The Genocidal Actions Against Armenians in the Aghbak Sub-District in 1914-1915
Matosyan, Satenik · 2024
Aghbak sub-district in Van province contained 36 Armenian villages; Matosyan uses six as case studies to document the massacres, violence and forced deportations of 1914–1915, working predominantly from archival sources. The evidence shows the systematic character of the atrocities and the active involvement of both local Kurdish tribes and Ottoman authorities. She argues Aghbak was targeted for its economic significance and its exposed position on trade routes near the Persian border. The article positions these events among the first genocidal actions undertaken by the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. That is, preceding the canonical April 1915 start date.
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Matosyan, Satenik 2024. The Genocidal Actions Against Armenians in the Aghbak Sub-District in 1914-1915. Ցեղասպանագիտական հանդես / Journal of Genocide Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 41–56 (AGMI Foundation, Yerevan); DOI 10.51442/jgs.0056. https://doi.org/10.51442/jgs.0056
What this offers a reader
Evidence that the killing began before April 1915: important for any argument about premeditation.
Archive-based microhistory; extends the evidentiary timeline of the Genocide backward into 1914.
Vaspurakan was being destroyed before the world's clock on the Genocide had even started.
The massacres that began before the Armenian Genocide officially began.
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