Temporary Law on Abandoned Properties (Liquidation Law)
Ottoman Temporary Law on Abandoned Properties of 26 September 1915. It legalised the seizure and liquidation of Armenian property left after deportation, funding deportation machinery and redistributing wealth to state-aligned Muslim institutions and individuals.
- Armenian
Account
Background
The Armenian Genocide was not only physical destruction. It was also economic expropriation. Deportation created "abandoned" property because the owners were forced out, killed or prevented from returning. The state then converted that forced absence into legal title.
The law
The 26 September 1915 law established liquidation commissions to catalogue, sell and redistribute Armenian movable goods, homes, businesses, farms and accounts. Talaat Pasha's Interior Ministry oversaw the system. Akçam shows that confiscated assets helped finance deportation and supported the formation of a new Muslim commercial class. sourced opinion
Analysis
The term "abandoned properties" was a legal fiction editorial. Armenians had not abandoned their property voluntarily; they were deported under state order. This fiction allowed the state to present plunder as administration and to bind local beneficiaries to the genocide's outcome.
The economic dimension also explains the durability of denial. Recognition threatens not only memory but inherited property, urban development and class formation in post-Ottoman Turkey editorial.