Bell and Banner: Armenian Revolutionaries at the End of the Ottoman Empire
Abstract : 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.
Terrorism in modern Armenian political culture
In the past century Armenian political culture has been shaped by the ARF, the largest nationalist party, and both outright terrorism and political violence have been used by the party and its major diasporan opponent, ASALA. These violent acts have had quite different targets, intentions, audiences and meanings, and have occurred intermittently, in widely different locations both in Armenia and in some 34 other countries. The role of these acts in shaping political culture has depended on cultural contexts and interpretations which this article narrates and explores.
PLEASURE, POWER, AND THE PURSUIT OF COMMUNISM: SOVIET YOUTH AND STATE-SPONSORED POPULAR CULTURE DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR, 1945-1968
art, with certain students accused of “showing political immaturity, failing to understand the Party’s positions on art.” This episode constituted part of a broader crackdown on abstract art by the Khrushchev administration from late 1962, precipitated the the Soviet leader’s derision of such art forms in December 1962 at the Manege exhibit. Such instances demonstrate the limitations of the top-level promotion of youth grassroots initiative, as the Khrushchev leadership reigned in youth autonomy when it threatened to go beyond the boundaries of the permissible. The dates cited above have particular resonance, since both 1957-58 and 1962-63 represent two periods when those at the top of the Party hierarchy moved away from pursuing a more pluralistic, tolerant policy course, due to anxiety inspired by both sharpening Cold War hostilities and domestic developments. In these periods, official rhetoric censured what it labeled as 639 TsAOPIM, f. 635, op. 13, d. 546, ll. 56-57. This is likely related to criticism of the Party associated with the fallout from the Secret Speech and the Hungary invasion. For more, see Polly Jones, “From the Secret Speech to the Burial of Stalin: Real and Ideal Responses to De-Stalinization,” in Jones ed., The Dilemmas, 41-63. 640 TsAOPIM, f. 6083, op. 1, d. 52, ll. 166-67. 641 Susan E. Reid, “In the Name of the People: The Manege Affair Revisited,” Kritika 6.4 (Fall 2005): 673716. 642 On these anxieties, see Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer, 156-88.