NON-MUSLIMS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE KEMALIST REPUBLIC: SOME REMARKS
Maxime Gauin
Journal of Turkish Weekly
June 24 2011
The election of a Syriac deputy, Erol Dora, in the Turkish National
Assembly (TBMM), attired the attention far beyond the boundaries
of Turkey. Mr. Dora is the first person of this religion to become a
Turkish parliamentarian, but by no means the first non-Muslim. One more
time, some comments in the Western medias were, at best, approximate. A
glance at the situation of non-Muslims in the three most targeted
regimes of Turkish contemporary history – namely Abdulhamid II,
the Young Turks and the Kemalist years – would permit to understand
better the current situation.
The purpose of this column is neither to give a comprehensive
view of such a huge subject, nor to assert that the situation of
the non-Muslims was actually perfect – but to correct some widely
diffused prejudices.
Abdulhamid II (1876-1908)
The reforms of the Tanzimat (1839-1856) gave the civic equality to
all the subjects of the Ottoman Empire, expanding the presence of the
non-Muslims in the high administration and the government. Abdulhamid
II continued this movement, and with a certain justice, his reign was
called by Stanford Jay Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw the “culmination of
the Tanzimat”. A democratic Constitution was promulgated in 1876, and
one of his four redactors was an Armenian, Krikor Odian. Abdulhamid
II suspended the Constitution of the Ottoman Empire as early as 1878,
but not the Constitutions of the non-Muslim Millets, especially the
very liberal Armenian Constitution of 1863.
The Sultan did not refrain to chose Christians in his government.
Alexandros Karatheodori Pasha was minister of Foreign Affairs
in 1879-1880; his successor was another Greek, Sava Pasha. Vahan
Dadian Effendi was under-secretary in the ministry of Justice; Michael
Portakalian Pasha was minister of Finances. Several Christians received
high positions of diplomats, for instance Hirant Duz Bey, ambassador
in Rome from 1900 to 1907; and Kostakis Musurus Pasha, ambassador
in London in 1902-1907. The private physicians of Abdulhamid II were
Greeks and Armenians (Michael Khorassandjian; Antranik Kritshikian;
Spiridonos Mavroyenis; Tikran Pechtilmadjian).
The two successive chiefs of the censorship during Abdulhamid’s reign
were Armenians: the father then the son. The Sultan chosen also an
Armenian, Hakob Effendi, as minister of the Civil List, i.e. the
personal domains and incomes of the Sultan. The Greek Yeoryison
Zarifis was the personal banker of Abdulhamid.
A typical response of the Armenian propagandists, at least for the
Armenian case, is to oppose Istanbul’s bourgeoisie to the Armenians
of eastern Anatolia. But the reports of the Russian General Mayewsky
show that even in eastern Anatolia, the Armenian enjoyed as a whole
of a better economic situation than the Muslims. The Armenians were
not less represented in the local administration of eastern Anatolia
and Syria than in the central administration of Istanbul (see Mesrob K.
Krikorian, “Armenians the Service of Ottoman Empire. 1860-1908”,
London-Boston: Routledge, 1977).
The Young Turks (1908-1918)
The improvement of the Jewish community’s situation during Abdulhamid’s
years accelerated with the Young Turks, and the Jews were rather well
represented in the CUP. Emmanuel Carasso (1862-1934) was among the
leaders of the CUP. He crystallized the anti-Semitic attacks from
various sides, including some Christian nationalists. Samuel Israel
was chief of Istanbul’s police in the 1910’s.
But the Christians were even more represented. Bedros Halacyan assumed
the important ministry of Commerce and Public Works in 1910-1912.
Oskan Manikian was minister of Post, Telephone & Telegraph in
1913-1914 – and, as a result, indicted, together with Talat and
Enver Pashas, by the unfair and unconstitutional military tribunal
of 1919, during the occupation of Istanbul. Despite that he was
not a member of the CUP, Gabriel Noradunkyan (1852-1936) served as
Commerce minister in 1908-1909. The Christian Arab Sulayman Bustani
(1856-1925) assumed the same position in 1913-1914. The resignation
of Bustani and Manikian in the beginning of WWI was by no means due
to any “policy of Turkification”, but to a political disagreement:
they supported the neutrality of the Ottoman Empire; the majority of
the CUP leaders considered that the neutrality was impossible.
Like Abulhamid II, the Young Turks favored the loyal Armenians
far beyond Istanbul. A rich businessman close to the CUP, Bedros
Kapamaciyan Effendi was elected, with the support of this party, mayor
of Van (eastern Anatolia) in 1909. He was eventually assassinated for
his loyalty to the Ottoman State by the terrorists of the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation (ARF) in December 1912.
The Young Turks went so far, before WWI, that the former terrorist
Garegin Pasdermadjian, exiled in 1896 for his participation to
the attack against the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul, was allowed to
be candidate for the legislative elections of 1908. He served as
deputy of Erzurum until 1912. Betraying one more time his country,
Pasdermadjian came as early as 1914 to Russia to organize the
recruitment of Armenian volunteers for the Russian army. He died of
a serious nervous breakdowns in 1923, the year of the Lausanne treaty.
