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Abstract
The centenary year of the Armenian genocide witnessed an escalation in cultural production and both political and academic focus. This paper looks at some of the sites and spaces, physical and discursive, in which the centenary was marked. In particular, it seeks to assess how the centenary has challenged and possibly altered the context within which we approach the genocide and its continuing legacies. The paper is positioned in the diasporic space – while recognizing that this is fluid and embodies transnational sites between “homelands” in the form of Armenia and Turkey, and “host states” where diaspora communities have resided (at least) since the genocide, in effect their homes. This paper attempts to pick out some of the themes apparent in the discourse and in the activities during 2015, from the perspective of Armenian diasporan actors, and is based on the author’s observations and participation in centenary events in the USA, Lebanon, Turkey, Switzerland, and the UK, as well as interviews with participants and organizers.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to colleagues who read and heard earlier versions of this paper, especially to Kerem Öktem and Jo Laycock for stimulating and helpful discussions. I am very grateful to one anonymous reviewer for excellent feedback and guidance, from which the final paper has benefited greatly.
Notes
1. For example, on 20 April 2016, the US-based Turkish Institute of Progress (http://turkishprogress.org/) hired a plane to emblazon the Manhattan skies with denialist propaganda and nationalist slogans. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3552070/Pro-Turkish-skywriters-scribble-slogans-New-York.html.
2. See Kasbarian (Citation2016b) for a discussion of the Republic of Armenia as a “step-homeland” for the western diaspora.
3. See Bakalian and Turan (Citation2015) for a discussion of Turkey as the ancestral homeland in contemporary encounters by Armenian diasporans.
4. #RhodesMustFall.
6. For a discussion of the “unremembering” of the Assyrian and Greek genocides in the Ottoman Empire, see Travis (Citation2013).
7. The massacres were discussed openly in a series of military tribunals and court between 1919 and 1921 in Istanbul. The evidence was presented in courts-martial and guilty verdicts handed down, confirming the mass-scale state-sponsored policy of extermination. The Ataturk postwar government, however, balked at carrying out the sentences and the tribunals were closed under pressure from the nationalists.
8. Cengiz Aktar, quoted in Abrahamanyan (Citation2011).
9. Ayata (Citation2015) argues for the neglected role that parts of Kurdish civil society have played in confronting the Armenian genocide, where “reconciliation initiatives are strongly shaped by the violence and injustice to which they were subjected by the state.” This is by no means a uniform development, crucially centering on how Kurdish actors position themselves as active and complicit perpetrators of the genocide, but at least offers an alternative reading to “reconciliation.”
10. See, among others, Ekmekcioglu (Citation2016), Suciyan (Citation2016), Tchilingirian (Citation2016), Kasbarian (Citation2016a), and Anahit (Citation2014).
11. For a micro-study of this phenomenon, see Biner (Citation2010).
12. Other notable oral histories on this theme are Altinay and Çetin (Citation2014) and Neyzi and Kharatyan-Araqelyan (Citation2010).
13. On the use of narrative in “communities of memories” and as a “memorial for victims and survivors,” see Azarian-Ceccato (Citation2010).
14. See, for example, Miller and Miller (Citation1993).
15. For a comprehensive set of primary eyewitness accounts, see Sarafian (Citation2004).
17. 100 LIVES is an initiative led by Vartan Gregorian, Ruben Vardanyan, and Noubar Afeyan (https://auroraprize.com/en/about).
18. Including high-profile celebrities like George Clooney who has also been a champion of 100 Lives and the Aurora Prize. His wife, the human rights barrister Amal Clooney, is a long-term advocate for the recognition of the genocide, along with her colleague Robertson QC (Citation2016).
19. Tölölyan (Citation2010, 36) defines the “Armenian transnation” as consisting of “the Republic; the unrecognized, secessionist, de facto state of Karabagh; and the diaspora communities, variously territorialized, sedentary and mobile, whose population outnumbers the homeland’s.”
20. https://kittroyer.wordpress.com/2016/05/07/instahate/. My thanks to Patrick Malone for bringing this to my attention.
21. The Turkish state over the century has co-opted some western academics, paid for the denialist position to be propagated through various think tanks and outfits sometimes attached to universities, and supported directly and indirectly historians willing to take a denialist position for personal gain.
22. The denialist campaign and its effects have been analyzed extensively. See, for example, Hovannisian (Citation1986), Smith (Citation1991), Cheterian (Citation2014), and Göcek (Citation2014).
23. For analyses of different arguments used by genocide deniers, see, among others, Hovannisian (Citation1999).
25. The full speech is available at http://www.president.am/en/press-release/item/2015/04/24/President-Serzh-Sargsyan-Genocide-April-24/.
26. See, for example, the Facebook activist group, Stop Corruption in Armenia.
27. See, for example, Ishkanian (Citation2015).
28. Zhamakochyan (Citation201Citation7) discusses how the threat of war over Karabakh is used to silence critical and opposition forces within the republic, under the banner of “national unity.”
29. Despite causing a diplomatic furor with Turkey, Pope Francis reiterated his words when visiting Yerevan in June 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/24/pope-francis-denounces-armenian-genocide-during-visit-to-yerevan.
30. Among extensive media coverage, see http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/world/americas/stung-by-popes-remarks-on-armenian-genocide-turkish-minister-insults-argentina.html?_r=0.
31. The Pope’s visit to Armenia on 23–25 June 2016 sent an even clearer message. In his public statements and mass, he used the word genocide unequivocally and wrote this at the memorial site: “Memory should never be watered-down or forgotten” and “memory is the source of peace and the future.” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/world/europe/pope-francis-to-armenians-seek-peace-but-never-forget-genocide.html?_r=0.
