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Post by Vizier of Oz on Aug 3, 2009 14:58:29 GMT -5
claims of 2 million and I have seen claims on Tall Armenian Tale of upto 2.5 million seem quite high, there is quite a difference between a hundred thousand or more and 2 to 2 and half million. if numbers do not matter then what is reason such high figures are claimed. again as I asked where is proof of such numbers. no I do not know myself what were the numbers, just as I said I havn't seen any well presented hard proof to indicate it was 2 million. if this is what is claimed by any authority or historian or person I am very interested to see by what evidence. I have no information on the claims of certain Internet sites. However, I could tell you that the number of Turks/Muslims killed accounts more than a few hundred thousand civilians. Genocide Convention does not take the citizenship issue into account, so it does not matter whether members of a certain group are the citizens of*given state or not. What matters is the intention. If one intends to destroy that certain group, then it is genocide. If not, it is not. There was no suspicion. The Christian groups were sure of the demise of the empire, and therefore, all of those sought external support for building their own national states, just like it was staged in Balkans between 1877-1913. That is right, there was no safe guards left to trust in the Armenian populations for an empire that was falling apart, that is why, the Ottoman government tired to get rid off the Armenians by deporting them out of Anatolia. However, not all Armenians were deported. For example, Muslim Armenians of Hemshinli were not deported since those were not seen as some Christian ally. Most Catholic Armenians were not subject to deportation. Thus, the Armenian masses of Istanbul and Izmir were not deported. Moreover, perhaps more than a hundred thousand Armenians who converted to Islam also evaded deportation.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Aug 3, 2009 2:07:25 GMT -5
Its sounds like teories. There were so many people that mixed with the Volga Bulgars that it is imposible to be sure they were Turkic. So many people came after their state fell and mixed with Volga Bulgars. Also, when the Bulgars came to Volga they deffinately mixed with the previous populace there too. There is great deal of evidence suggesting development of sicentific axioms. For example, if the Bulgarians were not Turkic and more adnvanced than the Oghuz or Khazars, then why did they use the Turkish alphabet or believed in Turkish "Sky God" or titled themselves as Khans? If you are really related to the Eastern Bolgars, then why you do speak a Slavic language instead of a Bolgaric one like the Christian Chuvash? If I am wrong, then why does even CIA site on Bulgaria refers to the ancient Bulgars as the Turkics? ;D
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Aug 3, 2009 1:56:36 GMT -5
Janni, can you count how many times you have posted these sources so far? It seems as if "not enough times". ;D
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Aug 3, 2009 1:49:26 GMT -5
Spirit of Tartary , what say you ? did Armenians kill 2 million Turks ? if so when and where ? Thracian you talk as if WW1 was a war between Turkey and Armenia. Armenians did not represent all the peoples Turkey/Ottomans was at war with. Thracian Turkey was at war on several fronts so in total of course more Turks died than Armenians but if you look at it from the percentage of Armenians that died in the context of the former Armenian population of the region then thats a different situation. Also the majority of those Armenians that died were non combatants. The numbers do not matter since the figures about Ottoman populations are not accurately accounted prior to the war. There are some estimation and assumptions, but not real numbers. In my opinion, what matters is the intention. The Armenians were sure of the demise of the Ottomans after the Balkan War. When Russia entered the war, bulk of the East Anatolian Armenians started to work for their national causes since they had good examples for comparison, such as the independence and expansion of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia with the help of Russia and European powers back in 1877-1913 period. Thus, there was already a " Russian Armenia" in Caucasus (after the war of 1877-1878), and there were like 100.000 Armenians fighting for the Russian army. When the war broke out, the very first thing that the Armenians and the Russians did was starting to kill the local Muslim populations. Do you know how many peoples those Armenian-Russian forces killed? I do not know any certain numbers, but in my opinion, they must have killed hundreds of thousands in the region. Most importantly, they must have caused some mass emigration of Muslims from the region. Which must have involved perhaps millions to flee from the region due to fear of massacre, and there must have been perhaps hundreds of thousands who died due to hunger and disaese amongst those who fled. Nonetheless,such issues are ignored by the Armenian Genocide lobbyists intentionally since such historical facts erode their claims of genocide. Finally, in my opinion, please note that death percentage of the Armenians must have been higher than the Turks/Muslims since the Armenians were the ones who suffered from the lack of external support of the British, French and particularly the Russians. However, it should be stressed that the civilians losses do not count as genocide irrespective of percentages, of course as long as the context of political struggle between nations involve deployment of armed forces. For example, the British-Ameircans planes bombed cities of Germany during the WWII, and killed perhaps millions of civilians. Can we now talk about a genocide of Germans because of such bombings?
