April 14, 1909: Adana Massacre

Beginning on April 14, 1909, in and around the city of Adana, approximately 20,000 to 25,000 Armenians were tortured and killed by Ottoman Muslims following political unrest in the region. These brutal ethnic murders became known as the Adana Massacre and, according to historian Jeanne Theoharis, “served as the prelude to the Armenian Genocide,” which took place between 1915 and 1923.

The Armenian National Institute writes,

Armenian survivors of the massacres at the ruins of their houses. Source: The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute 

The Adana Massacre was the second series of large-scale massacres of Armenians to break out in the Ottoman Empire. The atrocities committed in the province of Adana in April 1909 coincided with the counter-revolution staged by supporters of Sultan Abdul Hamid (Abdulhamit) II (1876-1909) who had been forced to restore the Ottoman Constitution as a result of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution led by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).

According to the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, “a reported 4,437 Armenian dwellings were torched, resulting in the razing of nearly half the town and prompting some to describe the resulting inferno as a ‘holocaust.’” The Museum-Institute notes that, “The intensity of the carnage prompted the government to open an investigation, but the failure to prosecute dashed Armenian expectations of liberal reforms by the new regime.”

Related Resources

Armenian survivors of the Adana massacres. Source: The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute 

The Horrors of Adana: Revolution and Violence in the Early Twentieth Century by Bedross Der Matossian (Stanford University Press)

“God cried”: Charles’ “destan” on the 110th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by Jeanne Theoharis (The Armenian Weekly)

Adana Massacres 1909: Unknown Scenes of the Tragedy (The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute)

Adana Massacre (1909) by Rouben Paul Adalian (Armenian National Institute)