THE CONFISCATION OF ARMENIAN PROPERTIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH UMIT KURT
By Varak Ketsemanian // September 23, 2013
The following interview with Umit Kurt tackles how the physical
annihilation of the Armenians paralleled the confiscation and
appropriation of their properties in 1915. By citing the various laws
and decrees that orchestrated the confiscation process, Kurt places
our understanding of the genocide within a legal context.
Umit Kurt
Umit Kurt is a native of Aintab, Turkey, and holds a bachelor of
science degree in political science and public administration from
Middle East Technical University, and a master’s degree from Sabancý
University’s department of European studies. He is currently a Ph.D.
candidate in the department of history at Clark University and an
instructor at Sabancý University. He is the author of several books,
including Kanunlarýn Ruhu: Emval-i Metruke Kanunlarýnda Soykýrýmýn
Ýzlerini Aramak (The Spirit of Laws: Seeking the Traces of Armenian
Genocide in the Laws of Abandoned Property, 2012) with Taner Akcam.
His main area of interest is the confiscation of Armenian properties
and the role of local elites/notables in Aintab during the genocide.
Below is the full text of the interview Kurt granted The Armenian
Weekly earlier this month.
***
Varak Ketsemanian: What were the laws and regulations that governed
the confiscation of Armenian properties during the genocide?
Umit Kurt: A series of laws and decrees, known as the Abandoned
Properties Laws (Emval-i Metruke Kanunlarý), were issued in the Ottoman
and Turkish Republican periods concerning the administration of the
belongings left behind by the Ottoman Armenians who were deported
in 1915. The best-known regulation on the topic is the comprehensive
Council of Ministers Decree, dated May 30, 1915. The Directorate of
Tribal and Immigrant Settlement of the Interior Ministry (Ýskan-ý
Aþâir ve Muhacirin Mudiriyeti) sent it the following day to relevant
provinces organized in 15 articles. It provided the basic principles
in accordance with which all deportations and resettlements would
be conducted, and began with listing the reasons for the Armenian
deportations. The most important provision concerning Armenian
properties was the principle that their equivalent value was going
to be provided to the deportees.
The importance of the decree of May 30 and the regulation of May
31 lie in the following: The publication of a series of laws and
decrees were necessary in order to implement the general principles
that were announced in connection with the settlement of the Armenians
and the provision of the equivalent values of their goods. This never
happened. Instead, laws and decrees began to deal with only one topic:
the confiscation of the properties left behind by the Armenians.
The cover of ‘The Spirit of Laws’
Another regulation was carried out on June 10, 1915. This 34-article
ordinance regulated in a detailed manner how the property and goods
the Armenians left behind would be impounded by the state. The June
10, 1915 regulation was the basis for the creation of a legal system
suitable for the elimination of the material living conditions of the
Armenians, as it took away from the Armenians any right of disposal
of their own properties. Article 1 of the June 10, 1915 regulation
announced that “committees formed in a special manner” were going
to be created for the administration of the “immovable property,
possessions, and lands being left belonging to Armenians who are
being transported to other places, and other matters.”
The most important of these committees were the Abandoned Properties
Commissions (Emval-i Metruke Komisyonlarý).These commissions and their
powers were regulated by Articles 23 and 24. The commissions were
each going to be comprised of three people, a specially appointed
chairman, an administrator, and a treasury official, and would work
directly under to the Ministry of the Interior.
The most important steps toward the appropriation of Armenian cultural
and economic wealth were the Sept. 26, 1915 law of 11 articles, and
the 25-article regulation of Nov. 8, 1915 on how the aforementioned
law would be implemented.
Many matters were covered in a detailed fashion in the law and
the regulation, including the creation of two different types of
commissions with different tasks called the Committees and Liquidation
Commissions (Heyetler ve Tasfiye Komisyonlarý); the manner in which
these commissions were to be formed; the conditions of work, including
wages; the distribution of positions and powers among these commissions
and various departments of ministries and the state; the documents
necessary for applications by creditors to whom Armenians owed money;
aspects of the relevant courts; the rules to be followed during the
process of liquidation of properties; the different ledgers to be kept,
and how they were to be kept; and examples of relevant ledgers. This
characteristic of the aforementioned law and regulation is the most
important indication of the desire not to return to the Armenians
their properties or their equivalent value.
