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Location: Anatolia

I share this in relation to Diranakir ongoing reverts on the grounds that "Anatolia and adjoining regions" in inaccurate when referring to the location where the genocide took place. (When I search Armenian Genocide Turkey—their preferred terminology—on Google scholar, most results are discussing modern-day Turkish reactions to the genocide.) (t · c) buidhe 04:07, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I touched on this in the proposed edits for the Death Toll section above, but will expand on “Armenians from Anatolia” here too. If Wikipedia editors, or the authors they chose to cite here, were to tell the Ottoman (Western) Armenians that they were “Armenians from Anatolia”, those Armenians would more likely than not laugh in their face. “Eastern Anatolia” is a relatively new toponym which has become increasingly more recognizable in literature. However, it is an innovation, not to say that it is a tautology meaning “Eastern East” and is essentially a Turkish invention to replace a more geographically and historically correct toponym “The Armenian Highlands” or “The Armenian Plateau”. Well, obviously, because the place name contains the ethnonym “Armenian”. Like I said above, there were no “Armenians from Anatolia”. Armenians were living for thousands of years in their native autochthonous habitat, most of which encompassed the Armenian Plateau. If this correct place name is for some unknown reason uncomfortable for the respected Wikipedia editors, I suggest replacing the absurd phrase “Armenians from Anatolia” with “Armenians living in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire and adjoining regions” or “Armenians living in eastern Asia Minor” or “Armenians living in the northern part of Western Asia”.98.231.157.169 (talk) 01:20, 25 March 2021 (UTC)Davidian
I believe "Asia Minor" is a synonym of "Anatolia", and have no reason to prefer one of these over the other, but I disagree that there is anything wrong with "Armenians in Anatolia"; there are many scholarly sources which use such language and apparently see nothing wrong with it.[6] I agree that "Armenian Highlands" or "Armenian plateau" is a good term for what it refers to, and I used it in the article, but 1) the genocide also occurred in other parts of the empire; according to Kevorkian about 1/3 of the Armenian villages in the empire were located outside the Armenian Highlands 2) the genocide did not occur in Eastern Armenia which is also part of the Armenian Highlands. (t · c) buidhe 14:43, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Anatolia, according to Wikipedia’s own article Anatolia is “a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent”. Sorry, but most Ottoman Armenians lived in easternmost protrusion of the Asian continent. If you believe that Asia Minor is a synonym of Anatolia and have no reason to prefer one of these over the other, then what stops you from replacing this relatively newly cooked term “Anatolia” with a more ancient and thus more geographically and historically correct term “Asia Minor”? Or, in the case of Armenians, “eastern Asia Minor”, to be exact?98.231.157.169 (talk) 14:58, 25 March 2021 (UTC)Davidian
One reason there are many scholarly sources which use “Anatolia” and, as you say, apparently see nothing wrong with it, is that, like I said, in the recent decades this made-up toponym has become more recognizable in the literature. However, it does not mean that this relatively new toponym was there throughout most of the history of the region. Not to say, as I noted already, that the phrase “Armenians from Anatolia” is a misnomer. Most Ottoman Armenians did not live on a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent (this is Wikipedia’s own definition of “Anatolia”). And, fyi, many other scholarly sources continue to use more ancient and more geographically and historically correct toponym “Asia Minor”, and not the Turkish novelty of “Anatolia”. But, for some reason, Wikipedia editors chose to use “Anatolia” with its wrong application to the habitat of most Ottoman Armenians. Why?!98.231.157.169 (talk) 16:10, 25 March 2021 (UTC)Davidian
Now replaced with "Asia Minor" per request. (t · c) buidhe 01:49, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Thank you. Anatolia was dead wrong in all respects. Eastern Asia Minor would be more correct.98.231.157.169 (talk) 13:57, 26 March 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Armenia and Azerbaijan

What is this section doing in an article on the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire? There has been no "Azerbaijan" (not to confuse with an originally and historically Persian province) until 1918 when this first-ever nation-state was created. When it comes to adding death toll numbers greater than editors-favorite "around 1 million" or Ottoman Armenian population size greater than editors-favorite "around 2 million", that are based on many alternative RS, editors are playing dumb accusing readers of "cherry-picking" the sources. But when it comes to a completely unrelated subject such as Armenia-Azerbaijan, they readily include it in an article on genocide. Inimitable Wikipedia editors, do you think bathing in cold water would help you sobber up?98.231.157.169 (talk) 00:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

The whole section is without rhyme or reason in an article on the Armenian Genocide.98.231.157.169 (talk) 00:33, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
Hi Davidian, nice you come to comment. I have really taken it seriously what you wrote as I am also interested for that the Armenian Genocide has a good representation on Wikipedia and double checked. Now it results that the "whole section" begins with an event in 1965, when Azerbajian actually existed.In fact there is not a single mention of an Azerbajian existing before 1918 in the whole section Armenia and Azerbaijan. Please create an account, edit yourself and try to make sense.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 05:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
Try to make sense when you hop in here to explain what a section titled “Armenia and Azerbaijan” is doing in an article on the Armenian Genocide. So what that the section begins with an event in 1965 when Azerbaijan actually existed? Jesus Christ… What kind of an argument is this? Papua New Guinea also existed in 1965. So?... I have to repeat my question: What is the section “Armenia and Azerbaijan” doing in an article on the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire? Could anyone switch her or his brains on and explain?98.231.157.169 (talk) 14:55, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Same author giving conflicting figures. Provide WP:PG, WP:RULES, WP:POLICY or WP:GUIDELINE

Because (t · c) buidhe kept mum about an issue I’d raised twice during this discussion, I felt compelled to create a new section for it, considering it important. Breathe a deep sigh of relief, (t · c) buidhe, this is not about the Armenians’ historical habitat that was never known as “Anatolia” or stupid approximations of victim numbers or the Ottoman Armenian population size. This is about your own “free” encyclopedia’s guidelines and policies. Same author in the same year gave two different figures for the size of the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire. In They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else , Suny came up with “around 2 million”. In https://www.britannica.com/event/Armenian-Genocide, he noted that “there were about 2.5 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire”. (t · c) buidhe likes accusing contributors of “cherry-picking” the sources (this is the word you so much like, isn’t it? “cherry-picking”?). Please direct Wikipedia readers and contributors to a relevant WP policy or guideline that gives editors a right to cherry-pick (using the famous parlance) a figure from one source and disregard a different figure from another. I hope I haven’t burdened you with a simple question about Wikipedia’s own policies and guidelines?98.231.157.169 (talk) 15:41, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Dude, chill, this isn't a battleground and if you continue with this kind of behavior your stay here is going to be real brief. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 20:25, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
Go call your grandpa “dude”, okay? Get a grip, sonny…98.231.157.169 (talk) 20:53, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
I suggest staying cool when editing this encyclopedia.---Wikaviani (talk) (contribs) 21:29, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
Okay, since my contributions, almost all which RS-based (some of them rare RS), all constructive and helpful, are considered “disruptive (?!) editing”, let’s try for the fourth time and see what happens.