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Aug 3, 2009 1:20:28 GMT -5
Its just a historic fact. It is not. What you point out is how the Western/European nations interpret a certain period in history, but certainly not the historical facts.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Aug 3, 2009 1:14:09 GMT -5
we obviously have different opinions. I know its not pleasant to think that someone's ancestors can be guilty of doing these actions. But history cannot be rewritten... If the germans can acknowledge what they did...so can the turks. I understand your opinion of why it happened....i just dont agree with it. Thats all.. Germans can acknowledge? German surrendered without condition and accepted all the terms stipulated, and although the Russians and Americans commited horroble crimes during the WWII, they have not yet acknowledged any. Not a good example. Give us another if you can.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Aug 3, 2009 1:01:09 GMT -5
Let us look what happens in advanced (!) Malaysia when a woman drinks a bottle of beer: Muslim woman to be flogged in Malaysia over beer By JULIA ZAPPEI Associated Press Jul 21,
An Islamic court in Malaysia has sentenced a Muslim woman to be flogged with a rattan cane for having a beer in a nightclub, a court official said Tuesday.www.newser.com/article/d99im9n01/muslim-woman-to-be-flogged-in-malaysia-over-beer.htmlMalaysia's Islam is sham, and its backwardness (similar of Saudia Arabia, Afghanstan and Iran) helps anti-Islamic circles to conduct their wicked propaganda.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 31, 2009 8:42:56 GMT -5
In this extract there are so many maybes that I feel like its a sciencefiction I m reading. I am sure you feel like science fiction, but it is not how most interprets the history of Eastern Bulgars. History of the Volga Bulgars, 626-1236 The Khanate of Great Bulgaria was established in the Volga and lower Don basin in 626 by the Bulgars, descendants of the Huns. By 651 the Bulgarians had been subjugated by the KHAZARS, the Bulgarians splitting up in three groups, the Danube Bulgarians, the Onogur Bulgars inhabiting the steppes of Ukraine, and the Volga Bulgars. Later in the 8th century the Khazar Khanate disintegrated, and the Volga Bulgarians formed a separate Khanate, centering on the city of BOLGAR on the Volga river. It survived the invasions of the Magyars and Patzinaks, who took over the Ukrainian steppe in the 9th century.
In pagan times, the Bulgars had used an ancient Turkic script called GOKTURK. In 922, the Bulgarian assembly decided to adopt Islam; the Arabic script was introduced. Mosks were built, schools set up. The capital, Bolgar, surpassed western European cities in size and splendor. A Volga Bulgarian literature emerged in the 12th century.
Volga Bulgaria was in close contact with the Arab world, but also with Kievan Rus. Viking traders passed through the country. The Khanate was ravaged by the Tatar invasion of 1230 and conquered by the Tatars in 1236. It became part of the territory of the GOLDEN HORDE, later the KHANATE OF KAZAN. Today the region is called TATARSTAN. www.zum.de/whkmla/region/russia/volgabulg.htmlThe Hunogur/Bulgars were displaced from the Caucasus by the Sabirs and other Hun tribes, and migrated northwards to the steppes of Southern Russia, though some of them settled in Armenia. Their heritage in the Caucasus is represented today by some peoples in Daghestan and mainly by the Karachay and Balkar, both of them associated with Circassian tribes in autonomous politic entities [Kabardino-Balkarskaya and Karachayevo-Cherkesskaya].
The relics of Hun burials and typical Hun monuments have been found in the territory of both these republics. These peoples are the rich mixture of different Hun/Hunogur/Bulgar tribes, with the contribution of Khazars. Indeed, one of the Khazar tribes called "Basi" or "Bas" is reflected in the name of a legendary Balkarian hero, Basiat, and in the way Georgians call Balkarians, Basiani. According to many scholars, Khazars and Bulgars were almost the same people and spoke one language.www.imninalu.net/Huns.htmWhere do the Bolgars of the Volga come from? As early as AD 550, Gothic annals mention the Turkic tribes of Bolgars living to the north of the Black Sea. The powerful state of the Bolgars in the Black Sea area held out in the wars with Byzantium, but fell under the pressure of the Turkic Khazars, a vanished people, who dominated much of Eurasia in the seventh century. From the descendants of these tribes who went wandering over Europe came the Balkan Bulgars, the Volga Bulgars, and even the Caucasia tribes of Balkars, Kumyks and Karachaevs.www.kcn.ru/tat_en/history/capital.html Eastern Bulgars The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright
