What is the Armenian Genocide?

The atrocities committed against the Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire during WWI are defined as the Armenian Genocide.

Those massacres were perpetrated throughout different regions of the Ottoman Empire by the Young Turkish Government which was in power at the time.

The first international reaction to the violence resulted in a joint statement by France, Russia and Great Britain, in May 1915, where the Turkish atrocities directed against the Armenian people was defined as “new crime against humanity and civilization” agreeing that the Turkish government must be punished for committing such crimes.

Why was the Armenian Genocide perpetrated?

When WWI erupted, the Young Turk government, hoping to save the remains of the weakened Ottoman Empire, adopted a policy of Pan Turkism – the establishment of a mega Turkish empire comprising of all Turkic-speaking peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia extending to China, intending also to Turkify all ethnic minorities of the empire. The Armenian population became the main obstacle standing in the way of the realization of this policy.

Although the decision for the deportation of all Armenians from the Western Armenia (Eastern Turkey) was adopted in late 1911, the Young Turks used WWI as a suitable opportunity for its implementation.

How many people died in the Armenian Genocide?

There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of WWI. Approximately one and a half million Armenians perished between 1915 and 1923. Another half million found shelter abroad.

The mechanism of implementation

Genocide is the organized killing of a people for the express purpose of putting an end to their collective existence. Because of its scope, genocide requires central planning and an internal machinery to implement. This makes genocide the quintessential state crime, as only a government has the resources to carry out such a scheme of destruction.

On 24th of April in 1915, the first phase of the Armenian massacres began with the arrest and murder of nearly hundreds intellectuals, mainly from Constantinople, the capital of Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul in present day Turkey). Subsequently, Armenians worldwide commemorate the April 24th as a day that memorializes all the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

The second phase of the ‘final solution’ appeared with the conscription of some 60.000 Armenian men into the general Turkish army, who were later disarmed and killed by their Turkish fellowmen.

The third phase of the genocide comprised of massacres, deportations and death marches made up of women, children and the elderly into the Syrian deserts. During those marches hundreds of thousand were killed by Turkish soldiers, gendarmes and Kurdish mobs. Others died because of famine, epidemic diseases and exposure to the elements. Thousands of women and children were raped. Tens of thousands were forcibly converted to Islam.

Finally, the fourth phase of the Armenian genocide appeared with the total and utter denial by the Turkish government of the mass killings and elimination of the Armenian nation on its homeland. Despite the ongoing international recognition of the Armenian genocide, Turkey has consistently fought the acceptance of the Armenian Genocide by any means, including false scholarship, propaganda campaigns, lobbying, etc.

Aghababyan Levon was born in 1887 in Baghesh and graduated from the Sanasaryan College. From 1908 to 1914 he was first a teacher then a headmaster at the national colleges of Akshehir and Kutahya. He was a teacher of mathematics, opened a private school in Kutahya which worked for only three years and also was an editor of “Azatamart”. He was a victim of the Armenian Genocide.

April 9, 2013 The Russian delegation headed by the Chief of Staff of the RF Presidential Administration Sergei Ivanov, which is in Armenia on the occasion of the inauguration of the President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex and put flowers at the Memorial of the Armenian Genocide victims ...

December 18, 2012 The world known French actor Alain Delon visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex ...

November 24, 2012 The Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Bashkiria Raphayil Zinurov Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex ...

November 24, 2012 The Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Bashkiria Raphayil Zinurov Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex ...

September 25, 2012 Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex. Cardinal Kurt Koch put flowers at the Eternal Fire and prayed for the repose of the victims’ souls...

June 15, 2012 The delegation of the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies (RISS), Moscow, headed by the director Leonid Reshetnikov and accompanied by Ruben Safrastyan...

May 1, 2012 Christos Malikkidas, the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Cyprus, visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex and put flowers at the Eternal...

April 24, 2012 Stephen W. Clark, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary and Elizabeth Morrison, Acting Senior Curator of...

April 21, 2012 Minister of culture of Romania, Mr. Hunor Kelemen visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex...

April 17, 2012 A group of Turkish participants of USAID supported program on Turkish-Armenian dialogue...