Chapter 8 - The Beginning of the Endgame? The Road to the 1895 Massacres in Palu

Summary

The five years between 1890 and 1895 are critical for Palu, a laboratory for understanding the ramifications of the key historical dynamics this book has investigated: the transformation of the Palu begs’ noble position within the locality; the privatisation of land ownership and the resulting land disputes; and the state formation that was the politico-administrative context in which these changes took place. In this period, fragmentation within the Palu nobility reached its apex, with grave conflicts among the begs over land ownership. For the Palu begs, this was also a time to settle their accounts with the Armenians, who were putting up ever-stronger resistance to the begs’ efforts to regain their land and political power. But this was occurring in the new context defined by the internationalisation of the Armenian Question. As mentioned, the Berlin Treaty of 1878 made the Ottoman policy towards the eastern provinces where Armenians resided the subject of international treaties. The Sublime Porte pledged to initiate these reforms under Great Power supervision. As Palu was ensnared in protracted conflicts over land ownership, this new context set the ground for a harsher political climate that rendered Armenians more vulnerable to Muslim rage. In 1895, Armenians in Palu became the target of deadly attacks, forced conversions, and seizure and destruction of their property.

In the fall of 1895, Palu experienced one of a number of massacres against Armenians in towns throughout the empire. The attacks started shortly after the Sultan bowed to the pressure of Armenian revolutionary organisations and the European powers and proclaimed a reform programme. While this was what triggered the attacks, it was the local power configurations that set the ground for the unfolding of violence. In Palu, the immediate background of the massacres was the deepening of land disputes between the begs and Armenian villages, the Ottoman state’s centralisation policies, and the growing politicisation of local Armenians from the 1880s on. This chapter examines Palu’s socio-economic and political panorama on the eve of the massacres, showing that the massacres resulted from the coalescence of short-term political dynamics (i.e. the internationalisation of the Armenian Question and the increased politicisation of Palu Armenians) with the ongoing socio-economic and political tensions that together created what Edip Gölbaşı described as a ‘climate of violence’ in Palu from the 1890s onwards.