Talk:Sayfo

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Assyrian capture of Urmia in 1918

According to historian David Gaunt, a primary characteristic was the total targeting of the Assyrian population, including farming villages as well as rebelling mountain tribes. The killing in rural regions was more extensive, while some survived the massacres in cities; Gaunt states that this indicates that a primary aim was the confiscation of land. The property, villages and animals of the villagers were destroyed totally to prevent their return. In most areas, the genocide occurred between June and October 1915.

References

Semi-protected edit request on 20 September 2025

Please add the following file in the "Legacy" section of the Sayfo. It's a monument in St Ephraim's Cathedral Sydney Australia that commemorates the Sayfo.

Monument commemorating the Sayfo in St Ephraim Cathedral, located in Lidcombe, Sydney, Australia.

Loyalfreindlypersonh (talk) 04:06, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

 Done Day Creature (talk) 14:20, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Motivation

The events of Sayfo are the definitive “tell,” indicating that what the Turks sought was the elimination of Ottoman Christians in total. The Assyrians were not thought by the Turks to have a nationalistic agenda and did not engage in terrorism. They were so dispersed and demographically insignificant as to threaten no one. ~2026-78919-7 (talk) 10:26, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

Doubtful (t · c) buIdhe 14:52, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

Recent

Let's discuss these changes, I see a massive amount of edits but lots of them overturn longstanding deliberate decisions such as not having an infobox, irrelevant additions, unsourced additions, citing non RS sources such as a 1935 book, uncredited copying from other wp articles (did you check the sources??), and introducing unnecessary foreign words that don't help the reader understand the subject. MosheA since this is a featured article the current version received a rigorous review and can be assumed to have some level of consensus behind it. (t · c) buIdhe 02:51, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Let's discuss these changes

Hey there, yes, let's discuss, I see all of my edits were undone, so I would like to defend these edits I made and why.

since this is a featured article the current version received a rigorous review and can be assumed to have some level of consensus behind it

Yes, I did notice that. However, despite the featured status, there were still a massive amount of inconsistencies, confusing ways of writing things, and straight up errors in the article, some of which I'll try and detail herein, and my attempts to correct these. First, I'll detail issues and errors, and then I'll detail ways that (I think) I improved the article beyond those:

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1. There is an issue throughout the entire article, with inconsistent and incorrect place names. For example, the article makes reference to a city named Gharzan [sic], with no internal Wikipedia link ... please do me a favor and search "Gharzan" on Wikipedia and tell me what pages you find. The only thing that comes up is the Sayfo article itself, and nothing else. The city in question is, in fact, Kurtalan, which was called Garzan (no "h") prior to 1938. My edits rendered that as such, the same way İstanbul would be referred to as Constantinople, İzmir would be Smyrna, etc in the context of the Ottoman Empire. Similar reference is made to a village called "Moyanjik" [sic]. Google that village (please actually Google it, do not just Wiki it), and you will see that literally the only thing that comes up is the Wikipedia article on the Sayfo, or other sources referencing the Wikipedia article. There is no "Moyanjik". The village in question is, in fact, Moghanjuq.

2. In a similar vein, take a look at the map from 1922 under the section Ethnic cleansing of Hakkari and read the caption and try and see if you can find the places discussed on that map. Seriously, try and do this! For real. It is very confusing, even to me who knows this area and has physically been there several times, and it took me a good several minutes of staring at this map to figure out where the hell those places were, hence why I delineated them with a triangle. Please see if you can find them without my visual aid. In general, as you are aware, place names in this part of the world have tons of different names, like Amedi (Amadiya, Amadiyyah, Amadia, Amêdî, Amedy, etc). The map refers to it as Amadia, and the caption as Amadiya, this is inconsistent.

