Place:Adana, Adana, Turkey

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Adana is a major city in southern Turkey. The city is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the north-eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative seat of the Adana Province and has a population of 2.26 million. ^[1]

Adana lies in the heart of Cilicia, which at a time was one of the most important regions of the classical world.^[2] Home to six million people, Cilicia is one of the largest population concentrations in the Levant, as well as an agriculturally productive area, owing to its large fertile plain of Çukurova. Adding the large population centers surrounding Cilicia, almost 10 million people reside within two hours' drive from the Adana city center.

One of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements of the world and with a name unchanged for at least four millennia, Adana was a market town at the Cilicia plain and one of the gateways from Europe to the Middle East. The city turned into a powerhouse of Cilicia with the Turkic takeover of the city from the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia in 1359. It remained as the capital of the Ramadanid Emirate until 1608, and then the regional center for the Ottoman Empire, Turkey and shortly for French Cilicia. The city boomed with the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 and emerged as a hub for the international cotton trade. Traditionally a town populated by Armenians and Turks; the influx of Assyrians, Greeks, Circassians, Jews and Alawites during this period made the city one of the most diverse cities of the Empire. Economic, social and cultural growth was halted by the Adana massacre, the Armenian genocide, and the 1921 Cilicia evacuation, all of which devastated the city in the early 20th century. After the eviction of the Christian community, most of the city's private properties, value-wise, were confiscated in 1923 and were granted to the Muslim Turks who recently had migrated into the city. After a standstill period, the city's economy again boomed in the 1950s with the construction of the Seyhan Dam, and the growth continued until the 1980s.

In the 21st century, Adana is a center for regional trade, healthcare, and public and private services. Agriculture and logistics are significant sectors of the city. The economic decline caused by national policies and de-industrialization since the 1990s is reversing, as the city is gaining momentum with the fairs, festivals and entertainment life. The rivalry between the city's football clubs, Adanaspor and Adana Demirspor, is getting attraction as being a derby that is rooted in socio-economic divisions.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Adana is considered to be the oldest city of Cilicia, and with a history of 8-millennia, it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities of the world. The history of the Tepebağ tumulus dates back to the Neolithic, to around 6000 B.C., the time of the first human settlements. A place called Adana is mentioned by name in a Sumerian epic: The Epic of Gilgamesh.

First known people living in Adana and the surrounding area were the Luwians. They controlled the Mediterranean coasts of Anatolia roughly from 3000 BC to around 1600 BC. Hittites took over the region which came to be known as Kizzuwatna. Inhabited by Luwians and Hurrians, Kizzuwatna had an autonomous governance under the Hittites protection, but they had a brief independent period from the 1500s to 1420s. According to the Hittite inscription of Kava, found in Hattusa (Boğazkale), Kizzuwatna was the kingdom that ruled Adana, under the protection of the Hittites by 1335 BC. Beginning with the collapse of the Hittite Empire c. 1191–1189 BC, Adana native Denyen sea peoples took control of the plain until around 900 BC. Neo-Hittite States founded in the region then after and Quwê state was centered around Adana. Quwê and other states were protected by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, though they had independent periods. After the Greek migration to Cilicia in the 8th century BC, the region was unified under the rule of Mopsos dynasty and Adana was established as the capital. Bilingual inscriptions of the ninth and eighth centuries found in Mopsuestia were written in hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician. Assyrians took control of the regions several times until their collapse in 612 BC.

Cilicians founded the Kingdom of Cilicia in 612 BC with the efforts of Syennesis I. The kingdom was independent until the invasion of Achaemenid Empire in 549 BC, then after, became an autonomous satrapy of Achaemenids until 401 BC. The uncertain loyalty of the Syennessis during the rebellion of Cyrus the Younger led Artaxerxes II to abolish the Syennesis administration and replace it with a centrally appointed satrap. Archeological remains of a procession reveals the existence of Persian nobility in Adana.

Alexander had an unexpected entry into Cilicia through the Cilician Gates in 333 BC. After defeating the Persians at the Battle of Issus, he installed his own satrap, Balacrus, to oversee the administration of the region. His death in 323 BC marked the beginning of the Hellenistic era, as Greek replaced Luwian as the language of the region. After a short time under the Ptolemaic dominion, Seleucid Empire took control of the region in 312 BC. Adanan locals had adopted a Greek name for the city, Antioch on Sarus, to demonstrate loyalty to the Seleucid dynasty. The adopted name and the motifs illustrating the personification of the city seated above the river-god Sarus on city's minted coins, reveal appreciation to the rivers which were strong part of the Cilician identity. Although the Adana area were into international trade, coasts of rugged Cilicia were under the heavy plunder of the Cilician pirates. Seleucids ruled Adana for more than two centuries until weakened by the civil war which led them to offer allegiance to Tigranes II, the King of Armenia who conquered a vast region in the Levant. Cilicia became a vassal state of the Kingdom of Armenia in 83 BC and new settlements were founded by Armenians in the region.