The Temporary Law of Sept. 26, 1915 is also known as the Liquidation
Law (Tasfiye Kanunu). Its chief goal was the liquidation of Armenian
properties. According to its first article, commissions were to
be established to conduct the liquidation. These commissions were
to prepare separate reports for each person about the properties,
receivable accounts, and debts “abandoned by actual and juridical
persons who are being transported to other places.” The liquidation
would be conducted by courts on the basis of these reports.
The temporary law also declared that a regulation would be promulgated
about the formation of the commissions and how the provisions of the
law would be applied. This regulation, which was agreed upon on Nov.
8, 1915, regulated in a detailed fashion the protection of the
movable and immovable property of Armenians who were being deported,
the creation of new committees for liquidation issues, and the working
principles of the commissions. The two-part regulation with 25 articles
moreover included explanatory information on what had to be included
in the record books to be kept during the liquidation process, and
how these record books were to be used.
In brief, these were the major legal rules and regulations in 1915.
VK: How did the Ottoman government deal with the property of Armenians
living in Istanbul, since no actual massacres took place in the
capital? Were there laws for them, too?
UK: It is very important to note that these laws and statutes
were known as the Abandoned Properties Laws, which was the official
euphemism and an established term in the CUP propaganda to characterize
the expropriation of the Armenians, and were merely applied todeported
Armenians. Movable and immovable properties of Armenians who were
not deported were not subjected to the Abandoned Properties Laws. As
known, there were some Armenians deported from Istanbul–of course,
very limited compared to Western Armenia–and properties of those
deported Armenians in Istanbul also went through this process of
confiscation, expropriation, and liquidation of their properties.
VK: How does the concept of confiscation and destruction of property
help us understand the broader picture of the genocide?
UK: Actually, a new group of critical genocide scholars has started to
come up with a new definition of genocide by taking into consideration
the confiscation and destruction of property and wealth of the victim
groups. In doing so, these critical genocide scholars have brought
Raphael Lemkin’s original definition of genocide to the attention of
existing genocide scholarship.
I see Raphael Lemkin as the founding father of genocide literature.
Lemkin introduced the concept of genocide for the first time in 1944
in his book entitled Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. The book consists
of a compilation of 334 laws, decrees, and regulations connected
with the administration of 17 different regions and states under Nazi
occupation between March 13, 1938 and Nov. 13, 1942. That is to say,
Lemkin did not introduce the concept of genocide together with the
barbaric practices like torture, oppression, burning, destruction,
and mass killing observed in all genocides, but through a book quoting
and analyzing legal texts. Could this be a coincidence?
Given its importance, it is necessary to stress this one more time:
In the year that Lemkin completed the writing of his book (1943), he
already knew of all the crimes perpetrated by Nazi Germany. However,
he did not present the concept of genocide in a framework elucidated
by these crimes. On the contrary, he introduced it through some
laws and decrees that were published on how to administer occupied
territories and that perhaps in the logic of war might be considered
“normal.” We cannot say that this situation accords well with our
present way of understanding genocide. In the general perception,
genocide is the collapse of a normally functioning legal system; it
is the product of the deviation of the system from the “normal” path.
According to this point of view, genocide means that the institutions
of “civilization” are not working and are replaced by barbarism.
Lemkin, however, seems to be saying the complete opposite of this,
that genocide is hidden in ordinary legal texts. By doing this, it
is as if he is telling us not to look for the traces of genocide as
barbaric manifestations that can be defined as inhuman, but to follow
their trail in legal texts.
Genocide as a phenomenon fits inside the legal system–this is an
interesting definition. And this definition is one of the central
theses of our book. The Armenian Genocide does not just exist in the
displays of barbarity carried out against the Armenians. It is at
the same time hidden in a series of ordinary legal texts.
What we wish to say in our book is that genocide does not only mean
physical annihilation. Going even further, we can assert that we are
faced with a phenomenon in which whether the Armenians were physically
annihilated or not, is but a detail. How many Armenians died during
the course of the deportations/destruction or how many remained alive
is just a secondary issue from a definitional point of view; what is
important is the complete erasure of the traces of the Armenians from
their ancient homeland.
The total destruction of the Armenians marked the fact that a
government tried to eliminate a particular group of its own citizens
in an effort to settle a perceived political problem. Between 1895 and
1922, Ottoman Armenians suffered massive loss of life and property as
a result of pogroms, massacres, and other forms of mass violence. The
1915 Armenian Genocide can be seen as the pinnacle of this process
of decline and destruction. It consisted of a series of genocidal
strategies: the mass executions of elites, categorical deportations,
forced assimilation, destruction of material culture, and collective
dispossession. The state-orchestrated plunder of Armenian property
immediately impoverished its victims; this was simultaneously a
condition for and a consequence of the genocide. The seizure of the
Armenian property was not just a byproduct of the CUP’s genocidal
policies, but an integral part of the murder process, reinforcing
and accelerating the intended destruction. The expropriation and
plunder of deported Armenians’ movable and immovable properties was
an essential component of the destruction process of Armenians.
