A HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION: THE FATE OF ARMENIAN CHURCH PROPERTIES IN ADANA [I]
By: Mehmet Polatel
Fri, Oct 14 2011
Genocidal processes involve the loss of large numbers of human life.
The motivation behind these processes is always related to the
destruction of a certain group of people. However, it is not only
the people that make a community; the idea of the community is also
related to shared values, everyday routines, culture, literature, and
religion. Thus, genocidal processes not only target certain groups of
people, but also the symbols, buildings, and monuments that belong to
them. This article examines the fate of religious buildings in Adana
after the Armenian Genocide of 1915, in a process of destruction that
aimed to erase the proof of Armenian existence in the region.
The Armenian district of Adana in ruins (Photo source: The Armenian
Genocide Museum Institute) The Adana region had been inhabited
by Armenians since the 4th century. As Adana was one of the first
regions in the Ottoman Empire to integrate with the world economy
through cotton production, it presented a great location for the
Armenian community to prosper. This prosperity was reflected in
the number of schools, monasteries, and churches functioning in
the region. Armenians occupied with trade and artisanship actively
participated in the public life of the city.
Apart from the central district of Adana, Tarsus, Hadjin, Sis, and
Cebel-i Bereket were the four major areas in the Adana province
that had a considerable Armenian presence. As the administrative
structure of the Ottoman state was based on the millet system,
Armenians were given representation on the administrative council
on the basis of religious difference. The Apostolic, Catholic, and
Protestant communities were represented by their religious leaders in
this council. The Armenians of Adana mostly lived in the Khidir-Ilyas
neighborhood, around the Notre Dame church, and in the city center,
around the Saint-Etienne parish. Reflecting the size and prosperity
of the community in the province was the dynamic intellectual and
educational community life present. [ii] There were 1,500 students
at the Abkarian, Ashkhenian, and Aramian colleges in 1913. There was
also a girl’s school that had more than 500 students. According to the
statistics of the Patriarchate, there were 25 schools with 1,947 male
students, 808 female students, and 69 teachers in the province. Seven
of these schools were in Sis, and provided an education to 476 boys
and 165 girls, with 19 teachers.[iii]
Genocide and Armenian properties
Following the deportation decision, the Committee of Union and Progress
(CUP) carefully controlled the state of Armenian properties.
There were two parallel processes regarding the Armenian properties:
one legal and one illegal. The legal process began with the cabinet
decision to protect the Armenian properties left behind and allocate
them to immigrants from the Balkans and Caucasus.[iv] Another legal
decision was a secret order to inform local governments about the
management of the Armenian properties. This secret order included the
establishment of liquidation commissions to manage the properties,
including the sale of movable properties and the distribution of land,
houses, and crops to the immigrants and tribes.[v] Finally, on Sept.
27, 1915, the CUP adopted a law regarding the abandoned Armenian
properties; it was defined as a temporary law: “the law about the
abandoned properties, debts, and credits of the population who were
sent elsewhere.”[vi] While it did not include any articles different
from the secret order, it served to legalize the aims of the order. In
a practical sense, the CUP used the properties for different aims:
the settlement of immigrants,[vii] the establishment of a national
economy,[viii] and the provision of the needs of the state, people,
and military.[ix] Sacred places like churches and monasteries were
excluded from the expropriation and appropriation practices. It was
declared that they would be protected and taken care of. Existing
goods, pictures, and holy books from the churches were to be registered
and preserved. In a new regulation adopted in November1915 defining
the procedures of liquidation, usage rights of the materials from
the schools and monasteries were transferred to the Ministry of
Education.[x] This declaration, however, stayed on paper and the
properties that were declared protected were also confiscated by
the state.
Confiscation in Adana
The CUP aimed to de-Armenize the Adana province–which included the
plain of Adana, Mersin, Sis, and Tarsus–and fill them with Muslim
immigrants from the Balkans and Caucasus. The genocide struck Adana in
the summer of 1915, when the CUP ordered the deportation of Armenians
from the villages of Adana province. In this order, the government
also requested the names of the villages and number of deportees. [xi]
The CUP government then targeted the provincial towns. The complete
deportation of the Armenians of Sis was ordered on June 17, 1915.
[xii] Other towns followed one by one. In October 1915, 9,000 Armenians
were deported from Dortyol. With the exception of Baghdad Railway
employees and military staff, Armenians were to be “deported without
exception” (bilâ-istisna teb’id).[xiii] The Abandoned Properties
Commission of Dortyol was authorized to proceed with the liquidation
of Armenian immovable property and its transfer to the Muslim
population.[xiv] The immovable properties were used for various,
multifaceted aims, including fostering Turkish business in Adana and
resettling the now-empty villages and towns with Muslim immigrants
from the Balkans.
According to Talat Pasha’s own notebook, 699 buildings were confiscated
in Adana province:
Table 1: Confiscated buildings in Adana
Name of district Number Tarsus 9 Cebel-i Bereket 5 Kozan (Sis) 229
Kars 22 Hadjin 50 Hadjin Shar 25 Hadjin Rumlar 25 Feke 30 Feke Karadere
25 Feke Karakoy 130 Feke Yerebakan 30 Feke Dikme 30 Ceyhan 86 Total 699
Source: Bardakcý, 2008, p.93.