3. There are no attempts to distinguish between cities and districts, e.g., Bitlis or Diyarbekir or Mardin or will just be [[linked]], even though those are provinces or districts as well as eponymous cities. So, for example, the article will discuss an attack on Bitlis, and make zero distinction whether it is talking about the city or the province.

not having an infobox

4. I never added an infobox

5. There are numerous red links to various Kurdish tribes and minor emirs that will most likely never be created, such as the Dekşuri tribe, the Oramar tribe, the Raman tribe, Sayyid Taha, etc. If you look at the page on Kurdish tribes, there are literally hundreds of them. I also have absolutely no idea what the red-linked 1914 Bedirhan revolt referenced in the article is, and can find zero information on it anywhere on the Internet.

6. There are lots of other perpetual red links like this, such as "fourth-century church of Mar Zaya" under the Invasion of the highlands section. Zayya was a notable Syriac saint, there are (and were) tons of churches named after him. It's like having a Wikipedia article about a random town in England with the [[Church of St. George]].

7. introducing unnecessary foreign words

I do not think Syriac words, on an article about the Assyrian genocide of the Assyrian people, are "foreign" or out of place at all. I mainly only did this in the background section, and principally in referring to cities that had notable Assyrian populations (or a majority, as in the case of Midyat) by their native Syriac names in parenthesis, always with transliteration, in the same way that the city of Nablus would be referred to as "Shechem", at least in passing (as I have done with Assyrian cities), in an article about the city from a Jewish historical perspective.

8. In an opposite vein, I have actually attempted to un-obfuscate some Assyrian place names. For example, the original article (pre-my edits, and now restored) reads under the section Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire:

"Syriac Orthodox culture was centered in two monasteries near Mardin (west of Tur Abdin): Mor Gabriel and Deyrulzafaran."

I changed this to:

"the late fourth-century Monastery of Saint Gabriel and the late fifth-century Mor Hananyo Monastery, both of which are still active today and still important to Assyrians."

Besides the easier-to-read and more Western-named version of things, I feel that is a much cleaner edit. I also put the dates of the monasteries, and the fact that they are still active and still relevant to Assyrian life, not some forgotten piece of history, which I feel is important. Deyrulzafaran is actually in fact the (very) Turkish name for the monastery, this is Turkification of an Assyrian holy site.

9. Various important historical figures are introduced without their titles or qualifications. Enver Pasha is referred to simply as a "CUP politician". He was not just that, he was literally the Minister of War. This may seem nitpicky, but it's important to show that people extremely high up in the Ottoman Empire were involved in the Sayfo, not just random "CUP politicians".

10. In a similar light, Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter is just mentioned in passing as some seemingly random German general. He became an extremely influential early Nazi very shortly after the Sayfo, Hitler literally dedicated Mein Kampf to him and called him "irreplaceable" after he died. Given the strong connection between the late Ottoman genocides and the Holocaust, this isn't just some "random fun fact", it is important to put who this man later became, as there are historical ties between the Nazi genocides and the Ottoman ones. The same goes for future Nazi official Konstantin von Neurath.

11. There are non-corroborated facts, such as saying "Enver Pasha set up the paramilitary Special Organization, which was loyal to himself" (which is itself a weird, possibly NPOV violation phrase). It has not been 100% confirmed that Enver Pasha set up the Special Organization, as there was systematic destruction of governmental archives around September 1918, right before the resignation of the CUP government. See here (paywall), and the Wiki article on Special Organization itself.

uncredited copying from other wp articles (did you check the sources??),

12. Apologies, thought I did this in the edit summaries as approriate. And yes.

a 1935 book

13. Feel free to remove that source if not appropriate. In any case, the section I expanded upon with that 1935 book was the Simele massacre, which is heavily downplayed in this article given its importance in the history of genocide studies and the term "genocide" itself.

14. In general, I added dates and years and descriptors to the subsections to make things clearer. The current subheadings are just things like "Massacres of lowland Assyrians", "Preparations for war", "Massacres" (literally just "Massacres"), etc. I changed them to be things like "Massacres of lowland Assyrians in late 1914" and "Massacres in Persia and Southeastern Anatolia, early 1915", etc. The article is written non-linearly in time: it first details ethnic cleansing in Hakkari, then moves back in time to Azerbaijan and Persia, then jumps ahead in time back to Turkish territory, etc. Hence why I put descriptors for the subsections. Also because the Sayfo only "officially" started in 1915, hence the 1914 massacres should be delineated.

