THE ARMENIAN AMIRAS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

INTRODUCTION

The Armenian community of Istanbul existed long before the Ottoman occupation of the Byzantine capital in 1453. According to historical sources, an Armenian community lived in Constantinople as early as the eleventh century. [1] The size and influence of the Armenian population of the Byzantine metropolis increased or decreased depending on the political vicissitudes of the imperial capital.

Under Ottoman rule, the number of the Armenian inhabitants of Istanbul increased steadily. By voluntary or forced migration, Armenians moved to the new Ottoman capital in great numbers from all corners of Armenia, Anatolia, Iran and even the Crimea. [2] By the end of the eighteenth century, Armenians numbered 150, 000, [3] and around the mid-nineteenth century, out of Istanbul’s total population of 891, 000, 224, 000 were Armenians. [4] In the following decades, their number continued to increase; between 1860 and 1880 their number was estimated to be over 250, 000. [5]

The Armenians, in Istanbul as well as throughout the empire, were members of the “Ermeni, ” i. e. Armenian, millet. The word millet, derived from the Arabic milla, originally meaning “religion, ” was used to describe certain religious communities. In the Ottoman Empire, the three officially recognized millets were the Rum milleti, Yahudi milleti and Ermeni milleti, respectively the Greek Orthodox, the Jewish and Armenian religious communities. Each millet had its own administrative system, which enjoyed a quasi-autonomous status so far as its internal matters were concerned.

Along with members of the other two millets, Armenians were considered zimmi or non-Muslim subjects of the sultan. As such, they were subjected to many restrictive measures and additional taxes. Legally, all zimmis were equal, regardless of their profession, trade or economic position. But in practice, they were not treated equally and evenhandedly by Ottoman authorities. The Armenian clergy, for example, formed a relatively privileged elite in certain parts of the empire at certain times, and enjoyed various rights recognized by the government.

In addition to clerics, there were a number of Armenians to whom the Ottoman government had accorded tax exemptions and other privileges. Armenians called these privileged individuals Amira and perceived them as members of a separate class. Although Amira was not an official Ottoman designation of rank or status, the examination of the history of the Armenian millet will demonstrate, as we shall see, that Amiras in fact functioned as a class with special privileges, rights and powers, and were conscious of their privileged status. This class, with its characteristics and roles, is the subject of this study.

In discussing the historiography and sources on this subject, it should be stated first that there is no single study or monograph dealing with the Amira class, either in Armenian or in a Western language. As might be expected, the best sources on the topic are in Armenian. However, even the archival material in Armenian is meager. The correspondence of Armenian Catholic missionary monks of the Mekhitarist Congregation, who worked in Istanbul and maintained communications with their headquarters in Venice, was quite thoroughly examined, but it contained very little that bears directly on the Amiras. The archives at the Armenian patriarchate of Istanbul, now being classified and arranged, consist mostly of records of meetings of various councils. A potential source of new materials that remains unexamined is the holdings of the Madenataran (Mashtots Institute of Ancien Manuscripts) in Erevan, Soviet Armenia. These collections of manuscripts, correspondence and miscellaneous personal papers of various Armenians, might contain data pertinent to the topic, but since these holdings list no personal documents belonging to the Amiras themselves, it is doubtful that they will reveal any startling material. It must be recalled that the Amiras were financiers and privileged government employees; their precarious position, the condition of the time and the discretion common to bankers everywhere discouraged record-keeping of a personal nature. Thus the primary materials available to the researcher are scant. Much of what is known about them is to be found in reports and commentaries penned by onlookers, men who were admiring or envious outsiders.

On the other hand, colophons, an important primary source for earlier Armenian history, are non-existent, since the custom had disappeared by the second half of the eighteenth century due to the spread of printed books. Fortunately, epigraphic materials partially make up for the loss of colophons. Since the end of the nineteenth century and especially after 1920, numerous volumes of provincial history have been published by Armenian compatriotic organizations as well as individuals intent upon commemorating a vanished way of life; some of these preserve epigraphs from tombstones and public monuments which are invaluable for the study of the origins (or the philanthropic activity) of the amiras. Such epigraphic collections are incomplete and fragmentary, reflecting the narrow range of their compilers’ interest, but, however defective, they are very valuable in a field suffering from a paucity of other materials. [6]