Requested move 15 May 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. This is a pretty controversial move request, with decent arguments on both sides, but there's a consensus to move. Looking at the survey, there are 6 opposes and 6 supports, so no clear numeric consensus. However, the policy-based and source-based arguments of those who support the move are stronger than of those who oppose it. The main argument for moving MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS - that "Armenian genocide" is not a proper noun, and therefore the G should not be capitalized. There are two main arguments against this: the first is that this is not true - and that it is indeed a proper noun, and capitalized in normal prose a majority of the time. The second is that, while it indeed is not a proper noun, we should treat this particular case as an exception.

Reviewing the discussion, and all of the sources listed, it indeed appears that "Armenian genocide" is more common than "Armenian Genocide" in the prose of reliable sources.

Secondly, on the topic of whether we should treat this as an exception. For example, wbm1058 mentioned I'm feeling increasingly annoyed at the examination of use of the term in sentences to determine how to use it in titles. Use of the term in sentences can help in deciding how to use the term in sentences. However, this is not in line with existing guidelines at WP:NCCAPS. There are not listed exceptions there, nor was there any strong argument made in favor of this being an exception. If re-assessment of one of the most important guidelines for titling articles is sought, a single requested move is not the right forum. There is no exception for how much of a "big deal" an article is - we defer to reliable sources, not what individual editors thing.

The consensus, based off of general article titling policy, and analysis of reliable sources, is that in prose of reliable sources, "Armenian genocide" is used more commonly than "Armenian Genocide", and therefore, it should be used in article titles. (closed by non-admin page mover) Elli (talk | contribs) 21:41, 22 May 2021 (UTC)


– Sources mostly use lowercase genocide (not counting titles and heading, citations to titles, etc.) Dicklyon (talk) 19:29, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

There may be a few other articles I missed; but we can clean up later.

Before you respond:

RM Survey

I will leave as an an exercise for the reader what to make of someone who who writes “only contribute one count each” (i.e. 4) in a discusion about 13 hits, and then accuses someone else of misrepresentation or lying.

The reader is also invited to ask how “deep” one has to dig by clicking the rightmost box in an ngram. For me, that was the first hit; YMMV. Qwirkle (talk) 19:14, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I can't figure out what you refer to by "rightmost box", or which n-gram query, or what "13 hits" you are referring to. Ah, probably you picked the context "... was" and the years 2017–2019, where you get about 13 books in Google Book Search, 3 of which have those three lowercase counts you don't like. Here's another that comes up in that narrow search and has a couple more lowercase counts; and another. And one with 5 uppercase counts but all in citations to title cased book titles. You dislike of the study guides is not in any way changing the pattern that is so obvious in the sources, and it's disingenuous of you to act like it does. Dicklyon (talk) 21:48, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
I can't figure out what you refer to by "rightmost box", or which n-gram query… …yet you could, and did. Heh.

More importantly, this isn’t about what I, or anyone for that matter, likes; it’s about the suitability of ngrams for showing usage. A single work showed up more than once. The same thing shows up in the previous year. This makes the results inaccurate; quibbles about how inaccurate are quibbling. Qwirkle (talk) 22:34, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I hope nobody is claiming that ngrams are "accurate". But they provide a good starting point. When you dig in, it is almost always the case that capped uses are way over-represented, since titles, citations to titles, headings, etc. are in the mix. Many of the books I checked mentioned "Armenian genocide" once or twice in the text, and had quite a few citations to titles containing "Armenian Genocide"; like the ones I showed you. Look at any proper name (or name treated as proper by sources, if you prefer), however, and you see more like 95% caps in sources. Like the Holocaust, for example. That's very far from the pattern we're seeing here. But you know that already, as we've been through it with you a few times. So why keep misrepresenting what the sources are telling us? Dicklyon (talk) 01:29, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Are you under the impression that you have discussed this with me previously? That is not simply untrue.

That aside, you are confusing “proper name” with “thing that is capitalized”. Many phrases which refer to particular persons, places, or things are not capitalized. Qwirkle (talk) 02:03, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

I was recalling previous discussions such as at Talk:Charles/MGH station#Over-capitalization. Maybe not precisely the same, but about your tendency to want to cap things that sources mostly don't. Dicklyon (talk) 04:11, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Ah, you mean the discussion in which you were unable to separate meanings of phrases which had similar words in them, yes. Qwirkle (talk) 04:31, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Ah, and you're confusing n-gram counts with book hits. Each occurrence in a book is counted; that's where so many of the capped counts come from – Title-Cased citations; also from front-cover title and title-page title and headings and such. Dicklyon (talk) 21:50, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
No. That’s the next level of possible problems, though. Qwirkle (talk) 22:34, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

A challenge

Here's the deal: I offer to find 3 good sources supporting lowercase genocide for every 2 that opposers find supporting uppercase Genocide, for as long as they want to keep it up. That will help us build a bibliography of usage right here, while seeing if I'm right that lowercase dominates, in terms of source counts instead of usage counts. Rules: 1. only uses in sentences count (not titles, headings, captions that aren't sentences, index entries, uses that are part of a larger proper name, etc.); 2. sources that use it in sentences both uppercase and lowercase will not count for either; 3. WP:RS books, news, and scholarly articles that can be verified online for free are the domain of interest; 4. Multiple editions only count once. Anyone want to give it a go? Dicklyon (talk) 01:43, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

We can just look at the sources cited in the article.
Yepper. Accuracy be damned, as long as it’s stylin’ small! Qwirkle (talk) 21:04, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
That's a complete red herring. If you want to argue about or discuss the death toll, then go right ahead and do so in another section of this page. I have no knowledge or opinion on that, and I doubt that Dicklyon does either. Furthermore, if you think the capitalisation of the title is a minor issue, then don't spend so much of your time arguing about it... just accept the strong evidence presented that the current name doesn't correspond to real-world usage.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:26, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
And in your real world proper nouns are not capitalized?98.231.157.169 (talk) 21:54, 18 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian
Proper nouns are certainly capitalised. It's just that "Armenian genocide" isn't a proper noun, it's a descriptive phrase.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:01, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Underlying this “descriptive phrase” was a heinous crime, first in the twentieth century, whose magnitude prompted Raphael Lemkin to coin the word “Genocide” helping establish the term in international law. Therefore, by no means is the Armenian Genocide a mere “descriptive phrase”.98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:18, 18 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian
Nobody said "mere". But look at the sources – they don't support your claim (or desire) that this is a proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 22:36, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Well, then with the same token, in your real world Holocaust may also qualify as a “descriptive phrase”, and not a proper name, as it means a burnt sacrifice offered whole to God.98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:40, 18 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian
As I've pointed out several times already in this discussion, the Holocaust is capitalized in 95% or so of sources. That's plenty enough for WP to conclude that sources treat it as a proper name. The gap between near 50% and 95% is huge. Dicklyon (talk) 00:58, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

