Latest / The Story of Armenia: Survival Through Empires and Genocide — Fexingo History / Ararat's Shadow: The Forgotten Massacres Before 1915
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- Lucas: We've talked a lot about the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the orphans, the deportation marches. But what often gets overshadowed is that the genocide wasn't a bolt from the blue. There was a brutal dress rehearsal twenty years earlier. Luna: You mean the Hamidian massacres? Lucas: Exactly. Between 1894 and 1896, under Sultan Abdul Hamid II, tens of thousands of Armenians were killed in a series of state-sanctioned pogroms across the Ottoman Empire. The numbers are staggering, maybe a hundred thousand dead, some say three hundred thousand when you count the ones who died from cold, disease, and starvation in the mountains. Lucas: The sultan's motive was simple. He saw the Armenians as a disloyal, restive population that was getting ideas from the European powers. And he decided to crush them with brute force, using Kurdish irregulars and his own elite cavalry units. Luna: So it was a deliberate policy, not just a few rogue commanders. Lucas: Deliberate, and carefully orchestrated. The sultan gave the green light, and then spread the blame later. The pattern was almost identical in each region: first, the Hamidiye regiments, Kurdish cavalry named after the sultan himself, would ride in and burn Armenian villages. Then the army would follow to 'restore order' and disarm the survivors, leaving them defenseless. Lucas: And while this was happening in the countryside, in the cities like Constantinople, mobs were set loose on Armenian merchants and craftsmen in broad daylight. The signal was given, and the violence followed within hours. Lucas: But what's often forgotten is that the Armenians didn't just passively accept this. There was a fledgling revolutionary movement, and they fought back. Luna: Tell me about that. I know the Hunchaks and the Dashnaks were around, but what did they actually do? Lucas: The Hunchak party, founded in Geneva in 1887, was socialist and aimed to stir up peasant revolts. The Dashnaktsutyun, or the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, came a few years later and was more nationalist. They didn't have an army, but they organized self-defense units in the villages. Lucas: The most famous stand was at Sasun in 1894. The Hunchaks had been agitating in the area, and when the Ottoman authorities demanded back taxes that the villagers had already paid, the Armenians refused. The Hamidiye moved in, and the villagers, armed mostly with hunting rifles and swords, held them off for weeks. Luna: They actually held off the Ottoman army? Lucas: For a while, yes. The terrain was rough, and the Armenians knew the mountains. But ultimately, the Ottomans brought in regular troops with artillery. Hundreds of villages were destroyed, thousands were killed. The survivors fled into the mountains, and many froze to death in the passes. Lucas: What happened at Sasun sent shockwaves through Europe. The great powers — Britain, France, Russia — had signed the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, promising to protect the Armenians. But when they actually had to do something, they mostly issued diplomatic notes and did nothing. Luna: That's so frustrating. They had the power to intervene, but they just... watched. Lucas: Exactly. The British prime minister at the time, Lord Salisbury, even called the Ottoman policy 'massacre by instalments'. But no one wanted to risk a war over the Armenian question. So the massacres continued. Lucas: In 1895, the violence peaked. There was a massive demonstration in Constantinople, organized by the Hunchaks, to present a petition to the sultan. The police attacked the crowd, and then mobs went through the Armenian quarters, killing anyone they found. Lucas: The American ambassador at the time, a man named Terrell, wrote that 'the butchering of the Armenians is going on day by day without any attempt on the part of the authorities to prevent it.' He estimated fifty thousand killed in the capital alone in just a few days. Luna: Fifty thousand? In Constantinople? Lucas: That number might be high, but it was horrific. And the massacres didn't stop there. There were outbreaks in Trebizond, in Erzurum, in Diyarbakir, all over Anatolia. The pattern was always the same: the authorities would disarm the Armenians, then let the mobs loose, and then call in troops to 'restore order'. Lucas: One of the most horrific episodes was in Zeitun, or Zeytun, a mountainous region in Cilicia. The Armenians there had a tradition of resistance, and they actually managed to hold out for months against the Ottoman army. But eventually, they were forced to surrender, and thousands were deported to other parts of the empire. Lucas: The international