Armenians were a significant minority in the Ottoman Empire. They belonged to either the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, or the Armenian Protestant Church, each church serving as the basis of a millet. They played a crucial role in Ottoman industry and commerce, and Armenian communities existed in almost every major city of the empire. The majority of the Armenian population made up a reaya, or peasant class, in Western Armenia. Since the latter half the 19th century, the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire sought more autonomy and protection in what was part of the Armenian Question. Armenians were persecuted by Ottoman authorities and their Kemalist successors, especially from the latter half of the 19th century, culminating in the Armenian genocide.
Background
In the Byzantine Empire, the Armenian Church was not allowed to operate in Constantinople (Istanbul), because the Greek Orthodox Church regarded the Armenian Church as heretical. The Ottoman Turks early on encountered Armenians, and their conquest of Constantinople gave them legitimacy in ruling over them. Armenians were thus governed as dhimmis, or People of the Book, in the Ottoman legal system. At first, the Sultan was the highest power in the land and had control over almost everything. However, a state organization began to take a more definite shape in the first half of the sixteenth century under Suleiman I. The Ottomans allowed the establishment of an Armenian Patriarchate to govern the Armenian people. This meant the beginning of the Armenian millet: a millet being a confessional community under Ottoman protection which was allowed to govern itself using its own religious laws.
Ottoman legal theory understood two separate "establishments" to share state power, one responsible for governing a nation's citizens and the other its military. In addition, Islam did not separate religious and secular matters. Armenians were administered by the civil administration. In the Ottoman Empire, townspeople, villagers, and farmers formed a class called the reaya, including Armenians. Civil and judicial administration was carried out under a separate parallel system of small municipal or rural units called kazas. The civil system was considered a check on the military system, since beys, who represented executive authority on reaya, could not carry out justice without a sanction from the religious leader of the person's faith. Armenians became religious leaders and bureaucrats under the Ottoman Empire, allowing them to become more influential than just in their own community.
During the Ottoman period, Armenian communities expanded in western Asia Minor, particularly in the region around the Sea of Marmara and Constantinople. According to Richard G. Hovannisian and Armen Manuk-Khaloyan, the Armenian presence in this region dated to the Byzantine period and grew substantially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries amid the Ottoman–Safavid wars and the upheavals caused by the Jelali rebellions. By the nineteenth century, the region contained more than a hundred Armenian settlements, many of which maintained churches, schools, and cultural associations. Armenian communities also became active in agriculture, handicrafts, commerce, and particularly silk and textile production, while some settlements developed into important centers of Armenian education and religious life.
Role of Armenians in the Ottoman economy Certain elite Armenian families in the Ottoman Empire gained the trust of the Sultans and were able to achieve important positions in the Ottoman government and the Ottoman economy. Even though their numbers were small compared to the whole Ottoman Armenian population, this caused some resentment among Ottoman nationalists.
Those elite Armenians that did achieve great success were individuals such as Abraham Pasha, and Gabriel Noradunkyan who became Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Dadian family were granted a monopoly over gunpowder production, putting them in a key position in the munitions industry of the Ottoman Empire. Calouste Gulbenkian became one of the main advisors of the National Bank of Turkey and the Turkish Petroleum Corporation, which later became the Iraqi Oil Corporation.
Historian A. Tchamkerten writes "Armenian achievements in the Empire were not only in trade, however. They were involved in almost all economic sectors and held the highest levels of responsibility. In the 19th century, various Armenian families became the Sultan's goldsmiths, Sultan's architects and took over the currency reserves and the reserves of gold and silver, including customs duty. Sixteen of the eighteen most important bankers in the Ottoman Empire were Armenian".Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian: The man and his work. Lisbon: Gulbenkian Foundation Press.2010
Ottoman Armenians were over-represented in commerce. As middleman minorities, despite the wealth of some Armenians, their overall political power was low, making them especially vulnerable. Patriarchate of Constantinople
After Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Armenian Patriarchate was established to govern the Apostolic faithful living in the Ottoman Empire. Hovagim I was brought to Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II and established the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople. As the influence of the Constantinople Patriarchate surpassed that of the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin, this shifted the center of Armenian ecclesiastical and national life from Etchmiadzin (and Sis) to Constantinople. It is theorized that no Armenian churches existed in Constantinople before the Ottoman conquest, but after 1453, 55 Armenian churches were built.
Until the promulgation of the Edict of Gülhane in 1839, the patriarch, within limits, possessed penal authority over the Armenian people. At the capital, the patriarchate had its own jail and maintained a small police force. Its authority over the clergy being absolute, the patriarch could imprison or exile Armenians at will; and while they were compelled to secure the consent of the Sultan to imprison or exile laymen of their community, the necessary firman was easily obtained. This system of government, in placing civil powers in the hands of high ecclesiastics, was allowed by the Sultanate which made no distinction between church and community, and often lent the weight of its authority to maintain the integrity of the church.
