Diana Markosian

The Armenian Massacre happened in 1894-1896 and the Armenian Genocide happened in 1915-1920 which was caused by the Turkish Government. The Turkish Government’s aim was to remove all the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire because they were more educated and wealthier then the Turkish population . The Turkish Government was also worried that the Armenians would become allies with Russia, who were a threat to Turkey . They killed and deported the Armenians to prevent this happening. It has been estimated

A photograph is a powerful tool for life. A single, unchanged image of reality can be utilized for a variety of situations. For one, one photograph could decide the lifestyle in the foreseeable future of a person that committed a crime. Furthermore, one photograph could reveal the horrors of a particular event. On another note, one photograph could hold heartwarming memories forever. In addition, one photograph could stir a controversy that will have people debating whether an entity is real or not. Overall, as Susan Sontag mentions in her book Photograph, “Photographs furnish evidence.”(Sontag); in other words, whether if it is, good, bad, or misinterpreted, one photograph can be used as evidence that something in fact happened or is real.

During World War I, the government of Turkey sought to rid their country of the Armenians. The Turks and other ethnic groups hated the Armenians for their ability to prosper, even as a minority group with limited rights. This hatred led to the desire to cleanse the Ottoman Empire of Armenian influence. The Turkish people say that the Ottoman empire went through a civil war during this time, which explains the deaths of so many Armenians. Although the Turks claim otherwise, the treatment of the Armenian people during World War I qualifies as a genocide through scale, government involvement, and the usage of the genocide process.

On the 24 April 1915, as the Ottoman Empire was being dismantled, a fiercely nationalistic Muslim political party known as the Young Turks began the process of exterminating approximately 1 500 000 Armenian Christians. The Young Turks aimed to create a state that was free from any Armenians and from Christians in particular. The genocide lasted 8 years, until 1923, during which time the Armenian Christian population in the Ottoman Empire was reduced from approximately 2 million to approximately 500 000. Still today, Turkey refuses to call what took place ‘genocide’. The modern Turkish government argues that the intent was to relocate the Armenians or, in some cases, that the genocide was completely fabricated by the Armenians, as a bid to gain support from the outside Christian world.

The Armenian Genocide of 1915 was the Ottoman Governments eradication of the Armenians within what is now known as Turkey. Ottoman authorities arrested deported and eventually murdered Armenian subjects, as well as targeting men, women and Christian ethnic groups (Kévorkian, 2011). World War I was a key factor when looking at the Armenian Genocide; in 1914 the Turks entered the war on the same side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany. Government and military leadership feared the revolt of the Armenians; they

The Armenians were an indo-european group who are one of the world’s oldest civilizations,whose main religion(s) were Orthodox or Roman Catholic. They have an olive to dark complexion and have brown or black hair. Armenian People They were an agricultural group of people who were subject to one of the worst disasters of WWI, and the first genocide of the 20th century. They lived in Armenia, which is now Northeastern Turkey.Armenian Map They are known for their art style, carpets, and architecture. They were a group that has always been overtaken by others some being, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Persians and finally the Ottoman Turks.

At the beginning of the twentieth century from 1915 to 1923 conflicts arose between a group called the Young Turks and Armenians in the Ottoman empire. Many Armenians were driven from their homes and forced to march from the land they once called home to the deserts of Syria. Others were killed in massacres that took place across the Ottoman empire and those who remained were forced to convert. During the eight year genocide about one and a half million Armenians perished and another million were deported. Tragedies like these lead many to wonder how humans could commit such awful crimes towards each other. Religious differences, political suspicions, and treating Armenians as social inferiors were issues between Turks and Armenians that led up to, and exploded during the Armenian Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide was carried out during World War 1 between the years nineteen fifteen and nineteen eighteen. It was planned and managed by the Turkish government against the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. The mass of the Armenian population was forcibly removed from Armenia and Anatolia to Syria, where the mass was sent into the desert to die of thirst and hunger. Large numbers of Armenians were systematically massacred all over the Ottoman Empire. Women and children were abducted and terribly abused. The entire wealth of the Armenian people was confiscated. After a year of calm at the end of World War One, the slaughter was renewed between nineteen twenty and nineteen twenty three the turks organized massacres of Armenians in and as a result of Turkish atrocities more than one million of Armenians were slaughtered, died from cold, hunger and epidemics, hundreds of thousands Armenians were captivated, assimilated, deported by force from their native places (Armenocide.am). Today, most historians call this event genocide–“a premeditated and systematic campaign to exterminate an entire people.” The Armenian people were issued to deportation, seizure, persecution, massacre, and hunger. Ordinary Armenians were turned out of their homes and sent on death marches through the Mesopotamian desert without food or

