Articles
The Committee for Union and Progress’ Policy towards the Kurd Hamidiye Regiments in the Ottoman Empire (1908–1912)
Tibet Abak
Vostok/Oriens '2016, №2
After Young Turks’s coming to power and the proclamation of the constitutional regime all the nations of the Ottoman Empire were proclaimed equal. This drastic change concerning the minorities of the empire had a strong impact on the Kurdish tribes which have enrolled at the Hamidiye Regiments in the Eastern provinces during the era of Abdulhamid II and have committed armed robbery and violence against the Armenians, usually without any impunity by local administrations. In the early years of the new regime, the ruling Young Turk party in cooperation and even alliance with the Armenian Committee of the ARF embarked upon elimination of the all adherents of the old Abdulhamid regime, including Hamidian regiments. They nullified the many privileges of the regiments and began to punish their leaders. Completely disgruntled with such policy of the ruling party, Huseyin Pasha, the chief of the Hayderanli tribe, emigrated to the Western part of Iran with his fellows aiming to get Russian patronage which substantially alarmed the Young Turks. Concerning about Kurdish unrest with the support of Russia, the Young Turks implemented more moderate policy toward the Kurdish tribes.
Keywords: Kurdish problem, Young Turks, Hamidiye regiments, Huseyin pasha
Pages: С. 100–115