Eastern Bulgars , Turkic-speaking people, who possessed a powerful state (10th-14th cent.) at the confluence of the Volga and the Kama, E European Russia. The Bulgars appeared on the Middle Volga by the 8th cent. and became known as the Eastern, Volga, or Kama Bulgars. Another branch of the same people moved west into present Bulgaria and merged with the Slavs. The Eastern Bulgars accepted Islam in the 10th cent. From the 10th to the 12th cent. the Bulgar state was at the height of its power. Its chief city, the Great Bulgar, was a prosperous trade center. Destroyed by the Mongols in 1237, the state flourished again until it was conquered by Timur in 1361. It finally disappeared after its capture by the grand duke of Moscow in 1431. The modern Tatars and Chuvash may be descended from the Eastern Bulgars. The Great Bulgar and the Bulgars themselves are sometimes called Bulgari or Bolgari. www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Eastern_Bulgars.aspxUnder the command of Bulgar [Turkic] boyars [Slavic word for military commanders or leaders] or Hunnic chieftains, they drifted even further southwest, forming what was to become a great Christian tsardom "Bulgaria". In the two centuries up to about 700, the south Slavic villagers in the lower Danube valley "Slavicized" their Turkic boyars, filled the countryside of what is modern-day Bulgaria, and founded a powerful Christian Bulgarian tsardom [W] and [MAP]
*--The Turkic Bulgars who did not move into the Danube valley, who held to the wild eastern steppes, were split off from the Danube Bulgars and eventually pushed by Khazar expansion northward up the Volga valley in the lands around the city Kazan where they formed a significant Islamic or Muslim Bolgar khanate [W] = www.uoregon.edu/~kimball/sac.0000.1682.htm
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 31, 2009 5:39:40 GMT -5
Janny - be man enough and admit your bu.ls**t. And you pretend to be Bulgar? One time saying one thing next time another. Pff.. I am a Karachay-Balkar. Did I tell you anything else? I did not. Who are the Karachay-Balkars then? Some reading for you: Bulgarian tribes lived in Northern Caucasus from II century BC This follows from the written documents, but, taking into account that various tribes get fixed in the written sources not in the very moment they appear on that territory but much later, when they take a significant part in some historical events, it should be suggested that Bulgarians lived in Caucasus much earlier.
From III to VI century, there existed a Hun state in North-Eastern Caucasus, in Seaside Daghestan, from which Khazar Kahanat originated, later including almost all the Turk tribes of Northern Caucasus and the South of Russia. In VVI centuries, an old Bulgarian state called in the Byzantine texts the "Great Bulgaria" formed in North-Western Caucasus, and first of all along Kuban (Fig. 11). Thus, Northern Caucasus of IIIVI centuries was controlled by two Turk state conglomerates: that of Huns in the North-East, and the Bulgarian state in the North-West of Fore-Caucasus.
In VVI centuries, the whole steppe Eurasia was engaged in permanent wars between the two largest associations of Turk tribes, the Eastern Kahanat in the depths of Central and Middle Asia and the Western Kahanat on the West of Sir-Daria and Ural, up to Danube and Northern Caucasus.
But internecine wars for superiority were also waged between the major kins within each of Kahanat. In the West-Turk Kahanat, it were the Ashina and Dulo kins. Their fighting in 630631 significantly weakened this power and enabled some tribes to get free from the dominance of the Kahanat. Bulgarians were among the first to seize this opportunity, and they behaved as an independent tribe union already in 582584.
Their leader was a rather far-sighted prince Kubrat. He was baptized and educated in Byzanth, where he lived for many years and had close connections with the court of Konstantinopolis and, as a Bulgarian governor, pursued his own policy protecting Bulgarians against the increasing Khazar power. Konstantinopolis also needed a reliable buffer separating it from the Khazars on the Eastern boundaries.
In 635, Kubrat united all the Asov and Fore-Caucasian Bulgarian tribes in an integral Great Bulgaria. Overall government of Kubrat is dated by 584642. The written sources, coming from Byzanth, where Kubrat was always received with warmth and hospitality, tell that he ruled for almost 60 years.
In the very beginning of VII century, powerful Khazar conglomerate overrode Bulgarians. After the death of Kubrat, his sons Batbai, Kotrag and Asparukh separated, each settling in his own land with the subject tribes: Asparukh lived on Danube, on the territory of the former Scythia Minor, where Attila once dominated; Kotrag went up-river along Don and then to Volga, to the territory where the ancient nomadic culture of pra-Turk tribes formed somewhere deep in millennia. The eldest son of Kubrat, Batbai (Batian, Basian) remained in the native fatherland and soon surrendered to Khazars (Fig. 12).
