The arrests of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, mainly in the capital Constantinople, which began on April 24, 1915, and their massacre shortly thereafter, marked the beginning of the first stage of the extermination of the Armenian population. Subsequently, Armenians scattered around the world began to celebrate April 24 as a Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide.
At the beginning of World War I, in an effort to preserve the remnants of the weakened Turkish Empire, the Young Turk government adopted a policy of pan-Turkism - the creation of a vast Turkish empire that, extending to China, would unite all Turkic-speaking peoples from the Caucasus and Central Asia. The plan envisaged the Turkification of all national minorities. The Armenian population is seen as the main obstacle to the implementation of this plan.
Although the genocide was planned as early as 1911-1912, the Young Turks used the beginning of World War I as a convenient occasion for its implementation.
On the eve of World War I, more than two million Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire. About one and a half million of them were killed in the period 1915-1923. The rest were forcibly converted to Islam or found refuge in other countries.
The second stage of the implementation of the Armenian genocide is associated with the mobilization of nearly 60 thousand Armenians in the Turkish army, who were later disarmed and killed.
The third stage of the genocide was marked by the murders of women, children and the elderly, and their deportation to the Syrian desert. During the deportation, hundreds of thousands were killed by Turkish soldiers and police or by Kurdish bandits, others died of hunger and disease along the way. Thousands of women and children were raped. Tens of thousands were forcibly converted to Islam.
The repression forced thousands of Armenians to flee. They find shelter in Bulgaria and France.
Armenians by Peyo Yavorov
Poor exiles, an insignificant fragment
of an always brave martyred people,
children of a worried slave mother
and victims of a feat of extraordinary greatness -
far from their homeland, gathered in a foreign land,
tried and pale, in a ruined brothel,
they drink, and their hearts sink in wounds,
and sing, as one sings through tears.
They drink... In drunkenness they will easily forget
past and present troubles troubles,
in the boiling wine they drown the memory,
a sick spirit will sleep in a broken chest;
the head will be heavy, from it then
the mother's suffering face will disappear
and they will not hear, in drunken oblivion,
the eternal cry for help from their sons.
Like a herd chased by some hungry beast,
they are scattered everywhere now -
a raging tyrant, a merciless murderer,
he raised his sword against them forever;
they left their unhappy homeland in blood,
they left in flame and your father's corner,
unloved-unloved in a distant foreign land,
alone - in the tavern! - a way is open for them.
They sing.. And their song is wild,
that wounds corrode wounded hearts,
that malice drowns them in its furious boiling
and squeezes tears from pale faces...
That bitterness fills oppressed hearts,
that fire in the heads dries up reason,
that lightning shines in bloodshot eyes,
that souls crave revenge, bloodthirsty revenge.
And the winter storm seems to tune in to them,
roars and howls terribly in the night
and a whirlwind lifts, raises, spreads the rebellious song far and wide in the world.
And the sky darkens ever more ominously,
And the cold night frowns ever more,
And the band sings ever more fervently,
And a storm rises with unheard-of power...
They drink and sing... A tiny fragment
Of an ever-brave martyred people,
Children of a worried slave mother
And victims of a feat of extraordinary greatness -
Far from their homeland, both barefoot and naked,
In a foreign land, gathered in a ruined brothel,
They drink - Drunkenness forgets troubles,
and they sing, as one sings through tears.