15. The gravity of things is downplayed, and there is lack of further info. For example, the current version states:

"Violence in Siirt began on 9 June with the arrest and execution of Armenian, Syriac Orthodox, and Chaldean clerics and notable residents, including the Chaldean bishop Addai Sher."

Period. End of story. That's it. Never mind the fact that this is unclear if he was just arrested or if he was arrested and executed (he was), the article later states that "The Chaldean diocese of Siirt was destroyed, including its library of rare manuscripts." That to me just reads as if the physical churches there were sacked and looted. Thus, I changed it to "The Chaldean diocese of Siirt ceased to exist ... and its library of rare manuscripts was destroyed, including the only manuscript of Theodore of Mopsuestia's De Incarnatione." This is clearer, describes an actual manuscript destroyed in the looting, and also makes very clear the point that in addition to the physical destruction, the diocese as an actual institution died along with Addai Sher.

16. On a similar note, in the section describing the Ottoman millet system, the article simply writes "Nasturiler (Church of the East or Nestorians)". Besides the fact that all millet terms should be italicized, the term Nasturiler itself needs to be expounded upon (as I did with the footnote), as the term is considered blatantly offensive by Church of the East adherents and is inaccurate.

massive amount of edits

17. Apologies, I had originally done these changes as one large edit, but I accidentally closed out the page in the middle of it and lost everything. So I was saving minor edits as I went along, I realize it is tiresome.

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Anyway, that's a wrap! Appreciate you taking the time to read this far, and for your generally outstanding work on Wiki genocide projects.

Best,

--ꦩꦤꦸꦏ꧀ꦮꦺꦴꦁ‎ 05:01, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Let's start with 1. These place names that you mention were directly copied from the cited source. If the source is incorrect or has a less common spelling, it would be great to clear that up. But the article needs to be historically accurate (e.g. we should use the pre-1938 name) and we need a reliable source that these two place names actually refer to the same location, otherwise it's original research. (t · c) buIdhe 12:13, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

But the article needs to be historically accurate (e.g. we should use the pre-1938 name)

Yes, that was exactly the point I was making, hence why I mentioned Constantinople and Smyrna. My issue with (1.) isn't using archaic place names (the aticle should, as appropriate), it's using non-standard and not widely accepted or used spellings of places. The page on Garzan itself (not "Gharzan") talks about the Sayfo. The city in question is clearly Garzan, "Gharzan" doesn't exist and this isn't an accepted alternate spelling, especially as the city name only switched from Garzan to Kurtalan in 1938, well after the Turkish switch to the Latin alphabet, so this is not some issue of transliteration from Ottoman Turkish with its Arabic letters. It is clearly Garzan, not Gharzan. So yes, the article should refer to this city (now called Kurtalan) by its pre-1938 name, I wasn't arguing that it should not — but it should spell it in the standardized, correct, accepted way. It is like me referring to İzmir, which pre-1930s used to be Smyrna, as "Smirnah". Similarly, "Moyanjik" in Salmas does not appear to be a widely-accepted spelling of any town anywhere in this region, again, a quick Google reveals that such a town doesn't exist in any body of work. It's also not in the source given. A quick check of all the populated places in Salmas County (which to this day, is still not super populous) reveals that it is probably Moghanjuq. If it is not Moghanjuq then I have no idea what it is, as I cannot find evidence of any place called "Moyanjik" in either Ottoman Turkey or Qajar Iran.