* Comment: This discussion is about the name of the article (IAW the WP guidelines on that particular matter) and more specifically, Dicklyon's "challenge" - one issued in good-faith to help resolve the issue of naming. Regardless of how an editor might perceive the adequacy of the contents of this article, this discussion is not the venue for airing any such grievance. The appropriate course is to address these through normal editing and/or to raise a separate discussion on this talk page. I am of the view that to persist in making comments is not in "good-faith" and outside the reasonable scope of the subject of this discussion - ie, the name of the article and more specifically, the challenge issue by Dicklyon. This article is subject to Arb-Com discretionary sanctions. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Sources with capped "Armenian Genocide" in sentences

Please add links to sources that consistently capitalize in sentences:

  1. Book: The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity
  2. PDF on genocidescholars.org: The Armenian Genocide Resolution Unanimously Passed By The Association of Genocide Scholars of North America
  3. Rouben Paul Adalian, Vahakn N. Dadrian, “The Armenian Genocide” [and following articles], Israel W. Charny (1999), Encyclopedia of Genocide, v 1, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp 61–105. In Google Books.
  4. Vahakn N. Dadrian, “Armenians in Ottoman Turkey and the Armenian Genocide,” Dinah Shelton (2005), Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, v 1, Detroit: Macmillan Reference, pp 67–76. Available online at Hathi Trust with a subscribing library account.
  5. Ronald Grigor Suny (updated 2021), “Armenian Genocide,” Britannica.

It has been a week since the RM opened. Are these really the only sources that the opposers think are worth calling attention to? The best argument you can muster is ignore the guidelines and capitalize even though sources mostly don't, because you prefer to think of it as a proper name? Dicklyon (talk) 17:26, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Sources with lowercase "Armemian genocide" in sentences

Please add links to sources that consistently use lowercase in sentences:

  1. Article: "Lost in commemoration: the Armenian genocide in memory and identity"
  2. Article: The Armenian Genocide in the Kurdish Novel: Restructuring Identity through Collective Memory
  3. PDF on genocidescholars.org: "Communal Self-Protection During Genocide"
  4. Web page on genocidescholars.org: Museums & Memorials
  5. cited article Dixon 2010
  6. cited article Aharon 2020
  7. cited article Avedian 2012
  8. review of Taner Akçam, The Young Turks' crime against humanity: the Armenian genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012)
  9. book The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History "of the Armenian genocide" p.757 for example.
  10. J. Michael Hagopian "Films, Armenian Documentary," Dinah Shelton (2005), Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, v 1, Detroit: Macmillan Reference, p.359. Available online at Hathi Trust with a subscribing library account.

I got a little ahead, as I'll be busy traveling tomorrow. Dicklyon (talk) 05:07, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm feeling increasingly annoyed at the examination of use of the term in sentences to determine how to use it in titles. Use of the term in sentences can help in deciding how to use the term in sentences.
Armenian genocide denial seems problematic to me. Armenian Genocide denial clearly indicates that the Armenian Genocide is what's being denied. Armenian genocide denial implies that Armenians are denying some generic genocide, or denying that genocides are a thing. If you insist on sentence case then you need to sacrifice conciseness, thus Turkish denial of genocide of Armenians because there is no commonly recognized Proper Name for this genocide it must then be generically described. By not assigning it a Proper Name we would seem to be assisting the genocide deniers. wbm1058 (talk) 11:31, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
@Wbm1058: you could I suppose make an argument for using title case for article names, including cases such as this where it is more usual to write the name in sentence case where it appears in prose. For better or worse, that's not the route Wikipedia has decided to go down though. We use sentence case in both our prose and our titles, except in such cases where it's almost unheard of to do otherwise. As much as it may seen "increasingly annoying", this is a completely settled issue on the project, and I don't see much value in trying to make a single exception here. It's unlikely the RM closer will assign too much weight to such a notion either. The use of sentence case even for historical events just has too much pedigree down the years now - see Civil rights movement, Syrian civil war, Rwandan genocide for a few examples of notable events that we used to capitalise but have now lower-cased based on source usage. My suggestion if you really want to change this convention, or to move the capitalisation threshold further along the spectrum from where it currently is, would be to start an RFC somewhere at a prominent central venue - with a specific proposal to amend MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. But I don't think it's correct to make this one page a special carve-out, if only for WP:CONSISTENCY reasons. CHeers  — Amakuru (talk) 15:23, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Armenian treachery

In the same vein as above and in the same paragraph, I strongly recommend "a loss blamed on alleged Armenian treachery." Diranakir (talk) 04:35, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Weren't you blocked for this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.15.96.125 (talk) 19:07, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 April 2021

Change "and ethnic cleansing of around one million ethnic Armenians" to "and ethnic cleansing of around one million ethnic Armenian Christians"

sources https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-armenian-genocide-1915-16-overview https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56874811 https://www.britannica.com/event/Armenian-Genocide Mylovejesus (talk) 05:32, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

We should discuss it further in the article. They may have been targeted as Christians by the state (per Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi’s) but the Armenian intellectuals deported from Constantinople were many known to be secular. Armenian writers at the time "advocated that the Armenian national revival should not be dominated by the Church". This article is pushing the selective interpretations of politically interested parties that is not accurate to the history and events of that time. These reinterpretations and revivals are in the service of today's political controversies and we have already given it more weight than its due. As long as that continues our article is, even at best, only as good as the current scholarship. Gators bayou (talk) 11:39, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the ((edit semi-protected)) template. This is under discussion. If a consensus emerges then the edit request can be reopened. Thanks. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:35, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Can someone revert my edit