According to Khazars themselves, as well as the scientists, experts in Khazar history, and Byzantine and Oriental authors, Khazars and Bulgarians were practically the same people and spoke one language. Medieval texts say that there were four kins of Caucasian or Kuban Bulgarians: Kupi-Bulgarians, Duchi-Bulgarians, Oghondor-Bulgarians, Chdar-Bulgarians. Noting that ancient Turk tribes often called themselves by the names of the rivers, scientists see the reflection of this tradition in these names too. But the guesses do not usually go beyond that one should mean Kuban Bulgarians under Kupi-Bulgarians, and there is no convincing explanation for the remaining terms. We suppose that Oghondor-Bulgarians were some Turk tribes living on the river Orkhon and later assimilated by Bulgarians. Duchi-Bulgarians are read by some authors as Kuchi-Bulgarians. In this case their name means the Turk tribes living on rivers Ku (Swan) and Chu. It might be the tribes Ku-kishi and Chu-kishi, i. e. "people from Ku and Chu".
Some authors relate the name of Bulgarian tribe "Utigor" to the ethnonym of Digorians, who, by the words of Oriental scientists Rashid ad-Din and Makhmud of Kashgar, were a branch of Oguz Turks. In the "tsocking" dialect of Karachai-Balkarians and Digor languages, the word Chdar would sound as Tsdar (or Star, Stur). But this word means "big" (as in the name of a Digor settlement "Stur-Digora"--Big Digora). So, the name Chdar-Bulgaria must means "Bulgaria Major", which is equivalent to "Ullu Malkar", i. e. Great Malkar (Great Balkaria). www.karachai.com/chapt5.html
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 31, 2009 2:30:41 GMT -5
I have a question for Tartar. What's the historical relations between Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia? Basically, the transcaucasian countries and even central asian(? I want to know who has been historical foes and friends? There was no Armenia when Ottomans conquered the region. In fact, Armenia was sometimes independent kingdoms in Eastern Anatolia, but mostly those were the vassals of the Roman and Byzantine, Turkish, Russian and Persian Empires. However, there were Armenian peoples all over Anatolia when Seljuk Turks arrived, and Armenians kept on proliferating all over Anatolia during the Ottoman Era. Azerbaijan is what is left from Khanate of Yerevan, which was the khanate of the descendants of the Seljuk Turks who conquered the region back in 11th Century. Today, Azerbaijan has tough relations with Armenia. Azeri Turks were used to be called as the Tatars even in early 20th Century, and in early 19th Century, Azeri Turks and local Muslims used to constitute the majority in Yerevan (now the capital of Armenia). Why this happened? As the Crimean Khanate was annexed by Russia in 1783 following the war of 1768-1772, the Khanate's principilaties in Cuacasus also feel into the Russian control within less than a century. The first genocidal act took place within days of the declaration of Crimea's annexation by Tsarina Catherine II. At the end of April 1783, several thousand Crimean Tatar intellectuals, military officers and clergy were rounded up in Karasubazar and killed. The whole early 1800s marked a period of genocide and ethnic cleansing targeting the Crimean Tatars and aiming at wiping out their culture, intellectual heritage as well as physical presence from the Crimean Peninsula.[2] Following the Crimean War (1853-1856), by the summer of 1860, the flight of Tatars from the terror in Crimea had turned the once flourishing peninsula into a "torched earth" landscape.[3]users.jyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/2004/terrorism.htmEarly in 19th Century, today's Dagestan was fully annexed, then Russians invaded today's Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Back then the region was a part of the Qajar dynasty of Iran. That dynasy was another Turkish dynasy of the Seljuk Turks of Iran. After the Crimean War, the Circassians, Karachay-Balkars, Kumyks, Nogais, Chechens, Abazins, Inghus got the hit of the Russians, and roughly 1.5 million of them were forced to flee to the Ottoman Empire whilst hundreds of thousands of them died due to violence, hunger and disease on their way. In the meantime, the Russians encouraged Ottoman Armenians to settle in Caucasus near Yerevan. In a time less than a century, the Russian Armenia's population reached more one million level, and the Ottoman Armenians started actively supporting the Russian policies in the region after the war of 1877-1878. What happened first to the Crimean Tatars, stroke next the Circassians in the 1860s. An unprecedented genocide and wave of terror aimed at emptying the whole Caucasus from Circassians. Russia started a mass expulsion in Circassia in 1860, with catastrophic consequences. Unlike the Tatars, who chose the exile and fled from the dar al-harb, the Circassians put up armed resistance, fortified their capital, Sochi, and made appeals to Turkey and the West to gain recognition for independent Circassia. After having forcibly halted the exodus of Crimean Tatars, in 1862, Russia launched terror campaign, massacres and targeted famine against Circassians, and by May 1864, the Circassian resistance movement had been crushed. In 1865, Russia spread the terror campaign against Chechens. By the 1880s, more than three million Circassians (up to 90 % of the population) as well as hundreds of thousands of Chechens, Abkhazians, Georgian Muslims and other Caucasians had been forced to emigrate to Turkey in the proportionally most massive ethnic cleansing of the time. The number of those directly killed has not been properly