Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir

Anatolia is a historical geographical term that describes the large peninsula in West Asia that extends into the Black, Aegean, and Mediterranean Seas. It is also known as “Asia Minor.” Anatolia is a historically diverse place, as many different ancient and modern empires conquered and ruled the region. Some of the earliest known human civilizations populated lands in proximity to this peninsula before the Hittites, Greeks, Byzantines, and various Turkish peoples occupied it. Modern-day Turkey occupies the entire Anatolian peninsula, but Ottomans established rule throughout the region that became Turkey by seizing control of the inland realms on the peninsula’s eastern section and the adjoining continent. The ancient Kingdom of Armenia and its more modern iterations spread over this region. Modern-day Armenia is just northeast of Turkey. 

Ottoman Turks ordered deportations of Armenian residents in cities across the Empire in 1915. The term insinuates a forced relocation of a group of foreign nationals from a particular state, but in the case of the Turkish deportations of Armenians, many of the deported never reached a final destination and Turkish rulers never intended them to. Initial deportations targeted men of military service age and a later wave included women, children, and the elderly. Deportations generally took the form of “death marches” across the Syrian desert, in which Turkish officials and nomadic Kurds would wantonly terrorize and kill Armenians. The deportations aimed to eradicate Christian minorities from the Turkish Anatolian peninsula and were a guise for an ethnic cleansing campaign later identified as a “genocide” when that term emerged in the mid-20th century.