After a second consideration, I decided that "by whom" was unnecessary in lead. But I can't revert due to 1RR. Some help would be appreciated.--Visnelma (talk) 10:59, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Visnelma, Self revert is not considered a revert according to the limits imposed. Now if you want to know the answer, not even Suny is that specific, stating: "Enver [who commanded the armies at Sarikamish] and his closest associates framed the story of the battle in their own way, and the prevailing view placed Armenian treachery at the center of the narrative." (t · c) buidhe 17:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, I changed my mind after re-reading MOS:AWW.--Visnelma (talk) 18:50, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
There is not a clear-cut answer, and Suny is not the Bible either. Long before him, Enver's duplicity, first praising his Armenian soldiers in a well-known letter to the Primate of Konia, Karekin Khachadourian, and then blaming them as traitors, was well-established. Armen Ohanian (talk) 22:46, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
As well as Enver's incompetence leading to the defeat, which he tried to cover up by blaming the Armenians. But since Suny does not mention it, then we don't mention it. Armen Ohanian (talk) 11:57, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Oddly enough Kieser says something different:

Talaat could not reproach Şakir and Enver for a scheme that he himself had supported from the start. Enver was therefore welcomed and accepted, apparently without a critical assessment of what had gone wrong. The failure was seen as a natural outcome of gambling, not as an issue that demanded responsibility. (p. 219)

Perhaps this explains why other CUP leaders accepted the explanation blaming Armenians. Ungor says that both Talat and Enver blamed Armenians, and ultimately, "The CUP leadership had reached a consensus that the disastrous defeats at Sarikamish and Dilman had been caused by ‘Armenian treachery’."[19] (t · c) buidhe 01:01, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Casualties

To start, I have no relation to the 98 IP, he seems rather combative and unrelenting. Hopefully he does not join this discussion.

Excuse me if you considered my actions to be forum shopping, I will address my issues here.

To the point Buidhe, Wikipedia is not supposed to reflect the truth or what you perceive to be the truth (same for me as well). It's only objective is to reflect what RS say, full stop. All of the sources I provided previously give the figure of 1.5 million, and I may note that many of the provided sources give a range with 1.5 million as the upper bound. That alone is grounds for inclusion. If you think these RS are wrong, outdated, or untruthful, then you must take it up with an RFC or some other to determine, with consensus, that these RS are wholly unreliable. On a completely unrelated point, if a partisan Armenian organization states that 1.5 million is the death toll, that too is grounds for inclusion. At least with the context that that is their specific point of view. Thank you for your patience.

One more addition. The casualties page for the Armenian genocide even gives 1.5 million in the lede for 1915 to 1918. What's wrong with adding that number as an upper bound in this page? 2601:85:C101:C9D0:590B:AC23:75C1:BF73 (talk) 23:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for replying. But again, you are using one source, which you characterize as authoritative. And the source is fine to be used in this article, but it provides but one viewpoint. I'm fairly confident that there is "current scholarship" which supports higher numbers. But that is besides the point. The news sources provide a number, if you find them outdated/wrong, that is your POV. Maybe you're right, but that's not how Wiki works. It reports what RS say, full stop. I can understand your concern; the Bombing of Dresden in World War II article cites 23k dead because of recent scholarship, and not the old Nazi propaganda of hundreds of thousands dead. But this is a different case, as the majority of RS are still reporting the higher number, and it is not our decision to determine what is up to date or wrong or right. I personally think a range of 800,000 to 1.5 million should be in this article. Anything above or below will probably be too contentious.
https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-armenia-guide/ *here is a Holocaust organization giving the 1.5 million number
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/armenian_genocide *this scholarly source of Suny gives 1.5 million as an upper bound, and favors lower numbers
http://exhibits.lib.usf.edu/exhibits/show/armenianstudies/armenia-genocide/armenia-genocide-info *University of South Florida source gives 1.5 million dead
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/24/990292454/biden-calls-slaughter-of-armenians-a-genocide-posing-test-for-u-s-ties-with-turk *Another news source, but I doubt you'll question the merits of NPR
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095424433 *Oxford Reference
I can go on, but this is grounds enough for inclusion in a range. 2601:85:C101:C9D0:590B:AC23:75C1:BF73 (talk) 01:46, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Reliability is a spectrum, and a library research guide or general reference work is NOT the same WP:WEIGHT as peer reviewed research. Whether to formulate estimates as a point or range based estimate is a matter of editorial discretion. For example, at the Holocaust article, editors chose to use a point based estimate of "some 6 million Jews". Naturally, you can find sources arguing that the actual number of Jews killed in somewhat higher or lower than six million. Furthermore, if you include 1.5 million in a range of Armenian Genocide deaths, you would have to go lower to other estimates which have at least as much academic support, in the range of 600,000 to 700,000. One should note that the Suny source you cite states, "The more conservative estimates of between 600,000 and 800,000 killed, with hundreds of thousands of others converted to Islam or surviving as refugees, appear most accurate." (t · c) buidhe 01:55, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
I am aware of Suny's next sentence, the point is he mentions 1.5 million as an upper bound. And I wouldn't mind having a range of 600,000 to 1,500,000 dead, if backed up by reliable sources. For the point of the Holocaust, I am well aware too that the most recent scholarship points to around 5 to 6 million Jewish dead, but the 6 figure is chosen simply because it was/is the most popular; by your grain of thinking, the number should be brought down to perhaps 5.5 million. Besides, if this is about "editorial discretion," which I humbly disagree is not the main issue, the Armenian Genocide has a much stronger case for a range than a point. To illustrate, the Holocaust retains the infamous 6 million as a point-based estimate, mostly because there have never been many estimates with different numbers, ie. 4 mil or 8 mil, etc. In major contrast, the Armenian genocide has been given much different estimates (the death toll in virtually every source is given in a range), going from 600,000 to 1.8 million (once again, I would support a range of 600k-1.5mil). Thus, editorial discretion would lead to giving a range. Moreover, the sheer volume of RS reporting 1.5 million merits some mention in the article. Thank you for your patience. 2601:85:C101:C9D0:590B:AC23:75C1:BF73 (talk) 02:11, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Nice to have a second IP completely unrelated to IP 98 interested in the same section of a topic right from the start of their edit historial. Such a seldom coincidence merits some attention from myself. I see that a casualty range of more than a million and several 100'000 converted Armenians mentioned in the article. Please also note that the article focuses mainly on World War I and that other massacres of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire are focused on in other articles. This mentioned, I invite you to add the info you have to some of the many articles related to the Armenian Genocide like I have also encouraged IP 98. Everybody can edit Wikipedia, it mainly needs interest, of which you apparently seem to have a lot.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 02:59, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Actually this article is protected against IP editing. This is probably why the IP raised the issue on the talk page. Another option is mentioning a range in the death toll section if this would be a satisfactory solution. (t · c) buidhe 03:06, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Indeed, while I am in tangential agreement with the previous IP 98, his argumentative style consisted of insults and strawmen, so he wholly deserves his frustration. Buidhe, if I may propose a compromise/solution: the lede remains the same, if you want to add a reference (even a mere footnote) mentioning the widely quoted figure of 1.5 million, that is up to your discretion. The recognition section should of course have mention of the figure, as interest groups commonly cite it. Lastly, in the infobox and the death section, a range should be given, perhaps 600,000 - 1,500,000 dead, as RS provide each number as a lower bound and upper bound, respectively. As Paradise Chronicle noted, this page mostly focuses on the years 1915-1918, and as the 1.5 million figure is usually given for the WW1 era massacres (discounting the slaughter of tens of thousands of Armenians from 1919-1923), it would be relevant for this page. I believe this would adequately address any concerns. Any thoughts, comments? 2601:85:C101:C9D0:590B:AC23:75C1:BF73 (talk) 03:43, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
OK, I also added a range in the infobox. FYI, the only recent historian I know who is giving the 1.5 million estimate based on examination of the original sources is Raymond Kevorkian, who says that there were around 1 million killed during World War I, or alternately as many as 1.5 million including the entire 1914–1923 period. (t · c) buidhe 03:49, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I'm glad we could come to a compromise! 2601:85:C101:C9D0:590B:AC23:75C1:BF73 (talk) 03:50, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

