ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author seeks to critically unpack the discrepant, but inextricably interwoven narrative strands around the demise of Elazig’s Armenians as the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire collapsed and the neophyte Turkish Republic sought to assert. She provides a brief background of the historical developments that spurred Elazig’s emergence as a regional provincial seat, the violence that led to the demise of its Armenian population. The author pivots to discussing the enduring counter-narratives and divergent perspectives that informed this investigation. The relentless violence permanently destroyed Harput-Mezre’s complex cultural landscapes. The region’s Armenian population was decimated, and what had begun as a steadily, albeit modestly, accelerating cultural and economic expansion came to an abrupt end. References to Armenians, with whom he presumably shared the same town, evidence of their existence in the built environment and cultivated landscape in the Golden Plain, are similarly sparse and diffused into the text as minor mentions.
