Armenians and Land Disputes in the Ottoman Empire, 1850–1914

Mehmet Polatel is the academy coordinator for the Minority Rights Academy Project at the Hrant Dink Foundation based in Istanbul. He received his Ph.D. degree from Bogazici University in Istanbul and he won the Distinguished Dissertation Award of the Society for Armenian Studies. Prior to receiving his Ph.D., he earned an MA in Comparative Studies in History and Society from Koç University, Istanbul. After receiving his Ph.D., he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship in Armenian Studies from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a junior postdoctoral fellowship from the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research. His main research interests include state-society relations, minority rights, property politics, cultural heritage, Armenian Genocide, and dispossession of Armenians. He co-authored a book with Uğur Ü. Üngör entitled Confiscation and Destruction: Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Properties (Bloomsbury, 2011) and published several articles and book chapters on the massacres of 1894-7, land question, and the Armenian Genocide.

This groundbreaking work analyses the genealogy of the Armenian land question from the second half of the 19th century to the eve of World War. Mehmet Polatel has made a monumental contribution from both empirical and theoretical perspectives to the study of the agrarian question in the Ottoman Empire and beyond.

• List of IllustrationsAbbreviations, Acronyms and Non-English TermsNote on TransliterationAcknowledgementIntroduction: The Political and Economic Aspects of the Land Question1. Law, Land and Politics: The Transformation of Ottoman Land Regime2. Peasants versus Notables: The Emergence of the Armenian Land Question (1850-80)3. Mass Violence and Mass Seizures (1880-1908)4. Controlling Outcomes: The Hamidian Government and Land Disputes5. Revolution, Resolution and Resistance (1908-12): The Land Question under the Young Turks6. The Reforms and the Land Question after the Outbreak of the Balkan Wars7. The Land Question on the Eve of the First World WarConclusion: The Armenian Genocide and the Land QuestionBibliographyIndex