What and where is Anatolia?

The name “Anatolia” has an interesting history. When the Roman Empire was divided into its Eastern and Western (Holy) parts, the eastern region was named Byzantium, which covered the region between the continents of Europe and Asia. The Asiatic territories included the peninsula known as Asia Minor, which is a landmass surrounded on three sides by the Black Sea in the north, Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara in the west and the Mediterranean Sea in the south, as seen in image 6.1 below.

The capital of Byzantium since 330 CE was named Constantinople, in honour of the Roman Emperor Constantine who founded it on the western shores of the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus Straits. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire the name of the city was changed to Istanbul. According to one theory, which seems to be the most logical and acceptable, the name was based on the Greek term “is tin boli” (to the city) being the corrupted version of the Greek term. The territory of the empire situated on the east of the capital was named Anatolia, which in Greek means “east”. Therefore, in the early and medieval times the easternmost regions of Byzantium were named Anatolia, implying to the easternmost territories of the empire. The map of image 6.1 shows the extent of Asia Minor, or Anatolia.

Until the late nineteenth century, on all maps produced in the Ottoman Empire the name Anatolia was used to indicate part of the empire which was situated in the peninsula of Asia Minor. The approximate borders of Anatolia extend from the city of Alexandretta, today’s city of Iskenderun, and from there extending north-eastward through the towns of Kahraman-Marash, Malatia, Erzinjan and Baiburt to the Black Sea coast cities of Hopa and Batumi. The remaining territory of present-day Turkey is not Anatolia, but most of it was better known as the “Armenian Highlands”, where historic Greater Armenia was located. In its central section this border runs along the River Euphrates.

Thus, prior to these changes around 1920s, the name of Anatolia or Asia Minor referred to the territory to the west of the Armenian Highlands or Armenian Plateau, which consists of around 60 per cent of the territory of the Republic of Turkey.

The map of image 6.2 shows the topography of the region, where Anatolia refers to “Asia Minor”, and the territory to its east is named the “Armenian Highlands” or “Armenian Plateau”.

Looking at the maps of the Ottoman Empire, it is clear that until its fall in 1923 on all maps produced by its printing houses the toponym “Anatolia” was used to denote the peninsula of Asia Minor and did not relate to any territory located in the eastern part. This can be seen on the maps of images 6.3 and 6.4.

In this Ottoman map the peninsula of Asia Minor, i.e. the western part of the empire, is named the Land of Anatolia, which is located east of the capital Constantinople/Istanbul, extending to the virtual border mentioned above and shown on image 6.2, while the region east of the line has no geographical name and includes the Armenian Highlands and the country of Armenia. Armenia’s neighbours are Georgia to the north, the Persian province of Azerbaijan to the east and Kurdistan, Mesopotamia and Aljazeera to its south.

The atlas which contains the above map has another of the whole of the Ottoman Empire, where the same toponym layout is evident.

As Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey claimed, since the nation was populated by Turks only and was a mono-ethnic country, the name “Armenian” therefore had no place inside its territory. Accordingly, in order to eliminate the names “Armenia” and “Armenian” from the territory of Turkey the best solution was to rename the whole of the territory of the post-World War I Republic of Turkey, extending from Greece and the Balkans to the Persian border, should be given another geographical name, which was non-Armenian. The best possible solution was to extend the already existing region of Anatolia (Asia Minor) to cover the whole of the country. Thus, in spite of the fact that Anatolia was the name used by the ancients and their forefathers solely for the peninsula of Asia Minor, the newly born Republic of Turkey from its inception onwards decided to rename the whole territory of the country “Anadolu”, or “Anatolia” in European languages.

Many misinformed historians have fallen into the trap of this misnomer and, when referring to Historic or Greater Armenia located on the Armenian Highlands, they claim that its geographic location is in East Anatolia, where the term Anatolia is used referring the newly expanded definition. In truth, Historic Armenia was located in the region east of Anatolia and not in East Anatolia. Thus, the name of the Armenian Highlands or Plateau has now disappeared from the maps depicting the Republic of Turkey while the whole of this territory has been renamed Anatolia/Anadolu. Under this renaming, the location of Greater Armenia falls within the eastern part of Anatolia, conveniently eliminating the need to use the above-mentioned “undesirable” name.