investigated.users.jyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/2004/terrorism.htmToday the Russian province of Erivan is the main part of the Armenian Republic but in the 1820s Turkish Muslims made up the majority of its population. The Armenian population whose descendants would live in the Armenian Republic were in the 1820s scattered over the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia. In 1826, the Russians began a great forced exchange of population that was to create an Armenia in Erivan and cause great suffering to both the Turks and Armenians The ongoing exchange of population changed the demographic picture of the East and caused great hardship and hatred on both sides. If blame were to be assigned to anyone it would be to the Russian imperialists, but the hatred that developed was between the Muslims and the Armenians. By the end of the nineteenth century sides had been drawn... As the Russians advanced both Turks and Armenians were gradually drawn into the conflict that had its bloody conclusion in the First World War. (pp.334,5)www.humanities.ualberta.ca/ottoman/module4/lecture4.htmFor the reasons explained above, Armenians have tough relations with Azeris, and other Cuacasus Muslims since they were the Russian allies since the mid 19th Century. The Georgians were always around and they had their kingdoms too, and Gerogia was mostly a place of interest for bigger empires like the Persian, Roman, Ottoman and Russian ones. Russia annexed Gerogia in early 19th Century, and remained there until 1990s. Today, Turkey and Azerbaijan have friendly relations with Georgia whilst Armenia has some problems due to Armenian claims on some portion of Georgia.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 31, 2009 1:58:37 GMT -5
Not to burst your bubble but the Western European states have absolutely nothing to do with the Armenian genocide. Leave the west out of it. That is what they wish so. However, it is not the correct way of interpetating of history. If one asks them, they might even tell that they are the ultimate version of an advanced cultural formation. Now tell me: How could an advanced culture exterminate hundreds of millions since the Modern Ages? How could an advanced culture possess tens of thousands of weapons of mass destruction? How could an advanced culture lead the world to the verge an enviromental disaster?
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 31, 2009 1:03:48 GMT -5
Also some quotes and facts about the Armenian genocide. When Hitler first proposed his final solution, he was told that the world would never permit such a mass murder. Hitler silenced his advisers by asking, "Who remembers the Armenians?" . That is a quite funny quote. Hitler remembers, Lemkin remembers, the Western/European nations remember, and you remember too. Who is left out? The Turks recall, but bulk of people living in Turkey has different way of interpreting the events. For example, about 5-6 million Ottoman civilians were exterminated whilst 7-8 million Ottoman Muslims were forced to flee to Anatolia between 1783-1922. Those people did not only embody Turk and Turkics, but also other populations, such as Bosnians, Albanians (as Avlonyali Bey correctly points out), Pomaks, Muslim Greeks, Circassians, Chechens, Abazin, Ignush peoples, and Kurds. Who did initiate this process?The European/Western states. Who remembers those Muslim victims now? Obviously not the ones who still promote the idea of the "Armenian Genocide" as the first genocide of the 20th Century. Was there any serious threat arising from the Ottoman Armenians during the WWI? As far as what happened during the wars of 1877-1878 and 1912-1913 is concerned, one could easily conclude that there was: In 1877 and 1878 the Russians made use in Bulgaria of all the tactics they had perfected in the Caucasus. Their official agents were the Cossacks and sometimes other army units. To these were joined Bulgarian revolutionaries and Bulgarian peasants eager to seize the lands, crops and cattle of the Turks. The tactics were once again those of state terror. In a typical Turkish village, Cossacks would disarm the villagers, then surround the village and shoot all but a few who tried to escape. Hemmed in, the Turks were attacked by Bulgarians, who murdered the inhabitants... The scenes recorded by European diplomats equal any pictures of inhumanity and horror in history....www.humanities.ualberta.ca/ottoman/module4/lecture4.htmDetailed eyewitness reports collected by British diplomats revealed a more complex pattern of attack in which both Russian Cossacks and local Bulgarians drove out Bulgarian Muslims. One of the most striking examples came from Balvan, a village in north central Bulgaria. British Vice Consul Edmund Calvert collected much of the evidence about Balvan from Muslim refugees who escaped to the south. The war reached Balvan when Cossacks arrived on July 7 and demanded that residents surrender their arms. The villagers complied, but the next day two more squadrons of Cossacks arrived, this time accompanied by two thousand to three thousand Bulgarians from nearby villages, armed with hatchets, clubs, and guns. The mob plundered the village, taking away cattle and seizing valuables. "They then set the village on fire," driving those who tried to escape " back into the flames." All the while, "the Cossacks, who formed an outer cordon around the village, looked on quietly." The attack on Balvan was not unique. Similar attacks were made on villages both north and south of the Balkan mountain range. As Cossacks surrounded the village of Btikltimtik, Bulgarians took the men to a barn, which they set on fire, shooting at those who