Sasun: The History of an 1890s Armenian Revolt

Sasun, a region of Anatolia formerly under Ottoman rule and today part of eastern Turkey, is frequently described as the site where, in 1894, the Turks massacred large numbers of Armenian Christians, with estimates ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 people. News reports at the time detailed that gruesome acts, including torture, had occurred at Sasun at the hands of the Ottoman army. The Ottoman Empire denied these allegations. A commission of European delegates sent to investigate the matter concluded that the news reports were highly exaggerated, yet the original stories of atrocities have persisted. This volume provides a close examination of the historical evidence to shed light on what happened at Sasun. The authors’ research indicates that the stories circulated by the media of torture and murder in Sasun don’t hold up against the findings of the European investigators. Evidence instead shows that an Armenian revolt led to fights with local Kurds and many fewer deaths, on both sides, and that the conflict had largely subsided before the arrival of the Ottoman army.