Roman-Byzantine, Islamic and Armenian era

Pompey took over entire Cilicia and organized it as a Roman province in 64BC. Adana was of relatively minor importance during the Roman's influential period, while nearby Tarsus and Anazarbus were the metropolises of the area. During the era of Pompey, the city was used as a prison for the pirates of Cilicia. The Sarus bridge was built in the early 2nd century, and for several centuries thereafter, the city was a on a Roman military road leading to the East. After the permanent split of the Roman Empire in 395 AD, the area became a part of the Byzantine Empire, and was probably developed during the time of Julian the Apostate. With the construction of large bridges, roads, government buildings, irrigation and plantation, Adana and Cilicia became the most developed and important trade centers of the region. In the earlier periods of Roman rule, Zoroastrianism that was introduced by Persians, was still observed in Cilicia as was Judaism which attracted a number of sympathizers. Gentiles of Cilicia celebrated the Jewish sabbath and kept other rituals but did not convert to Judaism. As being home to the earliest Christian missionary efforts, Cilicia welcomed Christianity easier than other provinces.^[2]

Adana was a Christian bishopric, a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Tarsus, but was raised to the rank of autocephalous archdiocese after 680, the year in which its bishop appeared as a simple bishop at the Third Council of Constantinople, but before its listing in a 10th-century Notitiae Episcopatuum as an archdiocese. The Bishop Paulinus participated in the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Piso was among the Arianism-inclined bishops at the Council of Sardica (344) who withdrew and set up their own council at Philippopolis; he later returned to orthodoxy and signed the profession of Nicene faith at a synod in Antioch in 363. Cyriacus was at the First Council of Constantinople in 381. Anatolius is mentioned in a letter of Saint John Chrysostom. Cyrillus was at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and at a synod in Tarsus in 434. Philippus took part in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and was a signatory of the joint letter of the bishops of Cilicia Prima to Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian in 458 protesting at the murder of Proterius of Alexandria. Ioannes participated in the Third Council of Constantinople in 680. No longer a residential bishopric, Adana is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.

At the Battle of Sarus in April 625, Heraclius defeated the Sasanian Shahrbaraz forces that are stationed at the east bank of the river, after a fearless charge across the Justinian bridge (now Taşköprü). Byzantines defended the region from encroaching Islamic Caliphates throughout the 7th century CE, but it was finally conquered in 704 by the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik. During Umayyad rule, Cilicia became a no man's land frontier between Byzantine Christian and Arab Muslim forces.^[3] In 746, profiting by the unstable conditions in the Umayyad Caliphate, Byzantine Emperor Constantine V took control of Adana in 746. Abbasid Caliphate took over the rule of the region from Byzantine after Al-Mansur's inauguration to caliph in 756. With the Abbasid rule, Muslims for the first time started settling in Cilicia. Abandoned for more than 50 years, Adana was garrisoned and re-settled from 758 to 760. To form a Thughūr on the Byzantine frontier, Cilicia was colonized with the Turkic Sayābija tribe from Khorasan. The city had seen rapid economic and cultural growth during the reign of Harun al-Rashid and Al-Amin. Abbasid rule of the city continued for more than two centuries, and the Byzantines retook control of Adana in 965. The city became part of the Seleucia theme. After the defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes was removed from reign by a coup. He then gathered a troop to regain his power, though got defeated and had to retreat his troop to Adana. He was forced to surrender by the garrison in Adana upon receiving assurances of his personal safety.