"Ottoman leaders took ... evidence of a nonexistent widespread conspiracy"

Intro says "Ottoman leaders took isolated indications of Armenian resistance as evidence of a nonexistent widespread conspiracy." The alleged conspiracy was nonexistent, but the Ottoman leaders acted as if it was real. The sentence needs rewording along the lines of "Ottoman leaders took isolated indications of Armenian resistance as evidence of a widespread conspiracy, even though no such conspiracy existed." Nurg (talk) 02:09, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Nurg, OK, I changed the wording to what you suggested. Thanks for the suggestion. (t · c) buidhe 02:27, 6 May 2021 (UTC)


“The only recent historian who is giving the 1.5 million estimate is Raymond Kevorkian”—Wrong

“Recent”, adj., Oxford English Dictionary: “Having happened, begun, or been done not long ago or not long before; belonging to a past period of time comparatively close to the present”. Well, then, in past period of time comparatively close to the present, several historians and/or authors gave the 1.5—or up to 1.5—million estimate. Note: A number of non-English speaking historians from France, Russia, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Armenia, etc., who supplied the same estimate, had to be omitted here, because this Wikipedia page is in English.

  1. Bernard Lewis, “Now a desperate struggle between them [Turks and Armenians] began […] for the possession of a single homeland, that ended with the terrible holocaust of 1915, when a million and a half Armenians perished.”[1]
  2. Dickran Boyajian, “Up to 1.5 million Armenians were wiped out by the Ottoman Empire”.[2]
  3. Robert Melson, “It may be suggested that this higher figure [1.5 million] reflects all the [Armenian] victims from 1915 to 1923”.[3]
  4. R. Hrair Dekmejian, “The Ottoman Turkish and Nazi German milieux both meet the forgoing criteria. In the Armenian case, the apparatus of the Young Turk party […] was instrumental in planning and executing the massacre of 1.5 million people”.[4]
  5. Donald E. Miller, “Armenians calculate that 1.5 million perished between 1915 and 1923. […] Much of the discussion centers on the size of the Armenian population at the time and whether to consider the period from 1894 to 1923 or the narrower time frame of 1915-16. An accurate generalization, however, is that approximately half of the Armenian population died as a direct result of the genocide. Worldwide, one-third of the total population of Armenians died. Surviving Armenians included the several hundred thousand who were living in Constantinople and Smyrna who were not deported, children who were adopted into Turkish or Kurdish homes, perhaps three hundred thousand Armenians who escaped across the Russian border, and the pathetic remnant that survived months of deportation.”[5]
  6. Derek Nelson, “The largest body of genocide scholars in the world, the Association of Genocide Scholars of North America, puts the likely number somewhere between 1.2 and 1.3 million”.[6]
  7. Jennifer M. Dixon, “An estimated 800,000 to 1.5 million Armenians were killed over the course of, and under the cover of, this forced deportation.4 As a result, the Armenian minority community that had lived for centuries in Anatolia—in what is now the territory of the Republic of Turkey—was destroyed”; fn 4: “The number of Armenians killed is difficult to ascertain, and is one of the sites of dispute in the historiography of the genocide. Estimates range from a low of 55,000 (Halaçoğlu 2002) to a high of 1.5 million.”[7]
  8. Wolf Gruner, “Estimations set the death toll somewhere between 800,000 and 1.5 million people”.[8]
  9. Christopher Thornton, “This is Armenia’s memorial to the estimated 1.5 million victims of the 1915 genocide by Ottoman forces, who were either burned alive, shot, butchered, or driven into the deserts of Syria where they died of heat and starvation.”[9]
  10. Laure Marchand, Guillaume Perrier, and Debbie Blythe, “In the principal phase of the Armenian genocide, lasting until the end of World War I, 1–1.5 million people die”; “Almost a century later, Turkey still refuses to use the word ‘genocide’ to describe the systematic deportation and massacre of 1 to 1.5 million Armenians.”[10]
  11. Tessa Hofmann, “This contribution documents and analyses the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during 1915 and 1916 and is based mainly on the German diplomatic correspondence of the time […]”[11]
  12. Farhan Javed, “[…] the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in […] 1915”.[12]
  13. Eldad Ben Aharon, “From massacres to death marches, 1.5 million of the Armenian population were exterminated”; “It is estimated that between 800,000 and 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians were deported and then killed, while thousands more were Turkified, becoming part of the new social fabric of the Republic of Turkey that emerged after World War I”; “the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923 […]”.[13]

I’m always here to help. Besides, not only historians can qualify for RS, but also genocide scholars, political scientists, international lawyers, etc. When they need to downsize the number of Armenian victims by rounding it up, editors bring in journalist Tom de Waal. But when they are invited—more than once—to provide the range with the upper bound totaling 1.5 million, they only refer to “recent” historians. Also, which WP:PG particularly states that RS must be recent? Curious to know...98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

