Syrian Armenians and the Turkish Factor: Kessab, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor in the Syrian War

308 Pages·2021·9.473 MB·English

by  Marcello Mollica, Arsen Hakobyan

PALGRAVE STUDIES
IN URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY
Syrian Armenians and
the Turkish Factor
Kessab, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor in the Syrian War
Marcello Mollica · Arsen Hakobyan
Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology
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·
Marcello Mollica Arsen Hakobyan
Syrian Armenians
and the Turkish Factor
Kessab, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor in the Syrian War
Marcello Mollica Arsen Hakobyan
Ancient & Modern Civilizations National Academy of Sciences of
Department Armenia
University of Messina Yereven, Armenia
Messina, Italy
Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology
ISBN 978-3-030-72318-7 ISBN 978-3-030-72319-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72319-4
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Armenians in the Ottoman Empire: From Violence
to Genocide 31
3 Religious Affiliation and the Armenian Diaspora
in the Middle East 71
4 Armenian Communities in the Syrian War 101
5 Deir ez-Zor and Its Lieux De Mémoire 135
6 Aleppo Armenians at War 165
7 Kessab in the Syrian War 209
8 The Occupation of Northern Syria 243
9 Conclusions 287
Index 295
v
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The Syrian Armenians and the Turkish Factor:
Kessab, Aleppo and Deir Ez-Zor in the Syrian War
The Interference
The ongoing Syrian War is one of the most important challenges the
world has faced in the last ten years. Its impact goes well beyond the
Middle East for the trajectories of its various spill-overs, and migra-
tion waves have destabilized not just neighbouring countries but also
political relations between Middle Eastern and European countries and
World Powers. This book aims to provide a different understanding and
reading of contemporary events, and their roots, in the Arab Republic
of Syria. It does so by reading them through the eyes of a Syrian ethno-
religiousminority,theSyrianArmeniancommunity,whichisarecognized
ethno-religiousgroupwithreligious,confessional(therearethreedenom-
inations: Apostolic, Catholic and Protestant), cultural and educational
rights. Although the Armenians have inhabited Syria since ancient times,
the present community was formed in 1915, after the [Mets
Yeghern, Great (Evil) Crime], a term used by Armenians to refer to the
Armenian Genocide.1
1The1948UNConventiondescribedgenocideasan“actcommittedwiththeintentto
destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. The definition
applies to the atrocities committed in 1915–1922 against the Armenians as a distinct
nationalandreligiousgroupintheOttomanEmpire(DeZayas2010;Rogan2015:167),
whichisconsideredtobethefirstmoderngenocide(Ferguson2006:176–177).However,
the Turkish government and the Turkish official historical establishment, the Türk Tarih
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Switzerland AG 2021
M.MollicaandA.Hakobyan,SyrianArmeniansandtheTurkishFactor,
Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72319-4_1
2 M. MOLLICA AND A. HAKOBYAN
According to data from different sources, in 2003 there were between
65,000 and 90,000 Armenians in Syria (Ayvazyan 2003: 508; Migliorino
2006:6).Inearly2011,theArmeniansaccountedforaround0.3%ofthe
Syrian population (Sanjian 2015: 74). Since the beginning of the Syrian
War, some 22,000 Syrian Armenians relocated to Armenia, more than
90% obtained Armenian citizenship (Zakaryan 2017; Armenia Sputnik,
14 March 2018), while around 15,000 Syrian Armenians migrated to
Lebanon (Zolyan 2015). In 2017, there were around 28,000 Arme-
nians living in Syria, 18,000 of them in Aleppo (Mshetsyan 2017). More
recentfiguresarevariablebutfluctuatebecausemilitaryoperationsarestill
going on and political-military conditions on the ground are unstable.
At the time of writing (November 2020), Syrian Armenian migration
wavescontinue,notonlyfromSyriabutalsofromArmeniaandLebanon.
In February 2019, the General Consul of Armenia in Aleppo, Armen
Sargsyan, said that no more than 14,000–15,000 Armenians remained in
the city (Mkrtchyan 2019).
The direct involvement of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) and
the Turkoman militia in the Syrian conflict played a major role in
Syrian Armenians’ war narratives and its manifestations both in Syria
and in the Republic of Armenia. This process, in turn, brought about
interconnections between identity, migration and war (Hakobyan 2016).
Since2000,relationsbetweenSyriaandTurkeyhadstartedtoimprove,
but deteriorated with the start of the Syrian War. The Turkish govern-
ment,notonlysupportedtheSyrianOpposition—includingboththeFree
Syrian Army (FSA) and Salafi Jihadi groups—but hosted their headquar-
ters, too. Turkey became a main actor in the Syrian War, especially in
the north of the country. The TAF (and factions supported by them)
launched three distinct military operations in northwestern Syria. First,
the Operation Euphrates Shield (August 2016–March 2017), which led
to the Turkish occupation of part of northwestern Syria, between the
Euphrates and the opposition-Islamist held sector of Azaz. The targets