Suleiman ibn Qutulmish, the founder of the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate, annexed Adana in his campaign in 1084. Cilicia had been criss-crossed by invading armies and the crusades during this period until it was captured by the forces of the Armenian Principality of Cilicia in 1132, under its king, Leo I. It was taken by Byzantine forces in 1137, but the Armenians regained it around 1170. After regaining, castle was built on a rock just next to the bridge and the city was surrounded by walls with frequent towers. King's Palace, Surp Asdvadzadzin Church and Surp Stepanos Church were also built at this time. Armenian era had evolved Adana to a center for handicrafts and international trade. The city was the center of a large trading network from Minor Asia to North Africa, Near East and India. Venetian and Genoese merchants frequented the city to sell their goods that were brought through Ayas port. In 1268, the devastating Cilicia earthquake destroyed much of the city. The city became known as the King's City by the early 13th century and the National Council was held here in 1316 for the unification of the Armenian and Catholic Churches.^[4] In 1348, Black Death reached the region and caused severe depopulation. Adana remained part of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia until 1359, when the city was ceded to the Türkmen supported Mamluk Sultanate who marched into Cilicia and captured the plain. Wealthier Armenians of the city fled to Cyprus after the ceding.

Ramadanid and Ottoman era

The Mamluks built garrisons in Tarsus, Ayas port and Sarvandikar, and left the administration of Adana plain to Yüreğir Turks who already formed a Mamluk authorized Türkmen Emirate in Camili area in 1352, just southeast of Adana. The Amir, Ramazan Bey, designated Adana as the capital, and headed the Yüreğir Turks in settling the city. The emirate, later known as the Ramadanid Emirate, was de facto independent throughout the 15th century, by being a Thughūr in the Ottoman-Mamluk relations. In 1517, Selim I incorporated the beylik into the Ottoman Empire after his conquest of the Mamluk state. The Ramadanid Beys held the administration of the new Ottoman sanjak of Adana in a hereditary manner until 1608.

Ottomans terminated the Ramadanid administration in 1608 after the Celali rebellions and commenced ruling directly from Constantinople through an appointed Vali. In late 1832, Vali of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, invaded Syria, and reached Cilicia. The Convention of Kütahya that was signed on 14 May 1833, ceded Cilicia to the de facto independent Egypt. At the time of ceding, the Adana sanjak population of 68,934 hardly received any urban services. First neighborhood (Verâ-yı Cisr) east of the river was founded and Alawites brought here from Syria to work at the flourishing agricultural lands. İbrahim Paşa, the son of Muhammad Ali Paşa, demolished the Adana Castle and the city walls in 1836. He built the first canals for irrigation and transportation and also built a water system for the residential areas of the town, including wheels (tr:mavra) raising the water of the river for public fountains. After the Oriental crisis, the Convention of Alexandria that was signed on 27 November 1840, required the return of Cilicia to Ottoman sovereignty. The American Civil War that broke down in 1861, faltered the cotton flow to Europe and directed European cotton traders to fertile Cilicia. Adana had evolved to be a hub for cotton trade and one of the most prosperous cities of the Empire within decades. New Armenian, Turkish, Greek, Chaldean, Jewish and Alawite neighborhoods were founded, surrounding the formerly walled city. Adana–Mersin railway line was opened in 1886, connecting Adana to international ports through Port of Mersin. Further migration that had attracted by the large-scale industrialization, inflated the population of Adana to over 107,000 at the turn of the 20th century: 62,250 Muslims (Turks, Alawites, Circassians, Kurds), 30,000 Armenians, 8000 Chaldeans, 5000 Greeks, 1250 Assyrians, 500 Arab Christians and 200 internationals.

Adana massacre

Wealth acquired with the thriving regional economy, doubling of Cilician Armenian population due to flee from Hamidian massacres, the end of autocratic Abdulhamid rule with the revolution of July 1908, empowered the Armenian community and envisioned an autonomous Cilicia. CUP's post-revolution mismanagement of Vilayets, caused pro-diversity Vali Bahri Pasha to be removed from the office in late 1908, and replaced him with the impotent Cevad Bey. Taking that into advantage, Bağdadizade Abdülkadir (later Paksoy), the local leader of Cemiyet-i Muhammediye, took almost control of the local governance and led an action plan in entire Cilicia to "punish" Armenians. Rumours of an upcoming Armenian attack, deliberate provocations tensed the Turkish neighborhoods. As soon as the news of countercoup reached Cilicia, enraged members of Cemiyet-i Muhammediye and dissatisfied peasants that were left out of work due to mechanization, flocked to the city on the market day of Tuesday. After staying overnight in the city, the groups together with the local supporters started attacking the Armenian shops from the morning of 14 April 1909. The attacks directed towards the Armenian dwellings later in the day and also spread to rest of Cilicia. Armed Armenians could defend themselves and the clashes lasted until April 17.

