Archive Passage: How Researchers Reach the Records on the Events of 1915

Why It Matters

Researchers reach the records on the Events of 1915 by working across six archive families: Ottoman state papers, Armenian collections, Russian and Caucasian files, British Foreign Office material, German and Austrian diplomatic reports, and US State Department records. Each family answers different questions, and none replaces the others.

The path matters because the legal label 'genocide' is not a matter of vocabulary. Under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention it turns on proof of specific intent (dolus specialis) and, under Article VI, on a competent tribunal. This guide is a route map for the Archive Passage desk of Corridors of Diplomacy. It shows where the documents are, what each can and cannot prove, and why Türkiye argues for a historians-led process while Armenia and many scholars and parliaments take a different view.

Background

A short chronology

• 1877–1878: The Russo-Turkish War ends. The 1878 Congress of Berlin addresses reforms in Ottoman provinces with Armenian populations (Article 61), and 'the Armenian Question' becomes an issue of great-power diplomacy.
• 1887 and 1890: The Hunchak party (1887) and the Dashnak party, Dashnaksutyun or ARF (founded in Tbilisi in 1890), organize. Both pursue political goals that included armed action.
• 1890–1896: The Kumkapı demonstration (1890), unrest in Merzifon, Yozgat and Kayseri (1893), the Sasun rebellion (1894) and the Ottoman Bank raid in Istanbul (1896). Violence against Armenian civilians in the mid-1890s is also documented in Western consular and press reporting.
• 1914–1915: The Ottoman Empire enters the First World War. Fighting on the Caucasus front involves Russian forces and Armenian volunteer units, and Ottoman authorities face wartime unrest in eastern provinces.
• 24 May 1915: France, Britain and Russia issue a joint declaration denouncing 'crimes against humanity and civilization' and warning of personal responsibility for Ottoman officials.
• 27 May 1915: The Ottoman government adopts the Law on Relocation and Resettlement (Sevk ve İskân Kanunu). It is published in the official gazette Takvim-i Vekayi on 1 June 1915.
• 1919–1921: Ottoman courts-martial in Istanbul try some officials; the British hold Ottoman detainees in Malta, and most are released in 1921 in exchange for British subjects held in Anatolia.
• 1920–1923: Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920, unratified), Alexandropol (December 1920), Moscow (16 March 1921), Kars (13 October 1921) and Lausanne (24 July 1923).
• 1973–1986: A wave of attacks by ASALA and JCAG-ARA targets Turkish diplomats and facilities.
• 2005: Türkiye proposes a Joint Historical Commission.
• 2009: Türkiye and Armenia sign the Zurich Protocols (10 October 2009). They are never ratified, and Armenia formally annulled them in 2018.
• 14 January 2022: The Kılıç–Rubinyan normalization channel opens.

The route map: where the records are

The table below is a starting point, not an exhaustive catalogue. Access rules, finding aids and permit systems differ by archive and country, and they change, so confirm current conditions directly with each institution.

A fuller research programme adds French diplomatic archives and the Vatican, but these six families form the core.

Five source-criticism questions

Whichever archive a researcher opens, the same questions apply:

1. Who wrote it, and who read it? An order, a report and a memoir are different kinds of evidence.
2. What did the author witness, and what was repeated? Many 1915 reports relay rumour or refugee accounts.
3. What was the political context of the compilation? Wartime propaganda collections, post-war tribunals and party histories each have agendas.
4. Is the document authentic and complete? Some items are disputed. The telegrams published by Aram Andonian in 1920, for instance, have been challenged as forgeries by Turkish historians and defended or bypassed by others who rely on independent Ottoman and foreign sources.
5. Does it prove an order, an execution, or intent? These are three separate evidentiary steps, and the law cares most about the third.

The treaty baseline

Before any archival argument begins, there is a legal baseline. The Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920) was signed by the Ottoman government but never ratified and never entered into force. The Treaty of Alexandropol (December 1920) was concluded between the Ankara government and Armenia. The Treaty of Moscow (16 March 1921) fixed the Soviet Russia–Türkiye relationship, and the Treaty of Kars (13 October 1921) was signed by Türkiye with the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian Soviet republics and fixed the north-eastern frontier. The Treaty of Lausanne (24 July 1923) settled Türkiye's international status and protected non-Muslim minorities on the basis of equal citizenship. The 2009 Zurich Protocols also referred to mutual recognition of the existing border 'as defined by the relevant treaties of international law'.

Treaties and boundary treaty frameworks work as the baseline in other disputes too. Readers can compare how treaty texts structure the Cyprus question in The Cyprus Channel: Guarantor Rights, Sovereign Equality and the Two-State Vision.

How the debate became politicized

Between 1973 and the mid-1980s, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG, later ARA) carried out attacks on Turkish diplomats, officials and premises in many countries. Turkish official accounts record dozens of diplomats and family members killed, and state that 31 of the 32 JCAG-ARA attacks targeted Turkish representatives. Notorious incidents include the 1982 attack at Esenboğa Airport in Ankara and the 1983 attack at Orly Airport near Paris, which killed and wounded civilians of several nationalities.

