Kum Kapu demonstration

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Kum Kapu demonstration
DateJuly 27, 1890
Location
Demonstrations
Parties
Ottoman Empire Ottoman policemen
Lead figures
Casualties and losses
3 protesters
4 policemen

The Kum Kapu demonstration occurred in the Kumkapı district of Constantinople on July 27, 1890. It ensued in skirmishing in which several demonstrators and four police officers were killed. The intent of the demonstration was "..to awaken the maltreated Armenians and to make the Sublime Porte fully aware of the miseries of the Armenians."[1]

Background

Towards the close of the nineteenth century, Armenian revolutionary societies began to agitate for reform and renewed European attention to the

Erzerum that resulted in a massacre.[citation needed
]

July 27, 1890

On 27 July 1890,

They soon forced the patriarch to join a procession heading to Yıldız Palace to demand implementation of Article 61 of the 1878 Treaty of Berlin. Even as the procession was gathering, police surrounded the crowd, and shots were fired that resulted in a number of deaths, including four policemen and three protestors.[2]

Result

The Hunchaks concluded that the demonstrations at Kum Kapu were unsuccessful.[3] At the same time, while there was no clear result from the event, the Hunchak press praised the courage shown by those present. Similar demonstrations on a lesser scale followed throughout most of the 1890s.[4]

Notes

  1. ^ Khan-Azat, op. cit., VI (February 1928), pp. 124–125
  2. ^ a b "Fighting In Constantinople.; The Armenian Patriarch Mobbed – Soldiers And Rioters Killed" (PDF). New York Times. 29 July 1890.
  3. ^ The Armenian revolutionary movement: the development of Armenian political parties through the nineteenth century By Louise Nalbandian, page 119
  4. ^ Hovhanissian, Richard G. (1997) The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times. New York. St. Martin's Press, 218-9