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Modern Armenia: People, Nation, State Gerard J. Libaridian Transaction Publishers 2008
Many readers may tend to think of Turks as the indigenous occupants of Asia Minor, forgetting that they arrived as an intrusive conquering people from central Asia. Asia Minor, or Anatolia as it is sometimes called, had long been occupied by Indo-European-speaking people prior to the arrival of the Seljuk Turks and the later Ottoman Turks. These earlier occupants included Hittites, Greeks and even Celts. The Armenians can regard themselves as truly indigenous, with links to the ancient Hittites who once dominated the entire area, but Turks conquered the last Armenian state, Cilicia, overwhelmed the old Greek cities along the coast, and eventually stormed Constantinople. Nevertheless, under Imperial Ottoman Turkish rule, ethnic minorities were permitted to maintain much of their own culture and customs, provided they served the needs of the Ottoman Empire, and the Armenians did not suffer too seriously until tragedy struck when the Young Turk movement overthrew the Ottomans and established a new, secular Turkish nationalist government in 1908.
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