There does exist a sizable corpus of secondary source materials in Armenian, ranging from Fr. Arsen Pakraduni’s manuscript work, written in 1856 and kept at the Mekhitarist library in Venice, [7] to the most recent publication of Hagop Dj. Siruni on the history of the Armenian community of Istanbul. [8] Most of the historical writings in Armenian deal with well-known personalities and families. Some writers, such as Menevishian, [9] Boghosian, [10] Papazian [11] and Alboyadjian, [12] trace the genealogies and dynastic histories of certain individual amiras or their families. Vahan Zartarian, who has written the most extensive and complete set of biographies of the better-known amiras, and who demonstrates some flair for history, is too involved in sketching the life of the individuals concerned to attempt to draw a collective, social portrait. [13] Mrmerian scatters information almost incoherently, and remains too superficial and disorganized. [14] Avedis Berberian was a contemporary of the later amiras, and his work is a reliable source, since it was based upon the records of the patriarchate of Istanbul. [15] Unfortunately, his data are scant as they are valuable. Patriarch Ormanian fails to use the archival material available in his time and is too concerned with clerical figures, around whom everything else revolves. [16] A true scholar, he uses Armenian and Western sources for his monumental three-volume work, but does not demonstrate any particular interest in amiras. Torkomian has valuable information scattered throughout his three-volume study on Eremia Celebi, the outstanding seventeenth-century figure of the Armenian millet of Istanbul. [17] Others, like Piuzant Ketchian, [18] Hrand Asadur, [19] Arshag Alboyadjian, [20] all of whom wrote about the Istanbul community, have little data on amiras, while still others, such as Toros Azadian [21] and Arakel Ketchian, [22] glorify the amiras from the town of Akn (Egin in Ottoman Turkish, now Kemaliye); inevitably, their analyses fail to make proper use of their data.

Almost without fail, all these authors praise the charitable and cultural endeavors of amiras, their devotion and support for the Armenian “mother” church, and their monetary contributions to various philanthropic undertakings, educational institutions and cultural organizations. Little is recorded in these works about the amiras’ financial transactions and business activities.

Varantian [23] and Leo [24] make extensive use of non-Armenian sources in their examination of amiras. Critical of the amiras’ role in general, these two historians evidence much interest in their economic activities and status, as well as in their political thinking and orientation.

Siruni, author of the most recent study on the Armenian community of Istanbul, devotes a few pages to Harutiun Amira Bezdjian, but has very few observations and comments on the amira class in general. This is the most serious deficiency of this unsystematic and wide-ranging book, which touches on numerous topics without satisfactorily treating any of them.

In Soviet Armenia, where most of the recent scholarly research on Armenian history is being conducted, historians like Haig Ghazarian [25], Hagop Anasian, [26] M. G. Nersisian, [27] A. N. Nersisian, [28] Ashot Hovhannisian, [29] demonstrate a better understanding of the amira class than their colleagues abroad. Their approach manifests the major virtue of Soviet Armenian historiography: they attempt to view the amiras as a class with specific economic interests and privileges, willing to struggle to maintain its position of leadership within the Armenian millet by engaging in activities ranging from philanthropy to patronage. The major limitations of this school of Soviet Armenian historiography is, predictably, their non-willingness to deal clearly and fairly with the political beliefs and positions of the amiras, since these bear some resemblance to the positions of small elites anywhere.

Finally, there are a few scholars (both in the Soviet Union and the Armenian diaspora) who have written extensively about the later nineteenth and early twentieth ceturies, but, because the power of the amiras had waned at this time, they receive little attention in their works. O. G. Indjikian, [30] who writes in Russian, and Levon Tchormissian, [31] a Diaspora authority who has written a four-volume study of modern Western Armenian history, both exemplify such neglect.

A thorough search was also made of newspapers, periodicals and journals, some of which were contemporary to the amiras, while others came later. The results were, once again, meager. Many of the articles were written as eulogies or necrologies, while a few others pay fulsome tribute to an amira or to his memory. All of these are so lacking in dependable information that one cannot help arriving at the conclusion that Piuzant Ketchian reached some ninety years ago: “How disappointed I was when, after doing research in the forty year collections of [Armenian] newspapers, I did not find even the trace of a partial historical or statistical study... ” [32]

Western-language sources are usually of little help as far as amiras are concerned. The French Foreign Ministry archives, so detailed about contemporary religious disputes in the Armenian community of Constantinople, contain very little on amiras, except for few, albeit enlightening, glimpses. [33] The archives of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, [34] consisting exclusively of the correspondence between the missionaries in the field and the headquarters in New York, are not much more productive. The glimpses provided by these western sources have an importance out of proportion to their quantity, because of the perspective of the observers, who were by no means impartial but were driven by a different set of concerns.

