In Outcasting Armenians, Suciyan sheds light on nineteenth-century Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire through a critical reappraisal of the significance of the Tanzimat reform period. Her extensive archival research reveals hitherto unexplored material in the holdings of the Armenian patriarchate of Constantinople and in the Ottoman archives. Suciyan puts the main focus on the voices of ordinary Armenian subjects, revealing through their eyes a different, almost lost picture of this crucial period in Ottoman history, leading up to the genocide of 1915.
In the introduction, the author outlines her theoretical premises and methodological approach. In chapter 1, Suciyan introduces “The Armenian Administration and Its Legislative and Executive Entitlements within the Ottoman Empire.” Chapter 2, “‘Either Save Us from This Misery or Order Our Murder’ (Ya Derdimize Derman, Ya Katlimize Ferman): Tanzimat of the Provinces,” depicts the vulnerable situation of Armenian subjects in the Ottoman periphery. Chapter 3 provides an overview of “Armenian–Rum Relations.” Chapter 4 sheds light on the “Juridical Entitlements of the Armenian Patriarchate,” followed by a conclusion. In addition, the book contains a comprehensive appendix of “Selected Documents from the Archive of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople from Nubar Library, Paris” and a useful index.
In the introduction, Suciyan mobilizes the concept of territorial and temporal differences to highlight the fundamentally different ways of being in the world for subjects living in the provinces compared to those in the Ottoman center of power. She scrutinizes the overall positive conceptualization of the Tanzimat as a reform period marked by progressiveness that would pave the way to the modern Republic of Turkey, a prevailing reading in recent research (p. 19). According to Suciyan, however, this selective framing obscures the violence that was inherent in centralization efforts characteristic of the Ottoman Empire throughout the nineteenth century. The author reminds readers of the basic principle that progress and development of some is always achieved at the expense of others, even if it means destruction of the others (p. 1).
In chapter 1, Suciyan describes how, beginning in the 1830s, the Ottoman state governed non-Muslim religious communities (millets) based on the principle of “divide and rule.” Fueling tensions by creating new millets (Catholic and Protestant Armenian), the Sublime Porte encouraged “confessional rivalries” (p. 22), as well as competition between traditional seats of the Armenian Apostolic Church: the patriarchates of Constantinople and Jerusalem with the Mother See in Etchmiadzin, and the catholicates of Sis and Aghtamar. Suciyan states, “I consider these interventions to be discrepancies created between the Armenian power centers that served as strong signals from the Ottoman administration in order to remind the Armenian administration of its subjection to them” (p. 27).
The author argues that the reorganization of the Tanzimat as announced by the Ottoman center took a long time to reach the provinces, and was never actually implemented. The Ottoman government made real the saying that all tasks make themselves redundant eventually. Responding late or never to the flood of petitions from the Armenians in the provinces, they offered military support against the notorious oppression of Armenians by the Kurdish emirates only in rare cases and for their own favor.
The Sublime Porte imposed its own centralization process by heavily influencing the Armenian administration and introducing novel mechanisms (the chamberlain, or kapi kahyasi; provincial committee; monasterial council; juridical council; pp. 39–50). These new structures were reproduced in the provincial Armenian administrations, allowing the Ottoman government to simultaneously gain control of the Armenian population in the provinces. Suciyan describes how both military interventions and administrative restructuring served the Ottoman government’s effort to gather detailed demographic and economic data for efficient governance of the population of the eastern provinces (pp. 30, 45).
The Armenian ruling elite were aware of the striking imbalance between Armenian living conditions in the capital and in the provinces. Suciyan highlights their efforts to advocate for the provinces: Khrimyan, patriarch of Constantinople (1869–73), collected Armenian petitions from the provinces and submitted them to the Ottoman government. He suggested to the Sublime Porte a decentralized reorganization of the Ottoman Armenian administration to more adequately respond to needs in the provinces and not just to those in the capital (pp. 36–37).
