The Armenian Genocide And Turkey

Dadrian, a former professor at SUNY, Geneseo, currently directs a genocide study project supported by the Guggenheim Foundation. The present study analyzes the devastating wartime destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire as the cataclysmic culmination of a historical process involving the progressive Turkish decimation of the Armenians through intermittent and incremental massacres. In addition to the excellent general bibliography there is an annotated bibliography of selected books used in the study. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Avoiding the sterile "was-it-genocide-or-not" debate, this book will open a new chapter in this contentious controversy and may help achieve a long-overdue reconciliation of Armenians and Turks.

A compelling portrait of the aftermath of the Armenian genocide and the enduring struggle to have it officially recognized.

The Armenian Genocide was one of the greatest atrocities of the twentieth century, an episode in which up to 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives. In this major new history, the renowned historian Raymond Kevorkian provides an authoritative account of the origins, events and consequences of the years 1915 and 1916. He considers the role that the Armenian Genocide played in the construction of the Turkish nation state and Turkish identity, as well as exploring the ideologies of power, rule and state violence. Crucially, he examines the consequences of the violence against the Armenians, the implications of deportations and attempts to bring those who committed the atrocities to justice. Kevorkian offers a detailed and meticulous record, providing an authoritative analysis of the events and their impact upon the Armenian community itself, as well as the development of the Turkish state. This important book will serve as an indispensable resource to historians of the period, as well as those wishing to understand the history of genocidal violence more generally.

Turkey’s bid to join the European Union has lent new urgency to the issue of the Armenian Genocide as differing interpretations of the genocide are proving to be a major reason for the delay of the its accession. This book provides vital background information and is a prime source of legal evidence and authentic Turkish eyewitness testimony of the intent and the crime of genocide against the Armenians. After a long and painstaking effort, the authors, one an Armenian, the other a Turk, generally recognized as the foremost experts on the Armenian Genocide, have prepared a new, authoritative translation and detailed analysis of the Takvim-i Vekâyi, the official Ottoman Government record of the Turkish Military Tribunals concerning the crimes committed against the Armenians during World War I. The authors have compiled the documentation of the trial proceedings for the first time in English and situated them within their historical and legal context. These documents show that Wartime Cabinet ministers, Young Turk party leaders, and a number of others inculpated in these crimes were court-martialed by the Turkish Military Tribunals in the years immediately following World War I. Most were found guilty and received sentences ranging from prison with hard labor to death. In remarkable contrast to Nuremberg, the Turkish Military Tribunals were conducted solely on the basis of existing Ottoman domestic penal codes. This substitution of a national for an international criminal court stands in history as a unique initiative of national self-condemnation. This compilation is significantly enhanced by an extensive analysis of the historical background, political nature and legal implications of the criminal prosecution of the twentieth century’s first state-sponsored crime of genocide.

World War I was a watershed, a defining moment, in Armenian history. Its effects were unprecedented in that it resulted in what no other war, invasion, or occupation had achieved in three thousand years of identifiable Armenian existence. This calamity was the physical elimination of the Armenian people and most of the evidence of their ever having lived on the great Armenian Plateau, to which the perpetrator side soon gave the new name of Eastern Anatolia. The bearers of an impressive martial and cultural history, the Armenians had also known repeated trials and tribulations, waves of massacre, captivity, and exile, but even in the darkest of times there had always been enough remaining to revive, rebuild, and go forward. This third volume in a series edited by Richard Hovannisian, the dean of Armenian historians, provides a unique fusion of the history, philosophy, literature, art, music, and educational aspects of the Armenian experience. It further provides a rich storehouse of information on comparative dimensions of the Armenian genocide in relation to the Assyrian, Greek and Jewish situations, and beyond that, paradoxes in American and French policy responses to the Armenian genocides. The volume concludes with a trio of essays concerning fundamental questions of historiography and politics that either make possible or can inhibit reconciliation of ancient truths and righting ancient wrongs.

A fresh look at the forgotten genocide of world history.

Taner Akçam is one of the first Turkish academics to acknowledge and discuss openly the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman-Turkish government in 1915. This book discusses western political policies towards the region generally, and represents the first serious scholarly attempt to understand the Genocide from a perpetrator rather than victim perspective, and to contextualize those events within Turkey's political history. By refusing to acknowledge the fact of genocide, successive Turkish governments not only perpetuate massive historical injustice, but also pose a fundamental obstacle to Turkey's democratization today.