Contemporary Western writers were not familiar with the amiras as such, since the honorific title was an innovation of the Armenian community. However, most of these Westerners wrote a great deal about the sarrafs, i. e. bankers, and gave details which Armenian writers either did not know (which would be surprising) or, more probably, shied away from. Among these writers the most important for this study are Charles MacFarlane, [35] R. Walsh, [36] Charles White. [37] The accounts of A. Ubicini [38] and David Urquhart [39] contain valuable data and analyses, but are not devoid of powerful prejudice. A much larger number of other European travelers and historians have written on the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire, but most have only a few lines on the sarrafs and other wealthy individuals, and they tend to repeat what others had already recorded before them.

Ottoman archives will certainly contain a great amount of data and yield information not found elsewhere. However, without having had the opportunity to examine them, we can hazard no guesses here at this time. [40]

Among Ottoman official court historians, only Ahmet Cevdet had a couple of paragraphs on the Armenian sarrafs; the others have written about Armenians in general, but have nothing on the class of men which is the focus of this study.

Modern Turkish historians, not surprisingly, have no knowledge of the amiras. Many Turkish scholars have written serious works on Ottoman finances and the empire’s economy. Only one, Mehmet Zeki Pakalin, mentions the Armenian sarrafs in his three-volume work, under several entries. [41]

As noted earlier, many studies have been written on the Armenian millet, in general, and the community of Istanbul, in particular; thus, a hurried synthesis has preceded the specialized and monographic studies. This monograph follows the prosopographic approach, [42] in that it emphasizes the dynamics of the social, economic and political features of amiras, a small but very important component of the Armenian millet in Istanbul, and it lays stress upon “the actions, not the words, of historical figures. ” [43]

The monograph on the Lazarian dynasty of St. Petersburg in Russia by the Soviet Armenian historian Diloyan [44] can be considered an antecedent to this study. Diloyan, too, uses the prosopographic method in its focus upon the economic, political and cultural activities of the members of the family, and pays little attention to the genealogical succession and other details about the lineage of the renowned dynasty. However, that work deals with only one family, and is basically a contribution to the history of Eastern Armenians.

Most modern historical writings on Western Armenians who lived within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire bear upon the period of emancipatory and revolutionary movements, during which relations between the Armenian people and the Turkish government were understandably hostile. This study covers an earlier period of cooperation and collaboration between the Armenians and the Ottoman authorities at the highest levels of the society. This collaboration was magnified, first by the fact that amiras were the leaders of the Armenian millet, and charted its course through their control over its affairs, and, second, by the considerable resemblances between Armenian and Turkish customs, a resemblance which deceived some European observers into thinking the two peoples were more similar than they could be, given the vital religious facts. However, it is undeniable that Armenians had adopted numerous Turkish styles, such as those described by a French visitor: “Le Turc a plus de sympathie pour l’Arménien que pour le Grec et le Juif, car l'Arménien se rapproche d’avantage de ses habitudes; l’usage de la langue turque, qu’il a exclusivement adoptée, quoiqu’il l'écrive avec des caractères armèniens, le rattache encore plus aux maîtres du pays. ” [45]

In order to keep, in proper perspective the amiras’ collaboration with Ottoman authorities and their leadership of the Armenian millet, it is essential to examine the number and composition of the amira class, as well as its internal cohesion or lack of it. Knowledge of such basic facts is fundamental to the understanding and proper evaluation of the dual role of the class. Extant works have hardly probed beneath the surface of amiras’ motivations and mentality. Most writers, including those who are critical, have viewed amiras and their activities from one vantage point or another. Amiras have to be placed in their own time and social environment. Our understanding and assessment of their role would be greatly enhanced by a juxtaposition of their roles with those of similarly privileged classes in the Greek and Jewish millets, i. e. the sarrafs and other wealthy men connected with Ottoman high officialdom. However, such an effort would be more fruitful in a separate study, for it would necessitate an equal understanding and treatment of all three classes, a task beyond the limits of this work, which is concerned solely with the amira class.

Even today, the word amira evokes the image of a wealthy individual among Armenians. Wealth was a sine qua non for membership in this class, and the amiras rarely ceased to strive for more of it. Yet there was, in the words of a historian who has explored the life of a German-Jewish financier, both “ambiguity and uncertainty” in that accumulation of wealth. [46] Its status was such as to arouse anxiety as well as envy among powerful Turks, ranging all the way to the Sultan; any historian can imagine the attendant dangers. In particular, the wealth of the amiras could arouse anxiety because it was accumulated in a state that was primarily agricultural and semi-feudal; in such states, the accumulation of capital invites reprisal. The successes of the amiras were, for this reason, as elusive as they are striking.

