Armenian Genocide Orphans

STATISTICS ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ORPHANS COMPILED BY THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1919-1922

SUMMARY

Key words: Armenian Genocide, Constantinople Armenian Patriarchate, orphans, islamization, statistics, Information Bureau, League of Nations.

After the end of the First World War, one of the main activities of the Armenian
Patriarchate of Constantinople was the organization of the care of the Armenian
Genocide orphans, including the liberation of Armenian women and children
forcibly Islamized and kept in Moslem (Turkish) institutions and homes.
The integral part of this work was the collection of statistical data on these
groups of the Armenian Genocide survivors. In particular, two organizations
attached to the Constantinople Armenian Patriarchate – these are the National Care
and the Information Bureau – were engaged in collecting statistics in question in
1919-1922.
Statistical data on the number of orphans collected by these organizations is
summarized in various reports and bulletins on orphans and orphan care compiled
by the Armenian Patriarchate, as well as in statistical summaries compiled in the
context of developments around the Armenian Question. Thus, according to the
1921 Armenian Patriarchate statistics of June 7, 1921, which is the most detailed
and the chronologically most up-to-date of statistics in question, the number of the
Armenian Genocide orphans was 164,169, of which 90,819 reclaimed and kept in
orphanages, and 73,350 still in Moslem (Turkish) institutions and homes (statistics
provides distribution of orphans by various countries and settlements).
Statistics compiled by the Constantinople Armenian Patriarchate on the
number of the Armenian Genocide orphans are a primary source, and their data
in all respects is more reliable than any other Armenian Genocide orphans number
calculation present in the historical literature.

СТАТИСТИЧЕСКИЕ ДАННЫЕ ПО ЧИСЛЕННОСТИ СИРОТ ГЕНОЦИДА АРМЯН, СОСТАВЛЕННЫЕ КОНСТАНТИНОПОЛЬСКИМ АРМЯНСКИМ ПАТРИАРХАТОМ В 1919-1922 ГГ.

РЕЗЮМЕ

Ключевые слова: сироты, насильственная исламизация, Геноцид армян, Константинопольский Армянский патриархат, статистика, Национальное попечительство, Информационное бюро.

После окончания Первой мировой войны одним из основных направлений
деятельности Константинопольского Армянского Патриархата стала организация ухода за сиротами Геноцида армян, включая освобождение армянских женщин и детей, насильственно исламизированных и содержащихся в мусульманских (турецких) сиротских приютах и частных домах.
Неотъемлемой частью этой работы был сбор статистических данных об
этих группах переживших Геноцид армян. В частности, сбором рассматриваемых статистических данных в 1919-1922 гг. занимались две организации при Константинопольском Армянском Патриархате – Национальное попечительство и Информационное бюро.
Статистические данные о количестве детей-сирот, собранные данными
организациями, обобщены в различных отчетах и бюллетенях о сиротах
и уходе за сиротами, составленными Армянским Патриархатом, а также
в статистических сводках, составленных в контексте развитий вокруг
Армянского вопроса. Так, согласно статистической сводке Армянского
Патриархата от 7 июня 1921 года, которая является наиболее подробной и
полной статистикой по данному вопросу, количество сирот, осиротевших
в результате Геноцида армян, составляло 164.169 человек, из которых 90.819
человек были уже найдены и содержались в сиротских приютах, а 73.350 еще
находились в мусульманских (турецких) сиротских приютах и частных домах
(статистика также показывала распределение детей-сирот по разным странам
и местностям).
Статистические данные по численности сирот Геноцида армян, собранные
Константинопольским Армянским Патриархатом, являются важным первоисточником. Эти данные во всех отношениях более достоверны, чем другие подсчеты числа сирот Геноцида армян, представленные в исторической
литературе.

In 1918, some 500,000 Ottoman Armenians found themselves displaced from their homes or living in Muslim households in the Eastern Mediterranean and the South Caucasus. For most, life did not return to normal after WWI. Rather, new wars, war scares, political manoeuvrings, economic policies, famines, and epidemics during 1918–1930 resulted in a long-term refugee crisis that was responded to by a large number of Armenian and non-Armenian organizations. This article looks at one such response: the humanitarian relocation to Canada of 110 boys and 39 girls and women—all genocide refugees and most of them orphans. It traces how this relocation campaign was realized despite Canadian immigration authorities' long-standing efforts to keep Asians, the impoverished, and the stateless from entering the country. Breaking with the often simplistic and celebratory tone of the literature on humanitarian aid to Ottoman Armenians, this article discusses how the preceding fundraising campaigns of 1880–1922 were a liability for this subsequent relocation project, and it pays special attention to the people and ideas that opposed it.