tried to escape. On July 29, only days before Turkish troops recaptured the village, Bulgarians and Cossacks set fire to houses containing the village's women and children. soc.world-journal.net/pastblanket.htmlThe Armenian Genocide is sometimes wrongly referred to as ‘the first European genocide of the twentieth century’. Yet in the Balkan wars of 1912-1913, the Christian states of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro partitioned the Ottoman territories in Europe and slaughtered or expelled much of the Muslim population in the process. As the journalist Leon Trotsky, who reported on the Balkan Wars, wrote at the time, ‘the Bulgars in Macedonia, the Serbs in Old Serbia, in their national endeavour to correct data in the ethnographical statistics that are not quite favourable to them, are engaged quite simply in systematic extermination of the Muslim population in the villages, towns and districts[.]’ The ethnic cleansing practised by the Christian Balkan states acted as a decisive influence on the CUP to adopt similar methods. www.henryjacksonsociety.org/stories.asp?id=301These acts of killing and explusion culminated in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, when Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro finally destroyed the Ottoman Empire in Europe. According to Justin McCarthy (Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, Darwin Press, Princeton, 1996, p. 164), the Balkan Wars resulted in the death of 27% of the Muslim population of the Ottoman territories conquered by the Christian Balkan states - 632,408 people.[/i] henryjacksonsociety.org/stories.asp?pageid=49&id=691Why did the Armenians were deported?Let us recall by using Western Sources: Nov. 15 1914 - Turks defeat Russian battalion at copper mine south of Batumi, but Russian Turkestan Corps reinforced the Caucasus Corps, resumed offensive. Russians gave supplies to a volunteer Armenian division, raised from the 1 million Armenians living in Russia, that raided the region and killed 120,000 Turkish civilians. On Nov. 30, the Czar inspected the front and praised the Armenian Catholicos, saying "a brilliant future awaits the Armenians." history.sandiego.edu/gen/ww1/1915b.htmlIn that documentary you watched, did anyone mention those 120.00 Turks exterminated in late 1914 and early 1915? Did anybody say anything about the Armenian Militias fighting in tandem with Russian troops?Another large democide component is that calculated for the Armenian irregulars with Russian forces when they invaded Turkey. These irregulars no doubt massacred Moslem Turks and Kurds in retaliation for the Turk massacres of Armenians reported in Chapter 5.2 But how many? The only sources I could find on this were from Moslem Turk and Iranian sources (lines 101 and 102), neither inclined to be even-handed about Armenians. Note that the one from a former Iranian Ambassador to Turkey (line 102) gives a figure of over 600,000 Kurds killed in the Eastern vilayets of Turkey, or almost 58 percent of all Moslem Kurd and Turk deaths in six Eastern vilayets, including those dead from disease and famine during the war.3www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP12.HTMHe coined the term "genocide" for extermination of the Jews, in order to draw comparison, he utilized the idea of "Terrible Turk" commonly used as a tool in the West. For example, although Belgium exterminated 10-15 million civilians in Congo between 1890s-1910s, he did not interpret these events as "genocide". Instead, he named the Africans as some savages, and stressed that the colonization of Africans and native Americans was a necessary step to be taken to civilize the savages. He was quite a pioneer indeed! Recently in 21st Century, the US and the Western/European allies invaded a foriegn country (namely Iraq), and dierctly and indirectly killed more than a million peoples. What is that really? That is only the tip of an iceberg in terms of number of such crimes perpetriated by the Western/European states since the Modern Ages.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 30, 2009 9:27:01 GMT -5
Janny.....you are further digging yourself in the hole. Are these your words below? Yeap, my words on how many scholars view the Bolgar elite. ;D
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 30, 2009 9:26:02 GMT -5
Janny. Up to that point you haven't made any sense and valuable comment. All you do is avoiding direct answer in a form of a "slightly irritating joke". Typically you. You haven't answer any of my questions - I understand you - since you can't you try to cover up things with such comments. I am not taking you seriously. Ok. let me try to answer it once again. ;D The Bolgars who moved toward west must have encountered Slav populations. Initially, there were probably small number of Slavs, but later on, there must be some Slavs and local around with whom Bolgars merged. Some scholars believe that the Turkic-Bolgars were already an elite minority back in early 8th Century. In my opinion, the Slavization of Bolgars was a gradual process that took place in the forthcoming centuries. Why did some Bolgars settle in Balkans and why did some other ther Bolgar tibes moved toward the Volga basin? It was due to Khazar pressure, and Slavs were not a party to the Khazar-Bolgar conflict. Why did the Bolgars were successful against the Byzantine Empire? Because, the Byzantines had been suffering pressure arising from different directions. It is probable that the new battle techniques introduced by Bolgars might have surprised the Byzantines initially, or the Byzantines needed some buffer zone in the Balkans. Dont worry, Atan. I am not a Danube Bulgarian. I am a Karachay-Balkar Turk, or an Eastern Bolgar, in other words, the direct descendant of the Bolgar, Cuman and Alan tribes merged in Caucasus.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 30, 2009 0:35:41 GMT -5