These buildings ranged from individual houses to large farms and
estates. The losses in Sis/Kozan are striking: They add up to one-third
of all the buildings confiscated in the entire province of Adana.
The Ottoman state also confiscated properties belonging to the
community: Eight schools and churches, covering a territory of 14,400
m2 with an estimated value of 46,400 Turkish gold liras, were seized
by the state. Fifty-six community buildings and plots, covering 16,488
m2 and worth 43,785 Turkish gold liras, were also seized.[xv]
The Catholicosate of Sis overlooked the town and was a large
building–constructed on 1,250,000 m2–with 50 rooms and halls. The
building was coated with high-quality earthenware Kutahya tile and
housed a library of 4,000 books and 400 manuscripts, along with an
antique art museum. The tax the Catholicosate paid was roughly 100,000
Turkish gold liras. The diocese was also in possession of a historical
church and residential buildings covering 14,500 m2 and worth 2,000
Turkish gold liras. The Catholicosate also owned several houses and
shops, two water mills, a 10,000 m2 garden, a 30,000 m2 field, and a
10,000,000 m2 farm with depots, stables, plots, 130 cows, 30 muzzles,
and flocks of goats and sheep. The properties of the Catholicosate of
Sis covered a total of 11,687,100 m2 and were worth 167,520 Turkish
gold liras.[xvi]
The churches in the provinces and neighborhoods also experienced
astronomical losses. These losses were counted and documented in the
archives of the Armenian Catholicosate in Antelias, Lebanon:[xvii]
–Surp Asdvadzadzin in the Hidir Ilyas neighbourhood;
–A school in the compound of that church (Ferman of February 1816):
6,000 m2, 25,000 Turkish gold lira (TL);
–Surp Stepanos and school in the Bucak neighborhood, burned in 1909
(Ferman lost): 5,000 m2, 18,000 TL;
–Church in Hiristiyankoy (Ferman of March 1848): 1,000 m2, 1,000 TL;
–Church in Ýncirlik (Ferman lost): 800 m2, 800 TL;
–Church in Sheikh Murad (Ferman lost): 1,000 m2, 1,000 TL;
–Church in Abdo-oghlu, burned during the French occupation (Ferman
lost): 200 m2, 200 TL;
–Church in Missis, burned during the French occupation (Ferman lost):
400 m2, 400 TL.
The state used the Armenian properties for its various interests. Some
were transferred to Turkish firms. Others were shared among local
officials and citizens. Big buildings like churches were converted
into prisons. The local authorities in Adana offered the conversion of
six buildings in the province into prisons. Reporting to the Interior
Ministry, the governor of Adana claimed Adana was in serious need
of a new prison and offered to transform a church–and the school
next to the church–into a prison with some refurbishing.[xviii]
The Interior Ministry accepted the offer and authorized the governor
to put the plan into practice. In the end, those holy places that had
been declared “protected” were converted into prisons.[xix] Before this
change, the prison was a room in an old police station. Not by chance,
this police station was also moved to a different building–one on
Armenian property.[xx] Church buildings and fields were also used
for different purposes. According to the memoirs of Damar Arýkoðlu,
who was a CUP representative for Adana and represented the province as
a parliamentarian from 1920-46, an apprentice school was established
in the yard of an Armenian church in the province.[xxi]
After 1918, surviving Adana Armenians attempted to return to their
homes. Restitution soon became an obstacle. The heirs of murdered and
deceased deportees encountered difficulties when trying to reclaim
property. The principle of “appearance in person” (isbât-ý vucud)
was in force, and only the person registered on the property could
claim it back. Many of those people had, of course, been killed,
and their documentation often lost.
A few dozen Maronites, Greek Catholics, and Armenian Catholics stayed
in the region. These communities were also dispossessed in Adana,
Mersin, and Tarsus. The state confiscated storehouses, rectories,
churches, gardens, farms, houses, and convents, and used them for
its own purposes. As the Treaty of Lausanne did not name any specific
groups that were guaranteed minority status, the government declared
that these communities were not covered under the Treaty of Lausanne,
and thus did not have the rights guaranteed for minority communities.