The CUP’s effort to create a Turkish bourgeoisie did not change
the economic preeminence of the Christians. In 1913-1915, 50 % of
the Ottoman capital was the property of Greeks, 20% of Armenians,
5 % to Jews – so 75 % to non-Muslims Ottomans -, 10 % to foreign
citizens and 15 % to Turks. The allegation that the forced relocation
of Armenians was motivated by a goal of spoliation and changed
drastically the sharing of the capital has just no sense. The
majority the wealthiest Armenians, especially in Istanbul and
Izmir, were spared of displacement, like the almost all the Greek
businessmen. Eastern Anatolia was a ravaged land at the end of WWI,
because of the widespread destructions perpetrated by the Armenian
volunteers of the Russian army. In Erzurum and Van, almost no Muslim
house remained in 1918; in Bitlis, none. The seizing of Armenian
properties in eastern Anatolia was more frequently a simple question
of survival than an accumulation of capital. And more than one usurper
were severely punished (including some death penalties) as early as
1915-1916, by order of the CUP government.
Despite the forced relocation of several hundreds of thousands of
Armenians, many Armenian civil servants remained at their post. There
were even Armenian soldiers and officers in fighting units, on the
Arab front and also on the Caucasian front, especially in the Stange
detachment – accused without evidence, by some Armenian authors,
to have been a key piece in an “extermination campaign” against the
Armenian people.
The war of independence and the Kemalist years (1919-1950)
Sometimes, it is recalled – rightfully – that most of the Turkish
Jews, like the Muslims, participated to the Turkish national war of
liberation, as soldiers in Anatolia, or by giving moral and material
support in Istanbul. But it is almost completely forgotten today:
there were also Armenians who participated to the Turkish war of
independence. The Karabetian Society, created as early as 1919,
smuggled arms, ammunitions and money to the Kemalist movement. The
group changed its name into Turkish-Armenian Friendship Association
in 1920, was declared by Kemal Ataturk the single representative of
the Turkish Armenians at the Lausanne Conference.
A bit more known is Berc Keresteciyan, who was deputy director of
the Ottoman Bank and vice-president of the Turkish Red Crescent. He
saved the life of Kemal Ataturk in 1919, warning that Ataturk’s ship
would be attacked. Then, he financed the Turkish war of liberation,
both in opening an account for the Kemalist movement in the Ottoman
Bank and in giving his proper money. “Turker” (The valorous Turk)
was added to his name in 1934, when the reform of family name was
carried out in Turkey – a clear demonstration that the Ataturk’s
definition of the Turkish identity was not “racial” or religious but
civic. Keresteciyan Turker was elected as an independent deputy in the
Turkish National Assembly in 1935. He was reelected in 1939 and 1943,
an retired from public life in 1947, when he was 77 years old. He
deceased in Istanbul in 1949.
It is an obvious fact that the linguistic reform was one of the
major step of Ataturk’s policy creating a modern country, with a
strong national identity. The first president of the Turkish Language
Society was an Armenian, Hagop Martayan (1895-1979), chosen for his
first-class qualities of Turkologist. Martayan received the name of
Dilacar (“opener of language”) in 1934.
But the most considerable contribution of non-Muslims to the Turkish
revolution is probably the one of German and Austrian refugees,
mostly Jews, who fled the Nazism. Hundreds of scholars, engineers
and artists gave a priceless participation to the modernization of
Turkey (see Arnold Reisman, Turkey’s Modernization. Refugees from
Nazism and Ataturk’s Vision, Washington: New Academia Publishing,
2006). Alfred Kantorowitz, who remained in Turkey from 1933 to 1948
redesigned completely the dentistry in Turkey. The first building of
the Faculty of Languages, History and Geography at Ankara University
was designed by Bruno Taut. Taut’s corpse was buried in the prestigious
Edirnekapy Martyr’s Cemetery (Istanbul).
In addition to this welcoming of prominent Jews, thousands of Jews
of Turkish origin were saved in France and Greece; several dozens of
thousands, possibly 100,000, could fly to Palestine via Turkey, thanks
to the cooperation of the Turkish authorities and Zionist associations
(see Stanford J. Shaw, “Turkey and the Holocaust”, New York-London:
New York University Press/MacMillan Press, 1993).
As explained in the introduction, this article does not pretend that
the situation of the non-Muslims was perfect. The capital levy applied
in 1942-1943 would deserve a specific – and dispassionate – study;
here, let notice simply, with Bernard Lewis, that “in the event it
proved to have done little damage to the position of the non-Muslim
class capitalist class as a whole” (“The Emergence of Modern Turkey.
Third Edition”, New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, p.
473).
Conclusion
For Abdulhamid II, like for the Young Turks and the Kemalist regime,
the loyalty to the State was more important than the loyalty to Islam;
and the competence was much more important than the ethnic origin.
Three different regimes share the same pragmatic approach in
this topic. The three were, and are still, equally defamed by
ultra-nationalist Greeks, Armenians and their Western followers as
“fanatical Muslims”, “persecutors” if not “racists”. The three have
indeed an absolute shortcoming in the eyes of these propagandists:
to be Turkish.
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