outcry did lead to some half-hearted measures. The European powers forced the sultan to sign a reform plan in October 1895, but he immediately undermined it, and the massacres continued. Luna: So the sultan got away with it. Lucas: He did, for a while. But the massacres had a profound effect on Armenian consciousness. They radicalized a whole generation. Many survivors fled to the Caucasus, to Russia, to Europe, and they carried with them a burning desire for revenge and a determination to never be caught defenseless again. Lucas: This is also when the first major Armenian revolutionary figures emerged. People like Kristapor Mikaelian, one of the founders of the Dashnaktsutyun, who saw the massacres as proof that the Ottoman state would never protect them. He wrote, 'Our people have been slaughtered like sheep. We must learn to be wolves.' Luna: And that's what led to the assassination attempts on the sultan, right? The 1905 bomb attack. Lucas: Yes. The Dashnaks tried to kill Abdul Hamid in 1905, but the bomb went off prematurely, killing a few officials, not the sultan. But it showed that the Armenians were no longer just victims. They were fighting back. Lucas: And here's the thing: the Hamidian massacres were a warning that the world chose to ignore. The same European powers that did nothing in the 1890s would do little more in 1915. The Ottoman state learned that it could massacre Armenians with impunity. That's a terrible, tragic lesson. Luna: And the fact that we're still talking about this a hundred years later, and the world still hasn't really acknowledged it... it's heavy. Lucas: It is. And that's why we keep turning to these stories, even when they're hard to tell. Because remembering is a form of resistance, I think. Lucas: And on that note — something that makes this possible for us to keep doing is a small group of listeners who chip in a few dollars a month through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No ads, no sponsors, just that. It's a humbling thing, honestly. Luna: It means a lot that people want to keep these stories alive. Lucas: It does. And it lets us spend the time to dig into the archives, to translate the eyewitness accounts, and to bring you these conversations. So if you've ever wondered how we do it, that's part of the answer. Lucas: But let's get back to the story, because there's a moment that often gets overlooked. In 1896, after the Constantinople massacres, the Dashnaks took over the Ottoman Bank. They were armed and they threatened to blow it up unless the European powers intervened. It was a desperate act, but it brought global attention to the Armenian plight. Luna: I remember that. It was like a hostage situation, but they were the ones who were being slaughtered outside. Lucas: Exactly. The bank raid forced the European ambassadors to negotiate. They got a promise of reforms, safe passage, and some of the revolutionaries were allowed to leave the country. But the sultan went back on his word again, and the massacres resumed. It was a tragic cycle. Lucas: And then, in 1897, the Ottomans launched a final campaign to 'pacify' the remaining Armenian strongholds. The violence only ended when the sultan, facing international pressure and internal dissent, decided to stop. But the damage was done. The Armenian community of the Ottoman Empire was devastated, economically and demographically. Lucas: So when we talk about the Armenian Genocide of 1915, we have to see it as the second act of a tragedy that began in the 1890s. The first act set the stage, taught the perpetrators that they could act with impunity, and taught the survivors that they could not rely on anyone but themselves. Luna: That's a hard lesson to learn. Lucas: It is. But the Armenians also learned that their culture, their faith, their language, could survive even the worst onslaughts. And that's a testament to their resilience, and to the stories we're trying to tell here. Lucas: The aftermath of the Hamidian massacres saw a wave of Armenian emigration. Tens of thousands fled to the Russian Empire, to Europe, to the United States. They carried their traditions with them, and they built new lives, but they never forgot the homeland they had lost. That sense of loss would fuel the Armenian cause for decades. Lucas: And it's a thread that runs through everything we've been exploring in this series — from the ancient kingdoms to the modern diaspora. The struggle for survival, the fight for recognition, the refusal to be erased. The Hamidian massacres are a dark chapter, but they're also a testament to the Armenian spirit. Luna: Thanks for shedding light on this, Lucas. It's a part of history we don't often hear about. Lucas: That's what we're here for. And as always, we're just scratching the surface. There's so much more to explore, and we'll pick up the thread again in the next episode.