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Armenian Question


The term "Armenian Question", as used in European history, became commonplace among diplomatic circles and in the popular press after the Congress of Berlin in 1878. As with the Eastern Question, it refers to Europe's involvement with the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, beginning with the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. In specific terms, the Armenian question refers to the protection and the freedoms of Armenians from their neighboring communities. The "Armenian Question" explains the 40 years of Armenian-Ottoman history in the context of English, German, and Russian politics between 1877–1914. The term "Armenian Question" is also often used to refer to the question of Turkey's lack of acknowledgement of the events surrounding the Armenian Genocide.

"If a man is killed in Paris, it is a murder; the throats of fifty thousand people are cut in the East, and it is a question."

Beginning in the mid-19th century, the Great Powers took issue with the Ottoman Empire's treatment of its Christian minorities and increasingly pressured it to extend equal rights to all its citizens. Following the violent suppression of Christians in the uprisings in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Serbia in 1875, the Great Powers invoked the 1856 Treaty of Paris, claiming it provided the authority for their intervention to protect the Ottoman Empire's Christian minorities. By the late 1870s, the Greeks, along with several other Christian nations in the Balkans, frustrated with their conditions, had, with the help of the Powers, broken free of Ottoman rule. The Armenians, on the other hand, received less interest and no support that wasn't later withdrawn from the Great Powers and remained, by and large, stagnant during these years, earning them the title of 'millet-i sadika' or the "loyal millet".


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