Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
They played a crucial role in Ottoman industry and commerce, and Armenian communities existed in almost every major city of the empire.
Ottoman legal theory understood two separate "establishments" to share state power, one responsible for governing a nation's citizens and the other its military.[when?]
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.
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.
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.
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.
[5] 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).
[6] In addition, there were the century-long Ottoman-Persian Wars between the rival empires, the battlegrounds of which ranged over Western Armenia (therefore large parts of the native lands of the Armenians), causing the region and its peoples to be passed between the Ottomans and Persians numerous times.
[12] Alex Manoogian, who became a philanthropist and active member of the Armenian General Benevolent Union was from Smyrna (İzmir), and Arthur Edmund Carewe, born Trebizond, become an actor in the silent film era.
Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman government implemented the Tanzimat reforms, among its many goals to improve the situation of non-Muslim minorities, although these would prove largely ineffective.
This became a problem for the Russian administration, which peaked during 1897 when Tsar Nicholas II appointed the Armenophobic Grigory Sergeyevich Golitsin as governor of Transcaucasia, and Armenian schools, cultural associations, newspapers and libraries were closed.
The Armenians, in addition to paying taxes to the state, voluntarily imposed extra burdens on themselves in order to support these philanthropic agencies.
Abdul Hamid II was the 34th Sultan and oversaw a period of decline in the power and extent of the Empire, ruling from 31 August 1876 until he was deposed on 27 April 1909.
The event was important, as it was reflected in main Armenian newspapers as the recovered documents on the Armenakans showed an extensive plot for a national movement.
[19] Ottoman officials believed that the men were members of a large revolutionary apparatus and the discussion was reflected on newspapers, (Eastern Express, Oriental Advertiser, Saadet, and Tarik) and the responses were on the Armenian papers.
They soon forced the patriarch to join a procession heading to the Yildiz Palace to demand implementation of Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin.
The Porte's reaction to the takeover saw further massacres and pogroms of the several thousand Armenians living in Constantinople and Sultan Abdul Hamid II threatening to level the entire building itself.
However, intervention on part of the European diplomats in the city managed to persuade the government to give safe passage to the survivors to France.
Despite the level of violence the incident had wrought, the takeover was reported positively in the European press, praising the men for their courage and the objectives they attempted to accomplish.
Ottoman officials involved in the Sasun uprising, who were previously defeated in the First Zeitoun Rebellion, did not want the formation of another semi-autonomous Armenian region in the Eastern vilayets.
Dashnak members, led by ARF founder Christapor Mikaelian, secretly started producing explosives and planning the operation in Sofia, Bulgaria.
A series of elections during this period resulted in the gradual ascendance of the Committee of Union and Progress's (CUP) domination in politics.
Opposition leaders including Ahmed Riza (CUP), Sabahheddin Bey (Liberal), and Khachatur Maloumian (Dashnak) attended.
[27][28] The Dashnaks decided to cooperate with the CUP, hoping that if the Young Turks came to power, autonomy would be granted to the Armenians.
Andranik Ozanian participated in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 alongside general Garegin Nzhdeh as a commander of Armenian auxiliary troops.
Andranik met revolutionist Boris Sarafov and the two pledged to work jointly for the oppressed peoples of Armenia and Macedonia.
The Armenian reform package was an arrangement negotiated with Russia, acting on behalf of the Great Powers, and the Ottoman Empire.