--ꦩꦤꦸꦏ꧀ꦮꦺꦴꦁ‎ 13:46, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

If I may comment here: From my experience, it is surprisingly common that place names, and even technical terms, don't show up in Google. There is a considerable body of literature that is not indexed by Google in any way. I would personally be extremely careful with changing place names just because we think it is probably this or that. Obvious misspellings may be corrected but "Moyanjik" does not seem obvious at all to me. Can we even assume that "Moyanjik" is a populated place to begin with? One alternative might be to just remove the name from the article (if we don't know what it is then a reader probably won't know either, so the information might not be that helpful anyways). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:15, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Fair enough on Moyanjik vs Moghanjuq, but if the article is red-linking Moyanjik, then I would have assumed it was a town or at least a notable enough place. I agree with you that the best alternative would be to just remove it if no one seems to know what it is. Gharzan is clearly supposed to be Garzan. --ꦩꦤꦸꦏ꧀ꦮꦺꦴꦁ‎ 14:53, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Both changes done (Gharzan->Garzan, and removed mention of Moyanjik). (t · c) buIdhe 22:42, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

2: The underlying map isn't great, I only used it because I couldn't find anything better. After your explanation I re-instituted your version of the map. (t · c) buIdhe 22:45, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

3 In many cases the province is clearly distinguished from the city, eg. "Bitlis province" appears six times. In other places it is distinguished by context. Are there specific places you think it could be clearer? I just don't think that the reader benefits from introducing Ottoman words like "sanjak". (t · c) buIdhe 22:48, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

5-6 We can't predict if and when an article might be created, but topics should be redlinked if they meet the notability guidelines. For example, there are enough sources for an article on the Oramar tribe. I remember checking the notability of the 1914 revolt before putting in the red link but I can't verify it now as I don't currently have access to the sources. That said, I don't really care about the links. (t · c) buIdhe 22:56, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Can you demonstrate any evidence of the 1914 Bedirhan revolt taking place? It doesn't appear on the Rebellions in the Ottoman Empire template, nor on the list of Kurdish rebellions during World War I. As far as I know, there was only one major Kurdish revolt in 1914, the one led by Ferhatuşağı, and I don't think it was called "Bedirhan", which is just a given name in Turkish (like Bedirhan Bülbül, the volleyball player). ꦩꦤꦸꦏ꧀ꦮꦺꦴꦁ‎ 00:06, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

It's covered in the cited sources. One could get access at least to the Gaunt source via WP:RX. (t · c) buIdhe 00:15, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

8 it's an unsuitable change for a number of reasons. 1) source doesn't mention the foundation date of the monastery or whether it's still operating, so your addition is unsourced. 2) especially without a source that makes such a connection, its hard to say why this is relevant to the article topic per se. Again, I do not have strong feelings about which place name is correct to use but simply copied the one used in the source. (t · c) buIdhe 23:31, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

The dates come from the monasteries' Wikipedia pages themselves, which are sourced, Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage for the Monastery of St. Gabriel and a book from the series of Publications of the Archdiocese of the Syriac Orthodox Church for Mor Hananyo Monastery. I would prefer to not use the Turkish names and rather use neutral English ones or Syriac ones, this is akin to referring to the Western Wall as الْحَائِط ٱلْبُرَاق (Hait al-Buraq) or something like that on a Jewish article.

Both are still active:

• St Gabriel

• Mor Hananyo Monastery and here (tour websites, telling visitors to dress modestly because it is an active monastery, there are lots of other sources if you just Google whether or not it is active) ꦩꦤꦸꦏ꧀ꦮꦺꦴꦁ‎ 00:17, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm not doubting the truth of the info, but its sourcing and relevance. WP is not a reliable source. If the info is not covered in sources about the Sayfo and I don't think it is, it is simply not relevant. Saying the monastery is active requires a reliable source (not a tourism website) that directly says so. (t · c) buIdhe 00:34, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

9 I don't object to changing Enver's title, depending on what it says in the source. That said, the CUP inner circle's power wasn't based on the formal positions that they held and Enver was only partially involved in the Sayfo. Here I just copied what the source said about Special organization founding, but it's not a detail that needs to be covered in the article. (t · c) buIdhe 23:31, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

10 What he did afterwards is just not relevant to this article, especially not without a reliable source that makes such a connection. (t · c) buIdhe 23:31, 22 June 2026 (UTC)