were the Islamic State (IS) and the (mostly Kurdish) Syrian Demo-
cratic Forces (SDF), which had their headquarters in the not far town
ofManbij.Second,OperationOliveBranch(January2018),whichledto
Kurumu(TurkishHistoricalAssociation)rejecttheuseoftheterm“genocide”todescribe
theArmenianmassacresof1915–1922.TurkishdenialoftheArmenianGenocidehasbeen
described as “the most patent example of a state’s denial of its past” (Imblemau 2005:
244).
1 INTRODUCTION 3
the occupation of Afrin Canton. The target was the expulsion of Kurdish
armed groups from the area; specifically, the Peoples’ Protection Units
(YPG)andWomen’sProtectionUnits(YPJ).Third,theOperation“Peace
Spring” (started on 9 October 2019), which aimed to expel the SDF
fromthe borderregionandcreate a30km-deep“safezone” innorthern
Syria.ThesethreeOperationshavebeenportrayedasawaytorelocate3.6
millionSyrianrefugeespresentlyhostedinTurkey(accordingtoUNHCR
data of May 2020) and resettle them in northern Syria.
This book looks at how the ongoing Syrian conflict has prompted
changes in the attitude of war actors towards the Syrian Armenians
and their past—above all, towards the Armenian Genocide—and, in the
process, has transformed urban realities that are regarded as important
symbols of the Armenian diaspora. The discussion will shed light on war-
relatedsocialchangesinthreeurbancasestudies:Kessab,AleppoandDeir
ez-Zor.Here,conflict-relatedstoriesarepartofeverydaylifeandameans
for actors to express and negotiate their experience. The stories provide
a locus to examine the meanings that people ascribe to their lived expe-
riences, both individually and collectively. Our study asks: how everyday
lifeischangedbythewar,andhowSyrianArmenians’socialpracticesand
structure of everyday life of have changed during the war.
We argue that perception of Turkish interference among Syrian Arme-
nians in the Syrian conflict is caused by contemporary events and has
direct links to the past, to the memory of the 1915–1922 Armenian
Genocide; specifically, it is reproduced by events such as the 24 April
commemorations (see Chapter 5). The contemporary morphology and
the peculiar formation of the Syrian Armenian communities offer good
examples for our analysis of the way in which the present is linked to
the past and the past manifests itself in urban conflictual settings. This
helps us to understand why the involvement of Turkey in the Syrian War,
known in the Syrian Armenian communities as the “Turkish Factor”, is
seen by the Syrian Armenians dwelling in urban areas bordering Turkey
or Turkish affiliated factions’ controlled areas as an attempt by Turkey to
remove Armenian presence from Syria.
Here the past represents itself in contemporary wartime events. The
link emerges between the memory of the Armenian Genocide in the
Ottoman Empire and the role played by Turkey in the ongoing Syrian
War.Ourcasestudieswillhelptoclarifyhowthepastisreproducedinthe
present,materializingintoaconstantfear;howtheexperienceofprevious
4 M. MOLLICA AND A. HAKOBYAN
realeventsfeedsthefearoftheirpotentialreproduction.Thisfearisanal-
ysed taking also into account transnational Armenian links in order to
assess how it has penetrated both the Republic of Armenia and other
Armenian diasporic settings.
Tracing the Roots of Interference
The Syrian War has a variety of dimensions and several consequences,
both inside and outside the border of what, before 2011, was the Syrian
Arab Republic. The conflict involved all its ethno-religious groups and
their transnational references, of which the Syrian Armenian community
was part and parcel. As complicated social phenomena, these processes,
dimensions and actors’ transnational loyalties need to be the focus of
academic analysis at least for two reasons: they are ongoing, fluid and
hot; an ethnographic account would allow a holistic view from different
perspectives.
We will relate the main argument directly to current events in Syria,
with a focus on the Syrian Armenian (here ethno-religiously defined)
communities dwelling in northern Syria. However, this ethno-religious
tension—vis-à-vis the Turkish Factor—continues not to be limited to
Christian (Armenian) settings in contemporary Syria. Here, the ethnog-
raphyofBenoitFliche(2013)upontheSaintAnthonyofPaduacomplex
in Istanbul is revealing. The church is a tourist attraction and a place
of worship, where Roman Catholics are joined by Greek and Armenian
Orthodox, as well as Sunni Muslims and Alevi. Such a mixed reli-
gious attendance enjoys an old tradition in Istanbul (another example
is given by the Church of the Fish). Today, Christian places continue
to be attended by Muslims, although many Muslims are said to avoid
frequenting Christian places in Turkey because of widespread anti-
Christian sentiments (Fliche 2013: 164–165) and growing inter-religious
tensions. For Armenians, such religious intolerance peaked with the trau-
matic assassination of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January
2007 in Istanbul.
Armenians have inhabited what is contemporary Syria since ancient
times. Yet, the role played by Turkey in the Syrian War has determined
a view according to which their roots lie in the establishment of the
ArmeniancommunityinSyriaasasurvivedcollectiveandfamilymemory
followingtheArmenianmassacresof1915–1922.Indeed,thememoryof
the Armenian Genocide is the main marker of Syrian Armenian identity