Armenian Genocide

Ayhan Aktar has been working on anti-minority policies in modern Turkey since 1991. In the Ottoman Empire’s final decade (in 1906), non-Muslims constituted 20% of the population; by 1927, they were reduced to 2.5% and, nowadays, they make up less than 0.02% of the population of Modern Turkey. Armenians were subjected to deportations (1915), Greeks were ‘exchanged’ (1922–1924) and Jews were forced to migrate abroad (after 1945). Like many other nation-states in the Near East, Turkey has been able to homogenize its population on religious grounds. This book is a collection of Aktar's articles about this transformation.

Aktar criticises nationalist historiographies and argues "For instance, a scholar conducting research on the Jewish community during the republican period could easily come to the conclusion that only Jews were discriminated against by the Turkish state. However, this is only partially true! All non-Muslim minorities were discriminated against and their stories cannot be understood unless the Turkish state and its policies are placed at centre stage. Utilizing diplomatic correspondence in the British and US National Archives has enabled me to understand anti-minority policies as a whole and to treat the subject within a totality."

This book will interest scholars and students of nationalism, minority studies and Turkish history and politics.

When the Greeks and surviving Armenians of present-day Turkey were forced to leave their homeland in 1922, the movable and immovable property they had to leave behind became known as „abandoned property“(emval-i metruke). In theory, this legal term implied that the absent owners continued to enjoy their property rights and were represented by the state. In practice, however, their houses, fields and belongings were stolen. They were used for the immediate housing needs of the remaining population, distributed among the rich and powerful and sold in public auctions. Initially, only a small part of abandoned property was under control of the new Ankara government, which was eager to use it as a source of revenue for the empty state coffers. Before it could do so, however, the government had to deal with various forms of active and passive resistance: homeless people and refugees squatted „abandoned“ homes and fields, and members of parliament initially refused to pass laws that would have legalized government administration of „abandoned“ property. From 1924 onwards, the property compensation for among incoming migrants from Greece (the so-called exchangees) threatened the financial interests of the state and pitted the newcomers against the existing population. By focusing on all these aspects of the „abandoned property“ question and the multiple forms of resistance against its administration by the state, this book offers unique insights into the social and political history of early republican Turkey.zeige weniger

Abstract.
The author analyzes the Ottoman Archives as a source of information on the Armenian Genocide of
1915. He discusses the contradictory positions of two broad groups of scholars on the reliability of
these archives, concluding that the Ottoman Archives agree with the information found in the
archives of the United States, Britain, Germany, and Austria. He discusses the various categories of
Ottoman documents, which mostly came out during the trials related to the Armenian Genocide,
which took place from 1919 to 1921, and makes clear that there was a wide-ranging cleansing
operation of the archives after the armistice in 1918. The author explores the reliability of this
evidence and, based on the existing documents that remain, tries to reconstruct the structure and
implementation of the genocide. He concludes that the Ottoman documents clearly show the
genocidal intent of the Ottoman authorities and puts the Armenian genocide within the broader
context of an overarching plan to homogenize the ethnic population of Anatolia.

To download click here : https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:23569

La promulgation de la loi du 23 février 2005 « portant reconnaissance de la Nation et contribution nationale en faveur des Français rapatriés » donne lieu à un important débat public et à la diffusion d’une pétition d’historiens exigeant l’abrogation de toutes les lois dites mémorielles (loi de 2005 en cause, mais aussi loi Gayssot de 1990, loi reconnaissant le génocide arménien et loi Taubira de 2001). Cette pétition repose sur une dénonciation qui présuppose que lesdites lois, mises sur le même plan, auraient une fonction et un objet identiques. Or ce double présupposé est critiquable : d’une part, le fait d’appréhender ces textes comme ayant la même fonction, celle de sanctionner un comportement, est basé sur une confusion qu’il s’agit de clarifier ; d’autre part, considérer qu’ils ont le même objet, en l’occurrence l’établissement d’une vérité officielle par le Parlement ou les juges, relève d’un malentendu qu’il convient de dissiper s’agissant des lois de 1990 et de 2001. Ainsi le problème ne serait pas tant celui d’une inflation législative alarmante de lois scélérates, établissant une vérité d’Etat ; mais plutôt celui du sens, à peine caché, de l’adoption d’un texte tel que l’article 4 de la loi de 2005, qui impose une interprétation légitimement contestée par les historiens.
Sévane Garibian

This paper explores the intersection of trauma, memory, and identity through the lens of resilience. Here we take resilience in its multiple, even conflicting meanings and resonances – encompassing continuity, persistence, and adaptation. Through the case studies of centenary commemorations in Armenia and Ireland and Northern Ireland, we highlight the ways in which the memory of traumatic historical events both reproduces and challenges dominant narratives of identity. The resilience of memory – its ability to adapt and evolve even as it lays claim to continuity – marks commemoration as a form of haunting, a return with difference that always disrupts the very borders it is deployed to secure. By focusing on resilience understood as the counter-memory that challenges the silencing and overshadowing of mainstream memory, we conclude that it manifests differently in such different cases, and find a surprising point of similarity: the resilience of memory is that it remains. Regardless...