You might find it weird but actually Britannica is not considered a reliable source here. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Encyclopædia Britannica. For the other source you should discuss it with other users because I did not read it.--Visnelma (talk) 23:04, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
It is, indeed, weird. But at least Britannica, which is not considered a reliable source here, never stooped to rounding up Armenian numbers. I’m sorry to say this, but this is true.98.231.157.169 (talk) 23:18, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian
I actually see the range from 600.000 to 1.500.000 in the article.--Visnelma (talk) 20:16, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Noted with gratitude, Visnelma. If “the exact number of Armenians who died is not known and is impossible to determine”, as it says in Death Toll, and quite rightly so, then common sense suggests that this same range, and not the rounded figure, be placed in the lede. I urge you to be consistent with this most sensitive issue for the millions of the descendants of genocide survivors and scores of genocide scholars, historians, political scientists, international lawyers, and human rights activists worldwide. Thank you.98.231.157.169 (talk) 21:12, 3 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian
I don't know what lede means but the range is already shown in the lead and death tolls. I can't see any problem about that. Please don't reply to me.--Visnelma (talk) 21:43, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
I understand from the Oxford English Dictionary that lede is “the first sentence or paragraph of a story, giving the most important points of the story”. I do see the range in the Death Toll, but I fail to see it in the opening sentence or paragraph. The estimated RS-based range of killed Armenians is THE most important point of the story, need I say? And I regret to see that the opening sentence is still far from being perfect due to several blunders:
  1. As was pointed out many times (avoiding WP:BLUDGEON), the range, and not the approximated number, needs to be placed in it;
  2. “Armenians from Anatolia” is a misnomer in many respects. I’d rather refrain (avoiding WP:BLUDGEON) from going through another round of stating the obvious that most Ottoman Armenians—historically and geographically—never belonged to “Anatolia”.
  3. The preposition “from” gives an impression as if the Armenians just happened to take a stroll in their historical habitat. I suggest “Armenians inhabiting” instead of “from”.
  4. The Committee of Union and Progress was ruling party that administered the affairs of the Ottoman state. Editors are quite correct in this. However, and more importantly, the CUP was also the wartime government of the Ottoman Empire. I think this factor is very important so it be added in the lede.

Hope this helps.98.231.157.169 (talk) 17:01, 11 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

  1. ^ Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd ed., London: Oxford, 1968, p. 356.
  2. ^ Dickran Boyajian, Armenia: The Case for a Forgotten Genocide, Westwood, NJ: Educational Book Crafters, 1972, p. 287.
  3. ^ Robert Melson, “Provocation or Nationalism: A Critical Inquiry into the Armenian Genocide of 1915”, in Richard G. Hovannisian, Terrence Des Pres, Israel W. Charny (eds.), The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, Routledge, 1986, p. 83, fn 18.
  4. ^ R. Hrair Dekmejian, “Determinants of Genocide: Armenians and Jews as Case Studies”, in Richard G. Hovannisian, Terrence Des Pres, Israel W. Charny (eds.), The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, Routledge, 1986, p. 87.
  5. ^ Donald E. Miller, Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide, University of California Press, 1993, p. 43.
  6. ^ Derek Nelson, “Sins of Commission, Sins of Omission: Girard, Ricoeur and the Armenian Genocide,” in The Evolution of Evil, Robert John Russell, Martinez Hewlett, Ted Peters, and Gaymon Bennett (eds.), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2008, pp. 318-333.
  7. ^ Jennifer M. Dixon, “Defending the Nation? Maintaining Turkey’s Narrative of the Armenian Genocide”, in Journal of South European Society and Politics (2010) 15: 467-485, fn 4.
  8. ^ Wolf Gruner, “Peregrinations into the Void?” German Jews and their Knowledge about the Armenian Genocide during the Third Reich”, in Central European History, Vol. 45, No. 1 (March 2012), pp. 1-26.
  9. ^ Christopher Thornton, “Genocide’s Deadly Cycle from the Caucasus,” in The Sewanee Review, Vol. 122, No. 4 (Fall 2014), pp. 633-649.
  10. ^ Laure Marchand, Guillaume Perrier, and Debbie Blythe, Turkey and the Armenian Ghost: On the Trail of the Genocide, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015, pp. xvii, 115.
  11. ^ Tessa Hofmann, “The Genocide against the Ottoman Armenians: German Diplomatic Correspondence and Eyewitness Testimonies”, in Genocide Studies International, Spring 2015, Vol. 9, No. 1, The Ottoman Genocides of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks (Spring 2015), pp. 22-60.
  12. ^ Farhan Javed, “Dodging History: Turkey One Century after the Armenian Genocide”, in Harvard International Review, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Fall 2015), pp. 14-16.
  13. ^ Eldad Ben Aharon, “How Do We Remember the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust?”, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, 2020, pp. intro, 11, 21.

Ruling party vs Wartime government

The opening sentence in the lede, in addition to grave factual blunders for which tons of edits have been suggested… and to no effect (avoiding WP:BLUDGEON), not quite correctly states that the systematic mass murder of Armenians [was perpetrated] by the Ottoman Empire and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). But the CUP was also—and more importantly—the wartime government of the Ottoman Empire. In political science, there is a difference between ruling party and government. Government is the agency of the ruling party which is responsible for implementation of the policies proclaimed by the party before fighting election. In other words, ruling party is a word for political individuals, political parties, and political ideologies. Whereas government is a generic term meaning a group of people who govern a country or state. I believe the latter is more fitting to the context of this article.98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:38, 23 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

"Ottoman government and CUP” is obfuscatory, distributes responsibility for the genocide to two separable political entities without clearly assigning full responsibility to either, thus leaving the matter in doubt. It is a distinction ill-suited to the purposes of the lede. Ultimately, regardless of what the behind the scenes political machinations or processes were, the Ottoman government was the perpetrator.Diranakir (talk) 22:49, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
On top of this, the English language doesn’t seem to operate the way the phrase is placed in the opening sentence: “systematic mass murder and ethnic cleansing by the Ottoman Empire”. In order to substantiate my point I suggest “the Armenian Genocide was the systematic mass murder and ethnic cleansing of […] Armenians […] by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the wartime government of the Ottoman Empire […].98.231.157.169 (talk) 23:11, 23 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

RfC on the location

What location should be used in the first sentence of the article? Various alternatives have been proposed, including "Anatolia", "Asia Minor", "Ottoman Empire", and "Armenian Highlands".

