On 21 July 1921, a man called Behbud Han Cevan?ir, was murdered in Istanbul. The identity of the shooter was unfolded as well: He was an Armenian named Misak Torlakyan . The previous relations between the shooter and his victim were easily disclosed and were clearly indicating to the city of Baku during the late months of 1918: Cevannir served there previously as the Minister of Internal Affairs of the short-lived independent Azerbaijan; Torlakyan was staying in Baku during Civanair's tenure. The trial of the Armenian youngster in Istanbul by a British military court is at the center of this paper. Within a short period of time this trial turned into a bill of charge formulated by the defense; it chose to ignore the actual act of murder and focus on the motives that it believed had brought the defendant to commit the crime. The Armenian defense lawyers used the trial to criminalize the victim due to his role as Minister of Interior Affairs at the time of the massacre which took place in Baku and lasted for three consecutive days and nights in September 1918. On the one hand, the court and the prosecution - both manned by British militaries - enabled the defense to formulate its case by raising accusations against prominent officials in addition to the victim and against wider groups. On the other hand, the prosecution wanted to emphasize the guilt of the Armenian shooter and see him as part of a wider group of Armenians who betrayed the countries in which they lived in the name of Armenian nationalism. The court was asked to decide upon central issues of citizenship versus betrayal; patriotism versus persecution of minorities. The two opposing parties perceived the trial as a major arena in which they could present their narratives in a clear and succinct manner. The various judicial strategies, the formulation of the testimonies and their presentations allow us to offer a discussion on the shaping of new identities and discourses against the background of the demise of empires and the construction of new national identities. My discussion of the trial is based on the papers of the Ottoman journalist Ahmed Cemalettin. My paper concentrates on the relation between nationalism and the judicial arena in which new terminologies and national narratives are defined, contested and defended and transformed from the realm of individual intellectuals to the much wider public arena.

The aim of the paper is to analyze Ottoman Armenian women's campaign for education and their activism in charity in 1876-1914. The paper traces the historical meaning of charity and gift-giving culture in general to illustrate how "modernity" on the Ottoman state level on one hand, and intra-millet level on the other, brought about new formulations and meanings of charity among the Ottoman Armenians. The paper explores the ways in which women were influenced by and participated in the reform in education and charity that they believed would result in the well-being of the nation in general and women in particular. It conceptualizes women's charitable activism and movement for education on the background of the Ottoman imperial policies and new imagination of the Armenian nation to illustrate, (a) how the context at times inspired and at times hampered women's activism, and, (b) how this activism fit into the larger picture of nationalist movement and women's participation in the movement. The paper argues that women's campaign for spreading education and providing charity for women and children, and especially the significance of this activism for nation-building processes led to demands for betterment of their state of existence in other spheres (e.g. marriage, employment, etc).

Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Assyrians belonging to either of the two branches of Eastern Christianity (Jacobite and Nestorian) remained little known community scattered throughout Ottoman and Persian territory. They were supposed to be the earliest Christians and spoke the same language as the Jesus had spoken. When they were discovered by the Western scholars, missionaries and archeologists in the mid-nineteenth century, they were called as "the lost tribe" with great excitement. This theory invested the people with a fictitious, sentimental interest. It is based on a supposed tradition among the people themselves and upon certain resemblances in customs to the Jews. But after that time the internal unity and the external relations of Assyrian community underwent a drastic change. Western Christianity, particularly protestant missionaries exerted their power and influences by using schools and hospitals as the instruments and split the Assyrians along sectarian lines. In terms of external relations this process simply alienated Assyrians from Ottoman and Persian authorities and increased animosity with the Turks and the Kurds who were their neighbors for so long in the same territories. When World War I started, they found themselves inevitably in the midst of the conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the Allied powers. While Jacobites kept generally their silence during the war being faithful to the Ottoman administration; Nestorians became a part of the war by encouragement of Russia and Britain and took their place in World War I as "the smallest ally" of the Allies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the position of the Assyrians in the Allied political maneuvers during the WW I. As the "smallest ally" of the Allies how they had turned to the losers and although they had spent sufficient effort during the war, why they had not taken their share in the new order formed in Middle East after the war are the questions to be dealt with.

The present study aims to shed light on the forced migration of the Arab families from Syria to the Anatolian cities during the World War I, and their return in and after 1918. Contrary to known, the controversial displacement (tehcir) decree of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) government dated May 27, 1915 did not only cover the Armenians of Anatolia, but also a number of Arabs from Syria. Approximately 5.000 Arab families settling on the areas under the control of the Fourth Army commanded by Cemal Pasha were forcibly migrated to Anatolia with the claim that "they were inclined to cooperate with and provoked by the French". These 'suspicious' Arab families set forth to the Anatolian cities on the north while the Armenians were on the road to the southern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The government transferred the Arabs mostly to the inner and northern cities of Anatolia in order to prevent their escaping and association with the Allies. They were placed primarily in the houses abandoned by the migrated Armenians, and were allocated daily wages by the CUP government. All the governmental decrees regulating the forced migration of the Armenians were also in force during the migration of the Arabs. Just before the end of the WWI, on November 30, 1918, the Arab immigrants as well as the Armenians and the Greeks were allowed to return to their hometowns. During the three years of their stay in Anatolia, the Arab families tried to adapt to the new culture, geography and climate. Those settled especially in the northern Anatolia and Thrace had great difficulties to reconcile with the new socio-cultural environment. Under the light of the currently released Ottoman documents, this study gives an account of the Syrian Arab immigrants, the 'suspicious guests' of Anatolia, and analyzes that event within the context of the migration policies of the CUP government and its approaches towards the Arab citizens of the Empire.

This paper presentation concerns the Armenian Regional Government that ruled the province of Van between May - July 1915. Exploring this unique episode in the history of the region my paper examines the visions and practices of Armenian nationalist elite in their attempt for the creation of an Armenian nation-state in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious province. The already very precarious inter-communal co-existence of diverse ethnic and religious communities in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire collapsed suddenly and violently in the course of the World War I. The entire population of the area was disastrously affected by this collapse; yet, the Armenian communities of the region paid a disproportionate human cost due to the murderous forced deportation policy. The Armenians of the city of Van organized a successful one month long armed resistance in April 1915 following the murder of major Armenian leaders after a plot organized by the newly appointed governor of the province, Djevdet Bey. The Armenians of Van avoided an immediate massacre thanks to the occupation of the city by Russian troops accompanied by Armenian volunteer battalions in the early days of May. At the same historical moment when the rest of the Ottoman Armenians were facing extermination at the hands of their own government in Van an Armenian Governorship was created under the prot?gg of the occupying Russian armies on May 7, 1915. The Armenian government in the province of Van was short-lived (May 7-July 17, 1915); yet it is a unique experience of Armenian nation-state formation in eastern Anatolian provinces. The new government -although had limited economic and political resources--implemented policies to create a prototypical nucleus of a possible future independent Armenia. Drawing on the papers of the Armenian Regional Government, Ottoman archival documents, periodicals published in the province, memoirs and secondary sources my paper explores two major issues; first, how the new ruling Armenian nationalist elite justified, at ideological and discursive levels, their exclusive claims to statehood and territory. Second, by examining the treatment of non-Armenian groups of the province, such as Muslim Kurds and Turks, Yezidis, and Assyrians, I inquire into the new hierarchy of ethnic and religious identifications envisioned by the Armenian Regional Government. My paper does not only address an extremely rarely visited historical episode but also raises theoretical questions around the notion of communal victimhood and its political uses and implications.