As Martin Dean argues in Robbing the Jews: The Confiscation of Jewish
Property in the Holocaust, 1933-1945, ethnic cleansing and genocide
usually have a “powerful materialist component: seizure of property,
looting of the victims, and their economic displacement are intertwined
with other motives for racial and interethnic violence and intensify
their devastating effects.” In the same vein, the radicalization of
CUP policies against the Armenian population from 1914 onward was
closely linked to a full-scale assault on their property.
Thus, the institutionalization of the elimination of the
Christian-Armenian presence was basically realized, along with many
other things, through the Abandoned Properties Laws. These laws are
structural components of the Armenian Genocide and one of the elements
connected to the basis of the legal system of the Republican period.
It is for this reason that we say that the Republic adopted this
genocide as its structural foundation. This reminds us that we must
take a fresh look at the relationship between the Republic as a legal
system and the Armenian Genocide.
The Abandoned Properties Laws are perceived as “normal and ordinary”
laws in Turkey. Their existence has never been questioned in this
connection. Their consideration as natural is also an answer as to
why the Armenian Genocide was ignored throughout the history of the
Republic. This “normality” is equivalent to the consideration of a
question as non-existent. Turkey is founded on the transformation
of a presence–Christian in general, Armenian in particular–into
an absence.
This picture also shows us a significant aspect of genocide as Lemkin
pointed out. Genocide is not only a process of destruction but also
that of construction. By the time genocide perpetrators are destroying
one group, they are also constructing another group or identity.
Confiscation is an indispensable and one of the most effective
mechanisms for perpetrators to realize the aforementioned process of
destruction and construction.
VK: What happened to the property after it was seized from the
Armenians?
UK: Most of the Armenians properties were distributed to Muslim
refugees from the Balkans and Caucasia at that time. Central and
local politicians and bureaucrats of the Union and Progress Party
also made use of Armenian properties.
The exhaustive process of administering and selling the property
usually involved considerable administrative efforts, employing
hundreds of local staff. Economic discrimination and plunder
contributed directly to the CUP’s process of destruction in a variety
of ways. At the direct level of implementation, the prospect of booty
helped to motivate the local collaborators in various massacres and
the deportation orchestrated by the CUP security forces in Anatolia
in general.
The CUP cadres were quite aware that the retention of the Armenian
property would give the local people a material stake in the
deportation of the Armenians. In many cities of Anatolia, especially
local notables and provincial elites who had close connections with
the CUP obtained and owned most of the properties and wealth of
Armenians. This process was realized in Aintab, Diyarbekir, Adana,
Maras, Kilis, and other cities in the whole Anatolia. For my Ph.D.
dissertation project, I am exploring how Armenians properties and
wealth changed hands and were taken over by local elites of the city
during the genocide.
Similar to the policy of Nazi leaders regarding the “Aryan”ization
of Jewish property in the Holocaust, the CUP aimed to have complete
control over the confiscation and expropriation of Armenian properties
for the economic interests of the state, but could not prevent
incidents of corruption from taking place.
It should be emphasized that corruption was fairly rift among
bureaucrats and officers of the Abandoned Properties Commissions
and Liquidation Commissions who were the responsible actors
for administering and confiscating Armenian properties under the
supervision and for the advantage of the state, as did happen in the
“Aryan”ization of Jewish property.
Despite the widespread incidence of private plunder and corruption,
there is no doubt that the seizure of Armenian property in the
Ottoman Empire was primarily a state-directed process linked closely
to the development of the Armenian Genocide. However, the widespread
participation of the local population as beneficiaries of the Armenian
property served to spread complicity, and also legitimize the CUP’s
measures against the Armenians.
A number of leading members of the Central Committee of the Union and
Progress Party, as well as CUP-oriented governors and mutasarrýfs,
seized a great deal of property, especially those belonging to affluent
Armenians in many vilayets. In addition, according to one argument,
CUP leaders also utilized Armenian property and wealth to meet the
deportation expenses.
