Armenia and Her People; or, The Story of Armenia by an Armenian

by George H. Filian

IN THE TURKISH EMPIRE.

There are about two millions of Armenians in Armenia Proper, and another million scattered through the rest of the empire. The absurd figures given by some writers, making them greatly less than this (one magazine editor got it down to 300,000! It is significant that he was a strong apologist for the massacre, and laid all the blame to the Armenians) result mostly from taking the official statistics of the Turkish government. Now, there are three reasons why these are always grossly wrong; of no more value than the weather predictions in an almanac, and always wrong in the direction of understating the numbers.

One is that it is the Sultan’s interest to make them as small as possible, that the Armenians may not be considered to have the right to autonomy as a nation; the fewer they are, and the more outnumbered by the Turks, the less right they seem to have. “An independent Armenia?” shriek the Turkish ministers and officers. “Why, there are only a few hundred thousand Armenians in their so-called country, and even so, there are three Turks to one Armenian in that very district!”

The second is that in an Oriental country a census is not a means of knowledge but an engine of taxation. The ruler has no care for information on the subject for his own sake, as Western governments have. What he wants is to see how many people and in what places he can screw more taxes out of. The people know this as well as he, and use every effort to outwit his agents, and prevent them from knowing their numbers. This is why even civilized governments ruling over Oriental nations can rarely get any nearer than a rough guess at the numbers of the nation; the inhabitants are suspicious, and resort to falsehood. In the case of the Armenians, remember what I said in the first chapter about an Armenian being taxed for every male child he has, every year as long as the child lives; naturally, he will not tell the number of his children unless he has to. Here is a practical illustration. Some years ago I was in an Armenian village when the Sultan’s officers came to take the census. There were about 300 persons in the village; the officer wrote 200, because only a few names of boys were given him out of the whole. The tax is based on the registration, and if you can keep off the registers you can escape the tax.

The third is the gross incompetence, the corruption, and the drunkenness of the officers. The Turkish officials, governors, mayors, clerks, generals, soldiers, all drink any sort of liquor they can lay hands on, and are drunk as often and as long as sober; they are so ignorant that they cannot do their work decently even when they are sober; and they are utterly venal, without the least sense of official obligation. What sort of a census is likely to be taken by these ignorant, whiskey-swilling, venal barbarians? One of these officials, whom I know well, once came to a village to take the census. The Armenians got him so drunk that he barked like a dog, bribed him, and he put down about half the number of the population.

How, then, do I know the correct number? From a knowledge of the districts, the numbers of villages, and statistics resting on a better foundation than the above. I do not pretend that the number is exact; but it is near enough for practical purposes.

The Armenians in Turkey are divided into four classes. The first comprises merchants and bankers. The second is the professional class: physicians, professors, teachers, and preachers. The third is that of artisans: weavers, blacksmiths, copper, silver, and gold smiths, tailors, shoemakers, etc. The finest Oriental rugs are made by the Armenians, and there are weavers of silk and cotton goods, and all kinds of hand-made embroidery. There are no factories in Armenia. The fourth class is that of farmers, a pure, simple, industrious class, with beautiful farms, vineyards, and orchards, whose products I have described.

One-tenth of all the Armenians in Turkey are in Constantinople. Many of them are poor, in the nature of things; but the leading bankers, merchants, and capitalists there are Armenians, surpassing even the Greeks and Jews. I give a few representative names: Gulbenkian, Essayian, Azarian, Mosditchian, Manougian, Oonjian. The physicians in largest practice are Armenians: Khorassanjian, Mateosian, Dobrashian, Vartanian, etc. The Sultan’s personal treasurer is an Armenian, Portukalian Pasha. The chief counselor in the foreign office in Constantinople is an Armenian, Haroutiune Dadian Pasha. The greatest lawyers are Armenians: Mosditchian, Tinguerian, etc. The chief photographers of the Sultan are Armenians, Abdullah Brothers and Sebah, the former considered one of the best photographic firms in the world. The personal jeweler of the Sultan is an Armenian, Mr. Chiboukjian. For all his hate of the Armenians, he has to employ them, for no others are competent or trustworthy. The best musicians are Armenians: Chonkhajian Surenian, Doevletian, and an Armenian young lady named Nartoss, who often plays the piano before the Sultan. The greatest orator in Constantinople is an Armenian and a professor in Robert College, Prof. H. Jejizian, to my thinking, superior to either Beecher, Wendell Phillips, or Robert Ingersoll, all of whom I have heard. Finally, the Armenians, as a whole, form the best “society” in Constantinople, and their modes of living, dress, houses, and ways are precisely like those of Americans or Europeans. These are Mavroyeni Bey’s “Indians”!

Smyrna is a city of 150,000 or more population. About 80,000 are Greeks; you may call it a Greek city. The Armenians there number about 8,000, or one-tenth of the Greeks, but are ten times richer than all the Greeks together. The principal buildings are owned by Armenians; the business is in the hands of the Armenians. The chief business men are well-known in Europe. Mr. Balyivzian owns many steamers which ply on the Mediterranean. Mr. Spartalian is another very rich and very benevolent man; he built a magnificent hospital at Smyrna. In Samsoun, Marsovan, Cesarea, Adana, Amassia, Tocat, Sivas, Harpoot, Mesere, Malatia, Diarbekir, Arabkir, Oorfa, Aintab, Marash, Tarsus, Angora, Erzeroun, Erzinghan, Moosh, Bitlis, Baiburt, Trebizond,—in a word, everywhere it is the same. Go where you like in Turkey, you find the Armenians at the top.

When I say they are the richest, I mean until early in 1894 they were the richest. But now, in many cities of Armenia proper, since the recent atrocities, they have become the poorest.

Leading citizens, and the fathers of families, for the reasons I have mentioned, were specially singled out for vengeance. Their stores, banks, and houses were plundered and then burnt, their money and jewelry taken from them, and then they were murdered wholesale. Now the Turks and the Kurds for a time are rich with Armenian property; wearing the gold watches of Armenian gentlemen, their women wearing the jewelry of Armenian ladies.