The more they were oppressed. the more they were firmly resolved that someday and somehow. their day of freedom would come. And that day came at last. though after a terrible carnage. and almost at the cost of their existence. at the end of the First World War. During that war most of the Armenians in the Asiatic provinces of the Ottoman Empireactually ancient Armeniawere massacred and deported. In this holocaust about 1 million Armenians lost their lives. and several hundred thousands of the survivors escaped to the Caucasus. the northern part of Armenia then under Czarist Russian domination. As the result of the Russian revolution and the collapse of czarist authority. Armenians there felt free to take their destiny into their hands and proclaim their independence. That was on May 28. 1918. At the time the country was still waging war against the Turks. and its population consisted mostly of refugees. Under such inauspicious circumstances. the existence of the new state. the Armenian Republic. was precarious. But in spite of seemingly insurmountable difficulties the leaders of reclaimed Armenia struggled hard. and did manage to carry on for more than 2 years.
Keywords matched
deported Asiatic refugees