To download click here : http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:38728

This paper attempts to provide a more complete understanding of the so-called right to the truth, deriving from court-made doctrine in the human rights field, and associated with an alternative form of legal proceeding in Argentina that has no equivalent anywhere else in the world: the trial for the truth (juicio por la verdad), a procedure sui generis created in the aftermath of the military dictatorship in response to both the politics of forgetting that prevailed in the 1990s and the continuing obstruction of criminal proceedings down to 2003 due to amnesty laws. Protecting the right to the truth fulfils three functions by turns: first, it makes possible conciliation of amnesty with the right to judicial protection; second, it constitutes the condition for real access to justice; third, it validates the reality of the crime. Each of these functions is associated with one of the three elements, which, together, comprise the struggle against impunity: investigation, sanction, and reparation. Situated between truth commissions and classic criminal proceedings, symbolic reparation and retribution, the Argentinian trials for the truth offer a new way of conceiving both the criminal-law judge’s mission and the relations among law, truth, history, and memory in the context of the rich debates about (post-)transitional justice.
Sévane Garibian

The Demographic, Cultural, Psychological, Geographic, Economic, and Political Consequences of the Armenian Genocide, Որոշ դիտարկումներ Հայոց ցեղասպանութեան ժողովրդագրական, աշխարհագրական, մշակութային, տնտեսական, քաղաքական եւ հոգեբանական հետեւանքների շուրջ, Proceedings of the conference on “Armenian Genocide Centennial: Addressing the Implications”, pp. 33-52 held by Haigazian University and the Armenian Genocide 100th Anniversary Commemoration Lebanon Committee, from January 31 to February 1, 2015.

The article describes the latest addition into USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive, which is the collection of interviews with witnesses and survivors of Armenian genocide. The text deals with the characteristics of the collection as well as its specific features in the context of VHA.

To download click here : https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:23565

Tant le langage courant que le langage historiographique contemporain définissent le négationnisme comme une doctrine ou une position idéologique consistant à nier la réalité du génocide du peuple juif et, plus particulièrement, l’existence des chambres à gaz. Qu’en est-il en droit ? Dans l’ordre juridique français, c’est la loi dite Gayssot du 13 juillet 1990 qui pose l’interdit. De par ses termes très restrictifs, elle ne permet que la condamnation pénale de propos négationnistes visant les crimes nazis, et le caractère exclusif de la protection apportée par la loi transparaît clairement, tant en amont qu’en aval du texte. L’interdit est cadré par de nombreuses limites qui garantissent sa conformité aux libertés fondamentales propres à un Etat démocratique. Ainsi cette loi n’est-elle pas liberticide contrairement à l’opinion de ses principaux détracteurs. Elle est néanmoins critiquable, pour une raison différente : le caractère exclusif de l’interdit qu’elle pose se justifie aujourd’hui difficilement et une discussion sur son extension s’impose.
Sévane Garibian

Un hecho que se ha repetido a lo largo de la historia es, sin duda, analizar el valor de algunas palabras que, además de dar nombre a una situación, reflejan en sus orígenes las circunstancias de su concepción. Tal es el caso de la palabra Genocidio, que adquirió entidad en 1948 cuando las Naciones Unidas la reconociera como un delito del Derecho Internacional definiéndola como "la persecución sistemática y destrucción total o parcial de grandes grupos humanos por motivos de nacionalidad, de raza, de religión o políticos" gracias a la cruzada personal del jurista polaco-judío Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959).

https://elcomercio.pe/mundo/actualidad/la-operacion-nemesis-el-origen-de-la-palabra-genocidio-por-hector-lopez-arestegui-noticia/

This piece intends to shed light on the genocide process, which took place in Hinis was the kaza of Erzurum Province during the World War I. The Russian author, Lev Kipiani, had been to Hinis in 1916, and in the newspaper of Kavkazskoye Slovo depicted his impressions regarding the genocide.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the speeches and discourses given to Armenian-American citizens by both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama before and during presidency in the last one and a half decades. It is hypothesized that the literal meaning of the speeches of both presidents concerning the Armenian Genocide is not the same as the intended meaning. Thus, this study will analyze different forms of discourse (a letter, oral speeches, and an interview) in different places at different times (before and during presidency) and will shed light on the discourse changes that have caused distress among the American-Armenians. The aim of this research is to reflect on and scrutinize both presidents' discourses using three different methods: critically through Blommaert's theory of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), pragmatically using Austin's Speech Act Theory (SAT) and semantically using Jacobson's Communication Model Theory (CMT). The analysis in the paper will only cover the text of discourses; anything related to non-verbal cues such as facial expressions or body language will not be analyzed. Two discourses by each president, one before and another during presidency will be studied in depth and anatomized to reveal the difference between the literal meaning and the intended meaning of these discourses.

