A Civilization Destroyed: The Wealth of Non-Muslims in the Late Ottoman Period and the Early Republican Era

Date: November 20-21, 2015

The conference is organized by Hrant Dink Foundation in cooperation with İstanbul Bilgi University, Boğaziçi University and Sabancı University.

The conference will take place at Boğaziçi University Albert Long Hall (BTS) and will be broadcast live on  www.hrantdink.org in English and Turkish.

PROGRAM:

November 20, 2015 Friday

09.00-09.30 Registration

09.30-10.00 Opening Remarks
Rakel Dink (Hrant Dink Foundation)
Gülay Barbarosoğlu (Boğazİçİ University)
Nihat Berker (Sabancı University)
Mehmet Durman (İstanbul Bilgi University)

I – Historical Background

10.00-11.15      Panel 1
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

11.15-11.30 Coffee Break

II - Labor Mobility & Economic Activity

11.30-12.30      Panel 2
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

12.30-13.45 Lunch Break

III - Specific Regions and Groups - I

13.45-15.00      Panel 3
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 Afyonkarahisar, 1875-1925

15.00-15.15 Coffee Break

IV - Specific Regions and Groups - II

15.15-16.30     Panel 4
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
Strategies of Survival: The Lawyer Vladimir Mirmiroglou and the Rum Bourgeoisie of Istanbul During the Years of Foreign Occupation (1919-1922)

November 21, 2015 Saturday

V - Personal and Family Accounts

09.30-10.45 Panel 5
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

10.45-11.00 Coffee Break

VI - Legal and Religious Coercion

11.00-12.30 Panel 6
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

12.30-13.30 Lunch Break

VII - After the Spoliation

13.30-15.30 Panel 7 
Chair: Ayfer Bartu Candan

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

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

15.30-15.45 Coffee Break

VIII – Cultural Losses 

15.45-17.30      Panel 8
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

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

17.30-17.45 Coffee Break

17.45-18.15 General Evaluation & Discussions
Cengiz Aktar (Hrant Dink Foundation)