Tough one. Why do you call yourself Bulgar when you are not? Ruse, Ruse, Ruse, I am a Karachay-Balkar, in other words an ethnic Turk, period. However, I know that the ancestors of the Karachay-Balkars were the Bolgars who settled in Caucasus and found the Great Bolgaria. In a sense, you should thank my great great ancestors for providing you a country and a name. ;D You can say anything you wish, you are allowed to do so.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 29, 2009 3:32:26 GMT -5
I am not wishing to skip details here, I am responding to something that was said/written here. I am not myself trying to go over the whole subject which is quite complex in just a few sentences, if you read what I wrote you should see that. I think Thracian later on corrected her views. My point is very simple. The preseuction of Armenians or any other Christan subjects, can not be fully comprehended without examining the dissolving era of 1783-1922. In onder to understand the scope of crimes commited during that dissolving period, one must understand the impact of so called " European Enlighment" of the 17th and 18th centuries, not only on Ottoman history, but also all around the world as Thracian hinted by pointing out the situation of the Blacks or Native Americans. Back in early 1900s, many nations did not exist. For example, Australians and New Zelanders celebrate the Anzac Day to mark the birth of their Anzac nation. Similarly, Ottomans did interpret their external world as Muslims, Jews, Christians and others until their final collapse. Thus, the Ottoman Empire was a retreating state of an already defeated Muslim World back then, and their major enemies were mainly the Christian dominated states. So, one can not really blame the Ottomans for defending their own existence. If you suggest that there was no serious threat posed on Ottomans, then it is fine, but bear in mind that the wars of 1877-1878 and 1912-1913 proved the fact that there was serious threat targeting the civilian Muslim population in areas at where Christian citizens of the empire also live by. After all, it is important to remember that it was Russian-Armenian forces which started to eliminate the local Muslim population in the openning stages of the WWI. Ottomans for sure tied to eliminate that threat by utilizing " identical war techniques" introduced by the European Forces back in Cuacaus, Crimea, Balkans, and Africa. Of course, this placed an impact on European psyche since prosecution of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians demonstrated the fact that European/Civilized (Christian in European thinking) populations can also be prosecuted by some thug states of the modern era. Only destruction of the European Jews has a similar impact, but far worse crimes (in terms of scope) commited by the Europeans never have been the magnet of the European interest.
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 29, 2009 1:40:34 GMT -5
Armenian Leader Urges "Real Steps" From Turkey On Mending TiesYEREVAN, Armenia (AFP)--Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian said Tuesday he won't accept an invitation to visit neighbouring Turkey unless the government there takes "real steps" at mending fraught ties. As part of recent efforts aimed at ending decades of enmity between the two neighbours, Turkish President Abdullah Gul has invited Sarkisian to attend a World Cup qualifying football match between the countries' national teams in Turkey in October. Gul attended a first match between the teams last year, becoming the first Turkish leader to visit Armenia. "I will only accept this invitation if previously made agreements are fulfilled, if there are real steps. I will visit Turkey if we have re-opened the borders and if we are on the verge of an end to the blockade," Sarkisian said at a press conference with Serbian President Boris Tadic. "We expect that we will soon see constructive steps our (Turkish) colleagues will make to create the conditions for the Armenian president's visit," he said. Gul's visit to Armenia last year kicked off a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at normalising relations. After months of talks, Armenia and Turkey said in April that they had agreed to a road map for normalising ties, but there have been few signs of progress since the announcement. Turkey has refused to establish diplomatic links with Armenia over Yerevan's efforts to have World War I-era massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks recognised as genocide - a label Turkey strongly rejects. Turkey also closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with ally Azerbaijan over Yerevan's backing of ethnic Armenian separatists in the breakaway Nagorno Karabakh region. www.easybourse.com/bourse/actualite/armenian-leader-urges-real-steps-from-turkey-on-709193
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 29, 2009 1:38:23 GMT -5
