İslâhiye was established by placing some households from the tribes in the region around Nigolu Castle in the Gavurdağları during the arrival of the Fırka-i Islâhiyye to the region in 1865 and took this name from the Fırka-i Islâhiyye. Administration The kaza was subdivided into five sub-districts (nahiyes) and sixty villages. Population There were 8,355 Muslims and 293 Christians living in the Islahiye kaza. There was a mosque, a school, sixty houses, fifteen shops and three mills in İslahiye, where paddy rice cultivation was widely practiced.[1] Destruction In his memoir Accursed Years, Yervand Otian (Western Armenian: Yervant Odian), a prominent Armenian writer and journalist from Constantinople, [...]
Archives: Regions
Our CPT for the regions
Kaza Osmaniye
Osmaniye, Toprakkale from the North (1874; source: http://www.eskiturkiye.net/3837/toprakkale-kalesi-kuzey-den-gorunumu-osmaniye-1874#lg=0&slide=0) History Located on the eastern edge of the Cilician (Çukurova) plain in the foothills of the Amanos (Tr. Nur) Mountains, the gateway between Anatolia and the Middle East, Osmaniye is on the Silk Road, a place of strategic importance and has been a settlement for various civilizations including the Hittites, Persians, Eastern Romans and Armenians. The Islamic presence in the area was first established by the Abbasid Caliph Harun Rashid, auxiliaries in his army being the first Turks to fight in Anatolia. They obviously took a shine to the place and following the Turkish victory [...]
Kaza Karsbazar / Kadirli / Kars-ı Maraş / Kars-ı Zülkadriye / Ղարս – Kars
Toponym Kadirli has been identified with the ancient Flavias or Flaviopolis (Φλαβιόπολη). It was known as Kars (Armenian: Ղարս) during the Ottoman period. However, the term Kars-ı Maraş was used to express that it was connected to Maraş in order to separate it from Kars in Eastern Anatolia. It was also known as Kars-ı Zülkadriye due to its connection with the Dülkadiroğulları. History The plain of Cilicia (now Çukurova) is rich farmland and a place of strategic importance on an important trade route between the Middle East and Anatolia. It has been settled since the time of the Hittites and after by various [...]
Kaza Kozan / Սիս – Sis
Population At the turn of the twentieth century, in the kaza’s seat, Sis, about 5,600 of the population of 8,000 were Armenians.[1] “In the rest of the kaza of Sis were a dozen Armenian villages, of which the most import were Karacalın and Gedik. In the ancient capital of the Rupinian [Rubinian] dynasty, Anavarza, which lay 30 kilometers further to the south, one could still see traces of the extraordinary fortress built on a rocky outcrop towering over the plain, which was covered with Greco-Roman ruins.”[2] The ruins of Anazarbos / Anavarza (Langlois, Victor: Voyage dans la Cilicie et dans les montagnes [...]
Çakırtaş / Մաշկերտ – Mashkert / Mashgerd / Meshgirt
Mashgerd, Armenian schoolclass, 1914: Zaven Mirakian is in the back row, sixth from right, holding a Bible in his hands. He was one of only three children who survived the Genocide. The other two are the girls in the row in front of his, second from left and second from right. The family photo was kindly provided by Muriel Mirak-Weißbach. Armenian religious inscription from a previous church or tombstone (photographed 2011, by Muriel Mirak-Weißbach) Dear Mr. McCarthy, My name is John Mirak. I was born in Arabkir, Turkey, in 1907. My family residence was a village near Arabkir. As there are many villages [...]