AGOS 13.12.2019
Kısa Biyografim

1919’da Üsküdar’da (Istanbul) doğdum. Lise tahsilimi Getronagan Ermeni Lisesi’nde yaptıktan sonra Istanbul Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi’ne girdim. 1943’de mezun oldum. 1935’den beri T. K. P.’ye sempatizandım. 1938’de T. K. P.’ye dahil oldum. 1943 senesinde Reşat Fuadle ve “antifaşist cephe” grubu ile tevkif edildim. 8.5 ay hapiste kaldım. Mahkeme sonunda beraat ettim. Hapisten çıkıp İstanbul’a geldikten sonra “Demokrat Cephe” grubunu kurduk. Aynı sene “Nor Or” (Yeni Gün) isminde haftalık Ermenice edebi, siyasi bir mecmua tesis ettim, daha evvel “Aşğadank” (İş) ve “Badger” (Resim) edebiyat ve sosyoloji mecmualarını neşriyatını tesis veya idaresine iştirak etmiştim. 1946 senesinde “Türkiye Emekçi ve Köylü Partisi”nin kuruluşuna faal şekilde iştirak ettim. Parti kurulduktan sonra da, İstanbul vilayet komitesi, teşkilat bürosu şefliğine seçildim. Haftalık “Nor Or” gazetesini de günlük siyasi gazeteye çevirip başmuharirliğini deruhte ettim. Türkiye’de kurulan ilk müstakil sendikaların yani Tütün işçileri, kundura işçileri, Dokuma işçileri ve inşaat işçileri sendikalarının kuruluş faaliyetine active olarak iştirak ettim. Bu sendikalardan “inşaat işçileri” sendikası 1952’e kadar faaliyetine devam edebildi. 1946 aralık ayının 16’sında İstanbul Örfi idare kumandanlığının emri ile “Türkiye Emekçi ve Köylü” Partisi kapatıldığı gibi gazetem “Nor Or” da kapatıldı ve ben komünist faaliyetlerinde bulunmak iddiası ile tevkif edildim. 3 sene hapse mahkum edildim. Hapisten sonra da 3 sene askerlik yapmak üzere askere davet edildim. Memleketi T.K.P. nin merkez komitesinin tasvibi ile terk ettim. Halihazırda T.K.P. Seka temsilcisi tarafından vazifelendirilmiş durumdayım.

22. IV.1955
Aram B.Pehlivanian

Four Years in the Mountains of Kurdistan, 1915-1919
Book Review:
Aram Haigaz (Aram Chekenian), Four Years in the Mountains of Kurdistan, 1915-1919, translated and edited by Iris Haigaz-Chekenian (New York: Maiden Lane Press, 2014)
Reviewed by: Dr. Garabet K Moumdjian, Historian

"Those of us who were born to displaced Armenian parents in the diasporic communities of Lebanon, Syria, and other Middle Eastern locals in the late 1950s and early 1960s are familiar with Aram Haigaz’s short stories depicting American-Armenian immigrant life in the United States of America. We read these short stories—always written in Armenian—when we were in primary school. Haygaz’s simple language captivated us. Then, when we were about 15 years of age, we read his monumental work about the history, self defense, and eventual demise of his hometown, Shabin Karahisar, in 1915. We also read the lengthy—almost 600 page long—saga of his adventures in “Kurdistan.” We learned how he was able to escape death by converting to Islam in order to save his life…"

Interview: Merve Erol with Adnan Celik and Namik Kemal Dinç for Perspectives, Issues 13, 2015, pp.42-51

An important center of the Armenian genocide was Diyarbakır. Both the urban Armenian population and the convoys passing through the city were massacred. In their study One Hundred Years of Sorrow - On the Track of Social Memory: 1915 Diyarbakır, (“Yüzyıllık Ah! – Toplumsal Hafızanın İzinde: 1915 Diyarbekir”) published by the İsmail Beşikçi Foundation, Adnan Çelik and Namık Kemal Dinç searched for the specter of genocide haunting the city by drawing on intergenerational transmissions, political facts and the reflections of the genocide in Kurdish literature.

