It was the first immense massacre of the ' 900 with over one million victims and deported by the so-called “ Young Turks "A nationalist organization born in the early twentieth century that aimed at the constitution of a state on the model of the main European nations and which saw ethnic minorities as an obstacle to their project.
There was also the elimination of other Christian and Greek Orthodox minorities until 1917 .
The Armenian people fell victim to the betrayal of the Western powers which, in 1923 , signed in Lausanne a new treaty that canceled that of Sévres of 1920.
According to the latter, an independent Armenia should have been created in the territory of historical Armenia, according to the wishes of the American president Woodrow Wilson .
The Armenians were therefore left with only a small portion of territory, the Armenian Democratic Republic which, having joined the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1920s, it will only recover independence in 1991 .
But who are the Armenians? Before we became Christians, they already were. According to tradition, the foundation of the Armenian Church is traced back to Judas Thaddeus and Bartholomew two apostles of Jesus. It is a Christianity that is not Latin Catholic but has never severely separated from Rome:it has existed since the days of the Gospel. In 301 they decided to declare Christianity the state religion as the first in the world.
The Romans had already taken control of this region with Pompeo , in 69 BC Then came Mongols , Turks , Arabs , Persians and then again Turks , up to the Soviets , but they have always kept.
They took refuge in the mountains or fled abroad, taking books with them and transcribing them .
Their culture is infinite.
Not only in the sense of quantity, but in the astonishing sense of the strength of identity.
Armenians know very well who they are. This is why they are an unmissable asset for those who are no longer so sure of their identity.