Naval Postgraduate School

Bell and Banner: Armenian Revolutionaries at the End of the Ottoman Empire Naval Postgraduate School

Publisher Marketing: This study begins by addressing the political, social, and economic conditions in the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in order to provide the historical context for the emergence of Armenian revolutionaries. It then details the attempts at reforming the empire by the Tanzimat and Hamidian regimes, the effect these reforms had on social and economic conditions for provincial Ottoman Armenians, and the steps those within the empire but especially among the Armenian diaspora took to adopt revolutionary tactics in attempting to alleviate conditions in the Armenian fatherland. Specific attention will be paid to the programs and activities of the major parties that have comprised the Armenian Revolutionary Movement: The Dashnaktsutiun, the Hunchaks, and the Armenakans. This study then reviews revolutionary activity amidst the rise of the Committee of Union and Progress, particularly the Dashnaktsutiun who were most active during this period, in an effort to complete a survey of Armenian revolutionary activity. Finally, it concludes with general observations regarding the process by which some Armenians, who had at one point been considered the Ottoman Empire's "loyal millet," decided to arm themselves first in self-defense in pursuit of autonomy and then to engage in terrorism as an acceptable tactic in carrying out their strategy.