Author: Robert Tatoyan

-“Where are you from?”
-“From Moush.”
-“I see… So you’ve come to earn some money… What is your name?”
-“Ohan.”
-“Then may Saint Ohannes, the lord of Moush, watch over you,” exclaimed the porter, and embraced his compatriot with particular ardor.

The old man had no need to ask further questions. The fact that youth was Armenian, and from Moush, was sufficient for him. Everything else could be discussed at a later time… He knew why the people of Moush left their homes and took the road to foreign lands. He knew what they sought in the chaotic, noisy whirlpool of Istanbul… The old man knew it all, because he, too, was from Moush. He, too, had taken the same fateful path, and had left his native land for the same reasons.

Excerpt from the Gharip Mshetsi novella by Raffi

The phenomena of migrant work and emigration among the Armenians of Bitlis Province

The phenomena of migrant work and emigration have a history of many centuries among the Armenians of Daron, Ottoman Armenia (the collective name for the Armenian Highlands within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the adjacent Armenian-populated areas of Lesser Hayk and Cilicia), and other regions. However, the rates of emigration accelerated rapidly after the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War. This was a result of the intense persecution experienced by Armenians at the hands of both the Ottoman authorities and local Kurdish tribes – massacres, both legal and extrajudicial taxation, land grabs and plunder –,  as well as the deepening socio-economic crisis in the region caused by under-development, which resulted in widespread loss of land ownership and a fall in the profitability of livestock farming.

In 1875, Raffi, the Armenian prominent author and orator, described the phenomenon of Armenian emigration thus – “The chief cause behind emigration is the living conditions of Armenians in Ottoman Armenia. Every year, thousands of youth leave Van, Moush, Bitlis, Erzurum, and other provinces, heading for Istanbul, to earn a living for their families. This flow of migrants increases proportionally to the worsening of living conditions for the people in their native lands” .

Sarkis Pteyan, who witnessed the phenomenon first-hand, proposed the following causes for emigration – “Many lose their livelihoods for one reason or another. Some lose their land to salaf, others fall behind on their high-interest debts, and yet others who are farmers endure repeated catastrophes – locusts, cattle disease, drought, etc. They then find themselves in despair, and are forced to seek work elsewhere. After 1890, emigration became a much more widespread phenomenon, and was characterized in large part by an effort on the part of Armenians to flee the country to save their lives or escape persecution and plunder”.

There were also subjective factors that affected the rates of emigration, particularly prior to the era of Hamidian persecutions. Chief among these was the desire among Armenians to earn a larger income at a faster rate than they could by farming in their villages. “The villagers worked all year, and earned barely enough to buy clothing for their children to cover their nudity. They realized that some among them were going to Istanbul, and from there to Athens or elsewhere, and earning 10-20 kurush per day… They did not take into consideration the possibility of migrating to these cities and failing to find work, or falling ill, or encountering other serious difficulties…” wrote Sarkis Pteyan.

Henry Lynch, an English traveler who visited the Armenian Highland in the 1890s, wrote that the flow of migration of Armenians from the Bitlis Province varied accordingly to local factors – had the harvest been satisfactory or disastrous? Were the Kurds quarrelsome or restrained? He also mentioned that many of the villagers he encountered in Armenian areas during his travels were engaged in efforts to pay off their debts and receive permission to leave the country. Many would also relocate to the areas near the Russian border, hoping to find shelter from the Kurds.

The main occupation of the Armenian population in Bitlis Province was agriculture. Most Armenians who were engaged farming and husbandry were heavily indebted, and resorted to migration to escape this burden. “Almost all Armenians in Daron strain under heavy debt. It is very difficult to find any among them who is well-off. Most of their debts are owed to Turks and Kurds, and were borrowed at exorbitant interest rates”, reads a description of conditions in the 1890s. This heavy debt burden on Armenian peasants is attributed to “agricultural catastrophes and losses due to plunder” [8]. Armenians resorted to migration “to free themselves from debt and with the hope of making a decent living… If they failed, they would return a few years later with whatever meager sums they had saved, or empty-handed. But they would already have accustomed themselves to life as migrant workers, and would prefer it over working the land. So they would leave again, until eventually they fell victim to the scourge of migration, like many others”.

The main destinations of migrants leaving Bitlis Province were the Caucasus, which was favored by Armenians from eastern parts of the province; Istanbul and Smyrna/Izmir, favored by Armenians from western parts of the province; and Cilicia and Aleppo, favored by the Armenians of Sassoun and areas south of Sassoun.

Migrants from Moush and Sassoun were not skilled craftsmen, were not a high-quality workforce. Consequently, they were only qualified for the most menial of work. They mostly served as porters (hamals) in the docks of the capital city and other commercial centers, toiled as daily laborers in bakeries and water mills (in Aleppo), laid rail lines (in Cilicia); etc.

