Talk:Armenian genocide/Archive 34

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Archive 34

some unnecessary details

I appreciate your effort to document that they came centuries before the Turks, but there is no need for this, it seems that a great deal of effort was spent to support all the claims and dilute the counter arguments, there was no need for this because no one said that the Armenians came later.

However, it may be necessary to investigate what happened to the people who lived in those lands before the Armenians after the Armenians arrived. 188.57.55.75 (talk) 00:45, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The fact that the Armenian people have lived in the region since -600 shows that their lives continued without any serious threat for 2400 years and that the problems started to occur in the last 200 years. This may also help us establish a cause-effect relationship. 188.57.55.75 (talk) 00:49, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

No, we're not going to insert WP:NOR speculations about why the Armenian genocide happened—the article already covers the scholarly consensus. (t · c) buidhe 01:37, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

It is a pity that you see the efforts to improve the article as speculation. The only reason for this is the "consensus of historians". Locking down other additions and references by a group of historians saying "we think this way" can be a harmful action that seems beneficial from the outside.

Even though there is no cause-effect relationship, we can see different references that remind us of these. The problem is that you do not see that this desire to protect the article may hinder not only your efforts to protect it, but also its development. 77.67.227.121 (talk) 11:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

There's just one sentence on the pre-Turk presence of Armenians. It's hard to see that as excessive detail. I can't speak on how great the deal of effort was, but it's just two citations. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:39, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I would like to point out that stating that the Armenian people existed before the Turks, not that the Armenian people have existed for a long time, is an attempt to support the article. The idea of ​​"we've been here before" doesn't look good in a scientific paper. There is no harm in stating the year -600.

I think that the article can be improved further if interested authors write different articles describing the socio-cultural structure of the Armenian people and their life in the region and make various references. 77.67.227.121 (talk) 11:03, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

If you read the studies in detail, you can understand how incomplete the article is. However, it may make you question whether providing only a superficial explanation of the subject and hiding behind "academic consensus" really harms the article. You don't need to do a lot of research for this. If you read one decent study, you can see that this article is not actually that good.

188.57.55.75 The conversation with the IP address belongs to me. 77.67.227.121 (talk) 11:14, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi 188.57.55.75, just wanted to make you aware, from my bitter experience dealing with editors of this article, that you have to be very careful about suggesting that the Armenian people had lived in the region since 600 BC (if you meant the Behistun Inscription in Persia, it of course proves that Armenians were indigenous to the broader region well before the reign of King Darius the Great. Obviously, they couldn’t just emerge as an ethnos at the time of inscription). The reason I call on you to be careful is because editors here are good at rounding up conflicting figures. I only fear that, just as they keep the voluntarily rounded figure of “around one million” killed in the text, they might as well round up the duration of Armenians' existence and come up with an arithmetic average of 600 BC to 1915 AD. Hope this helps.73.173.64.115 (talk) 23:50, 3 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

Hello, I didn't actually want to suggest this. Since the reliability of the article is not debatable and there is "academic consensus", we assume that everything written is correct. The point I want to draw attention to is that the idea that we were living before any nation's "x" nation is complete nonsense. It may be enough to think for a minute to understand the illogic of saying that we came before any nation by referring to them. 188.57.48.185 (talk) 16:36, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi. In fact, the reliability of this article is very debatable. It suffers from many blunders that the editors have made and refuse to correct. Extensive Archives above testify to this fact. And you don’t have to assume that everything written here is correct, because this is just an online encyclopedia and editors are, well, just editors, not academics. As such, they cannot form an “academic” consensus. Their consensus mechanism is based on an opinion (almost always concurring) from a bunch of other editors, no different from the one who composed this weak article. As for the clause referring to the Armenian nation living before “x” nation, I think it provides a necessary background (and is correctly placed in the Background section), inviting the readers’ attention to the fact that the lands, which in 1915 became the gravesites of the Armenians, were their historical habitat and became the domain of the Turks as a result of genocidal extermination and forced deportation of an indigenous people. I personally see nothing illogical in this.73.173.64.115 (talk) 21:45, 5 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

To understand how funny it looks, look at this sentence 'Phrygians lived before Armenians'

Isn't it a very funny article? 176.89.168.68 (talk) 07:36, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a high reputation, if there is no academic consensus, it is stated in the article why there is 'academic consensus'. For example, it could have been written as 'a few high school students have a consensus' instead. The other issue is that I say that using Turks as a reference to refer to the geography of the region is malicious. This is a ridiculous reference. The sentence "We lived before the Russians" in the title of the Circassian genocide is equally funny. Or it is also funny that a Jew who was murdered in the Holocaust said that we were living before the Germans. So taking any nation as a reference is nonsense. -It may have happened in 600, but looking at the fact that they came before the Turks is an attempt to distort the article. 176.89.168.68 (talk) 07:32, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

