The Armenian People and the Ottoman Empire

About This Lesson

This lesson begins the unit about the Armenian Genocide and introduces students both to the 2,500-year history of the Armenian people and the sociopolitical structure of the Ottoman Empire. Students begin by reflecting on how they experience “multiple belongings” in their own lives and then expand on that concept to explore the status of Armenians in the vast and diverse Ottoman Empire.

Essential Questions

• What choices and conditions led to the genocide of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire during World War I?
• How can learning about these choices and conditions help us protect the most vulnerable groups in our society today?

Guiding Questions

• Who are the Armenians?
• How did the multiple facets of Armenian identity define their status within the Ottoman Empire?

Learning Objectives

• Students will reflect on the complexity of belonging to or identifying with multiple groups and the tension that results when they choose (or someone chooses for them) to prioritize one form of “belonging” over others.
• Students will identify some of the defining events and achievements that distinguish Armenian history and culture.
• Students will be able to explain the social and political system that organized the religiously, ethnically, and linguistically diverse peoples of the Ottoman Empire into a hierarchical but relatively stable society until the 19th century. 

See the Additional Context & Background section in the Google Doc version of this lesson plan for the essential historical knowledge needed to teach this lesson.

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Reflect on the Experience of “Multiple Belongings”

Explain to the class that in this unit you will be studying the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915–1916. If students are unfamiliar with the term genocide, provide students the following definition, codified in the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention: the attempt to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, or religious group. Tell students that they will return to this definition later in the unit. But first, they will consider what it meant to belong in the Ottoman Empire throughout most of its history until the late 1800s.

Ask students to reflect in their journals on the following questions:

1. What are some groups and communities to which you belong? Is there one that you identify more closely with than the others? Is there one that other people associate you more closely with? 
2. What does it feel like when you move between the different groups and communities to which you belong? Do you ever feel like you need to hide or downplay your connections to one community in order to feel included in another? Why or why not?

Give students a few minutes to share some of their thinking with a partner. Because students may not feel comfortable sharing exactly what they wrote, you might simply ask them to share with each other a word or short phrase that, to them, describes the experience of having “multiple belongings.”

Activity 2: Explore the Many Facets of Armenian Identity in the Contemporary World

Distribute the reading Thoughts on What it Means to Be Armenian. This reading includes a reflection by Houry Mayissian, a Lebanon-born Armenian, about the complexity of Armenian identity in the contemporary world.  

Read Mayissian’s essay aloud as the class follows along. As you read, begin an identity chart on the whiteboard for Houry. You can pause multiple times in the reading to ask students to suggest additions to the identity chart.  

After reading is complete, use the Think-Pair-Share activity to discuss the four questions on the handout:

1. What places, people, events, and experiences contribute to how Houry Mayissian describes her identity as an Armenian?
2. How did Houry learn about being Armenian before she ever went to Armenia? How have her experiences in the republic of Armenia made her Armenian identity feel more “real” than ever before?
3. According to Houry, what do all Armenians have in common? What differences exist within the worldwide Armenian community?
4. What are some of the “multiple belongings” that Houry experiences, both within the global Armenian community and as an Armenian in global society?

Activity 3: Introduce the History of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire

Next, explain to students that around the turn of the twentieth century, shortly before the Armenian Genocide, Armenians did not have their own nation-state. Most of the world’s Armenians lived in the eastern regions of the Ottoman Empire, where there had been an Armenian kingdom in ancient times. Smaller numbers of Armenians lived in the Russian Empire to the north and the Persian Empire to the east.

Explain that in order to understand what led to the Armenian Genocide, students will need to know more about the history of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire. The empire was quite diverse and included people of multiple faiths, ethnicities, and nationalities. While subjects of the empire had some freedom to move between and belong to multiple social groups, one’s religious and ethnic or national groups were the primary ways one’s identity, rights, and privileges were bestowed by the sultan. Within this context, Armenian life was characterized, in part, by “multiple belongings” throughout much of the empire’s history.

Pass out the viewing guide for The History of the Ottoman Armenians. Preview the discussion questions on the handout so that students can gather information from the video to answer them. Then play the clip of the documentary The Armenian Genocide (2:28-4:50). The viewing guide includes a transcript of the clip for student reference.

Give students a few moments to work with a partner to jot down information from the clip in response to the discussion questions. 

Activity 4: Whole Group Discussion About Armenian and Ottoman Identity

Wrap up the lesson by leading a class discussion using the last discussion question on the handout Viewing Guide: The History of the Ottoman Armenians: What were the advantages of the millet system for Armenians? What were the disadvantages?

Note: Clarify and emphasize that “Ottoman” did not describe one’s religion, nationality, or ethnicity, but rather the extent to which one identified with and was loyal to the empire itself. While the ruler of the empire was exclusively Muslim and Turk, any subject of the empire might describe themselves as Ottoman when they wished to identify as a loyal subject to the empire.