re a question about armenians in article c t xj unix amherst edu eerginel unix amherst edu erdem erginel asked ee no no flaming here just a simple question with a simple answer ee as far as i know most of the armenians belong to the gregorian orthodox ee faith and such was the case in nineteenth century ottoman empire it is ee also known that some armenian communities were converted into catholicism ee and protestantism by the western european missionaries in this period the vast majority of armenians in eastern anatolia were gregorian or armenian apostolic there was however a higher percentage of non gregorian armenians in cilicia closer to the mediterranean in adana marash aintab etc ee another known fact is that almost half of the armenians living in anatolia ee did not speak any armenian but used turkish in their everyday lives this is not true while it was forbidden for armenians to speak armenian in certain areas of cilician armenia most all armenians spoke armenian in fact turks who interacted with armenians also spoke armenian for sure most all armenians especially men also knew turkish in order to function in larger society ee my question is given so many separations in the armenian community what ee was the common denominator of the armenian people that allowed armenian ee nationalism to emerge in the nineteenth century as i stated religion ee was not uniform unlike the greeks and many armenians couldn t even speak ee armenian i would like to know what factors brought the armenians in the ee ottoman empire together and led to the formation of an armenian ee consciousness the armenians in turkey were persecuted because they were armenian regardless of the specific branch of christianity they professed the resultant armenian nationalism was in direct reaction to this persecution even at the later stages of wwi and after the genocide many armenians who were converted to islam were also exterminated because they continued as armenian moslems this practice continued well into the s by ataturk in parallel with the policy of clearing out pockets of steadfast islamic fundamentalism many of these converted armenians ironically in order to stay alive were staunch moslems ee any information will be appreciated you answered your own question the common thread throughout your inquiry was the word armenian ee regards david davidian dbd urartu sdpa org armenia has not learned a lesson in s d p a center for regional studies anatolia and has forgotten the p o box punishment inflicted on it cambridge ma late turkish president turgut ozal