Turkey’s response was to denounce the Pope as having a “crusades mentality.”
32. The full text of the Pope’s speech on 12 April 2015 is available here: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/04/13/full-text-pope-franciss-message-to-armenians/#.VS6fC-fI8uE.facebook.
33. For a broader discussion of Turkish “domination” in this field, see Theriault (Citation2009).
34. This claim is based on lengthy confidential and difficult discussions with Armenian diasporan academics (mostly women) at a number of conferences in 2014–2015.
35. This is not a new or a unique dynamic – Armenians have had the fear that if the genocide is being discussed in a specific context, then it is being diluted, with (different) contexts seen as a mechanism to sideline. Similar “fears” have existed for the study of the Holocaust.
39. Covered extensively by international media, for example, http://uk.businessinsider.com/kardashians-trip-to-armenia-2015-4.
40. It should not be assumed that all these publications were received uncritically by Armenians worldwide. In many cases, they have been divisive, revealing the many cracks and fractures within the diaspora and between diasporan elites who compete for representing the “master narrative” of the Armenian experience. The memoir There Was and There Was Not by Toumani (Citation2014), which was published to international acclaim, received a negative reception from some diaspora outlets and created diaspora-wide discussion and controversy.
41. Franz Werfel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Verba Mundi, reissued in 2012.
42. There is a vast literature on how the memory of World War I is historicized, such as Winter (Citation2006).
43. This included the publication of important texts on the Middle East, among the most notable being Fawaz (Citation2014), Watenpaugh (Citation2015a), Rogan (Citation2015), and Kieser, Öktem, and Reinkowski (Citation2015), as well as a groundbreaking documentary from Al Jazeera (Citation2014).
45. In the UK, see, for example, http://www.accc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/AGCCC_events_timetable.pdf.
46. The Daily Star Lebanese daily reported that there were 230,000 people of Armenian origin in Lebanon (24 April 2015), though this figure seems inflated compared to estimates from Armenian Lebanese leaders, who put it at a more likely 175,000. However, the means of identifying who is Armenian varies and would explain the disparity in figures (which extends to every community in Lebanon, where a census has not been conducted since 1932, for political reasons). There are also now said to be at least 15,000 Armenian refugees from Syria currently being looked after by their Armenian brethren in Lebanon.
47. The Great Famine was a result of the combination of a severe drought and locust plague, and a wartime blockade, causing deaths from starvation and the widespread outbreak of disease. It is difficult to ascertain the number of total mortalities. The historian Antonius (Citation1965, 241) estimates 350,000 deaths in Greater Syria. See also Tanielian (Citation2014).
48. Another common trope in the Arab world is the comparison of the Palestinian and Armenian experience of displacement. See, for example, Tashjian (Citation2016a).
49. Their dramatic story inspired Franz Werfel’s award-winning novel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.
50. Interview with Armenian community leader in Beirut, October 2015.
51. See, for example, Ghazal (Citation2015).
52. Quoted in “Armenians Mark Genocide Centennial” The Daily Star, 25 April 2015.
53. “Top Tripoli Sheikh denies Armenian Genocide,” 24 April 2015. https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/NewsReports/565172-top-tripoli-sheikh-denies-armenian-genocide.
54. Armenians from all over the world made the pilgrimage to St. Giragos Church on 22 October 2011, to attend the consecration of the restored church. It was renovated by the Surp Giragos Armenian Foundation (diasporan based), with the support of the local Kurdish-controlled municipality of the Sur district (at the time). This was led by Abdullah Demirtaş, the district mayor, from the (majority Kurdish) Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), a visionary and progressive leader who continues to be targeted by the Turkish state. St. Giragos was heavily damaged during clashes between Turkish forces and the Kurdish Worker’s party in February 2016. On 26 March 2016, the Turkish government expropriated St. Giragos, along with other buildings in Diyabakir. See, for example: http://armenianweekly.com/2016/03/28/breaking-expropriated-properties-in-diyarbakir/.
55. Project 2015 has been a two-year-long effort to organize members of the Armenian diaspora and others committed to human rights and genocide prevention in the USA, Europe, and the Middle East to travel to Turkey to join this centennial commemoration. http://www.armenianproject2015.org/about-armenian-project-2015/.
56. See http://agbueurope.org/events/24th-of-april-2015-commemoration-of-the-armenian-genocide-in-istanbul/.
58. Nor Zartonk was founded before the assassination of Hrant Dink, the leading newspaper editor and Armenian public intellectual in Turkey, but was galvanized by his murder in January 2007. It is now considered an important (although controversial, and often divisive among the local community) voice for Armenians in Turkey. For these nuances, see Barsoumian (Citation2015).
59. The petition by Academics for Peace is available here: http://m.bianet.org/english/human-rights/170978-academics-we-will-not-be-a-party-to-this-crime. For an analysis, see Owen (Citation2016).
60. The most significant of these worldwide activities are documented in the News section of the website, http://armeniangenocide100.org/en/newsfeed.
61. See, for example: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-armenian-genocide-march-los-angeles-20150424-story.html.
62. See, for example: http://armeniangenocide100.org/en/commemoration/; http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/news.php.
63. Personal communications by diasporan and community leaders in the UK, Cyprus, the USA, and Lebanon.
65. Many newspapers opened their archives and reprinted their coverage of the genocide as it was taking place.
66. I am grateful to Talar Chahinian for initiating a discussion on “visibility” at the Society of Armenian Studies (SAS) meeting at the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) convention in Denver in November 2015.