It's in the article because it's true. The rest of what you write is irrelevant. (t · c) buidhe 13:25, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

“Wikipedia has a high reputation” … lol. How can an online resource, which (technically) anyone can edit, have “a high reputation”?! Exactly because (technically) any passer-by can edit it, Wikipedia is widely considered as the most unreliable source of information and is not taken seriously in academic circles. Next, nowhere in the text are Turks used “as a reference to refer to the geography of the region”. The opening sentence in the Background section states: “The presence of Armenians in Anatolia has been documented since the sixth century BCE, about 1,500 years before the arrival of Turkmens under the Seljuk dynasty.” I don’t see any ethnonym “Turks” here. Of course, there is an editors' blunder in this sentence too, to which their attention was invited more than once. “Anatolia” was used mainly by Greeks, but the more commonly used toponym is, of course, Asia Minor (while “Eastern Anatolia” is a purely Turkish toponymic invention which was coined and propagated to replace the more geographically and historically correct term ‘Armenia’ or “Armenian Highlands”). I think the clause about the ancient presence of Armenians in Asia Minor is much to the point, because we often hear from genocide denialists in Turkey that there were no indigenous Armenians living in the lands now forming their state.73.173.64.115 (talk) 15:01, 6 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

Two blunders in sub-section “Armenians in the Ottoman Empire”

Referring to the total population of the Armenians, a clause in this sub-section says: “On the eve of World War I in 1914, around two million Armenians lived in Anatolia out of a total population of 15-17.5 million.”

This clause suffers from two major flaws. Firstly, we see the recognizable obsession of the editors with rounding conflicting figures even as Wikipedia’s own policy obliges them to include all significant views in order to maintain a neutral point of view. Only one source, Suny 2015, is mentioned here to support the figure of around (editors’ all-time favorite key word) 2 million Armenians. Whereas there are many other RSs that provide a range between 1.6 million and 2.4 million (see Archives above for the list of RSs). Why is a voluntarily rounded figure, supported by one lousy source only, preferred over a range of figures supported by multiple sources? Which Wikipedia policy gives the editors such an authority? Secondly, “Armenians lived in Anatolia”. Do the editors know, or would they like to learn, that the geographical term “Anatolia” does not include the heavily Armenian populated lands (now in eastern Turkey) that came to be known among contemporaries and later scholars as “six Armenian vilayets”? These vilayets were nowhere within Anatolia (which territorially ends at Malatya) but to the east and easternmost of it. Therefore, to say “Armenians lived in Anatolia” is to demonstrate editorial incompetence, because in this way, only (the smaller) portion of Ottoman Armenian populations is recognized as having lived in the Ottoman Empire.73.173.64.115 (talk) 19:36, 9 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

Constantinople

Someone wrote constantinople in the deportation part but it was named Istanbul on those times 31.152.236.80 (talk) 12:18, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

We have a rough consensus to use Constantinople before 1923. English language sources didn't start using "Istanbul" until well after Turkey was founded. Therefore we use pre-Turkish republic names such as Smyrna, Constantinople, Urfa, Antep etc. (t · c) buidhe 14:30, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

"Armenians lived in Anatolia" is falsification of a secondary source

A clause in sub-section "Armenians in the Ottoman Empire" states: “[...] Armenians lived in Anatolia”. The clause is supported by just 1 (one!) ref., Suny 2015, p. xviii. But here's what Suny writes on p. xviii, ad verbum: "Some 2 million Christian Armenians lived in the Ottoman lands, most of them peasants and townspeople in the six provinces of eastern Anatolia." The editor's clause figuring in the text of this article is thus a pure falsification of what the author of a secondary source has written.73.173.64.115 (talk) 01:33, 15 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

I've edited the article to note that the 2m number is in Ottoman territory. The 15–17.5m still applies to Anatolia. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:42, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have to say this, but the edit as it now looks: "[...] Armenians lived in Ottoman territory, mostly in Anatolia, a region with a total population of 15–17.5 million" fits for the wastepaper basket. Why? Because (1) Armenians did not live mostly in Anatolia. Anatolia, as Greeks have called the region, was the central, western and westernmost part of the Asia Minor peninsula. Whereas most Armenians lived outside of Anatolia, in the Armenian Highlands, in the eastern and easternmost part of the peninsula, or in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire; (2) ~15–17.5 million was the total population of the empire (including the abovementioned Armenian-populated eastern provinces), therefore to say that Anatolia (that is, only one region in the Ottoman Empire) had a total population of 15–17.5 million is nonsense.73.173.64.115 (talk) 02:10, 15 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