During the 1840s and 1850s, Heinrich Kiepert, the German cartographer who spent much time in the Middle East, Asia Minor and the Caucasus, produced a number of maps dedicated to the Ottoman Empire. His maps are variously entitled “Turkish Empire”, “Asiatic Turkey”, “Turkey in Asia” but on none of these maps is the eastern part of Turkey named Anatolia. Many of Kiepert’s maps have been translated into Ottoman Turkish, written in Persian script, and in some the titles have been intentionally revised to read “Map of Anatolia”, changing the word “Turkey” to “Anatolia”.

In Kiepert’s map above, the naming of the regions of Turkey are clearly marked. The region named “Anadolia”, underlined in red, is the name given to the part of Turkey located in Asia Minor, while western Turkey is clearly indicated as “Armenia”, underlined in blue, clearly distinguishing the two regions bearing these different toponyms.

In the 1920s the term Anatolia began to appear on all maps produced in Turkey and the previous toponyms of Armenia and Kurdistan were gradually removed from all Turkish maps. In Turkey after the changing of the Persian alphabet to Latin, these changes were implemented as a matter of course, thus eliminating the controversial and unwelcoming problematic names of the Armenians, Armenia, the Kurds as well as the name “Armenian Highlands” from all new maps printed in the Republic of Turkey. Once again the presence of the Armenians was completely removed from maps of the lands of their historic homeland. By using the tools of political forward planning and changes in alphabet, transliteration of all historical material was needed, during the course of which historic texts were adopted to concur with the prevailing political rhetoric and propaganda.

It should be noted that by their nature, geographical features are fixed and not subject to change, and one would think that any name given to them would be relatively permanent. Any change in their naming usually has political, ideological and strategic purposes. These changes usually affect the names of towns, villages and on rare occasions are applied to small geographical features such as islands, rivers, mountains and lakes.

For example, the region of Siberia, although having undesirable associations, has remained the same during tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and the present-day Russian Federation. Korea, which was split into two ideologically opposing countries, bears the same name as before its division. However, in the case of Turkey the situation was somewhat different. The country consisted of two geographical regions, Asia Minor and the Armenian Highlands. The latter had no place in Ataturk’s republic and something had to be done to erase it from the maps. The Greek name “Anatolia”, according to all the accounts mentioned, until the 1920s referred only to the peninsula of Asia Minor. This was changed unannounced by the Republic of Turkey, and the name of Anatolia began to appear referring to the region of Asia Minor as well as the rest of the country located to its east, the Armenian Highlands. As mentioned above, this renaming was done purely to remove any reference to Armenia or Armenians from the territories found inside the present-day Turkey.

The elimination of any name related to Armenia became an obsession in Turkey, gradually leading to the changes of the Latin genus names of plants and animals. In 2005 Turkey started renaming all the flora and fauna which in their Latin binomials include the name “Armenia”. An official of Turkey’s Ministry of the Environment was quoted as saying that many old names were contrary to Turkish unity. A ministry statement quoted by Reuters news agency said: “Unfortunately there are many other species in Turkey which were named this way with ill intentions. This ill intent is so obvious that even species only found in our country were given names implying that Turkey is not an ethnic Turkic country.”

 

Some Turkish officials say the existing names are being used to argue and prove that that Armenians or Kurds had lived in the areas of Turkey. The truth is that these species were discovered in regions where at the time of discovery were populated by the Armenians and the Kurds, and thus were given names related to the peoples living in the relevant geographic areas. Examples of these name changes are as follows:

• Wild sheep called Ovis armeniana would become Ovis orientalis anatolicus.
• Roe deer known as Capreolus capreolus armenus would become Capreolus cuprelus capreolus.
• The red fox known as Vulpes vulpes kurdistanica would become Vulpes vulpes.

as well as other similar naming of animals and plants.

The eradication of any name related to Armenia has created so much euphoria based on phobia that in order to serve their political aims and plans, not only the regional and place names but the names of animals and plants are also affected and duly altered to more acceptable ones.

The article is from Rouben Galichian’s book “ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN AND TURKEY. Addressing Paradoxes of Culture, Geography and History”.

The copyright of this article and all maps are owned by its author. 

Special thanks to cartographer Rouben Galichian for providing these materials to armgeo.am.

Armenian Highland