This Microsoft Excel file is meant to serve as an appendix to my pieces "Sympathy and Exclusion: The Migration of Child and Women Survivors of the Armenian Genocide from the Eastern Mediterranean to Canada, 1923–1930" (https://www.academia.edu/36572903/) and "Notes on a Connected History of Canada and Ottoman Armenians through 1930" (https://www.academia.edu/35591903/).

The decision taken by the Young Turk authorities in the spring of 1915 to uproot and expel the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire set into motion a state-sponsored plan that not only resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians. It completely eradicated the Armenian community of Anatolia. The seemingly endless columns of Armenian women and children, the elderly and the infirm, were deported to the harsh and barren deserts of Syria. Along the way, they were harried by marauding Kurdish bands, tribes, and villagers, and particularly by members of the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa or Special Organization. The gendarmes and soldiers assigned to escort the deported Armenians did little in the way of preventing attacks and in numerous instances took part in the pillaging, killings, rapes and abductions. 1

It is a well-known fact that the Islamisation of Christian children in the Ottoman Empire has a long history. In the great majority of cases, Islamisation was carried out forcibly, accompanied by the erasure
of a child’s ethnic-religious identity for those who remembered it and totally hiding their ethnic roots and religious affiliation from those who didn’t. The whole process of cultivating a new identity
and character was a matter of time and of contested methods.
This article identifies a problem area, raising questions and analyzing the role of Turkish intellectual Halidé Edip in the state policy of Turkification of Armenian children at the Antoura orphanage
during the Armenian Genocide. It draws comparisons between the three memoirs of Armenian orphans from that orphanage that are known to date, those of Garnik Banian (Karnig Panian as written
in his English language memoir), Harutyun Alboyajyan, and Melgon Petrosian, and that written by Halidé Edip. As a result, certain essential differences, ploys, as well as facts disguised by Edip have
been collected and presented in this article. Therefore, the research carried out identifies the problems areas relating to various aspects of the Antoura orphanage by raising new questions, offering explanations and new approaches as well as highlighting issues that need to be researched further.

In 1993 the author stumbled on the story of the Bodyguard Band - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Ethiopia. Their story is about how 40 teenage orphans of the 1915 Armenian Genocide; trained to use brass instruments in Jerusalem thanks in part to Italian priests; on being relocated in 1924 to Addis Ababa by Haile Selassie; ignited the birth of Jazz
in Ethiopia.

In 1993 in the Sydney, Australia suburb of Willoughby the author met Antranik Markarian, an elderly gentleman who had been a band member until 1926. His story inspired this article
published in Ararat, an American-Armenian quarterly literary journal. It was published in the Summer 1993 edition, pp. 56-60.

The article presents and analyses the Turkish intellectual Halidé Edip and her role in the state policy of Turkification of Armenian children at the Antoura orphanage during the Armenian Genocide. The article compares the three known memoirs of Armenian orphans from Antoura (Garnik Banyan, Harutyun Alboyajyan, and Melqon Petrosyan) to that of Halidé Edip, and reveals essential differences, manipulations, as well as disguised facts by Edip that are collected and presented in the article. Thus, the research identifies the problem field relating to various aspects of Antoura orphanage by raising new questions, offering explanations and new approaches, as well as highlighting issues that need to be researched further.

The study shows that the Ottoman 4th Army in Syria implemented an orphanage policy that was distinctly different from that of the central authorities. In emphasizing the split within the Ottoman state apparatus it questions popular narratives and offers a fresh perspective on the Armenian Genocide and Armenian survival.

https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956507786/not-all-quiet-on-the-ottoman-fronts-neglected-perspectives-on-a-global-war-1914-1918

As a result of the Armenian Genocide, a great number of Armenian refugees and deportees found refuge in Eastern Armenia and in the territory of the Russian Empire. Eastern Armenia was brimming with homeless refugees and orphans, deprived of their livelihoods and suffering from famine and epidemic diseases. In order to help the refugees, a large-scale humanitarian movement was launched in which Eastern Armenians and the Armenian community in Russia took an active part. Numerous unions and Armenian committees were established in Russia to gather together the organizations involved in Armenian issues to carry out relief programs for the refugees. On October 22, 1914, Russian Armenians held a meeting in Moscow. A number of Armenian public figures spoke at the meeting and described the plight of Western Armenians. Aleksey Jivelegov, a prominent Armenian scientist and public figure, announced that a relief committee was to be established to aid suffering Armenians. The purpose of this article is to describe how the Armyanskiy Vestnik periodical, published in Moscow during 1916-18, covered the situation of Armenian refugees and orphans (who were deprived of basic living conditions as a result of the genocide carried out by the Ottoman government), its attempts to engage in public life, as well as the role it took in various humanitarian organizations focusing on the improvement of the refugee situation.