majority hundred years ago, because the Ottoman Empire was expected to fall any moment, they thought they had the support of the great powers, and in a similar case in Macedonia Serbs had been able to found a country although Muslims held the majority, perpetrating an ethnic cleansing. They just followed the suit. What they didn't take into account was if Balkans was an arm of the Turkish lands Eastern Anatolia was a part of the main body and the Turks had the tenacity to protect their main homeland whatever the cost would be, simply because they had no other place to go. 

What I cannot understand is to pursue the ideals of 100 years ago, which they call "the cause" even today, still finding righteous an attempt to ethnic cleansing of 80 percent of the population who have been living there for thousand years, claiming that it is their historical homeland, ignoring the fact that it was a shared homeland. 

Cemal Paşa asked in his Memoirs "Are Turks and Kurds are as worthless as flies in the eyes of  the civilized world as well, as they were in the eyes of Morgenthau and Mandelstram and similar politicians?" Should we still ask this question today? If relocation were not realized the Allies would insist Greater Armenia is found in Eastern Anatolia. What would happen to 80 percent of the population then? Should four million or one million be resettled? Those who do not care about for more than four million should look for genocide in their own minds, not in the decisions of  the Ottoman government. 

For the first time visitors of this blog, I will repeat that Morgenthau was surprised to hear about Armenians happily settled in southern cities and towns of the Empire, started their businesses or got a job.  While the losses among relocated Armenians was 20 percent, it was more than 40 percent among Muslims who fled home from Eastern Anatolia in fear of the slaughters perpetrated by Armenian guerillas (chetes) with the aim of changing the ratio of population, ei exercising an ethnic cleansing.

Sources

Perinçek, Mehmet. (Mart 2015). Ermeni Milliyetçiliğinin Serüveni: Taşnaklardan ASALA’ya Yeni Belgelerle [Escapades of Armenian Nationalism: From Dashnaks to ASALA with new documents]. İstanbul: Kaynak Yayınları.

Çarlık Polis Raporlarında Taşnaklar [Dashnaks in Tsarist Police Reports].(2007). İstanbul: Kaynak Yayınları.

Cemal Paşa and Kabacalı, Alpay (ed). (2001, 5th ed. 2010). Hatıralar: İttihat ve Terakki, I. Dünya Savaşı Anıları ,  [Memoirs: Memories of Union and Progress and WWI]. İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Yayınları.