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 Dikran
Kaligian has taught history at Clark University and Regis,
Westfield State, and Wheaton colleges. He is past chairperson of
the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Eastern United
States and managing editor of the Armenian Review. He received
his Ph.D. in history from Boston College. His book, Armenian
Organization and Ideology under Ottoman Rule, 1908-1914
(Transaction Publishers, 2009), is based on his doctoral
dissertation.
Below is a short interview with by Armenian
Weekly Editor Khatchig MouradianKaligian about the relations
between the ARF and various groups in the Ottoman Empire during
the two decades before the latter’s demise.
Khatchig Mouradian: For
decades, the issue of the ARF’s relations with the CUP in the
pre-genocide period has been used by Armenian opponents of the
ARF to attack the party and accuse it of being short-sighted at
best, and even of having contributed to the genocidal policies
of the CUP. What does your research tell us about the political
choices the ARF had to make during the period of Ottoman
constitutional rule?
Dikran Kaligian: The ARF
leadership was very much walking a tightrope because it realized
that the only long-term chance for Armenian survival under
Ottoman rule was if the Ottoman Constitution was allowed to be
truly implemented. This required cooperation with the CUP, the
party that restored the constitution and was trying to implement
its terms. The reactionary and Islamist movements opposed both
the constitution and the CUP. Once the ARF saw that the CUP was
backing away from its commitment to constitutional rule and its
initial efforts to treat Armenians as equal citizens, which had
improved security conditions in the eastern provinces, the ARF
ended its cooperation with the CUP.
It then resumed its efforts to arm the
Armenian population but was hampered by the refusal of much of
the middle and upper classes in places like Russia and Egypt to
donate funds to purchase arms. Even Boghos Nubar Pasha
criticized the stinginess of those refusing to contribute to the
self-defense efforts.
K.M.: What are the lessons
that today’s leaders engaging in Turkish-Armenian dialogue can
derive from the period you have researched?
D.K.: One lesson that
applies to both time periods is the need to analyze the internal
and external political situation and motives of the party you
are negotiating with. This was a major preoccupation of the ARF
leadership and they came to see that the CUP leadership was
playing a double game with them, at least by 1912. Armenia’s
leadership needs to do a similar analysis today, but with many
new geopolitical factors intruding, including European Union
accession, oil pipelines, genocide recognition, and Karabagh
self-determination. It is just as dangerous to exaggerate one’s
vulnerability as it is to overestimate one’s strength; either
can cause a fatal miscalculation during sensitive negotiations.
K.M.: You have used the ARF
archives as one of your main sources for the book. Talk about
the material available in those archives on the constitutional
period.
D.K.: The ARF archives are a
critical resource in analyzing the period before World War I in
the Ottoman Empire. This is the case not just for understanding
Armenian history, but Ottoman history, because the papers of the
CUP were lost or destroyed at the end of the war. Thus in the
archives, one can read a description of the CUP’s actions and an
analysis of its motives by ARF leaders who had worked closely
with some of its most important cadres.
The correspondence between key figures, like
Rosdom and Simon Zavarian, reveal their frank opinions and
analyses that can be found nowhere else. The letters between the
Eastern and Western Bureaus increase our understanding of the
often conflicting aims and pressures they were influenced by, as
well as the difference between politics in Constantinople and in
Erzerum. Correspondence between the bureaus and their bodies in
each of the major cities and towns of the provinces provide a
picture of life and political conditions that are a world away
from the imperial capital, Constantinople. Unfortunately, much
of the history of the Ottoman Empire has been written based on
the official policies of the government and events in the
capital. By utilizing sources in the ARF archives that describe
unofficial contacts and political relations or report on events
occurring in the country-at-large, hundreds of miles from
Constantinople, a more complete picture can be drawn and more
accurate analysis can be made of the critical and turbulent
years from 1908-14. That is what I have tried to do in my book.
K.M.: Talk about the
relations of the ARF in the period of your research with other
Armenian political groups as well as the Patriarchate. To what
extent was there coordination or cooperation?