The following excerpt from Sarkis Pteyan’s memoirs provides a vivid illustration of the geographic distribution of migrants from various areas of Moush – “In many commercial centers, migrant workers from Moush dominated the ranks of the porters … In the Istanbul customs house, they made up a large proportion of the firefighters, and had achieved a certain level of infamy as belligerent characters. … Many stores employed migrants from Moush as guards. In Izmir, many Armenians merchants also hired migrants from Moush as porters and guards. Many migrants from Khaskyugh and Aragh worked in the caravan inns of Sbartali, Sivrisarian, Bakerdjian, and others. Migrants from Ardonk, Khars, and Vartenis worked in a few of the steam mills of Edirne. Many villagers worked in the port of Dedeaghach (present-day Alexandroupoli). Conditions here were more favorable for migrants to bring their families over. … Many were scattered across the cities and centers of Bulgaria – wherever they found work. … There were also a large number of migrants from Moush in the Romanian cities of Galati, Braila, and Giurgiu”

As a rule, migrants lived in extreme squalor, deprived of the basic necessities of life. They lived in cellars dormitories, and often succumbed to drink, smoke, and gambling. Such conditions naturally resulted in a high rate or mortality among them. One description of the life of migrants from Sassoun in Aleppo in the early 1900s states – “The migrants for Sassoun were an unfortunate bunch, who spent their lives in misery and dirt in the insalubrious atmosphere of the bakeries. Despite their innate fitness, they soon began developing a hunch… Countless died, and those who survived wasted their earnings by competing with each other or filling the pockets of moneylenders…  These miserable creatures, immersed in ignorance, also became alcoholics, smokers, and gamblers”.

Migrants who relocated to Aleppo from Sassoun “Lived their lives in the dark corners of cellars dug into the earth. They would age early and soon become ill”. As a result, their life expectancy did not exceed 27.

Migrant workers faced a myriad of difficulties. The uncertainty and anxiety they experienced was compounded by a lack of sense of security. Many left their villages only to be attacked, arrested, killed, or injured on the road. Crossing the Russo-Turkish border was particularly fraught with hazards. Many failed to make the crossing, and spent months living as beggars in the border regions. Migrants returning home faced the danger of not only being waylaid and robbed of their earnings along the way, but also of being killed before making it home.

For this reason, many migrant workers were unable or unwilling to return home, adding to the number of Armenians who had permanently abandoned their homelands. Like in many other parts of the Armenian Highland under the rule of Ottoman Turkey, the preferred destinations the Armenians emigrants from Bitlis Province were the United States and the Russian Empire. The flow of Armenians from Bitlis to the USA contributed to the creation, in the mid-19th century, of Evangelical communities in the cities of Moush and Bitlis, and to the launching of educational initiatives by American Protestant missionaries.

Also in those years, the Evangelical community of Bitlis operated two boarding schools in the city, one designed for boys and the other for girls. The community also ran an American orphanage. One of the American missionaries stationed in Bitlis wrote in a report in 1887 that many of the pupils and teachers of these schools emigrated to California in the United States, in the expectation of benefiting from the boom in the American economy and striking it rich. “The wretched, downtrodden locals are convinced that those who leave become very wealthy or that they earn unimaginably high salaries. Stories that give flight to the imagination only encourage the youth to emigrate, as do our efforts to teach them English”.

Sultan Abdul-Hamid’s regime worked to stanch the tide of Armenian emigration, particularly to the USA. The authorities feared that these Armenians would obtain American citizenship, and then return to the Ottoman Empire and conduct revolutionary activities, benefiting from the immunity they would enjoy by virtue of being American citizens [18]. To limit the emigration of Armenians, in 1892 the authorities introduced more stringent rules governing the provision of tezkeres (official permission slips) to Armenians allowing  them to travel to the Ottoman Empire’s ports. The rates of permanent emigration accelerated particularly after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, which resulted in the easing of the constraints on travel that had been imposed by Hamidian administration. At the same time, the revolution resulted in the reinstatement of constitutional rule in the country, and put an end to the reigning atmosphere of oppression. This led to a revival of public life and civic society in Western Armenian communities, and between 1908 and 1914, many Armenians who had left home, particularly those who had settled in the Russian Caucasus, began returning home to the provinces of Van, Bitlis, and Erzurum.

For thousands of Armenian migrants from the Bitlis Province, Istanbul was the principal destination. According to Hrachia Adjarian, the Armenian population of the city’s Scutari/Üsküdar neighborhood consisted, from the very beginning, of migrants from Moush.

In the 1890s, there were 60,000 Armenian migrants in Istanbul, who had brought with them the customary occupations and skills of their homelands. To wit, Armenians from Agn/Eğin (present-day Kemaliye) usually worked as table makers; those from Van as porters or cooks; those from Moush as porters; those from Kayseri as bricklayers and painters; those from Sivas as public bath keepers; and those from Erzincan as coffee sellers.

As elsewhere, many migrants from Moush who had settled in Istanbul lived in abject misery. They often fell victim to hunger, penury, and disease in the “dark and damp” cellars of the capital’s inns, baths, and coffee houses.

Armenian porters, as a particularly vulnerable and unprotected segment of the population, were the main targets of the massacres that broke out in Istanbul after the occupation of the Ottoman Bank on August 26-29, 1896. Many among them were killed. German reporter Magda Neumann, a contemporary, wrote – “These porters were among the fittest of the peasantry of Bitlis, Van, and Kharpert villayets. They had abandoned their native lands that had nurtured them to escape persecution by the Kurds and the plundering of Turkish officials. Every year, thousands of them hoped to make it to Istanbul, Smyrna, and other port cities on the coast of Turkey and Europe, where they resorted to heavy, physical labor to make a living… In 1896, after the massacre of the porters in Istanbul, the Turks were forced to replace them [temporarily – ed.] by Kurds”.

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