I think the language is consistent with the source. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:20, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Ideally we would find a source with a solid estimate of population in Anatolia itself (there were relatively few Armenians who lived elsewhere in the empire )—maybe if I had more time to look in Akcam, Kevorkian, or Dundar I could give you something better. (t · c) buidhe 02:28, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

It’s exactly the other way round. There were fewer Armenians who lived in Anatolia proper than in the six eastern provinces of the empire located east of Anatolia. And you know it, don’t you? Stop pretending that you don’t. Please. 73.173.64.11573.173.64.115 (talk) 01:20, 22 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

I did your job for you (I don’t mind) and looked into another RS that disagrees with Suny’s view (that is, contains a conflicting info) which you said you wished to have more time to look into. Well, here’s Akcam. And this is what he writes on p. xviii in “The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity”: “According to this reform agreement, the Armenians were to participate on an equal basis in the local administration of what now constitute the eastern provinces of Turkey (an area that is also known as historic or Western Armenia), where the Armenians were living in dense concentrations.” Source: Taner Akcam, The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012), p. xviii. Now, are you required by Wikipedia’s own policies and regulations (WP:CONFLICTING) to include all significant views in order to maintain a neutral point of view? Yes? Then kindly include Akcam’s view that Armenians were living in what now constitute the eastern provinces of Turkey, in an area that is also known as historic or Western Armenia. I'll get Dündar for you in the meantime, another RS which you said you wished to have more time to look into.73.173.64.115 (talk) 20:33, 23 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

I’ll help you give your readers something better than just one source (Suny 2015) supporting your all-time favourite language “Armenians lived mostly in Anatolia”. Here’s an RS, coincidently the one which you said you wished to have more time to look into. Well, here’s Kévorkian. And this is what he writes on p. 265 of his “Complete History”: “Although most Armenians still lived on the Armenian high plateau—then known as the eastern vilayets—communities of greater or lesser density had long since been implanted in western Asia Minor, European Turkey, and Constantinople”. Source: Raymond Kévorkian, “The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History” (London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011), p. 265. Because editors here are required by Wikipedia’s own policies and regulations to include all significant views in order to maintain a neutral point of view, kindly rephrase the sentence in Background starting with “On the eve of World War I in 1914, around two million Armenians lived in Ottoman territory, mostly in Anatolia,[...]”. As wee see, there are RSs that place the Armenians in the “Armenian high plateau—then known as the eastern vilayets”. Please indicate that other RSs (Kévorkian, for instance) disagree with Suny’s view. I understand from WP:CONFLICTING that “if the conflict is about an interpretation of the facts”, the editors must include “all significant points of view with appropriate attributions”. Am I correct? Thanks.73.173.64.115 (talk) 19:49, 23 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

Lastly, I checked Dündar, “Crime of Numbers”, another RS which you said you wished to have more time to look into. Dündar does not specify the Armenian historical habitat except that, on p. xiii, he writes, “It is not an easy task to study and express in words the period of 1878-1918, when Armenians were forced out of their ancestral lands, where they had lived for thousands of years, and subsequently annihilated”. Source: Fuat Dündar, “Crime of Numbers: The Role of Statistics in the Armenian Question (1878-1918)” (New Brunswick; London: Transaction Publishers, 2010), p. xiii. Well, all three RSs, which you said you wished to have more time to look into, have now been looked into. Let’s now see how all significant views, as required by WP:CONFLICTING, are reflected in the opening sentence of the second para. in Background. I can hardly wait.73.173.64.115 (talk) 23:35, 23 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

Well, no. The language is not consistent with the source. Try to not indulge yourself… Please. Here’s what Suny has written… again: “Some 2 million Christian Armenians lived in the Ottoman lands, most of them peasants and townspeople in the six provinces of eastern Anatolia.” And here’s how you mispresented Ron’s words: “On the eve of World War I in 1914, around two million Armenians lived in Ottoman territory, mostly in Anatolia, a region with a total population of 15-17.5 million.” Even if we operate with the geographical term “Anatolia” which, historically, has nothing to do with the indigenous habitat of the Armenians, there is a huge difference between the landmass that Greeks called “Anatolia” and the relatively recent toponymic invention “eastern Anatolia” which the Turks had coined in order to replace the geographically and historically correct term “Armenia”, “Armenian Highlands” or “Armenian Plateau”, which lay, again, east of Anatolia. Most Ottoman Armenians lived in the six provinces of eastern Anatolia (do you see this clause in Ron’s sentence to which you’re referring?), that is, in the lands east of what Greeks called “Anatolia”. Whereas you want your readers to be duped into a hogwash that Armenians lived mostly in Anatolia. To substantiate my statement, I suggest the following language: “Between 1.6 to 2.4 million Christian Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire, most of them peasants and townspeople in the six eastern provinces of the empire.” Scores of RSs for the range between 1.6 to 2.4 million can be easily found, as they sit, unattended, in the Archives.73.173.64.115 (talk) 01:11, 22 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

