Armenians and Land Disputes in the Ottoman Empire, 1850–1914

Examines the Armenian land question in its transnational context

• Discusses land dispute cases from different provinces of the Ottoman Empire especially from the Ottoman East, namely Bitlis, Van, Mamuretülaziz, Erzurum, Sivas, and Diyarbakır, between 1850 and 1914
• Examines the liberal and nationalist approaches to land and property rights and shows how the nationalist approach eventually prevailed
• Explores the impact of mass violence on socioeconomic life and structures and the relationship between competition for resources, intercommunal conflict, and mass violence
• Provides new insights for the history of the Ottoman Empire, especially in terms of population, land and citizenship policies
• Situates the Armenian land question into its larger historical context by discussing it in the light of land policies worldwide

Armenians and Land Disputes in the Ottoman Empire traces the transformation of land disputes involving Armenians into the Armenian land question from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the First World War. Situating this event into its historical context marked by the rise of the central administrative state, encroachment of capitalism and the new territorial turn that changed the political significance of land ownership, this book argues that the Armenian land question was shaped by two conflicting trends: liberalisation and nationalisation of land.

The book also shows how mass violence transformed competitive struggles and socioeconomic life and structures on the one hand, and how these struggles strained intercommunal relations and blocked possibilities of normalisation on the other. Examining the actions and discourses of Armenian and Kurdish intellectuals, Muslim powerholders in the provinces, and Ottoman officials and the Istanbul elite – along with the institutions, local and national, that sustained these groups, it populates a large blank space in our existing picture of the late Ottoman Empire.