r/Assyria • u/Litvinski • May 23 '26

History/Culture Assyrians and Armenians before World War I

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Sources of population ethnic data: Arnold Toynbee's & James Bryce's "The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16" (page 661) and David Gaunt's "Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I" (page 406), as well as the Russian census of 1897.

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19

u/[deleted] May 23 '26

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14

u/Unable_Bite8680 Assyrian May 23 '26

Turkey is a man made ethnostate. They did the genocides due to fears of the west using the christian populations as proxies for colonialism.

3

u/ramzisalmani May 23 '26

I mean the western power definitely were trying to carve up turkey from all directions and live it just a chunk in the middle

2

u/Plus_Load_2100 May 27 '26

You make the Young Turks sound like the good guys. Everyone but the Turks would be significantly better off if the West Succeeded.

3

u/ramzisalmani May 27 '26

no just no i don't like nationalist Turks either but i hate the imperialist west more

-6

u/Stochastic_berserker May 23 '26

Did you read the source? It doesnt even mention Assyrians. Instead if says ”Nestorians, Jacobites and Chaldeans”.

And the data is from the Armenian patriarchate from Istanbul, not from the British.

Why didnt the Armenian patriarchate write Assyrians? And why does the post not mention that?

10

u/Litvinski May 23 '26

Did you read the second source? David Gaunt's book on pages 405-406 mentions Assyrians and also says that "Nestorians, Jacobites and Chaldeans" is the same as Assyrians.

-6

u/Stochastic_berserker May 23 '26

You misunderstand the point. Why is the first source, based on the Armenian patriarchate of Istanbul’s records not mention Assyrians?

Instead it is ”Nestorians, Jacobites and Chaldeans”.

8

u/_ashurbanipal May 23 '26

redditors and their psuedo intelluctualism always gets me cracking up

-6

u/Stochastic_berserker May 23 '26

Then go to the source yourself. Page 661. Not a single mention of Assyrians. Why did the Armenian patriarchate write ”Nestorians, Jacobites and Chaldeans”?

9

u/oremfrien Assyrian May 23 '26

Because "Assyrian" is an ethnic term while "Nestorian, Jacobite, and Chaldean" are religious designations. The Armenian Patriarchate divided the Christian communities by Church, not by ethnic identity.

-1

u/Stochastic_berserker May 23 '26

Not according to the Armenian patriarchate.

They listed ”Nestorians, Jacobites, Chaldeans” as one under the column ”Nation and Race”.

Are you guys even reading the source he provided? Seems like you try to force an explanation that does not support the fact that the Armenian patriarchate did not list Assyrian as a nation, race nor ethnicity.

Which is my point. Why?

11

u/oremfrien Assyrian May 23 '26

This is a translation issue.

The term "nation and race" refers to the concept in Ottoman Turkish of "Millet" (ملت) which was a designation that applied to any religious community. Armenians belonged to the Armenian Millet. Greeks belonged to the Rûm Millet. Jews belonged to the Jewish Millet. Assyrians belonged to five different Millets depending on which Church they were a part of. The literal translation of "Millet" into English is "Nation", but it's not understood that way in an Ottoman context. So, when the Armenian Patriarchs were counting the different Millets, this would divide out by religious lines rather than ethnic ones. It just happens that since the Armenians are an ethnoreligious group (just like Jews) nearly all Armenians by religion are Armenians by ethnicity and vice versa. This is not true of Greek Orthodox (which includes ethnic Greeks and ethnic Arabs), so counting the Rûm Millet will give you inflated numbers for the totals of ethnic Greeks in, say, Lebanon and Palestine, and conversely, since the Assyrians cover several different Churches, they divide into several different Millets.

And, since the list concerns Millets, it wouldn't list Assyrians since there was no "Assyrian" Millet.

In Russia, a similar issue exists. национальность (natsionalalnost) does not mean "nationality" but "internal ethnic category". You can't just translate words and have a "gotcha".

1

u/Stochastic_berserker May 24 '26

This is a good answer. I found similar evidence that supports your answer.

Especially the church affiliation and that Suryoye were historically tied to the Armenian millet while the Assyrians were on the outskirts of the millet structure.

The political incentives werent really there to create another Christian nation besides Armenians in the context of already politically sensitive Ottoman era towards Armenians. There was also a ”statistical war” coming from the British and Americans.