I am familiar with your view on "Eastern Anatolia", but I think it's very clear that Suny does not say "east of Anatolia". Hence my continued view that the article language is consistent with the source. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:12, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

It is not my(?!) view on “eastern Anatolia”. It is the view of many authors in RSs, whom you’ve effectively shelved in the Archives—all indicating that at the time of the genocide there was no such a geographical term as “eastern Anatolia” associated with the historical homeland of the Armenians and that the Armenians’ historical habitat was never known as Turkey’s toponymic invention “eastern Anatolia”. It is that mentioning more geographically and historically correct terms (e.g., “Armenian Highlands” or “Asia Minor” or “West Asia”) does not fit your preferred—and greatly flawed—narrative.

Suny does not say “east of Anatolia”, I never said he did, but he does say that “Armenians lived in the Ottoman lands […], most of them […] in the six provinces of eastern Anatolia”. Whereas you say that “Armenians lived in Ottoman territory, mostly in Anatolia”. Does Suny say “Armenians lived mostly in Anatolia”? No? Then be so kind as to conform to the author’s exact words because, as it looks now, the language is absolutely inconsistent with the source.73.173.64.115 (talk) 18:34, 23 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

In my reply to this editor (t · c) buidhe above, I believe I've proven to you, for all readers and other editors here to see, that "eastern Anatolia" is not my (what?!) view, but is excluded from works of such reputable scholars on the subject of the Armenian Genocide as Kévorkian and Akcam. Have a good day...73.173.64.115 (talk) 20:43, 23 June 2024 (UTC)Davidian

Kevorkian uses the term "eastern Anatolia" repeatedly. For example, on page 2: "the realities that emerged in the Armenian provinces of eastern Anatolia and the Armenian communities of western Anatolia". Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:16, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

If you think you’re so damn good at reading Kévorkian, please be aware that he does not use the term “eastern Anatolia” “repeatedly” (what?!). In truth, in his 1025-page volume The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History, Kévorkian uses the term only eleven times, of which, just so you know, the term figures in conjunction with the Armenians only four times (see pp. 2, 81, 136, and 150). Now, go explain to your readers and fellow editors how four lousy mentions make usage of the term on a repeated basis. Good luck to you. And, by the way, Kévorkian uses the term “Armenian plateau” in conjunction with the Armenians seven times. What do you say to that?

Also, please take this as good advice from a professional in the field, if you decided to look more thoroughly into Kévorkian in an attempt to dig out anything in support of the claptrap “Armenians lived mostly in Anatolia”, please be aware that he never uses that phrase as it figures in the text of your ridiculous article, but always in conjunction with “the Armenian provinces”, and not in Anatolia but in eastern Anatolia, thus indicating that it is the Armenian-populated eastern provinces that represented a part of the Armenians’ historical habitat.

Lastly, if you decided to specialize in Kévorkian, kindly take heed of endnote 1 on p. 873. Do you see endnote 1 on p. 873 where the author explains how the name “Armenia” has been replaced by “eastern Anatolia”? I think the endnote is worth quoting in full for all your editors, readers, and contributors here to see:

“Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Livre jaune, documents diplomatiques, 1875–1877, Paris 1877,

p. 135, annexe I au 7e protocole de la Conférence de Constantinople, séance du 11 janvier 1877.

Let us note, in connection with the eyalet of Ermenistan, that the name “Armenia” has, in the

re-editions of seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century Turkish authors published in the past

few decades, quite simply become “Eastern Anatolia.” This holds, notably, for the second edition of the work of the seventeenth-century author Kâtip Çelebi (Hayati ve eserleri hakkinda incelemeler, Ankara 1957, p. 127) in which the title of Chapter 41, “About the Land of Armenia,” has been replaced by “Eastern Anatolia (cf. the fi rst edition, Constantinople, 1732, p. 227). For more detail, see A. Papazyan, “Քյաթիբ Չելեպիի “Ճիհան–Նուման Որպես Աղբյուր Հայաստանի Պատմական Աշխարհագրութեան [The “Jihan-Numa” of Kâtip Çelebi of the Geographical History of Armenia],” Badma–Panasiragan Hantes 3 (1983), pp. 229–32. For more detail on the administrative subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire, see the excellent article by K. Patalyan, “Վանի Նահանգը 1840–ական–1914 թթ. [The Province of Van in the Years 1840–1914],” Panper Erevani Hamalsarani 3 (1986), pp. 13–20 which makes systematic use of the Ottoman Salname.”

Let me know if I could be of further help in correcting the absurdities in your article so we can jointly improve it (isn't this your primary function in Wikipedia?). Cheers73.173.64.115 (talk) 17:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)Davidian