After a week of silence, 850 soldiers from regiments of the Ottoman Army arrived to the city on April 25. Shots were fired to the tents that soldiers set at the campground, and a rumor immediately spread that the Armenians had opened fire from a church tower. Without even investigating any falsity of the rumor, the military commander Mustafa Remzi Pasha directed soldiers, together with the bashi-bazouks, towards Armenian quarters and for three days; shot people, destroyed buildings and burned down Christian neighborhoods. Pogroms of 25–27 April were much larger than the 14–17 April clashes, and the casualties were almost all Christian.

The Adana massacre of April 1909, resulted in the deaths of 18,839 Armenians, 1250 Greeks, 850 Assyrians, 422 Chaldeans and 620 Muslims. Adding the roughly 2500 disappeared Hadjinian and other seasonal workers, the death roll is estimated around 25,500 in the entire Vilayet. Later in summer, 2000 children died of dysentery and few thousand adults died of injuries or epidemic. The massacre orphaned 3500 children and caused heavy destruction of Christian properties. Cevad Bey and Mustafa Remzi Pasha were sacked and lightly sentenced for abuse of power, and on 8 August 1909, Djemal Pasha was appointed as the Vali, who quickly built relations with the surviving Armenian community. With the financial support he could gather, Djemal Pasha founded a new neighborhood, Çarçabuk (now Döşeme), for Armenians within a very short time, ordered the construction of two orphanages and the restoration of destroyed buildings.^[5] Cilicia section of the Berlin–Baghdad railway had opened in 1912, connecting Adana to Middle East. In few years, the city had re-gained its momentum and by the turn of 1915, the Armenian population numbered up to 30,000, close to the figure before 1909.

The city during Armenian Genocide

Early in May 1915, Vali Ismail Hakkı Bey received an order from Constantinople (now İstanbul) to deport the Armenians of the city. Vali was able to delay the deportations and let the Armenians to sell their movable assets to acquire money for the trip. First convoy of deportees consisting of more than 4000 Armenians left the city on May 20. The Catholicos of Cilicia, Sahak II wrote a letter to Djemal Pasha, then Syria-Cilicia General Vali, to prevent further deportations and the chief secretary Kerovpe Papazian met the pasha in Aley in early June and delivered the message of Catholicos. Djemal Pasha immediately wired the Vali to not to deport more Armenians. With his efforts, Adana Armenians earned an exemption at a summer, while the rest of Cilician Armenians were being deported and hundreds of thousands of exhausted Armenian deportees of Western Anatolia were passing through the city. Armenian intellectuals that were deported on April 24th from Constantinople, Rupen Zartarian, Sarkis Minassian, Nazaret Daghavarian, Harutiun Jangülian, and Karekin Khajag were kept in custody at the Vilayet Hall for few days. They could manage to have a meeting with the Catholicos at the Cathedral; their last attempt for survival. Later in June, two prominent leaders, Krikor Zohrab and Vartkes Serengülian were also kept in the city on their final journey towards Diyarbakır.

Minister of Interior, Talaat Pasha, wanted to end the exemption of Adana Armenians and sent his second in command in the Ministry, Ali Munif, to the city in mid-August to resume the deportations. Ali Munif immediately deported 250 families from Adana who were accused of insurrection many Armenians daily at Kuruköprü Square. Before the deportations of the rest, Vali could again manage the deportees to sell their assets. As almost a third of the city residents were selling their goods, the city seemed like a site for massive clearance sale. Deportations of 5000 Armenian families in eight convoys started on 2 September 1915 and continued until the end of October. 1000 craftsmen, state officers and the army personnel were exempted from deportations with their families. Unlike the deportees of other Vilayets, a good portion of Adana Armenians were sent to Damascus and further south, thus were avoided from the death camps of Deir ez-Zor by the personal request of Djemal Pasha.^[6] At the course of Armenian genocide, the death rate of the roughly 25,000 Adana Armenians that were deported throughout 1915, were a lot lower than the deportees from other regions due to three main factors: No reports of direct killings in and around the city, a portion being deported to Damascus area and having money with them to manage their lives on the way and after arriving to their designated locations.

French rule

The Armistice of Mudros, signed on 30 October 1918, ended Ottoman participation in World War I. The terms of the armistice ceded control of Cilicia to France. The French government sent four battalions of the Armenian Legion in December to take over Adana and oversee the repatriation of more than 170,000 Armenians to Cilicia. Returning Armenians negotiated with France to establish an autonomous State of Cilicia and Mihran Damadian, the chief negotiator for Armenians, signed the provisional Constitution of Cilicia in 1919.^[7] Pre-war life resumed with re-opening of the churches, the schools, the cultural centers and the businesses.

