Armenians in Turkey (; or ), one of the indigenous peoples of Turkey, have an estimated population of 40,000 to 50,000 today, down from a population of almost 2 million Armenians between the years 1914 and 1921. Today, the overwhelming majority of Turkish Armenians are concentrated in Istanbul. They support their own newspapers, churches and schools, and the majority belong to the Armenian Apostolic faith and a minority of Armenians in Turkey belong to the Armenian Catholic Church, the Armenian Evangelical Church, or are Muslim. They are not considered part of the Armenian diaspora, since they have been living in their historical homeland for more than four thousand years.
Until the Armenian genocide of 1915, most of the Armenian population of Turkey (then the Ottoman Empire) lived in the eastern parts of the country that Armenians call Western Armenia (roughly corresponding to the modern Eastern Anatolia region).
Armenians are one of the four ethnic minorities officially recognized in Turkey, together with Jews, Greeks, and Bulgarians.
In addition to local ethnic Armenians who are Turkish citizens, there are also many recent immigrants from Armenia in Istanbul. Quote"I earn $600 a month, which is more than twice the money I would earn in Armenia" There is also an unknown number of officially Muslim citizens of the Republic of Türkiye who have recently started to identify as Armenians based on their Armenian roots, after being Islamised decades or centuries earlier. They are referred as Hidden Armenians or crypto-Armenians.
History
Armenians living in Turkey today are a remnant of what was once a much larger community that existed for thousands of years, long before the establishment of the Sultanate of Rum. Estimates for the number of Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire in the decade before World War I range between 1.3 (official Ottoman data) and 3 million (independent estimates).
When Constantinople finally became part of the Ottoman Empire, financial support was given to the Apostolic Church by the Sultan, so it could build churches in the city, which prior to that the Byzantines refused as they viewed the church as heretical. Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were viewed as a separate millet, and given the status of second-class citizens, but were not usually mistreated until later in the empire's history. Many Armenians gained significant positions in the empire in professions such as banking, which they almost had a monopoly in. The oldest Turkish company, Zildjian, was founded by an Armenian in the 17th century.
Starting in the late 19th century, political instability, dire economic conditions, and continuing ethnic tensions prompted the emigration of as many as 100,000 Armenians to Europe, the Americas and the Middle East. This massive exodus from the Ottoman Empire is what started the modern Armenian diaspora worldwide.
There was conflict between Armenians, Turks and Kurds between 1892 and 1915. The Armenian genocide/gen_bib1.html Extensive bibliography by University of Michigan on the Armenian genocide followed in 1915–1916 until 1918, during which the Ottoman government of the time ordered the deportation. These measures affected an estimated 75–80% of all the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Many died directly, while others died as a result of dehydration, disease, and starvation during the death marches.
Many of the remaining Armenians in the East found refuge by 1917–1918 in the Caucasus and within the areas controlled by the newly established Democratic Republic of Armenia. They never returned to their original homes in today's Eastern Turkey (composed of six vilayets, Erzurum, Van, Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Mamuretülaziz, and Sivas).
Their descendants are known as Hidden Armenians and are present throughout Western Armenia, but particularly in Dersim (Tunceli). Through the 20th century, an unknown number of Armenians living in the mountainous region of Dersim converted to Alevism. During the Armenian genocide, many of the Armenians in the region were saved by their Kurdish neighbors. According to Mihran Prgiç Gültekin, the head of the Union of Dersim Armenians, around 75% of the population of Dersim are "converted Armenians." He reported in 2012 that over 200 families in Tunceli have declared their Armenian descent, but others are afraid to do so. In April 2013, Aram Ateşyan, the acting Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, stated that 90% of Tunceli's population is of Armenian origin.
Most of the Armenian survivors from Cilicia and the southernmost areas with Armenians like Diyarbakır ended up in northern Syria and the Middle East. All those who survived the death camps in/deportations to Deir ez-Zor ended up there as well. Armenians deported from areas that were under allied control by 1918, particularly the short lived French Mandate, which had control of southeastern Turkey and all of Cilicia according to the Sykes–Picot Agreement, were able to return to their homes to gather things or search for loved ones. After the fall of French Cilicia, Some of those returnees attempted to stay permanently after the Turks gained the territory back, but were all driven away by the early 1930s due to various reasons. Those who left the Mandate ended up in Syria, France, Armenia, the Americas and the rest of Europe. The Armenian population suffered a final blow with ongoing massacres and atrocities throughout the period 1920–1923, during the Turkish War of Independence. Those suffering the most were those Armenians remaining in the east and the south of Turkey, and the Pontic Greeks in the Black Sea Region.
