Armenophobia in History: From Empire to the Edge of Genocide
The roots of Armenophobia stretch far back in history, embedded in imperial systems and perpetuated through religious hierarchy, political power, and pseudoscientific ideology. While the modern era has brought new manifestations of anti-Armenianism, its historical foundations were laid through centuries of marginalization, violence, and cultural erasure—setting the stage for one of the most devastating crimes of the 20th century.
During the late Byzantine and early Seljuk periods, Armenians were frequently displaced and persecuted, caught between the crumbling Orthodox Christian empires and the expanding Islamic powers of Central Asia. With the arrival of Turkic tribes and the decline of Armenian sovereignty, the population faced widespread displacement, forced conversions, and the loss of cultural autonomy. The fall of Ani and repeated invasions of historic Armenian lands decimated entire communities and triggered centuries of statelessness. During the same era, Persian empires—particularly under Shah Abbas I of the Safavid dynasty—forcibly relocated tens of thousands of Armenians deeper into Persia, resettling them in cities like Isfahan to stimulate trade and craftsmanship. These deportations fractured Armenian society while also planting diasporic roots that would evolve into new communities, such as the Persian Armenians of today.
Under the Ottoman Empire, Armenians were designated as dhimmis, non-Muslims granted limited protection but denied equality. Despite contributions to trade, literature, and diplomacy, Armenians were subject to extra taxation, land seizures, and social inferiority, periodically scapegoated during times of political unrest. This status became more precarious in the late 19th century, when Sultan Abdul Hamid II ordered a brutal crackdown on Armenian reformers and civilians. The Hamidian Massacres of 1894–1896 claimed as many as 300,000 lives, laying bare the vulnerability of Armenians within the empire.
The early 20th century brought further catastrophe. In 1909, a massacre in Adana targeted Armenian families under the pretense of suppressing rebellion. Mobs burned churches, butchered civilians, and destroyed entire neighborhoods. These massacres, however, paled in comparison to the orchestrated annihilation that followed. From 1915 to 1923, the Young Turk regime carried out the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians through forced marches, executions, starvation, and cultural destruction. What the Ottoman state did not complete through mass murder, the newly formed Republic of Turkey pursued through policies of denial, erasure, and Turkification.
Even after the official end of the Genocide, Armenophobia persisted. Survivors who remained in Turkey lived in fear, their identities hidden or forcibly assimilated. Thousands of churches and monasteries were confiscated or destroyed. In the 1930s, nationalist campaigns expelled thousands of Armenians from Thrace, followed by the 1940s Wealth Tax (Varlık Vergisi), which deliberately targeted Armenians, Greeks, and Jews with crushing financial penalties. Those unable to pay were sent to labor camps, where many died.
The 1955 Istanbul Pogrom, though largely directed at Greeks, also devastated the Armenian and Jewish communities. Armenian churches, schools, and homes were looted and burned. By the late 20th century, only a tiny fraction of Turkey’s historic Armenian population remained.
In Soviet Armenia, even as survivors found refuge, they were often silenced. In 1965, on the 50th anniversary of the Genocide, massive protests in Yerevan challenged Soviet authorities who had long suppressed public discussion of the massacres. This uprising planted the seeds of national revival, but it also exposed the limits of freedom under the USSR. While the Armenian SSR promoted development and cultural revival, Soviet policies across the broader region often fanned interethnic tensions rather than resolved them.
In neighboring Soviet Azerbaijan, anti-Armenian sentiment was growing steadily by the 1980s. Armenian intellectuals were pushed out of cultural institutions, and nationalist rhetoric gained traction in both state media and education. These tensions exploded in 1988 with the Sumgait pogrom, when mobs attacked Armenian civilians with horrific violence. Dozens were killed, and hundreds fled. This marked the beginning of large-scale ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Azerbaijan, culminating in the expulsion of nearly all Armenian residents from Baku and other cities by the early 1990s.
Through these centuries, Armenophobia remained a constant, though its forms evolved—from imperial subjugation and religious othering to racialized violence, economic persecution, and state-sponsored denial. What ties these historical events together is not just the suffering of a people, but the consistent dehumanization and scapegoating of Armenians as threats to empire, stability, or national identity. These narratives paved the way for genocide, and their legacy continues to shape anti-Armenian ideologies into the present day.