Abstract: The case for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide has thus far been anchored on
the human aspect of the calamity befalling Armenians during WWI. There is now a huge library of
academic and journalistic treatises which deal with the subject. However, a totally different aspect
of the Armenian ordeal, that has not yet been fully researched and disseminated, is the en masse
confiscation of movable and immovable properties during the deportation of the Armenians
outside of their ancestral lands. Ironically, these properties have been designated as
“Abandoned”. The question is, how did the Ittihadist governments organize, distribute, and in the
process amassed huge sums of money in the government’s –and in the process, their personal–
coffers for the war effort? Moreover, how did this  same attitude continue during the formative
years of the Republic of Turkey? This lecture will discuss a sequential rendering of some thirteen
laws and directives regarding Armenian “Emvali Metruke” (“Abandoned Properties”) imposed by
three consecutive governments that ruled Turkey from 1914 to 1930. The laws and directives
were transcribed into modern Turkish alphabet characters and then translated from the Old
Ottoman script. The rendering of these laws into English was primarily meant to aid experts in the
academic and legal fields who are not knowledgeable in Ottoman Turkish. But since the editors
had also decided to make this study available to a  larger readership, it was decided that this
introduction will remedy the situation by trying to simplify the complexity of the laws by explaining
and analyzing them in a straightforward historical analysis. 
Garabet Krikor Moumjian was born in 1957 in Zahle, Lebanon. He has received a BA from the
Institute Superior d’Armenologie, “Hamazkaine” in Beirut, in 1983 ; a BA in History and Armenian
Studies from the University of La Verne, La Verne,  Ca in 1986 and an MA from UCLA,
Department of History in 1990. He is currently completing his doctoral dissertation at UCLA on
“Armenian-Turkish Relations, 1890-1909”. Since 1986 he has served in numerous positions,
including Lecturer in UCLA and U of La Verne, principal of Mesrobian Elementary and High
School. He has authored chapters in books, textbooks and monographs, as well as research
articles in Armenian studies. He serves on editorial boards of several newspapers and on the
boards of several organizations. Mr. Momjian is also a political editor and news commentator for
the Horizon TV. He has received many awards from Armenian and non-Armenian organizations.
He is fluent in Armenian (Western and Eastern Dialects and Classical Armenian),