Juliette Lewis likes Istanbul's varietyBy Jae-Ha Kim | Tribune Media Services July 27, 2009 Juliette Lewis has a reputation for being somewhat of a wild child. But the 36-year-old actress-singer says she is mellower than people would think. "I would rather be on the road with my band or traveling than out partying," Lewis said. The actress, who co-stars with Drew Barrymore in "Whip It!" and stars opposite Jennifer Aniston in next year's "The Baster," opens for the Pretenders on a U.S. tour kicking off Aug. 5 (myspace.com/juliettelewis ). Her new album, "Terra Incognita," will be in stores Sept. 9. "‘Terra Incognita' means unknown territory, and that was my whole mission with this record—to do something different," Lewis said. "The songs stem from my travels. To me, this record is really diverse, haunting, beautiful and eclectic." Q What is your favorite vacation destination? A I loved Istanbul, Turkey. The people are lovely. It's a multicultural town and is really rich in art and music. There are all these really great coffee and tea shops. I had seen "Midnight Express" and the scenes of the Turkish prisons—and I guess that shows you how much cinema can impact your views. ... I had no idea about the real political structure and how they treat females, and I was a little apprehensive before my trip. If you're open to discovery, you can really learn a lot about the world. I found Istanbul to be in the realm of New York or Paris. It was beautiful. Q Where are your favorite weekend getaways? A As a native Californian, I find that as I get older, I'm falling more and more in love with California and want to go to places I had taken for granted all my life. I want to go to Yosemite National Park. I had been there when I was little, and it's gorgeous. That's an overnight trip I can do with my mom. Then, of course, there's Big Sur. There are these places in California that are really magical and otherworldly but don't really get talked about because Los Angeles is such a dominant force. Q What are your favorite hotels and restaurants? A I go to New York City a lot, and it's really hard to find a quiet hotel there . What I want is a quiet little oasis. There's this small new hotel called the Greenwich Hotel on Greenwich Street [thegreenwichhotel.com] that Robert De Niro opened last year. It's so quiet and wonderful. It has this Zen spa [Shibui Spa ] that's so relaxing, and the gym is amazing. Its location is also key, and all these great shops are within walking distance. A close second is the Bowery Hotel [theboweryhotel.com] , but that's more of a scene in the lobby hotel. It's got a cool vibe. There's this place in New York called Organic Avenue [organicavenue.com] that has the best coconut-milk smoothie I've ever tasted. I also really like Freemans [freemansrestaurant.com] in New York. It's a quaint place with the coolest vibe in the East Village. Q When you go away, what are some of your must-have items? A I don't want to sound like one of those people, but I have to have my BlackBerry because it's my connection to home. I don't even know what all the functions on there are. I just use it for the e-mail and the phone. And my friends all laugh at me, but I travel with a CD player rather than an MP3 player, even though I do have two iPods. I always travel with my laptop because that always has my demos and songs that I'm working on. And then I also bring adapters so that I can use all my gadgets no matter what country I'm in. Oh, and all my weird clothes. www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-celeb-traveler-lewis-july26,0,7769248.story
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 29, 2009 1:31:28 GMT -5
Angel’s face sees the light of day in IstanbulWednesday, July 29, 2009 Suzan Fraser Associated Press ANKARA: Restoration workers have uncovered a well-preserved, long-hidden mosaic face of an angel at the former Byzantine cathedral of Haghia Sophia in Istanbul, an official said on Friday. The seraphim figure – one of two located on the side of a dome – had been covered up along with the building’s other Christian mosaics shortly after Constantinople – the former name for Istanbul – fell to the Ottomans in 1453 and the cathedral was turned into a mosque. The mosaics were plastered over according to Muslim custom that prohibits the representation of humans. Some of the mosaics were revealed when the domed complex was turned into a museum in 1935, but the seraphim had largely remained covered, said Ahmet Emre Bilgili, who heads culture and tourism affairs in Istanbul. Two Swiss architects saw the two seraphim during restoration work ordered by the Sultan in the mid-19th century but the figures were covered up again, Bilgili said. “It is the first time that the angel is being revealed,” he said, adding that the figure had been covered with metal and plaster. “It is very well preserved.” Experts would now work to uncover the second seraphim, which was also plastered over and covered by metal, he said. The uncovered image was hidden behind scaffolding and is not currently visible to visitors. Haghia Sophia, also called the Church of Holy Wisdom, was built in 537 AD and remained a symbol of Byzantine grandeur until Istanbul was conquered by Muslim armies. The structure was then turned into a mosque. Minarets were added and crosses and other Christian symbols were, as it were, defaced. It became one of the most renowned mosques of the expanding Ottoman Empire. The site was later converted to a museum under the secular reforms of modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, attracting thousands of visitors each year. President Barack Obama toured Haghia Sophia when he visited Turkey in April, as did former US President Bill Clinton in 1999. Pope Benedict XVI also strolled through the site in his 2006 pilgrimage to the landmarks of Christianity’s ancient roots in Turkey. www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=4&Article_id=104694
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Post by Vizier of Oz on Jul 29, 2009 1:14:00 GMT -5
Happy birthda, Ioan. I hope this one will be a very nice day to recall.
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