In chapter 2, Suciyan traces the history of the Tanzimat in the eastern provinces. This is characterized as Ottoman “inner conquest and reorganization,” and was realized by organizing massacres of marginalized population groups such as Yezidis and Assyrians at the hands of empowered Kurds (p. 56); redrawing and shifting of administrative borders to create a “constant instability” (p. 57); and introducing novel taxation and military units, newly tested methods from the Crimean War (p. 58). The Land Code of 1858 was a crucial administrative governance tool that “restructured the Muslim and non-Muslim landownership” (p. 60). The first of its kind in Ottoman history, and later a significant legacy for the Republic of Turkey, it allowed Muslim local rulers to register land that formerly belonged to non-Muslim subjects under their name (pp. 59, 63). The author emphasizes that this “denial of coevalness of Armenians living in the provinces” violated the reform edict’s stipulations of equal rights (pp. 63–64).
Violent measures of governance, described as “provincial oppression” in an 1868 petition from Cilician Armenians, were aimed at the dispersal, forced exile, dispossession, and impoverishment of the Armenian rural population in favor of the newly settled Muslim migrants (Circassians, Turkmen, Kurds; pp. 69–74). Suciyan argues that these violent measures were the forerunners of “the Hamidian massacres in the 1890s and the massacre in 1909” (p. 75). Increasingly disenfranchised, Armenians of the provinces testifying against Muslim oppression were either disregarded or criminalized by the Nizamiye courts (p. 77). The prevailing impunity of oppression by Muslim landlords, for example in Dersim’s Çarsancak region (pp. 77–79), caused the Armenian patriarchate to advocate in support of its desperate population before the Sublime Porte. Other widespread measures of oppression by the Muslim rural population and Ottoman officials included the restriction of access to natural resources (water, land; p. 87); heavy and unjust taxation; abduction; forced Islamization; and murder. As a consequence, the Armenians of the provinces suffered from a situation offering them “no security for life, property or honor” (p. 107).
Chapter 3 offers a revealing examination of the relationship between the Armenian and Rum millets, the two largest Christian populations. Suciyan demonstrates that the two millets’ solidarity and mutual support depended on their numerical ratio in the respective province. If the population of one of the two millets was significantly higher, such as in Heraklion and Erzurum, the more powerful millet’s administration would support the weaker. However, in most of the provinces they competed with each other—a situation that was clearly instigated and utilized by the Ottoman government. On the subject of Rum–Armenian relations, Suciyan discusses a petition in 1859 by an Armenian who became physically disabled as a result of an attack by his Rum coworkers in Samsun. Beyond seeking social support from the Armenian patriarchate’s administration for himself and his family, he strove for justice by asking for a court hearing that would summon him and his former colleagues. This was difficult because it meant a court hearing between different Christian millets (pp. 112–14). In another petition, in 1868, a Rum prisoner addressed his plea for release to the Armenian prelacy in Giresun (pp. 115–16). Most issues which arose between the Rum and Armenian millets concerned cases of apostasy.
In chapter 4, Suciyan provides a much-needed comprehensive overview of the functioning of the Armenian patriarchate in Constantinople. Examining various types of trials that the patriarchate administered for the Armenian population, she explains that juridical entitlements were not limited to family law, but extended to tax and land law. With recourse to the patriarch’s legislative function, the Armenian administration’s juridical institution settled disputes both between Armenians and Muslims, and between different millets, such as Armenian and Rum. She reveals how juridical functions of the Armenian patriarchate were entangled with Ottoman industrialist progress. The latter advanced at the expense of forced labor of Armenian criminals and enslaved children at the imperial yarn factory in Constantinople (pp. 145–47). Suciyan argues that the Armenian hospital Surp Pirgiç served as a place of detention for criminals and people with physical and psychological disabilities (p. 136). Court hearings testify to the agency of Armenian women trying to resist oppression against all odds (pp. 159–60).
This book is a treasure trove for scholars of Ottoman and Armenian history, presenting a comprehensive exploration of the Armenian patriarchates’ archival materials from the nineteenth century. In her detailed and multilayered account, Suciyan brings hitherto unheard voices to the fore, unearthing testimonies of the most vulnerable among Ottoman subjects: prisoners, the disabled, and destitute women. Applying a gendered approach, the book provides a nuanced understanding of the Tanzimat period’s devastating impact on the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire’s provinces, presenting history “brushed against the grain.” Suciyan’s study is a welcome addition to existing Tanzimat studies and fills a significant gap in the literature. This highly recommended book is an essential read.