Also, it is worth mentioning an important detail on the National Tax
Obligations (Tekâlif-i Milliye) orders. This topic is important to
show the Nationalist movement’s viewpoint concerning the Armenians,
and also Greeks and the properties they left behind. The National Tax
Obligations Orders were issued by command of Mustafa Kemal, the head
of the Grand National Assembly and commander-in-chief of the Turkish
Nationalist army, to finance the War of Independence against Greece.
The abandoned properties of Armenians were also seen as an important
source of financing for the war between 1919 and 1922.
After the establishment of the Turkish Republic, in 1926, Turkish
Grand National Assembly passed a law. This law was promulgated and
enforced on June 27, 1926. According to this law, Turkish governmental
officers, politicians, and bureaucrats who were executed as a result
of their roles in the Armenian deportations or who were murdered by
Dashnaks were declared “national heroes,” and so-called Abandoned
Properties of Armenians were given to their families.
And finally in 1928, the Turkish Republic introduced a new regulation
that granted muhacirs or Muslim refugees who were using Armenian
properties the right to have the title deeds of those properties,
which included houses, lands, field crops, and shops.
As you can see, a variety of actors and institutions seized properties
and wealth that the deported Armenians were forced to leave behind.
VK: What did this entire process of confiscation and appropriation
represent, on the one hand to the Ottoman Elite, and on the other to
the average Turk? Was it an ideological principle or a mere motivating
element for further destruction?
UK: We should be very cautious when giving a proper answer to this
question. Also, in my view, this aspect of the Armenian Genocide
should be compared with the “Aryan”ization of Jewish properties in
the Holocaust. We can see palpable resemblances between these two
dispossession processes.
It is obvious that the material stake for the average Turkey played a
significant role in his/her participation in the destruction process
of Armenians. Economic motivation was always present and enabled
CUP central actors to carry out their ultra-nationalist ideological
policies against Armenians in terms of gaining the support and consent
of average Turkish-Muslim people.
To have a better appreciation of the motivation of the average Turk,
one should look at what happened at the local level–which means
we need more local and micro studies in order to understand how the
deportation and genocide alongside the plunder and pillage of Armenian
properties took place in various localities in Anatolia.
The process of genocide and deportation directed at the Armenians was,
in fact, put into practice by local notables and provincial elites.
These local actors prospered through the acquisition of Armenians’
property and wealth, transforming them into the new wealthy social
stratum. In this respect, the Union and Progress Party’s genocide and
deportation decree on May 27, 1915 had a certain social basis through
the practice of effective power, control, and support mechanism(s)
at local levels. Therefore, a more accentuated focus on the local
picture or the periphery deserves closer examination.
The function of the stolen Armenian assets in the Turkification
process makes the confiscation of Armenian properties a social matter.
In this respect, the wide variety of participants and the dynamic
self-radicalization of the CUP and state institutions at the local
level need to be examined. Although the CUP was involved throughout the
confiscation process and was fully in charge of it, the collaboration
of local institutions and officers also played a considerable role. The
local institutions and offices could not operate in complete isolation
from their respective societies and the prevailing attitudes in them.
The expropriation of the Armenians, therefore, was not limited simply
to the implementation of the CUP orders, but was also linked to the
attitude of local societies towards the Armenians, that is, to the
different forms of Armenian hatred. As in the empire, the corruptive
influence that spread with the enrichment from Armenian properties
in Anatolia could also have led to various forms of accommodation of
CUP policies. The robbery of the property is also a useful barometer
to assess the relations of various local populations toward the CUP,
to the CUP central and local authorities, and also toward the Armenian
population in each city.
With regard to the widespread collaboration of parts of the local
populace in measures taken against the Armenians, the distribution of a
great amount of the Armenian property provided a useful incentive that
reinforced hatred for the local Armenians as well as other political
and personal motives.
One should keep in mind the fact that the participation of local people
is a necessary condition to ensure the effectiveness of genocidal
policies. Planned extermination of all members of a given category of
people is impossible without the involvement of their neighbors–the
only ones who know who is who in a local community.
Therefore, the entire process of confiscation can be evaluated and
construed as both an ideological principle and economic motivation.
These two aspects cannot be separated from each other in our analysis.
In my view, the ideological principle was hugely supported and
complemented by economic motivation and material stakes. In some
instances, ideology played a more significant role than economic
motivation, and in other instances economic interests came into
prominence vis-a-vis ideology. Yet, in any case, these two parameters
were on the ground and constituted effective mechanisms and dynamic
in the confiscation, plunder, and seizure of Armenian material wealth.
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2013/09/23/the-confiscation-of-armenian-properties-an-interview-with-umit-kurt/