Lebanon to host conference on Adana massacre

PanARMENIAN.Net - On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the massacres of Adana (1909-2009), Catholicosate of Cilicia will organize a conference, an exhibition, and will oversee the publication of books and documents related to those tragic events.



"This sad page in the contemporary history of the Armenian nation should be remembered with due importance and seriousness," Catholicos of Cilicia, His Holiness Aram I said.



Based on this decision, the Catholicosate has informed the community organizations, academic institutions, scholars and the general public of the following plans:



On October 29-30, 2009, a conference, dedicated to the Adana massacres under the leadership of His Holiness Aram I will be held in Antelias. All those interested in participating in the event should contact the Catholicosate of Cilicia.



A Special Committee, in cooperation with The Department of Armenian Studies of the Catholicosate of Cilicia, will screen and sponsor publications related to the Adana massacres. The Catholicosate invites researchers, scholars, writers and all those who possess relevant works are invited to submit their proposals to the Catholicosate.



We invite all Armenians in the community who own valuable artefacts, photos and archive documents that relate to the Armenians of Adana and their massacre, to make them available to the Catholicosate for the planned exhibition.



Adana Massacre was the second series of large-scale massacres of Armenians to break out in the Ottoman Empire. The atrocities committed in the province of Adana in April 1909 coincided with the counter-revolution staged by supporters of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909) who had been forced to restore the Ottoman Constitution as a result of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution led by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). A prosperous region on the Mediterranean coast encompassing the old principality of Cilicia, once an independent Armenian state between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, the province of Adana had been spared the 1890's massacres. The disturbances were most severe in the city of Adana where a reported 4,437 Armenian dwellings were torched, resulting in the razing of nearly half the town and prompting some to describe the resulting inferno as a "holocaust." The outbreaks spread throughout the district and an estimated 30,000 Armenians were reported killed. While attempts at resistance in Adana proved futile, and Armenians in smaller outlying villages were brutally slaughtered, two towns inhabited mostly by Armenians organized a successful defense. Hadjin (Hajen in Armenian) in the Cilician Mountains withstood a siege, while the 10,000 Armenians of Dortyol (Chorkmarzban in Armenian) held off 7,000 Turks who had surrounded their town and cut off its water supply.