The Ottoman Armenians Discuss Ottoman Civic Identity during Tanzimat Reforms

Abstract

This paper explores how the Armenian efendis conceptualized and responded to the Ottoman imperial nation-building project during the Tanzimat reforms. It seeks to answer whether for the Armenian elite, the new form of the Ottoman civic identity was exclusively based on membership in an imperial nation, or it promoted a dual identity – one imperial, and one ethno-religious or national. Discourse analysis of reports of the Armenian National Assembly, and editorials of Armenian newspapers, published in Constantinople (Istanbul), let me argue that although the Armenian Tanzimat-men shared the idea of Ottoman citizenship, they made it clear that membership in an imperial nation could not exclude the Armenian identity which was relatively inflexible.