The French forces were spread too thinly in Cilicia and the villages that were repatriated came under withering attacks by Turkish Kuva-yi Milliye. Costs and difficulties associated with the repatriation process, growing Arab nationalism in Syria mandate, forced French High Commissioners to meet with Turkish leader, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, several times in late 1919 and early 1920 which resulted in halting the deployment of extra forces to Cilicia. A truce arranged on 28 May 1920 between the French and the Kemalists, led to the retreat of the French forces south of the Mersin-Osmaniye railroad. The subsequent evacuation of thousands of Armenians from Sis and its environs and their migration to Adana, raised the number of Armenians in the city to more than 100,000. Throughout June, the Armenian Legion, repatriated Armenians and Assyrians had committed vengeful acts on Turks, killing hundreds around Kahyaoğlu, Kocavezir, Camili and İncirlik. On 10 July 1920, to ease the overpopulated south of the railroad, a Franco-Armenian operation forced the local Turkish population to escape north. Roughly 40,000 Turks from Adana and around fled to the countryside and to the mountains north, an event known as Kaç Kaç incident, which lasted 4 days and claimed hundreds of lives. Turkish Cilician Society and national defence associations had met at the congress in Pozantı on 5 August 1920 to establish the Turkish rule in Cilicia. On the same day, Mihran Damadian declared the autonomy of Cilicia at the Adana Vilayet Hall, by coming to a consensus with the Christian communities of the city. French government, however, did not recognize the autonomy, expelled the community leaders and disbanded the Armenian Legion in September.^[6]

With the changing political environment and interests, French further reversed their policy and abandoned all pretensions to Cilicia, which they had originally hoped to attach to their mandate over Syria.^[8] The Cilicia Peace Treaty was signed on 9 March 1921 between France and Turkish Grand National Assembly. The treaty did not achieve the intended goals and was replaced with the Treaty of Ankara that was signed on 20 October 1921. Based on the terms of the agreement, France recognized the end of Cilicia War and to the withdrawal under the condition of Christian communities' rights to be protected. Armenians who were not satisfied with the guarantees that the treaty offer, had rushed to the Mersin port and Dörtyol, and had evacuated their two-millennia homeland by December 1921. French troops together with the remaining Armenian volunteers withdrew from the city on 5 January 1922. Later in 1922, up to 10,000 Greeks in the region had moved to Greece before the policy of Greco-Turkish population exchange got in effect.^[7] Among 172,000 Armenians that were in Adana area just before the Cilicia Evacuation, 80,000 of them took refuge to Syria and Lebanon, up 10,000 of them migrated to Cyprus, Izmir and Istanbul. The rest of around 82,000 Armenians, most likely remained in Adana area and had assimilated into Turkish/Muslim society. Armenians that settled in Lebanon, founded Nor Adana (en:New Adana) neighborhood within the mostly Armenian Bourj Hammoud town, just north-east of Beirut. From the 1920s, around 60 percent of the Cilician Armenians moved to Argentina. An informal census of 1941 revealed that 70 percent of all the Armenian Argentines in Buenos Aires had Adana origins.

Modern Turkey

On 15 April 1923, just before the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, the Turkish government enacted the "Law of Abandoned Properties" which confiscated the properties of Armenians and Greeks who were not present on their property. Adana was one of the cities with the most confiscated property, thus muhacirs from Balkans and Crete, migrants from Kayseri and Darende were relocated in the Armenian and Greek neighborhoods of the city. All types of modest properties, lands, houses and workshops were distributed to them. Large farms, factories, stores and mansions were granted to the Kayseri notables (e.g. Nuh Naci Yazgan, Nuri Has, Mustafa Özgür) and to local nationalists (e.g. Sefa Özler, Ali Münif) as promised at the Sivas Congress by Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk). Within a decade, the city had a sharp change demographically, socially and economically and lost its diversity by turning into a solely Muslim/Turkish city.^[7] Remaining Jews and Christians were hit by the heavy burden of the Wealth Tax in 1942, which caused them to leave Adana, selling their properties way under the value to families like Sabancı, who built their wealth on owning confiscated or undervalued properties.

The city was hit by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake (1998 Adana–Ceyhan earthquake) on 27 June 1998. The disaster killed 145 and left 1500 people wounded and many thousand homeless in the city and in Ceyhan district. The total economic loss was estimated at about US$1 billion.

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