By Merve Erol

Riccardo Pasqualin, Metz Yeghérn. Breve storia del genocidio degli armeni di Claude Mutafian [recensione], in Sololibri.net, 25-02-2021: Metz Yeghérn. Breve storia del genocidio degli armeni - Claude Mutafian - Recensione libro
(sololibri.net)

Análise das fontes consideradas clássicas do Genocídio Armênio e do debate historiográfico que elas suscitaram, com ênfase nos depoimentos de Arnold Toynbee sobre as atrocidades turcas na Armênia.
Artigo publicado na Revista Brasileira de Estudos Estratégicos. Instituto de Estudos Estratégicos da Universidade Federal Fluminense. ISSN: 1984-5642. Ed. nº 5 - Vol. I  Rio de Janeiro, Luzes – Comunicação, Arte & Cultura, 2015, pp. 183-220.

ABSTRACT

Why do international institutions promote emotional norms? In order to answer this question, the article, first, maps the legitimizing arguments put forward by the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in promoting an emotionally loaded norm vis-à-vis Turkey, i.e., the recognition of the Armenian genocide. Second, the paper explores the reasons behind the promotion of this emotional norm by the European Parliament (EP) as justified by the MEPs. The article theoretically draws on the IR literature on emotions, and empirically, it relies on the data generated from the interventions by the MEPs at the plenary on the centenary of the Armenian genocide on 15 April 2015. Through claims analysis, it is demonstrated that the condemnation of genocide is a shared norm within the EP, which transcends national and ideological differences. Consequently, the MEPs aspire to render it an essential constitutive element of the emotional community at the EU level.

“New light on the 'Malta Tribunal of 1919-1921:
Britain’s unsuccessful attempt to bring Turks to trial after WW1”

2017 BATAS Spring Symposium, May 6, 2017–Saturday
(11.00 - 11.50 A.M. - including Q&A)
Wolfson Lecture Theatre, Senate House, University of London

En 1914, les Jeunes-Turcs à la tête de l’État ottoman misaient sur une guerre brève. L'histoire leur donna tort. Est-ce pour écourter cette guerre qu'il qualifia dans ses mémoires de « longue et terrible », que Cemal Pacha, l'un des membres du triumvirat dirigeant, envisagea de trahir ses collègues en livrant Istanbul aux Russes haïs ? Si l'horreur de la guerre et l'espoir d'y mettre fin interviennent dans ces négociations secrètes, cela ne doit pas occulter l'existence intérêts individuels. En effet, la guerre fut pour les triumvirs unionistes l'occasion de se livrer leur lutte acharnée pour le pouvoir et de réaliser leurs ambitions personnelles : en échange d'Istanbul, Cemal exigeait des Alliés d'être proclamé sultan sur les restes de l'Empire ottoman. Cependant, ce genre de bénéfices privés n'étaient pas incompatibles avec la poursuite d'intérêts communs. Ainsi la guerre fut l'occasion pour le parti jeune-turc de mettre en œuvre l'extermination des Arméniens ottomans. La grande guerre a ainsi inauguré le premier génocide du siècle. Elle a permis d'atteindre ce paroxysme de violence, ainsi que des bouleversements géopolitiques majeurs. L'empire est mort, la Turquie de Mustafa Kemal, « Père des Turcs » est née. Mais la mère, la matrice de cette Turquie n'est autre que la guerre, et surtout celle de 14-18, qui a été bien plus qu'une défaite. Dans quelle mesure les mémoires des responsables unionistes (Jeunes-Turcs du Comité Union et Progrès), qui couvrent précisément cette période, constituent-ils des sources sur cette guerre?

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE 18th С. ALEPPO’S ARMENIAN COMMUNITY IN ALEXANDER RUSSELL’S “THE NATURAL HISTORY OF ALEPPO”
Keywords- Syria, Ottoman Empire, religion, Turks, Chrisians, Muslims, Jews, Europeans, tradition, plague
The book "Natural History of Aleppo", by Alexander Russell, is an important source about the history of Armenian community in Aleppo during the Ottoman period.
Al. Russell was a Scottish physician and naturalist delegated to Aleppo in 1740. Having been appointed as a physician to the English factory there, and, gaining the confidence of the local Pasha, he became the chief medical practitioner of the city. In 1754, he returned to England and, two years later, published his Natural History of Aleppo. In 1794, Patrick Russell, his half-brother, assumed the second edition, revising and expanding the text. Later, the book was translated into different languages.
The title of the book implies that the research refers to fauna and flora of Aleppo, and also the climatic conditions of the city and its surroundings. Moreover, Al. Russell’s book contains significant information about Non-Muslim communities of Aleppo (Greek, Assyrian, Maronite and Armenian), such as the number of the population of each community, the relationship between them and with Muslims, in particular, with Turks living in Aleppo.
The study of above-mentioned issues allows us to clarify and to present the actual status of Armenians living in Aleppo in the first half of the 18th century, which mostly depended on the policy pursued by the local authorities.