By the end of the 1920s, only a sprinkling of non-converted Armenians left in Turkey were scattered sparsely throughout the country, with the only viable Armenian population remaining in Istanbul and its environs, Diyarbakir and Malatya, with those largely disappearing due to the Turkey-PKK War necessitating their migration to Istanbul. At the time of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Hatay Province was part of Syria, and is why that area still has some established and officially recognized Armenian communities.
Demographics
+ Armenian-speaking population in TurkeyFuat Dündar, Türkiye Nüfus Sayımlarında Azınlıklar, 2000YearAs first languageAs second languageTotalTurkey's population% of total speakers192767,745 –67,74513,629,4880.50193557,5999,78267,38116,157,4500.42194547,72812,35460,08218,790,1740.32195052,7769,32262,09820,947,1880.30195556,2356,08462,31924,064,7630.26196052,75619,44472,20027,754,8200.26196533,09422,26055,35431,391,4210.18
Due to the Armenian Genocide and other events in Turkey during the last century, many Turkish Armenians were killed, forced into hiding, and forcibly converted to Islam, which split them into three potentially overlapping groups: Armenian Christians, Crypto Armenians, and Muslim Armenians. Christian Armenians are usually part of the recognized minority, but the group includes Crypto Armenians who identify as both Armenian and Christian, and Armenian immigrants to Turkey. Crypto Armenians are Armenians who are legally identified as Turks and are either overtly Christian, practice Crypto-Christianity, or practice Islam. Muslim Armenians may openly identify as Armenian, be Crypto Armenians, or may not know about their ethnicity at all.
The combined total of all Armenians in Turkey is unknown, with numbers ranging from as low as 30,000 to several million. However, the combined total of immigrant Armenians and those in the recognized minority is estimated at 150–170,000. In addition, there are 95,000 members of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Armenian Christians The officially recognized Armenian Christian population is estimated to be between 50,000 and 70,000, mostly living in Istanbul and its environs. They are almost always members of the Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic or Armenian Evangelical churches. The number of Armenian Christians is both diminishing due to emigration to Europe, the Americas and Australia, and increasing due to immigrants from Armenia looking for work (who are entirely Christian), and Crypto-Armenians who decide to identify openly as Armenians and convert to Christianity. However, most of that growth is not reflected in official data, because Crypto-Armenians are not listed as part of the recognized Armenian minority due to Turkish laws on the officially recognized (Armenians, Greeks, and Jews) minorities, which doesn't allow newly identified Armenians to change their Turkish identities they were given at birth. As for Armenian immigrants, most are unable to join the minority because they are illegal immigrants. Due to those factors, the de jure number of Armenian Christians is much lower than the de facto amount.
The Armenian minority is recognized as a separate "millet" in the Turkish system and has its own religious, cultural, social and educational institutions along with a distinct media. The Turkish Armenian community struggles to keep its own institutions, media and schools open due to diminishing demand from emigration and quite considerable economic sacrifices.
Immigration from Armenia The Christian Armenian presence in Turkey is reinforced by a constant flow of mostly illegal immigrants from Armenia who settle in Turkey in search of better job opportunities, where the difference in pay can be quite significant. Despite a negative public opinion in Armenia of "an Armenian who works for a Turk", by 2010 Turkish officials estimated there were between 22,000 and 25,000 Armenian citizens living illegally in Istanbul alone, and 100,000 living illegally in all of Turkey. Conversely, in 2009 the researcher Alin Ozinian estimated the number of Armenians living illegally in Turkey to be 12,000 to 13,000. Aris Nalci, a journalist working for the newspaper Agos, gave a similar estimate in 2010 of between 12,000 and 14,000.
Many of them are employed in Turkish households to provide domestic services, such as cooking and cleaning.Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan. . In a 2009 interview poll of 150 Armenian migrant workers, the majority of respondents were women from the Shirak Province, in Northwest Armenia. In 2010, amid Armenia's push for the recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide as a genocide, Prime Minister Erdoğan threatened to deport the illegal immigrants back to Armenia,Suna Erdem. Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatens to expel 100,000 illegal Armenians. The Times. 18 March 2010. Retrieved 8 September 2011. however the situation gradually thawed. Some Armenian immigrants do not discuss ever returning to their homeland having adapted to life in Turkey. Beginning in 2011, children of the Armenian citizens living illegally in Istanbul have been allowed to attend local Armenian minority schools, but as they are not Turkish citizens, they do not receive diplomas at the end of the school term.Armenian Children to Be Educated . Hürriyet. 2 September 2011. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
Regions with Armenian Christians Istanbul
The Armenian community of Istanbul is the largest in Turkey, a catalyst being due to the fact that it was the only place that Armenian Christians were at least somewhat protected at the time of the creation of Turkey post Armenian genocide. Other factors included the Patriarchate having its headquarters in the city, and the city's economy and quality of life attracting Armenian immigrants which allowed for the community to keep stable numbers in the face of discrimination and constant migration.