Vaհe H Apelian
The Armenians referred to Constantinople sounding its Latin name – Constantinopolis - as Կոստանդնուպոլիս (Gosdantnowbolis), and often abbreviated it as կ. Պոլիս (G. Bolis) and hence Bolis came to signify the Armenian Constantinople.
Dr. Antranig Chalabian wrote the following about Bolis in the 19th century. “At the beginning of the 1800s Bolis, had 850,000 inhabitants of whom 374,000 were Muslims; 152,000 Creeks; 150,000 Armenians and 44,000 Jews. The remaining 80,000 were Europeans, Copts, Assyrians, and others.
In 1850's Bolis had become the financial, the political and the cultural center of the Western Armenians. The community was continuing to swell in numbers at the expense of the Armenian populated cities in Eastern Turkey. Everyone wanted to settle in Bolis. It should be noted, however, that a good segment of the Armenians who came to Bolis were migrant workers who would work, at times for years, to save money and return to their villages and homes.
The number of Armenians in Bolis between 1860-1880, had peaked to an all-time high estimated to be around 275,000. Bolis was unsurpassed among the Armenians worldwide, including Armenia. In 1859 there were 42 Armenian schools in Bolis with a total enrollment of 5531 students and 197 teachers. In 1871 the numbers were swelled to 48 schools with an enrollment of around 6000 students. The cultural and scholastic revival among the Armenians in Bolis may be better appreciated in stating that the famed American University of Beirut was established later, in 1886, and until 1945 had only 500 students; while in Yerevan the Eastern Armenians numbered 13,000 and were a minority overwhelmed by the presence of 17,000 Tatars. Most of the Eastern Armenians in the region lived in Tiflis and Baku.
The unprecedented cultural revival among the Armenians in Turkey was cut short from 1876 and onwards for reasons we all know too well.
The «American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions» missionary William Goodell, claimed in his memoir that he was the first American missionary to set foot in Constantinople. I quote: «Rev. William Goodell arrived in Constantinople on June 9, 1831. In a letter to a friend in the United States, he noted that “My family is said to be the first who has ever visited this place.”.
He gave a similar demographical make up of Constantiniople in the 19th century. He wrote: «“The city of Constantinople contained, including the suburbs, a population of about 1,000,000 of various nationalities and religions. The Turks and other Mohammedans comprised more than half; the Greeks and Armenians each numbered 150,000, the former being the more numerous, there were about 50,000 Jews; the remainder was made of Franks and people from almost every part of the world”. These distinct ethnic communities naturally intermingled but “for the most part occupied different quarters of the city with the Turks having almost exclusive possession of the city proper.”
William Goodell's Christian mission was for the Armenians. I quote, “When Mr. Goodell went to Constantinople, his mission was to the Armenians”. Mr. Goodell was entrusted with the mission to the Armenians in Turkey because of his knowledge of Armenian and Turkish he had mastered while in Malta, Syria, and Lebanon. He translated the Bible into “Armeno-Turkish”, that is to say a Bible that reads Turkish but is in Armenian characters. It was a twenty-year endeavor.
About the Armenians Rev. William Goodell wrote: “ The Armenians were an enterprising people, and the great wealth of the bankers, who were nearly all Armenians, made them very influential throughout the empire, even with the Turkish officials, who were largely dependent upon them for pecuniary advances and assistance. The various connections of this people with different parts of the country, and the influence which they were in a position to exert, in promoting the spread of the Gospel in Turkey, made it exceedingly desirable that they should embrace the truth."
In 1869, six years after the ratification of the Armenian National Constitution the Armenian denizens of Bolis had Khrimian Hayrig elected the Patriarch of Constantinople.
The moneyed Armenian class of Istanbul thought that the prelate from the interior of the country would be compliant. But, not long after his election Khrimian Hayrig proposed to amend the National Constituion, against the wishes of the upper class Armenians of Constantinople. The National Constitution granted the hundred thousand plus Armenians in Bolis three times more representation in the National Assembly than the entire Armenians in the interior of the country, Khrimian Hayrig estimated to be three millions. A plausible figure given that Hamidian massacres, the rampant usurpation of Armenian lives and property, the Adana massacres, had not run its course yet decimating the Armenian to two million at the dawn of the Genocide.
Khrimiag Hayrig faced a vehement opposition by established wealthy moneyed Armenians. Krikor Odian, who was an architect of the Armenian Constitution attempted to reason with him that the obvious flaws of the Constitution were in place to secure the ratification of the National Constitution by the Sultan's Sublime Porte. But Khrimian remained adamant. Unable to amend the constitution to have a fairer representation of his flock to have their grievances heard and acted upon, Khrimian Hayrig resigned in 1873 but continued to remain a moral authority and an intellect to reckon with.
As to the wealthy Armenians, missionary William Goodel most likely was alluding to the Amiras, who were «The Lords of Constantinople Armenians», although their commanding influence in the Ottoman Empire had started waning with the Europenean powers establishing the Ottoman Bank in 1956 Interested readers my read the attached link.
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The great dynasties of Amiras from Agn - https://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-great-dynasties-of-amiras-from-agn.html
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