Trabzon §

Black Sea port and failed Wilsonian outlet

Trabzon, or Trebizond, was the Black Sea port whose inclusion in Wilsonian Armenia would have given the projected state access to the sea. Before 1915 the wider province had Armenian and Greek Christian communities alongside Muslim populations. During the genocide, Armenians from the region were deported, drowned, killed or driven into exile.

The Wilson arbitral award included much of Trabzon province in the proposed Armenia because a landlocked Armenian state was considered economically vulnerable. Turkish nationalist victory and the Treaty of Lausanne erased that possibility. The modern Republic of Armenia remains landlocked and dependent on Georgia and Iran for open routes.

Trabzon therefore matters less as a direct South Caucasus battlefield than as the missing maritime solution in Armenian diplomatic history. It shows how the post-genocide Armenian question was tied to ports, railways and viability, not only memory and recognition. editorial