The government ordered the seizure of all properties belonging to
these communities on Jan. 21, 1926. The bell tower of the Maronite
church in Tarsus was demolished and was converted into the district
governorship in 1928. Maronite and Greek Catholic properties in Mersin
were given to the Ministry of Education.[xxii]
Young Turk officials also bullied Father Ignace Terzian out of Tarsus,
then terrorized the priest Jean Khalkovian in Mersin. Local newspapers
participated in this pressure policy by launching a campaign of
defamation against Khalkovian, claiming he had cooperated with
the occupying French forces. Khalkovian was deported to Kastamonu
and in 1926 was expelled from Turkey. Removing such an important
community figure from the scene, the authorities were even more free
in confiscating the properties of the Armenian Catholic community–18
hectares of agricultural land, a storehouse, shops, and many other
belongings. The community was stripped to such an extent that the
last Catholic Armenian in Adana, Msgr. Pascal Keklikian, was renting
the Catholic community’s own property from the government. Although he
tried to improve the conditions of his community, his efforts proved to
be unsuccessful; the state was determined to destroy the same community
he was trying to protect. In January 1927, the governor of Adana,
Reþat Mimaroðlu (1880-1953), ordered the categorical confiscation
of all Catholic Armenian properties in that province. The community
had now lost everything: its church, rectory, schools, shops, land,
houses. The dispirited and defeated Keklikian had no other option
than to depart for Syria.[xxiii]
It is a widely reproduced myth that the Ottoman and Turkish states
protected Armenian properties, especially its holy places. It is
so popular that one can find this historically ungrounded myth in
the declarations of state officials, not only those from Turkey but
also from the U.S. However, one should look at the history without
political bias to see the difference between myth and reality. This
short article attempted to do this, sharing a motivation with other
ongoing efforts to look at the history of the Armenian Genocide from
a purely academic point of view free from politics.
——————————————————————————–
[i] This article is based on the study Confiscation and Destruction:
The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property (London/New York:
Continuum, 2011) by Uður Umit Ungor and Mehmet Polatel.
[ii] Raymond H. Kevorkian and Paul B. Paboudjian, Les Armeniens dans
l’empire ottoman a la veille du genocide (Paris: Editions d’Art et
d’Histoire, 1992), pp. 265-7.
[iii] Kevork K. Baghdjian, La confiscation, par le gouvernement turc,
des biens armeniens-dits abandonnes” (Montreal: K.K. Baghdjian, 1987),
p. 253.
[iv] Ottoman Prime Ministerial Archives (BOA), Meclis-i Vukelâ
Mazbatasý, 198/24, in Baþbakanlýk Devlet Arþivleri Genel Mudurluðu
Osmanlý Arþivleri Daire Baþkanlýðý (2007), Osmanlý Belgelerinde
Ermenilerin Sevk ve Ýskaný, Ankara, pp. 155-157.
[v] Original document in Genelkurmay Askeri Tarih ve Staratejik
Etud Baþkanlýðý (December 1982), “Ahval-i Harbiye ve Zaruret-i
Fevkalâde-i Siyasiye dolayýsýyla Mahall-i Ahire Nakilleri Ýcra Edilen
Ermenilere Ait Emval ve Emlâk ve Arazinin Keyfiyet-i Ýdaresi Hakkýnda
Talimnamedir,” Askeri Tarih Belgeleri Dergisi, pp. 147-153. For the
English translation of the original document in the Prime Minister
Directorate General of Press and Information (1982), Documents,
Ankara, pp. 74-80.
[vi] Takvim-i Vakayi, Oct. 28, 1915, no: 2303.
[vii] An example for settlement of immigrants: Republican Prime
Ministerial Archives (BCA), 272, 12, 36, 10, 1, Oct. 5, 1915 and Oct.
16, 1915; an example for use of properties for needs of immigrants:
BOA/DH.ÞFR, 61/247, Interior Ministry to Trabzon, March 3, 1916.
[viii] An example for showing the distribution of Armenian properties
to Muslims to foster the national economy: BOA/DH.ÞFR, 59/239,
Jan. 6, 1916.
[ix] An example for army: BOA/DH.ÞFR, 55-A/143, Sept. 8, 1915; an
example for public use: BOA/DH.ÞFR, 55/330, Aug. 24, 1915
[x] Takvim-i Vakayi, Nov. 10, 1915, no: 2343.
[xi] BOA, DH.ÞFR 53/113, Interior Ministry to Adana, Bitlis, Aleppo,
Erzurum, May 25, 1915.
[xii] BOA, DH.ÞFR 54/51, Interior Ministry to Adana, May 25, 1915.
[xiii] BOA, DH.EUM 68/89, 2. Þube, Fethi to Interior Ministry,
Oct. 11, 1915.
[xiv] BOA, DH.ÞFR 54/346, Interior Ministry to Adana, July 6, 1915.
[xv] Baghdjian, La confiscation, p. 73.
[xvi] ibid., pp. 74-5.
[xvii] ibid., p. 275.
[xviii] BOA, DH.MB.HPS 49/31, May 14, 1916.
[xix] BOA, DH.MB.HPS 49/22, correspondence dated Oct. 24, 1915 and
Jan. 6, 1916.
[xx] BOA, DH.EUM.MH 162/105, Sept. 24, 1917.
[xxi] Damar Arýkoðlu, Hatýralarým (Istanbul: Tan Matbaasý, 1961),
p. 95.
[xxii] Vahe Tachjian, La France en Cilicie et en Haute-Mesopotamie:
aux confins de la Turquie, de la Syrie et de l’Irak, 1919-1933 (Paris:
Karthala, 2004), pp. 225-6.
[xxiii] ibid., pp. 228-9.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2011/10/14/a-history-of-destruction/