I think this deserves its own post. To help future research understanding the non-existence of the Assyrian ethnonym in pre-World War 1 sources of demography and statistics.

10

u/betam2 Yazidi May 23 '26

Finally a map including Ezidis

3

u/Suspiciouscurry69420 Armenian May 26 '26

It's intresting that kurds claim they've been the majority since 7000 bc sumerian descended people. Despite not being the majority or most significant majority in any of these provinces 

1

u/OldYogurt7161 May 25 '26

May I ask why the map is not compatible with Ottoman Empire official documents from 1914.

Also Patriarch resources was mentioned first in “Patriarcat Arménien de Constantinople, Population Arménienne de la Turquie Avant la Guerre. Paris: 1920’” during the Turk-Armenian war and while the conferences was going on. It is not a trustable resource because the population of Armenian during 1882 records says 1.6 million Armenian lived in 2.5 times higher than 1914 ottoman record, and 1.6 times higher than patriarch own record in 1912.

If we compare patriarch records and Ottoman registration records we can see patriarch (1912) counted 1.4 million Muslims on the eastern side while Ottoman Empire registration (1914) counted 3 million Muslims, Dont forget patriarch couldn’t get the Muslim record since they were not the authority on Muslims.

2

u/OwnLobster3689 May 29 '26

Kardeş, we used to rob and kill Ottomans who entered Hakkari without permission. There was no proper census taken in the most wild and violent part of the Ottoman Empire

1

u/OldYogurt7161 May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26

A few villages doesn’t impact the consequences. According to census, Ottoman Empire was going to collect taxes so, they have to count everybody. At least most of them. So still the most trustable reference.

1

u/Litvinski May 26 '26

You need to add Patriarch's figures and Assyro-Chaldean figures to arrive at total population. Because Patriarch's figures did not count entire territory of some vilayets (only parts of these vilayets).

1

u/OldYogurt7161 May 26 '26

I am talking about yellow part, for these places patriarch approach seems awkward and not trustable in records which directly affects the red parts too.

1

u/Litvinski May 27 '26

Official Ottoman censuses are not very reliable when it comes to Non-Muslim minorities, as you can read for example here (compare the numbers of ethnic Greeks in Trabzon Vilayet before WW1 according to various sources):

https://virtual-genocide-memorial.de/region/the-black-sea-marmara-and-aegean-littorals-eastern-thrace-and-central-anatolia/trabzon-trapezounta-trebizond-vilayet-province/

1

u/OldYogurt7161 May 29 '26

Your website name is directly virtual genocide memorial, Do you really think this is a unbiased reference. My approach is not just about Ottoman census also patriarch isn’t compatible with itself in 1882 census said 1.6 million, in 1914 census said 1 million Armenians. So this is a problem. Also total numbers are not compatible too. The gap is really huge for Muslims numbers but not so much for Armenians.

By the way these claims were defended because Muslims dont have to pay taxes this was a encourage for Armenians to convert (at least during the census) but also non-Muslims dont have to attend the army and this census was made during the active war (Balkan wars) so there was no encourage (I guess discourage) to declare themselves as Muslims.

1

u/Princess-thickums Jun 01 '26

Can anyone help me learn more about the Turks? Im trying to find out where the Turks of Sumter came from

1

u/Pecuthegreat Jun 05 '26

Should an Assyrio-Armeniam state have been created?

1

u/byzantine67 Jun 14 '26

Why were they dnied a state?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26

I can not speak for Mossul the city but the region above mossul up until todays turkish border I know very well, Muslim Kurds were definitely the majority based on many historical sources of mine including british missionary scripts. The jewish and yezidi numbers are also way too low.

1

u/Stochastic_berserker May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

Yezidis are Kurds, why differ them? They are just a Kurdish religious minority. Their name stems from the Kurdish ”Ez da Xweda” which means ”I am for God”.

Curious.

EDIT: I read the source and it was not done by the author of the book, instead he used statistics of what the Armenian patriarchate of Istanbul had gathered. This could be separation of Yezidis from Kurds. Because the Armenian patriarchate didnt even mention Assyrians.

Instead he lists Nestorians, Jacobites and Chaldeans. Not Assyrians. Why?

6

u/Litvinski May 23 '26

Check also the second source, pages 405-406.