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Review of Armenian Studies

Publication Date: 2012

Author: Bülent TEMEL

This article investigates the 1915 relocation of approximately 750,000 Ottoman Armenians by the İttihat ve Terakki (Union and Progress) administration with respect to the notions of self-determination and territorial integrity. While it remains distant to the decades-old “genocide or relocation?” debate, this paper promises to discuss this controversy from an original angle, and offers a theoretical framework for the legitimate grounds on which the right to self-determination exists to justify secessionist demands. Mistreatment, peacefulness, majority and historical tests are proposed as theoretical prerequisites of legitimate separatism, and an archival analysis of the 1915 relocation suggests that three of these conditions were not satisfied in the Armenians’ pursuit of independence.

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