The Turkish government says this terrorism, together with diaspora lobbying for parliamentary resolutions, turned a historical question into an instrument of political pressure. Many Armenian organizations and scholars reject any equation between those attacks and the mainstream recognition movement, and Armenian diaspora institutions have condemned violence. Both points belong in the record. Researchers should note that the 1970s and 1980s hardened positions and shaped how access to archives, and trust in them, evolved on each side.

Key Players & Positions

Armenia and the Armenian diaspora

Armenia, the Armenian Apostolic Church and most diaspora organizations describe the killings and deportations of 1915–1916 as genocide and rely on Armenian, Western diplomatic and survivor sources. Armenian officials commemorate 24 April each year. In public statements on normalization, Yerevan has said it is ready for dialogue without preconditions, while continuing to seek international recognition. Armenian officials have viewed the Joint Historical Commission idea with caution, arguing that relations should be established first and that a commission should not make recognition conditional.

Scholars and recognizing states

Many historians, including the International Association of Genocide Scholars in a 1997 resolution, characterize the events as genocide. A large number of parliaments have adopted resolutions to that effect. Examples include the German Bundestag in 2016, and a 2021 statement by US President Joe Biden using the term. Pope Francis used it in 2015. These actors usually argue that the weight of Ottoman, Allied, German, Austrian and US documentation, together with survivor testimony, points to a centrally coordinated destruction of the Ottoman Armenian community.

Courts and legal bodies

The European Court of Human Rights, in the 2015 Grand Chamber judgment Perinçek v. Switzerland, held that a Swiss conviction for denying that 1915 was genocide violated freedom of expression (Article 10). The Court stated that it was not called upon to decide on the legal characterization of the events. The International Court of Justice, in the 2007 Bosnia v. Serbia judgment and again in 2015 in Croatia v. Serbia, held that genocidal intent must be established as the only reasonable inference from the evidence. In 2003 the International Center for Transitional Justice, in an analysis commissioned in connection with the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission, concluded that the Convention could be applied to the events while also finding that it created no retroactive legal liability. That analysis is often cited by both sides for different points.

Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States

These states hold much of the foreign documentation. Their archives record contemporary diplomatic assessments, but their present-day parliaments and governments take differing positions on terminology. Their archival holdings are open to researchers under their own national access rules.

Source Comparison

The table sets out how common framings differ. It describes positions; it does not adjudicate them.

Sister publications in this network examine the same file from other angles. Monitor of Nations covers the Convention criteria, and Archive of Nations walks through the documents, law and diplomacy. Regional Order follows the normalization path, and Hard Power Review discusses the fair memory approach.

The same logic of weighing treaty texts and primary documents against political narratives runs through Corridors of Diplomacy's other desks. The Fact Check on the 'Seville Map' is one example, and the Editorial Principles explain how this site separates fact from position.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Events of 1915: Türkiye's official term for the wartime relocation of Ottoman Armenians and the associated violence and losses. Other governments and scholars use 'Armenian Genocide'.
• Sevk ve İskân Kanunu: The 27 May 1915 law on relocation and resettlement, published on 1 June 1915 in Takvim-i Vekayi, the Ottoman official gazette.
• Dolus specialis: Specific intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group 'as such', in whole or in part, the mental element required by Article II of the 1948 Convention.
• Competent tribunal: Under Article VI, a court of the state where the act occurred or an international penal tribunal with jurisdiction. Article IX gives the International Court of Justice jurisdiction over disputes between states parties.
• Hunchak and Dashnak (ARF): Armenian political committees founded in 1887 and 1890. Their history is read very differently by Armenian and Turkish authors.
• Fedayi: Armenian armed irregulars active from the 1890s; some units fought alongside the Russian army in the First World War.
• ASALA and JCAG-ARA: Armed groups behind attacks on Turkish diplomats and facilities between 1973 and the mid-1980s. Türkiye treats them as terrorist organizations.
• Joint Historical Commission: The April 2005 Turkish proposal for a joint panel of Turkish, Armenian and international historians with access to all relevant archives.
• Fair memory (adil hafıza): Ankara's term for a historians-led approach that respects the suffering of all communities.
• Zurich Protocols (2009): Unratified Türkiye–Armenia agreements on diplomatic relations and a 'historical dimension' sub-commission; Armenia annulled them in 2018.

Related guides on this site: the Corridors of Diplomacy home page lists the other desks. 21 December 1963 and the Green Line shows how a treaty-based order and the records around it can be read, and Security Corridors covers Türkiye's approach to terrorism. The Reader FAQ explains our method, and a further reading on the political dimension of the file is available at The Political Axis and Bloc Politics.

Corridors of Diplomacy Editorial Team. Corridors of Diplomacy presents Türkiye's official perspective and legal positions alongside the wider diplomatic context, and we state this editorial stance openly to our readers. Claims are attributed to primary sources such as treaty texts, UN documents, official statements and archival records, so that readers can verify them independently. Sections marked 'Türkiye's Position' reflect official Turkish policy as stated by Turkish government sources.