The Assyrian Genocide. Late XIX – first quarter of XX centuries Dr. ANAHIT KHOSROYEVA ARMENIA, YEREVAN NAS RA, INST. of HISTORY akhosroyeva@yahoo.com Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who came to the throne in 1876, started to plan the mass massacres of Christians. It is known that the pivotal idea of Abdul Hamid’s external and internal policies was Pan-Islamism, which aimed at joining together around Turkey all the countries and territories populated with Mohammedans, by no means excepting the oppressions of non-Turkish nations and repression of national liberation movements. Along with hundreds of thousands of Armenians, tens of thousands of Assyrians also fell a victim to the mass slaughters, which were organized based upon this very political intentions. The mass massacres of Assyrians started in October 1895 in Diyarbekir and, afterwards, spread everywhere. The Assyrian slaughters reached unprecedented levels: horrible events happened in many places, during which a great number of people emigrated, were forcedly converted to Mohammedanism or murdered. About 100 thousand people from 245 villages were Islamized. Thousands of Assyrian women were forced into Turkish harems.