JOURNAL of ARMENIAN GENOCIDE New Eng Ed(1) (1).Indd
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE STUDIES VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1, 2015 International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies Volume 2, Issue 1 Published by Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies 2:1 Editor-in-Chief: Hayk Demoyan, Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute, Yerevan, Armenia CONTENT International Advisory Board Rouben Paul Adalian, Armenian National Institute, USA Welcome Note ..........................................................................................................5 Peter Balakian, Colgate University, USA Matthias Bjørnlund, Kristeligt Dagblads Forlag, Denmark ARTICLES Israel Charny, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem, Israel Vahakn N. Dadrian, International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, USA Arman Kirakossian Donna-Lee Frieze, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia The Extermination of the Armenians and the Concept of Genocide Alexander Hinton, Rutgers University, Newark, USA in Contemporary American Encyclopedias .............................................................7 Suren Manukyan, Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute, Yerevan, Armenia Harutyun Marutyan, Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, Yerevan, Armenia Tessa Hofmann Armen Marsoobian, Southern Connecticut State University, USA “Only Those Who Look Back, Move Forward”: Four Literary Responses to Ruben Safrastyan, Institute of Oriental Studies, Yerevan, Armenia Henry Theriault, Worcester State College, USA Genocidal Trauma in Greek and Transnational Prose ........................................19 Rubina Peroomian, UCLA, USA Serafi m Seppälä Book Review Editor: Genocide Descending: Half-Jews in Poland and Half-Armenians in Turkey .......29 Suren Manukyan, Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute, Yerevan, Armenia Adam J. Sacks International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies publishes articles and reviews related to “On Ararat Alone, no Arc can be Rest.” Beyond Morgenthau: Jews, Social Armenian Genocide as well as genocide studies in general. Particular attention is paid to articles Democrats, and Jewish Social Democrats: Alliances and Solidarity During the dealing with history, political science, anthropology, sociology, literature and law. Articles on other Armenian Genocide Epoch ....................................................................................59 sciences are also be considered if they have strong ties or contexts with the main theme. International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies is peer-reviewed anonymously and is published BOOK REVIEWS in June and December. Stefan Ihrig, Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination reviewed by Vahram Ter-Matevosyan ... 87 Fuat Dündar, Crime of Numbers: The Role of Statistics in the Armenian Question (1878–1918) reviewed by Robert Tatoyan ............................................................93 Copyright: Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute For more information on International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies, please visit website: http://genocide-museum.am/eng/Interntional-Journal-of-AGS.php ISSN 1829-4405 WELCOME NOTE Dear reader, After the fi rst issue of the International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies (IJAGS) was printed we understood the whole seriousness of this undertaking. High quality academic articles and strict timetable of release of each new volume was the main tasks we expected to face with. The current issue comes to confi rm the statement that we are on the right way. When the Armenians worldwide launched their preparations for 2015 none could even imagine that in the very year of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide the attention of the whole world would be focused exactly on the same areas, were hundreds of thousands of Armenians were perished between 1915 and 1916. Deir el-Zor, Rakka, Hama... Those were the names creating pain and sorrow for every Armenian. Exactly hundred years later the very same names come back to symbolize new genocidal crimes of ISIS and countries supporting this terrorist network. Although many prefer to say that Turkey unmask herself openly as one of the sponsors of ISIS, in fact it will be correct to say that from the very beginning there were no masks to cover intentions and far reaching realpolitik calculations. Again many thousands of Christian and Muslim victims and causalities, hundreds of thousands of displaced from their native lands creating disastrous humanitarian crisis in the Middle East. Remembrance and dealing with the consequences of the Armenian Genocide is not and must not be a pure Armenian-Turkish issue. This is a problem of global justice and security. Unfortunately past and modern political calculations and interests live no place for human- itarian approaches and honest discussions of the topic. The centennial of the Armenian Genocide is not the end of the chapter. On the contrary, it is a new beginning and starting point for everyone caring about the history, memory and justice. The task of academicians is twofold: to continue fi ght against state-sponsored denial and further the research and analysis of the Armenian Genocide in order to understand the subsequent crimes of the XX century as well as crimes in our days. From this standpoint IJAGS has an important mission to complete having many of our colleagues involved in Genocide studies as brothers in arm in these crucial battles. HAYK DEMOYAN Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Secretary of the Committee for Coordinating Events Dedicated to the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide 5 THE EXTERMINATION OF THE ARMENIANS AND THE CONCEPT OF GENOCIDE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIAS Arman Kirakossian The Armenian Genocide is an approved fact of history, a public knowledge which is recog- nized not only by specialists but also by the international community. For more than forty years, the government of the Ottoman Empire succeeded in the cleaning out of the native-born Armenian population from not only the Armenian highland but also from the entire territory of the Empire by carrying out a genocidal policy of massacres and deportations, the culmi- Dr. Arman Kirakossian is Ambassador Extraordinary and nation of which was the Genocide of the Armenians during the First World War. The crime Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to Austria, committed by the Ottoman authorities towards the Armenian nation fully corresponds to the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Armenia defi nition of the special convention of UN General Assembly in 1948 “On Prevention and to the OSCE. He is author of books and more than 120 Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” according to which “genocide means the acts commit- publications on the History of Diplomacy and International ted with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Relations among them British Diplomacy and the Armenian As a recognized public knowledge the Armenian Genocide is adequately and in a wor- Question (Gomidas Institute, Princeton and London, thy manner represented in contemporary specialized encyclopedias, dictionaries, resource guides and handbooks published in the United States during the last fi fteen years. The au- 2003), The Armenian Massacres 1894-1896: U.S. Media thors of the entries are leading specialists in the fi eld of genocide studies. The analysis of Testimony (Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 2004), this issues shows that the Armenian Genocide strengthened its position as a public knowl- Armenia-USA: Current Realities and Vision for Future edge and recognized fact of history. (Yerevan State University Press, 2007), and The Armenian According to Alan Whitehorn1 “The Armenian Genocide is a reminder of the risks Massacres 1894-1896: British Media Testimony (Armenian of not learning the lessons of history, the dangers of genocide denial, and the long-term Research Center, University of Michigan, Dearborn, 2008) negative consequences of allowing perpetrators to go unpunished. These were contributing factors to subsequent genocides. The knowledge of past genocides, such as the Armenian case, is a key to understanding and preventing future genocide. The mass slaughter of the Armenians was, however, instrumental in the birth of two important human rights concepts: ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘genocide’.”2 Genocide is a twentieth-century concept for an age-old phenomenon, the killing of a defi ned population group. The word was coined during the Second World War by Raphael Lemkin,3 who “was looking for a word that would convey the full dimension of 1. Alan Whitehorn is a Professor at Royal Military College of Canada. 2. Alan Whitehorn, “Armenian Genocide.” Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month 2013, ABC-CLIO. Cf. http://www.historyandtheheadlines.abc-clio.com/ContentPages/ContentPage.aspx?entry- Id=1797707¤tSection=1797513&productid=61. 3. Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent, who lived in the United States from 1941. He is best known for his work against genocide, a word he coined in 1943. He fi rst used the word genocide in print in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation – Analysis of Government – Proposals for Redress (1944), and defi ned it as “the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group.” 7 International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 2, Issue 1 The Extermination of the Armenians and the Concept of Genocide in Contemporary American Encyclopedias the Nazi murder of Jews, though he also was deeply conscious of precedents, especially and Genocide “the campaign to exterminate