Nirze was one of a cluster of Armenian inhabited villages in the Gesaria (or Kayseri) region of Ottoman Turkey. It was a prosperous, mixed village, where Armenians lived peacefully alongside Turks and Greeks. The Armenian presence in this village was brought to an end during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. "A Brief History of Nirze Village of Gesaria" was written in 1917 and printed in 1918 to memorialize the village and maintain the hope of return and rebuilding at the end of the war. The work was prepared in the United States, where there were several hundred Armenians from Nirze at that time. They were never able to return to their ancestral village.