Prior to the dispute, the first sentence of the article read, "The Armenian Genocide (other names) was the systematic mass murder and ethnic cleansing of around one million ethnic Armenians from Anatolia and adjoining regions by the Ottoman Empire and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), during World War I." (t · c) buidhe 21:15, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Sources

Anatolia

  1. "Taken in their entirety, Ottoman and Western archives jointly confirm that the ruling party CUP did deliberately implement a policy of ethnoreligious homogenization of Anatolia that aimed to destroy the Armenian population"[20] — Taner Akcam
  2. "The persistence of genocide or near-genocidal incidents from the 1890s through the 1990s, committed by Ottoman and successor Turkish and Iraqi states against Armenian, Kurdish, Assyrian, and Pontic Greek communities in Eastern Anatolia, is striking." —Mark Levene[21]
  3. "Thereafter, in a wave spreading westwards and southwards throughout the empire from the provinces of eastern Anatolia - the areas of heaviest Armenian population - the Turkish government, led by the Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti (Committee of Union and Progress: CUP), implemented an increasingly radical programme of deportation and murder."—Donald Bloxham[22]
  4. "Between the years 1915 and 1923 the vast majority of the Armenian population of Anatolia and historical West Armenia was eliminated."—Rouben Paul Adalian[23]
  5. "Finally, a comprehensive scheme for the removal of the Armenian communities of Anatolia to Syria began in May 1915."[24]
  6. "Rather than a long-planned and orchestrated program of extermination, the Armenian genocide appears as more a vengeful and determined act of suppression that turned into an opportunistic policy to rid Anatolia of Armenians..."—Ronald Grigor Suny [25]
  7. "... the Armenian genocide call out for remembering and for the historical understanding of a series of events that concluded with the elimination of the Armenian nation from its ancient homelands in Anatolia" — Norman Naimark [26]
  8. "The Armenian Genocide occurred primarily between 1915 and 1918 (with some killings and deaths continuing until 1922), when the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, CUP, also known as the Young Turks) eliminated one and a half million Armenians from their historic homeland in and neighboring Anatolia..." —Özlem Belçim Galip [27]
  9. "... the mass deportation of the Anatolian Armenians, which would lead to the Armenian genocide of 1915-16"— Erik-Jan Zürcher [28]

Asia Minor

  1. "This imperial violence was followed in 1915–17 with the forced deportation and subsequent destruction of almost the entire Armenian population of Asia Minor." — Fatma Muge Gocek, Denial of Violence (Asia Minor -> Anatolia)
  2. "Hans-Lukas Kieser, Kerem Öktem and Maurus Reinkowski argue that while the Ottoman Empire officially ended in 1922, when the Turkish nationalists in Ankara abolished the Sultanate, the essence of its imperial character was destroyed in 1915 when the Young Turk regime eradicated the Armenians from Asia Minor."[29]
  3. Winston Churchill, "In 1915 the Turkish Government began and ruthlessly carried out the infamous general massacre and deportation of Armenians in Asia Minor."[1]98.231.157.169 (talk) 00:51, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  4. Raymond Kévorkian, “Between April and September of 1915, the 3000-year-old Armenian land—the Armenian provinces of the East and of Asia Minor—were methodically emptied of their population—wiped off the map—in the space of a few months.[2]98.231.157.169 (talk) 17:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  5. Joseph Pomiankowski, “The gruesome annihilation of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor by the Young Turk regime was a barbaric act […]”.[3]
  6. Christopher J. Walker, “[Turkish troops’] attacks [on Armenians] were planned throughout Asia Minor as well as Cilicia”.[4]
  7. Malcolm Edward Yapp, “During the war the Young Turks also took the opportunity to attack certain internal problems […] the Armenian community in eastern Asia Minor and Cilicia was massacred or deported […]”[5]98.231.157.169 (talk) 16:55, 28 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  8. Erik-Jan Zürcher, “[…] from [1914] onwards the Ottomans began to see the creation of a homeland in Asia Minor […] as a political priority. As a result, [...] Armenian Christians were driven from their homes and [...] many were massacred.”[6]98.231.157.169 (talk) 17:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  9. Hans-Lukas Kieser and Donald Bloxham, “[...] a whole complex of meetings, orders and acts from February/March through May [of 1915] that, taken together, amounted finally to the destruction of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor”; “Without mentioning the Armenians explicitly, a provisional law of 27 May […] allowed repression and mass deportation if national security were at issue. The law served as legal cover for the comprehensive removal of Asia Minor’s Armenians”.[7]98.231.157.169 (talk) 18:56, 28 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  10. Joannis K. Hassiotis, “The calamitous consequences of Turkish chauvinism […] formed the unvarying common denominator between the Greeks and Armenians. The almost identical fates of the two ethnic elements in Asia Minor drew them together. Consequently, it would be most interesting to examine the attitude of the Greek Orthodox element to the persecution and slaughter of their Armenian “brethren” […] during the genocide of 1915”.[8]98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:41, 28 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  11. Fikret Adanır, “More comprehensive and radical measures taken against the Armenians in 1915–16 […] were accompanied by recurrent massacres, culminating in the complete destruction of the Armenian communities of Asia Minor.”[9]98.231.157.169 (talk) 16:17, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  12. Ozan Ozavci, “Armenians who had been brought in by rail and on foot from towns in Asia Minor were divided up in Urfa. The old men, old women and younger children were separated into one group, the able-bodied men into a second group, and the marriageable girls and young women into a third group. […] In the course of a short time the majority of these people perished.”[10]98.231.157.169 (talk) 20:00, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  13. Hamit Bozarslan, “Chronology—August 1915: As the war continues, telegrams with deportation orders extend over Asia Minor. Mass deportations of Armenians begin in Aintab and Ankara, although Catholics and Protestants in Aintab are told they can remain. Talaat sends instructions to replace foot-dragging officials in order to increase the efficiency of the deportation process.”[11]98.231.157.169 (talk) 20:13, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  14. Yücel Güçlü, “Little can be known about Armenians in Asia Minor in 1915 without reference to the Ottoman records, and no valid historical conclusions can be reached without consulting them.”[12]
  15. Thomas C. Leonard, “Lord Bryce’s estimate jumped to 800,000 Armenians ‘slain in cold blood in Asia Minor’ since May [1915]”; “The equation of dead Armenians with a parade of Americans eager to fight was telling: foreign alliances brought a small minority in Asia Minor into the “we” of public discourse.”[13]
  16. Donald Bloxham, “One of their [Major-General William Thompson and his successor] rationales for these drastic measures was that Armenia would be heavily territorially compensated in Asia Minor by the terms of the anticipated peace treaty.”[14]98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:05, 30 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
Mentions of Asia Minor that don't mention the Armenian Genocide
  1. Richard G. Hovannisian, “The numerous Armenian communities of Asia Minor are often overlooked or else treated very cursorily in most histories of the Armenian people.”[15]98.231.157.169 (talk) 17:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  2. Joshua J. Mark, “In the ancient world, Asia Minor was the seat of the kingdoms and cities of […] Armenia”.[16]98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  3. Akhilesh Pillalamarri, “After the conquests of Alexander the Great, Asia Minor was mostly Hellenized and remained solidly Greek until the 11th century, with Armenians forming the majority in the eastern parts of the region, as they had since antiquity”.[17]98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  4. Alexander Beihammer, “After various expansionist stages that culminated in the reign of Basil II (976-1025) the [Byzantine] empire’s eastern provinces stretched from the western coastland of Asia Minor as far as northern Syria, the Upper Euphrates region, and the Armenian Highlands”.[18] (This extract from Beihammer's (2020) work is specifically intended for those who need no lecturing on the topic and claim that the toponyms "Asia Minor" and "Armenian Highlands" are "redolent of the biblical period")98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Ottoman Empire

