Arapgir

Arapgir (also Arabkir or Arabgir, Armenian: _hy. Արաբկիր, known as Arabraces during Byzantine rule) is the name of a town and district of Malatya Province, Turkey. As of 2000 it had a population of 17,070 people. It is situated in the confluence of the eastern and western Euphrates river, but some miles from the right bank of the combined streams. Arapgir is connected with Sivas by a "chaussée", prolonged to the Euphrates river. The present town was built in the mid-19th century, but about 2 miles north-east is the old town, now called Eskişehir ("old city" in Turkish).

History

The old town of Arapgir was founded by Seneqerim in 1021, who was the last king of Vaspurakan kingdom. It remained under Armenian control and was a vassal of the Byzantine Empire until 1070, when the Seljuk dynasty conquered the city. In the 14th century the Ottoman Empire gained the city from the Seljuk dynasty. Under Ottoman rule, Arapgir was part of Mamuret-el-Aziz Province. The town was famous for the grapes and mulberries that grew in the area.

Arapgir was the site of a fascinating story of rising textile imports and industrial growth as of the 1830s. In 1836, some 1,000 looms in Arapgir were weaving cotton goods from British yarn and by 1907, some 1,200. Durability and color fastness of locally made "manusa" textile also retained its competitive position. The city grew larger than the province (vilayet) center of Harput and a municipal administration was established in 1883.

Population

According to a Cambridge University study, Arapgir in the 1880s held 4,800 Muslim and 1,200 Armenian homes, with a total population of about 29,000 persons [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=w61NeZ6l2kQC&dq=arapkir&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html limited preview] cite book | title = Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution p. 86-99 ISBN 0521893011|author= Donald Quataert et al.|publisher=Cambridge University| year= 1993|language=English ] . According to a METU study citing Nejat Göyünç [ cite book | title = Osmanlı idaresinde Ermeniler|author= Nejat Göyünç|publisher=Gültepe Yayn. Ankara| year= 1983|language=Turkish ] , the city population was about 20,000 in 1911, of which more than half of the population was Armenian Christians and the rest were Muslim. [ "...in the Center of Arapgir, the Armenians formed 53% of the total population while they formed only 18% of the population in the periphery areas of Arapgir." cite web | url = http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/1047513/index.pdf (Masters Thesis full text)| title = The Armenian question according to Takvim-i Vekayi|author=Pınar Kundil|publisher=Middle East Technical University, Ankara| access date=2007-05-05|language=English ] Differing sources present differing pictures for the respective shares of ethnicities within the weavers' community. The Armenian population is reported to have suffered severely during the Hamidian massacres of 1895 although, in this regard, Donald Quataert notes, with textile exports back to normal levels a year after the turmoil, in 1896, either all weavers were Muslims after all, or few Armenian weavers were killed, displaced or disrupted during the troubles. In 1915 there were about 33,000 Armenians living in Arapgir Fact|date=May 2007. After 1915 Armenian Genocide, most of the Armenian population of Arapgir was killed or escaped to Armenia. In 1922 the remaining 800 Armenians of Arapgir settled in Soviet Armenia. Most people that escaped the genocide settled in Yerevan a district called Arabkir District.

Churches, Mosques, Buildings

Armenians had 7 churches in the town, three of those churches were St. Hakob, St. Gevorg and St. Grigor. There were also more than 10 schools in the town. The biggest church which was able to house 3,000 people [ For comparison, New York City's Saint Patrick's Cathedral has seating for 2,200 people. ] was attacked and looted and burnt in 1915. After the war the church was repaired and was used as a school. It was demolished in the late 1950s. Little is left of pre-war Arapgir, but there are still some old houses that have survived, which are Armenian origin. The town also contains the ruins of a castle, several Seljuk mosques, old cemetery and silver mines.

ee also

*Arabkir District (Yerevan)

External links

* [http://www.malatya.gov.tr/ilceler/arapgir.HTM Arapgir Towns Official Web Page] tr icon
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD8FNCVezBY Arapgir Town Video]

People from Arapgir

*Abdullah Cevdet
*Khajag Barsamian

References