D.K.: There were two venues
where there was serious cooperation between the Armenian
political parties and community institutions including the
Patriarchate. The first were the meetings of the Armenian
parliamentary deputies who, although they represented the ARF,
the CUP, and the Liberal Union, or were independents, closely
coordinated their activities within parliament so that the
Armenian community always spoke with one voice. Whenever
legislation related to the Armenians was to be introduced, the
ARF took the lead in developing a consensus among the Armenian
deputies so that the proposal was made on behalf of the entire
Armenian parliamentary bloc.
The second venue for cooperation and
coordination was the Armenian National Assembly, which for years
had been elected to represent the Armenian millet. The ARF
worked within the assembly so that political initiatives, such
as the list of reform demands to be presented to the European
powers negotiating a peace treaty after the First Balkan War,
represented a consensus of the Armenian community. The Patriarch
worked with the assembly to develop this consensus, but on a
number of occasions ignored it and took contradictory positions
on his own as the nominal head of the Armenian millet. On these
occasions, the ARF and the Patriarch seriously clashed.
K.M.: What about ARF’s
relations with Kurdish groups?
D.K.: Armenian relations
with Kurdish tribes had long been problematic as these tribes
had been responsible for much of the years of violence and
depredations against Armenian villagers in the provinces. The
announcement of the restoration of the Ottoman Constitution in
1908 brought with it a dramatic drop in acts of violence by
Kurdish tribes against the Armenian population. This was because
of the CUP’s public commitment to the principle that, under the
constitution, all Ottoman citizens were equal, regardless of
religion. The prospect that they could no longer act with
impunity because they were Muslim halted most violence in the
provinces in 1909 and 1910. Once the CUP began to retreat from
the constitution, the violence resumed.
The Kurds also figured prominently in the
ARF’s demands on the lands issue because it called for the
return of land, much of which had been appropriated by Kurdish
chiefs. On the other hand, agrarian Kurds had been subject to
much of the same treatment by the tribal chiefs and also hoped
for justice under the constitutional regime.
K.M.: Chief among the
grievances of the Armenian in that period was the agrarian
issue. What were the policies of the ARF in this respect and how
did the agrarian problem unfold in the year’s leading up to the
genocide?
D.K.: One of the foremost
goals of cooperation for the ARF was the return of land that had
been confiscated from Armenians by Turkish lords, Kurdish
tribes, and others over the prior years. Armenian villages in
the provinces had been depopulated as they lost the farmland
they needed to support their families, and this had been the
sultan’s intention in allowing the land deprivation. This was a
major cause of the large-scale migration of rural Armenians to
the towns and cities of the Ottoman Empire or abroad. The CUP
initially took steps to redistribute land and Armenian
landowners began returning to their villages; but as the
government faced military defeats and internal political
opposition, they retreated on this issue as well. This failure
was critical to the ARF’s determination that the CUP had become
more interested in holding onto power than in improving the
country.
The ARF had begun cooperation with the CUP
with a series of demands for reform including not just the lands
issue, but also security, judicial reforms, political reforms,
and the replacement of administrative officials who were
anti-Armenian and anti-constitution. While there was progress in
the first 18 months in improved security and the replacement of
some of the most egregious officials, as the CUP’s political
position weakened, the ARF placed a lower priority on the other
items and stressed the administrative resolution of the lands
issue as the most immediate need of the Armenian population.
When the CUP began to take steps to return
lands to dispossessed Armenian peasants, they ran into
opposition from Kurdish and Turkish parliamentary deputies from
the eastern provinces and the aghas and large landowners whose
interests they represented. The CUP was reluctant to antagonize
these powerful men in the provinces and also feared the backlash
from the reactionaries in the political opposition if they were
to take action that would primarily benefit Armenians. By the
end of 1910, it had become clear that there would be no
substantial progress in land restitution. Given the ARF’s
investment in the issue and the fundamental role it played in
any determination of the extent of justice and equal status for
Armenians under the constitution, it would be a decisive factor
in the decision in 1912 to break off relations with the CUP.
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