The Armenians perished in the hands of the Ottoman empire. Run by Islamic Turks, the Ottoman empire made sure to make the Christian Armenians feel unwelcome. They were considered to be “infidels” and were treated unfairly. Unjust acts slipped through judicial laws; the Armenians were given discriminatory taxes, they were not allowed to participate in the government, and they certainly had no voice. The unfortunate truth was that the Armenians were a minority and the powerful Turks did not fail in treating them like one: “During the reign of the Sultan Abdul Hamid (Abdulhamit) II (1876-1909), a series of massacres throughout the empire meant to frighten Armenians and so dampen their expectations, cost up to three hundred thousand lives by some

In 1915, officials of the Turkish government commenced an ambition to eradicate the Armenian people residing in the Ottoman Empire. Ultimately, the genocide slaughtered approximately 1.5 million of the 2 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire at the time and displaced hundreds of thousands more upon its end. To date, the atrocities staining the Turkish deserts have still not been recognized at the international level.

Commencing in April of 1915, the Ottoman government systematically initiated the slaughter of the empires Armenian civilian population. Often referred by historians as the first genocide to occur in the twentieth century, the Armenian Genocide refers to the persecution of the Armenian people, with estimates believing there to have been anywhere between six hundred thousand to a million and a half dead by the time the genocide concluded in early 1923. The deaths of the Armenian people were carried out in an arguable attempt by the Ottoman government to create what would be

Anyone can take a picture of a beautiful thing, but only a photographer can take a picture of anything and make it appear beautiful. The sights in which I photograph are ones that would normally pass by every other teenager with no second thought, but they happen to draw me in. Stored in my camera’s memory is a diary; although wordless, it tells a story close to my soul, much deeper than words ever

Photographs, are moments forever captured. They are mirrors of reality, ghosts of lives and events told through particles of ink and paper. From photography’s birth in 1839, to its most recent incarnation into selfies, photographs have been telling and retelling the stories of humanity. In On Photography, and Reading American Photographs, both Sontag, and Trachtenberg critically examine the nature of photography, and its impact on the past, present, and future world. Though Sontag, and Trachtenberg diverge stylistically in their exploration of photographs, both authors are united in their ideas of the influence of photographs on our understanding of history, as well as the power that one exercises when looking through a lense.

Photography grants the power to seize a moment, a moment so precious, so intimate, so important that we as humans are allowed to cherish and hold tight to that moment; a chance to reminisce. That precious moment, as Annette Kuhn says, “show[s] not so much that we were once there, as how we once were” (Annette Kuhn 95). The deceased are brought back to life. A childhood is relived. A relationship is repeatedly forged. Photography imprisons time, holds it hostage—chained to the walls of our memories, giving the viewer the power to continually find the treasure inside, that one split second in time. Photography captures the essence of a specific time and place; it grants the privilege to relive that exact moment.

When considering photography one can examine a variety of aspects, there are subtleties built into each moving piece that constitutes a photograph. From the mechanisms of the camera to the motivations of the photographer or the contexts where the photograph is exhibited there is an intentionality in each element that affects how the photograph is interpreted and how photography as a whole influences our society. Examining the nuances of photography and their implications on the world as a whole are Susan Sontag in On Photography and Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida. They are both significant figures in photography criticism and their differing ideologies establish a foundation on which to begin critiquing photography. While Barthes asserts death as the core of photography and its influence on the subject, Sontag acknowledges death and aggression in the act of photography yet ultimately centers in on surrealism as the essence of photography.