MASSACRES EXECUTED BY THE KEMALISTS IN ALEKSANDRAPOL PROVINCE (1920-1921)

Abstract

The article addresses the manifestations of genocidal policies by the Kemalists in the
territory of Alexandrapol province during 1920-1921. It is based on the analysis of the
accounts of eyewitness-survivors and their generations. The oral materials were obtained as a
result of ethnographic and folkloric field research and observations, as well as archival
materials, press materials pertaining those years and professional literature. Relevant memoirs
of the eyewitness-survivors retained by the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute were also
studied. References are made to the genocidal actions of the Kemalists against the Armenian
civilian population, the forms of massacre execution, and, especially, the goals they pursued.
The relevance of the study at the current stage of the recognition and condemnation of the
Armenian Genocide, and the resolution of the Armenian Question is that it points out to the
continuation of the Armenian Genocide in the Eastern Armenia. This is the continuation of our
ethnographic study, this time in the Shirak plain. Horrendous Turkish massacres were executed
in the villages located on the slopes of the Pambak mountain range – both in the Shirak plain
and the Pambak valley. We have made a comparative analysis of the actions of the Turkish
army in the provinces of Gharakilisa and Alexandrapol