Revolution

This chapter explores the aftermath of the 1908 ‘Young Turk’ Revolution in the Ottoman Empire that resulted in the reinstatement of the Ottoman Constitution and the lifting of most restrictions on both domestic and international mobility. As the Chapter demonstrates, the lifting of the migration ban resulted in a sharp increase in both out-migration and return migration. At the same time, the United States and other migrant-receiving states were strengthening restrictions on immigration, stranding many Ottoman migrants in transit ports throughout Europe. Also, Istanbul was forced to balance its commitment to freedom of movement with its growing demand for military-aged men and its increasing concern about the effects of migration on the empire’s economy. The chapter concludes with the Armenian genocide, its aftermath, and the legacies of migration.

Dubious Citizens

This chapter examines the politics of Armenian return migration in both the Ottoman Empire and United States between 1890 and 1908. In the mid-1890s, allegations of Ottoman mistreatment of returning Armenians who had naturalized as US citizens while abroad caused a major diplomatic row between the two states. Over the course of the late-1890s, harnessing the growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the US, Ottoman diplomatic officials successfully convinced the US government to grant Istanbul wide latitude in handling the return of Armenians who claimed US citizenship. By the start of the twentieth century, the convergence of Ottoman and US policies on Armenian return resulted in returnees losing the protections of citizenship and rendering them vulnerable to imprisonment and deportation from the empire.

Smugglers

This Chapter explores the emergence of dense networks of migrant smuggling in response to the efforts of the Ottoman state to enforce the ban on Armenian migration to North America. It shows how these networks formed very shortly after the imposition of the ban, and until the lifting of the ban in 1908, assisting the travel of thousands of Armenian migrants from their home communities in the Anatolian interior to various port cities on the Black and Mediterranean Sea coasts and on to steamships bound for European transit ports. It also provides insight into the diverse set of actors that comprised these networks and coordinated them across vast stretches of time and space. The Chapter also draws parallels between the dynamics that drove clandestine migration in the late Ottoman period with those that drive the same phenomenon in the present.

Conclusion

Contemporary Harput/Mezre, now called Elazığ (a shortened and altered version of the more regal sounding former provincial name of Mamuretülaziz), like many drab provincial Anatolian metropolises, bears few reminders of its imperial past. The ancient Urartu fortress, around which the bustling neighbourhoods of Harput once stood, now stands in splendid isolation perched high above the central city. The buildings that once comprised the campus of Euphrates College have long ago been demolished, along with the churches that were once an architectural mainstay of the hilltop city. The Armenian past of the once dual city has been methodically erased. Few reminders exist of the sojourners that regularly travelled between the villages that still dot the surrounding countryside and the factories of the American northeast. The Elazığ municipality website’s page on the region’s history ends abruptly in 1880, and makes no mention of its once substantial Armenian population....

Introduction

The migrant is, according to philosopher Thomas Nail, ‘the political figure of our time.’1 Perhaps nowhere is this more the case in the early twenty-first century than in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. From Libya to Iraq, Yemen to Macedonia, the Middle East has become the epicentre of the greatest migrant and refugee crisis in generations. Countries throughout the region struggle to cope with swelling populations of displaced people, many of whom have been left to languish in squalid camps with little access to food, water, medical treatment or education. Exacerbating the situation are the efforts of many states, especially those located on the frontiers of the European Union, to close their borders, effectively stranding millions of migrants and refugees in transit. The militarisation of land and sea borders separating North Africa and the Middle East from the European Union has contributed to the emergence of a vast smuggling industry, particularly along the Mediterranean rim. Desperate migrants pay often exorbitant fees to smugglers who are eager to adopt ever-riskier strategies to assist their clients, while also avoiding capture. These dynamics have led one prominent scholar of migration to refer to the Mediterranean as ‘the world’s deadliest border.’...

The State

This chapter explores the efforts of the Ottoman state to enforce the ban on Armenian migration to North America. It demonstrates the many dynamics frustrating Istanbul’s efforts to implement the ban from outright corruption to internecine squabbles between officials stationed throughout the empire’s vast holdings. The Chapter provides a window into the innerworkings of the Ottoman bureaucracy and the often competing and contradictory interests of the people who comprised it.

Return

This chapter argues that a surprisingly large number of Armenian migrants returned to the Ottoman Empire between 1890 and 1908 in the face of many obstacles. It demonstrates how in this period, the Ottoman state increasingly viewed Armenian return migration as a major threat to the empire’s political stability. As a result, Armenians were forced to find creative ways to bypass Istanbul’s efforts to keep them out. By the first decade of the twentieth century, the Ottoman state was engaged in an ambitious effort to militarize points of entry, both on land and sea, in an effort to stop Armenian migrants from reentering the empire, employing a decidedly “modern” discourse of border security to justify these efforts.

Migrants

This Chapter traces the origins of the large-scale migration of Armenians to North America beginning in the late-1880s. It provides a detailed explanation for why most Armenians who departed for North America in this era originated from in and around the dual city of Harput/Mezre in east central Anatolia. It also explores the dynamics behind the Ottoman state’s decision to ban Armenian migration to North America, focusing on Istanbul’s belief that migration was inextricably linked to the nearly simultaneous emergence of Armenian revolutionary organizations.