This dissertation represents an attempt to trace the rise and fall of this elite group, the amiras, who were the ruling class of the Armenian millet in the Ottoman Empire for nearly a century, from approximately 1750 to 1860. I shall use descriptive, narrative and analytical approaches in order to chart the changes in the fortunes of this class and to demonstrate how the needs of the Ottoman Empire led to the consolidation of its power within the Armenian millet, just as, a century later, the changing needs of the Ottoman state combined with internal pressures generated from within the matrix of the millet itself to bring about the disappearance of the amiras as a distinct power elite.

The amiras have never before been studied with the scholarly apparatus of Western history, in large part because neither Western historians nor the rulers of the Ottoman Empire recognized the amiras as distinct group. I shall argue that the people whom Armenians invariably identified as members of the ruling elite they labeled amira were, indeed, a class within the context of the millet, one which formed a necessary appendage of the Ottoman ruling class in the period when the iltizam system of taxation achieved its zenith and began to go into decline, in order to be replaced by an imitation of Western bureaucracies. Furthermore, I shall claim that both the rise and fall of the amiras were responses to the needs of the several thousand men who ruled the Ottoman Empire for most of the period under question, although, as the last chapter will make clear, matters were more complicated in the twilight of amira history than they were at its inception. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century, when the amiras experienced a relative decline in their economic importance and an absolute decline in their power within the Armenian millet, the pressures which brought these changes about no longer emanated entirely from the Porte. In part, it was the increased wealth and socially complex organization of the Armenian millet which generated the pressures to which the rule of amiras succumbed.

This dissertation is in some ways an extension of prosopographic study, for the major amira families were few in number and of relatively well-defined geographical origin. Throughout, I shall underscore the contradictions of the history of the amiras. They were provincials who achieved power in the city, Armenians who achieved power as the servants of the Turkish aristocracy of the Ottoman Empire, economic power who could make the fortune of a pasha but could not break him, and indeed fell with him, because despite their enormous wealth they had no political power of their own. Curiously, they seem to have been reluctant and fearful of grasping such power in the rare instances when it was offered to them. Above all, the ironic contradiction which marks the history of the amiras most deeply is their role within the Armenian millet itself. Deeply conservative, they consolidated their control of the apparatus of religious, civic and cultural life in the Armenian millet in order to assure themselves of the continuation of their patriarchal dominance over the life of their people. But in the process, they acted like harsh but benevolent patriarchs who lose control of their progeny. Having achieved a certain degree of prosperity, education and room to maneuver for the Armenian millet, they were challenged by a coalition of esnafs, i. e. artisans, intellectuals and liberalizers, some of the latter being from their own ranks (some of the technocrat-amiras). Together, these challengers generated pressures and acted as one arm of a pincer, the other arm of which was the increasing dependence of the Ottoman Empire on Western political protection against Russia, and Western exploitation of economic and financial opportunities in the Empire. These pincers broke the control of the power elite whom the Armenians rightly considered a class apart. Their hold broken, the amiras quickly disappeared into the ranks of the Armenian upper bourgeoisie, leaving behind them many traces of their economic, cultural and political activity in the Empire and the Armenian millet.

It is worth stressing that the activities and influence of the amiras extended over two planes: the Armenian millet and the Ottoman government. While as part of the latter, they were members of the Ottoman ruling stratum, enjoying distinct privileges, status and semblance of power, as Armenians, they were members of a zimmi millet with well-known handicaps. This duality of status clearly affected their twin role, with positive and negative results. The explanation and interpretation of the dichotomy of their status and the seeming contradictions of their roles are pivotal for this study. At the same time, this dissertation is an attempt to reconstruct the rise and fall of this class, in the hope that an understanding of what happened to the amiras and how it happened will also broaden our understanding of the way in which the Ottoman government ruled (and sometimes failed to rule well) the millets it had created.

During the course of this study a number of Ottoman and Armenian institutions are focused upon; the purpose is not to examine those institutions per se, for example the Ottoman financial system or the mint, or the Armenian patriarchate, but to shed enough light on them to bring out the role, usefulness and contribution of the amiras.

Interest in the study of the amira class existed as early as the 1880s. Piuzant Ketchian, in his work on the history of the St. Savior Hospital of Istanbul, published in 1888, put the question very aptly:

Why should not a trained mind study the origins, development and decline of amiras, as an interesting and known social, administrative, political and economic system, to which so many valuable national memories are related? [47]

Eighty years later, apparently not satisfied with the published studies during this long interval, Siruni, in his turn asked:

 ... should we not have known a little more about the life of amiras of Constantinople? For three centuries they dominated the Armenian community of Constantinople. But who knows anything about them? [48]

This study is an attempt to present a satisfactory response to these questions and to fill the gaps in our knowledge with dependable information.