Armenian village life
The Bey or elder was something of a leader for the village, and their house was typically the most luxurious dwelling in a village. It was not uncommon to have three priests for thirty-five families. Most Armenians traveled on horseback to neighbouring villages, sometimes for religious ceremonies (like the Van festival), sometimes to fetch a bride, accompanying her, with musical instruments and clapping of hands, to their own village.
Ottoman Armenia: 1453–1829
Armenians preserved their culture, history, and language through the course of time, largely thanks to their distinct religious identity among the neighboring Turks and Kurds. Like the Greek Orthodox and Jewish minorities of the Ottoman Empire, they constituted a distinct millet. Under this system, non-Muslims were considered second-class citizens; they were subjected to elevated taxation, but in return they were granted autonomy within their own religious communities and were exempted from military service. Growing religious and political influence from neighboring communities necessitated implementation of security measures that often required a longer waiting period for minorities to seek Legal recourse in the courts.We and They: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire Under Ottoman rule, Armenians formed three distinct millets: Armenian Orthodox Gregorians, Armenian Catholics, and Armenian Protestants (in the 19th century).Ortaylı, İlber. Son İmparatorluk Osmanlı (The Last Empire: Ottoman Empire), İstanbul, Timaş Yayınları (Timaş Press), 2006. pp. 87–89. (the book is in Turkish)
After many centuries of Turkish rule in Anatolia and Armenia (at first by the Seljuks, then a variety of Anatolian beyliks and finally the Ottomans), the centres with a high concentration of Armenians lost their geographic continuity (parts of Van, Bitlis, and Kharput vilayets). Over the centuries, tribes of Turks and Kurds settled into Anatolia and Armenia, which was left severely depopulated by a slew of devastating events such as the Byzantine-Persian Wars, Byzantine-Arab Wars, Turkish migration, Mongol Invasions and finally the campaigns of Tamerlane.Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and Volker Höhfeld. Türkei, Darmstadt 2002. pp. 128–132.
In addition, there were the century-long Ottoman-Persian Wars between the rival empires, the battlegrounds of which ranged over Western Armenia, causing the region and its peoples to be passed between the Ottomans and Persians numerous times. The wars between the arch-rivals started from the early 16th century and lasted till well into the 19th century, having disastrous effects for the native inhabitants of these regions, including the Armenians of Western Armenia.
Owing to these events, the demographic representation of Armenians in their ancient homeland decreased to a quarter of the total inhabitants.M. Canard: "Armīniya" in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Leiden 1993.G. L. Selenoy and N. von Seidlitz: "Die Verbreitung der Armenier in der asiatischen Türkei und in Trans-Kaukassien", in: Petermanns Mitteilungen, Gotha 1896.McCarthy, Justin: The Ottoman Peoples and the end of Empire; London, 1981; p.86 Despite this, they kept and defended de facto autonomy in certain isolated areas like Sasun, Shatakh (Çatak), and parts of Dersim (Tunceli). An Armenian stronghold and a symbol of factual Armenian autonomy, Zeitoun (Ulnia) was located between the Six Vilayets and Cilicia, which also had a strong Armenian presence since the creation of the Kingdom of Lesser Armenia. However, the destruction of the Kingdom by the Ramadanids and the subsequent rule by Muslim powers such as the Dulkadirids, the Mamluks, and the Ottomans led to ever increasing numbers of Muslims in the region. After the Ottoman conquests many Armenians also moved west and settled in Anatolia, in large and prosperous Ottoman cities like Constantinople and Smyrna (İzmir).
Ottoman Armenia: 1829–1878
The remaining Ottoman Armenia, composed of the Six vilayets (Erzurum, Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Kharput, and Sivas.) up to World War I, under Ottoman rule, was also referred to as Western Armenia. There were also significant communities in parts of Trebizond and Ankara vilayets bordering Six Vilayets (such as in Kayseri). Aside from the learned professions taught at the schools that had opened throughout the Ottoman Empire, the chief occupations of Armenian Ottomans were trade and commerce, industry, and agriculture. In the empire, Armenians were raised to higher occupations, like Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian was a businessman and philanthropist. He played a major role in making the petroleum reserves of the Middle East available to Western development. The Armenian Press and literature during this period established institutions that were critical; this attitude has been invaluable in reforming abuses and introducing improvements in Armenian communities. Thus their critical instinct was positive, rather than negative. Armenians organized themselves into civil society organizations, including clubs and political parties. Hovsep Pushman was a painter who became very famous in the Empire. During this period Armenians would establish churches, schools, libraries, and newspapers. Sargis Mubayeajian was a prolific and multifarious writer educated in Constantinople. Many of his works are still scattered in Armenian periodicals.