The academic meeting titled ‘A Civilization Destroyed: The Wealth of Non-Muslims in the Late Ottoman Period and the Early Republican Era’ and organized by Hrant Dink Foundation in cooperation with Bogazici University, Istanbul Bilgi University and Sabanci University was held with broad participation on November 20-21, 2015 at Bogazici University, Albert Long Hall. The conference, which received much attention, was broadcasted live on www.hrantdink.org website both in English and in Turkish.

Hrant Dink Foundation President Rakel Dink, Bogazici University Rector Gülay Barbarosoğlu, Istanbul Bilgi University Rector Mehmet Durman and Sabancı University Rector Nihat Berker made the opening speeches of the conference. The history of expropriation and destruction of the wealth of non-Muslims through policies of annihilation of minorities and Turkification in the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Period was explored with an interdisciplinary perspective.

A total of 27 papers were presented at the meeting which was attended by 29 scientific researchers from 11 countries. The papers of ‘A Civilization Destroyed: The Wealth of Non-Muslims in the Late Ottoman Period and the Early Republican Era’ conference, the fifth academic meeting of the Foundation within this framework, will be published into a book and brought to the attention of scientific researchers.

1st DAY

Opening Remarks - Rakel Dink, Gülay Barbarosoğlu, Mehmet Durman, Nihat Berker

Panel I: "Historical Background"

Chair Ayhan Aktar

Abdülhamit Kırmızı 'Social and Economic Background of Armenians in the Late Ottoman Bureaucracy'

Mustafa Erdem Kabadayı / Berkay Küçükbaşlar 'Lost Communities Lost Occupations? Ethno-Religious Division of Labor from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic '

Nilay Özok Gündoğan 'The State, Landholders, and the Sharecroppers: The Economic Origins of Intercommunal Violence in Palu, 1840-1870'

Panel II: "Labor Mobility and Economic Activity"

Chair Ahmet İnsel

Jelle Verheij ‘Armenian Rural Migration to Istanbul in the 1890s: The Migrant Profile’

Sinan Dinçer ‘The Rise and Fall of the Armenian Migrant networks’

Panel III: "Specific Regions and Groups - I"

Chair Edhem Eldem

Zeynep Kezer 'A Landscape Unravelled: Post-1915 Changes in Industrial and Agricultural Patterns in Harput and its Golden Plain'

Elçin Macar ‘Confiscated Properties of the Cilicia Armenian Catholicosate in Adana-Kozan (Sis)’

Caroline Mesrobian Hickman 'Perspectives on the Ottoman-Armenian Economy of Afyon Karahisar, 1875-1925'

Panel IV: "Specific Regions and Groups - II"

Chair Ayşe Kadıoğlu

Eyal Ginio 'Boycott and Exclusion: The Retracing of Communal Borders in Dimetoka Following the Balkan Wars '

Giordano Altarozzi / Iulia Alexandra Oprea 'Untold (Hi)Stories: Social and Religious Life of Turkey’s Last Levantines'

Dimitris Stamatopoulos Hayatta Kalma Stratejileri: 'Strategies of Survival: The Lawyer Vladimir Mirmiroglou and the Rum Bourgeoisie of Istanbul During the Years of Foreign Occupation (1919-1922)'

2nd DAY

Panel V: "Personal and Family Accounts"

Chair Leyla Neyzi

Oya Gözel Durmaz 'The Story of an Armenian Merchant in the Terms of the Forced Deportation: Ibranosyan'

Jonathan Conlin “Very Loyal Subjects and Friends of Our Country”: The Gulbenkians and Ottoman/Turkish Economic Development, 1880-1935'

Sezai Balcı 'The Rise of the Greek Bourgeiose in Giresun and Captain Yorgi Konstantinidi, Mayor of Giresun'

Panel VI: "Legal and Religious Coercion"

Chair Bülent Bilmez

Mehmet Polatel 'Discussions and Regulations Related to the Return of the Seized Armenian Properties (1908-1912)'

Hilmar Kaiser 'Movable Armenian Property in 1915'

Anush Hovhannisyan 'Forcible Islamization as a Mechanism of Transferring of Armenian Property: History from Below'

Hamit Bozarslan 'An Interpretation of the Projects Involving Economic Plunder and Demographic Homogenization in the Armenian and Jewish Genocides'

Panel VII: "After the Spoliation"

Chair Ayfer Bartu Candan

Ümit Kurt 'Abondoned Property Restitution Process After World War I: The Cebel-i Bereket Sanjak Casei'

Ellinor Morack 'As a matter of fact, it has become ownerless”: Text and Subtext in the Turkish national Assembly’s Deliberations on the “Abandoned Property Law”, 1921-22'

Emre Eldem 'The Distribution of the Abandoned Properties to Locals in Mardin: Reading the ads of Ulus Sesi newspaper, 1935-36'

Oktay İnce 'Land Struggle in Sinankoy Village: Armenian Properties and the Republic’s Feudalism'

Nevzat Onaran 'The Turkification of Property and Restitution or Compensation'

Panel VIII: "Cultural Losses"

Chair Suavi Aydın

Ümit Eser “Item that We Deemed to Have no Worth”: The Dispute Over a Church Property in the Early Republican Period, 1922-1950'

Francesca Penoni 'The Destruction of the Armenian Religious Architecture in the Early Twentieth Century Kayseri and the Surrounding Villages'

Fırat Güllü 'Elimination of Armenians from Turkish Language Theatre Activities in the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Era'

Stefani Kundakjian 'Living Currency: The Value of Armenian Women and Children at the End of the Ottoman Empire and Early Republican Era'

General Evaluation and Discussions: Cengiz Aktar