In History And Beyond History

[Siamanto]

IN HISTORY AND BEYOND HISTORY

 

Azg/arm

11 Nov 04

 

Armenians and Turks: a Thousand Years of Relations Venice, Island of

San Giorgio Maggiore 28, 29, 30 October 2004

 

The Institute for Venice and Europe of the Giorgio Cini Foundation

has conceived and organised an international conference involving

historians, philosophers, jurists, psychoanalysts, and experts on

politics and human rights from Europe, the United States, Armenia,

Israel and Turkey.

 

The conference analysed the relations between Armenians and Turks from

the Middle Ages to the tragedy of the Armenian genocide in the early

20th century and beyond. The analysis focused on general aspects

and theoretical issues (philosophical, legal, historiographical,

and psychoanalytical), but at the same time some specific historical

cases also were presented.

 

The following scholars took part in the Conference: from the

United States Taner Akçam (University of Minnesota) and Rouben

Adalian (Armenian Assembly of America); from Canada Frank Chalk

(Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Studies); from France

Raymond H. Kévorkian (Director of the Noubarian Library of Paris),

Hélène Piralian-Simonyan (psychoanalyst), Yves Ternon (physician

and historian); from Germany Hermann Goltz (Director of the Lepsius

Archives, University of Halle-Wittenberg), from Israel: Israel Charny

(Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide of Jerusalem,

Hebrew University of Jerusalem), from Turkey Murat Belge (Bilgi

University), Ferhat Kentel (Bilgi University), Halil Berktay (Sabanci

University), Baskin Oran (Faculty of Political Sciences of Ankara),

Ragip Zarakolu (writer and publisher, "Belge" Publications), from

Armenia Vladimir Margarian (jurist, counsellor at the Constitutional

Court), Ruben Safrastyan (Director of the Institute of Turkology of the

National Academy of Sciences), from Italy Antonia Arslan (University

of Padua), Giampiero Bellingeri (Ca' Foscari University of Venice),

Mauro Bussani (University of Trieste), Aldo Ferrari (responsible of

the research programme Caucasia-Asia at ISPI in Milan, ex-lecturer

at the Universities of Trieste, Gorizia and Venice), Gianclaudio

Macchiarella (Ca' Foscari, ex-attaché culturel at the Embassies of

Italy in Washington, Athens, Teheran and Ankara), Pier Paolo Portinaro

(University of Turin), and the members of the Scientific Council of the

Conference Prof.s Antonio Rigo (Ca' Foscari, Director of the Institute

"Venezia e l'Europa" of Fondazione Cini) and Boghos Levon Zekiyan

(Ca' Foscari).

 

The conference had five sessions in which the following topics were

made object of discussion: the notion and typologies of "genocide"

(Portinaro, Charny, Chalk), its psychological repercussions

(Piralian), the demographic question (Kévorkian), the state of

archives' research (Adalian), negationism (Ternon), relations between

Armenians and Turks from the Seljuk Age through the Ottoman Empire to

the Republican Period (Safrastyan), the complicity of Imperial Germany

(Goltz), the ittihadist solution and Turkish republican identity

(Akçam), the relation between discourse, reality, and Turkish

national imagination (Berktay), interethnic relations in Anatolia

from the Ottoman period on (Zarakolu), the situation of Armenians

today in Turkey (Kentel), the "Armenian question" and human rights

(Belge), the bases of international legal responsibility (Margarian),

the roots of taboos and relapses (Oran), the acknowledgement of the

Armenian Genocide by the European States (Ferrari), and various other

questions as the placement of the Armenian case in the frame of the

Genocides of the 20th century, the sense of guiltiness, the problem

how to explain to Turkish public opinion the Armenian Genocide after

decades of amnesia and negationism, its importance in the frame of

contemporary European history, etc.

 

At the end of the conference there was a round table as a moment to sum

up the proceedings and establish a starting point for future studies.

 

The idea of such a conference was originated from the awareness

of the current stalemate due to denialism and the impossibility of

dialogue. The new historical perspective, adopted by the conference,

viewing Armenian-Turkish relations in their centuries-long and

multifarious aspects, combined with the tools provided by a long-term

interdisciplinary approach, invites us and may help to go beyond the

separate analysis of specific cases to overcome the obstacles still

hindering an effective approach to the topic.

 

Fondazione Giorgio Cini onlus, Istituto Venezia e l'Europa

 

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg96784.html