THE DEMOGRAPHIC STRUCTURE AND PLACE NAMES OF ARMENIAN TERRITORIES ALTERED THROUGH MASSACRE AND EXILE
To this day, Armenians have claimed that many regions in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Iran belong to them. They have made significant efforts to persuade the international public of their falsehoods and have achieved a degree of success in doing so.
Despite the presence of numerous different communities in the Caucasus region today, Armenia’s current ethnic homogeneity has been achieved at the cost of 160 years of massacres and oppression against the Turkish and Muslim population. The present-day territory of Armenia was once a region where Turks predominantly lived and where Turkish khanates ruled.
One of the biggest contemporary issues within the Armenian question is Karabakh, which follows the same pattern. Armenians claim that this region, which has been Turkish land for centuries, belongs to them and misinform the global public. However, the settlement of Armenians in present-day Armenian lands resulted from developments following the 1828-1829 Turkish-Russian and Russian-Iranian wars. The Tsarist Russian Empire settled Armenian groups in this region.
Following the signing of the Treaty of Turkmenchay in February 1828, the khanates of Erivan and Nakhchivan came under Russian rule. On March 21, 1828, an “Armenian Province” was established in these territories. Under the orders of Russian Commander Paskevich, a commission led by I. Shopen conducted a census in this new Armenian Province between April 1829 and May 1832. The results of their study were published in 1852 in St. Petersburg as a book titled The Condition of the Armenian Province at the Time of Its Annexation to the Russian Empire. According to this study, before the occupation, the Armenian Province had a population of 142,000, consisting of 117,000 Turks (82.4%) and 25,000 Armenians (17.6%).
While Armenians constituted less than 20% of the population when the Armenian Province was established, by 1916, this percentage had risen to 58%. A similar transformation occurred in the provincial capital, Erivan. In 1908, 59% of Erivan’s population was Turkish, but by 1917, this figure had dropped to 45%, and by 1932, it had plummeted to just 6%. During the process of massacres and forced migrations targeting Turks, between 520,000 and 550,000 Turkish people were either killed or forced to flee.
During the Soviet Union era, Armenian authorities systematically changed Turkish place names in Armenia in an attempt to erase all traces of Turkish presence.
The real issue that should be discussed, brought to the agenda, and brought to the attention of the international community today is the Turkish lands that remain within Armenia’s borders. Most notably, the rights of hundreds of thousands of Turks who were expelled from Armenia before and after the 1988 earthquake must be defended. As an association, we are bringing this issue to light, informing the global public, and demanding justice for the displaced Turkish population.
There are numerous Turkish settlements within today’s Armenian borders that were forcibly abandoned due to Armenian oppression. This fact is supported not only by Turkish sources but also by official Russian and Armenian sources. For example, according to a Russian census conducted in 1908, there were nearly 800 Turkish villages within the Erivan Province, inhabited by 357,035 Turks.
A 1971 official Armenian publication, Armiyanskaya SSSR Administrativno-Territorialnoye Deleniye (Administrative-Territorial Division of the Armenian SSR), is one of the most significant pieces of evidence of Armenian assimilation policies.
This publication documents which Turkish settlements in present-day Armenia had their names changed, by which decrees, and in what manner. According to this official acknowledgment, the names of 336 Turkish settlements were altered. The official Armenian publication, printed in both Armenian and Russian in Erivan, recorded every Turkish-named settlement whose name was changed up until May 1, 1971. We possess detailed records of which settlements’ names were changed, when, and by which decree, along with their new names.
We have begun sending this report to the Armenian government, as well as to the governments of the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, and EU member states, as well as to non-governmental organizations and media institutions. As an association, we reaffirm our commitment to standing by our brotherly nation, Azerbaijan, in this matter, as we have in many others. No matter where in the world, we will continue to work to protect the rights and legal standing of every Turk.
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