  1. Marc David Baer defines the Armenian Genocide as "mass murder of Armenians carried out in the Ottoman Empire in 1915"[30]
  2. According to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum "the Armenian genocide refers to the physical annihilation of Armenian Christian people living in the Ottoman Empire from spring 1915 through autumn 1916."[31]
  3. Stefan Ihrig refers to "The Armenian Genocide, as a historical event... happened in the Ottoman Empire in 1915/1916"[32]
I've been on editing on Wikipedia for more than fifteen years, anon. Check your tone and modify your language and your stay here will be far more pleasant. That being said, you're probably the last person who needs to deliver a lecture to me on this topic. Feel free to peruse the Armenian newspapers of this period: more than a handful of them call this region "Anatolia" - so the term did not carry the opprobrium that it does now. Many terms were used to refer to this region, it's true, but we don't necessarily have to kowtow to the language of any particular national group. A group of Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish historians have recently come to suggest the "Ottoman East"; it may not satisfy everyone but it's an interesting alternative to take into consideration as it does not prejudice one group's views over the other's. "Asia Minor," as I've noted another section, is a name redolent of the biblical period. For our purposes, Anatolia or the Ottoman East is about as accurate and fair as we're going to get in an article that is catering, after all, to a general audience. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 19:04, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
You might have thought of refraining from taking a swipe at your readers, bringing in “Armenian nationalist arguments” and “Western Armenia” into this thread. And, yes, I have all the required qualifications to deliver a lecture to you on the topic. Taking a glance at my contributions in this discussion should have given you a hint that—perhaps?—it is not a layman you’re dealing with. And, thank you, I do in fact peruse the periodicals of the period, not only Armenian, but in several other languages. I can’t say I don’t see the term “Anatolia” in some of them, however, rarely does this relatively new Turkish malarkey figure in the periodicals as a widespread toponym designating the eastern parts of the Ottoman Empire. And, no, you’re mistaken, I regret to say, “Asia Minor” and “Armenian Highland” are not “the language of any particular national group”. These geographical and historical toponyms are seen throughout most of the European literature of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries that pertains to the region. Again, I have no clue as to where you might have come across these terms referring solely to the biblical period.98.231.157.169 (talk) 20:02, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Survey

Despite the ever-multiplying ambiguities and confusions in this discussion obviously preventing the clear definition of the geographic setting for the Armenian Genocide, it would seem reasonable to say "in the territory of the present-day Republic of Turkey and adjoining regions." Wouldn't that be better than all this "tedium"? The constant invocation of RS is seriously getting in the way of common sense and logic. What does it say about one's dedication to historical truth to deny the obvious geographical fact (because no RS says it that way!) to endlessly trade one geographically indeterminate phrase for another, as if one is just as good as another. Give me a break!2601:644:400:A350:7816:6EE0:745B:3B10 (talk) 02:11, 27 April 2021 (UTC) Diranakir (talk) 02:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 5, "The Aftermath" (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929)
  2. ^ Raymond Kévorkian, “The Extermination of Ottoman Armenians by the Young Turk Regime (1915-1916)”, in SciencesPo, 3 June, 2008.
  3. ^ Joseph Pomiankowski, Der Zusammenbruch des ottomanischen Reiches, (Zurich; Leipzig; Wien: Amalthea-Verlag, 1928)
  4. ^ Christopher J. Walker, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation, 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1990, p. 186.
  5. ^ Malcolm Edward Yapp, “Ottoman Empire” in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Revised sentence dealing with the Armenian Genocide introduced on 19 December 2017.
  6. ^ Erik-Jan Zürcher, “Greek and Turkish Refugees and Deportees 1912-1924”, in Turkology Update Leiden Project (TULP), Universiteit Leiden, January 2003, p. 1.
  7. ^ Hans-Lukas Kieser and Donald Bloxham, “Genocide”, in Jay Winter (ed.), The Cambridge History of the First World War, Vol. I, Part IV: Rules of Engagement, Laws of War and War Crimes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 585-614.
  8. ^ Joannis K. Hassiotis, “The Armenian Genocide and the Greeks: Response and Records (1915-23)”, in Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.), The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics, Palgrave Macmillan, 1992, pp. 129-130.
  9. ^ Fikret Adanır, “Non-Muslims in the Ottoman Army and the Ottoman Defeat in the Balkan War of 1912-1913” in Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek and Norman M. Naimark (eds.) A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 125.
  10. ^ Ozan Ozavci, "Honour and Shame: The Diaries of a Unionist and the ‘Armenian Question’", in Hans-Lukas Kieser, Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Seyhan Bayraktar, Thomas Schmutz (eds.), The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism, London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2019, pp. 215-216.
  11. ^ Hamit Bozarslan, “Afterword: Talaat’s Empire: A Backward Country, but a State Well Ahead of Its Time”, in Hans-Lukas Kieser, Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Seyhan Bayraktar, Thomas Schmutz (eds.), The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism, London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2019, pp. 340-341.
  12. ^ Yücel Güçlü, “Armenians and the Allies in Cilicia: 1914-1923”, in International Journal of Middle East Studies (January 2012), Vol. 44 (2):353-355, pp. 5-6.
  13. ^ Thomas C. Leonard, “When news is not enough: American media and Armenian deaths”, in Jay Winter (ed.), America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 295, 304.
  14. ^ Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 120, 160.
  15. ^ Richard G. Hovannisian, “The Armenian Communities of Asia Minor: A Pictoral Essay,” in The Armenian Communities of Asia Minor, Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2014), p. 9.
  16. ^ Joshua J. Mark, “Asia Minor” in World History Encyclopaedia, 04 May 2018.
  17. ^ Akhilesh Pillalamarri, “The Epic Story of How the Turks Migrated From Central Asia to Turkey”, in The Diplomat, June 05, 2016.
  18. ^ Alexander Beihammer, “Patterns of Turkish Migration and Expansion in Byzantine Asia Minor in the 11th and 12th Centuries”, in Migration Histories of the Medieval Afroeurasian Transition Zone, Studies in Global Migration History, Vol. 39/13 (2020), p. 166.
  19. ^ https://journals.ysu.am/index.php/arm-fol-angl/article/view/Vol.6_No.1-2_2010_pp.149-162/Vol.6_No.1-2_2010_pp.149-162.pdf
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