Prof. Dadrian's Work On The Armenian Genocide Publ

[Armat]

PROF. DADRIAN'S WORK ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE PUBLISHED IN TURKEY

 

Istanbul - The Turkish Belge Publishing House has just released a volume of

studies by internationally renowned scholar, Prof. Vahakn N. Dadrian,

Director of Genocide Research with the Zoryan Institute. This collection

contains three monographs and five journal articles on the World War I

Armenian Genocide and is the first of a two-volume series Belge has

projected for publication. The translations from English into Turkish were

done by the Turkish intellectual Attila Tuygan. It is hoped that the

publication of this new book will contribute to establishing a common body

of knowledge on Armenian-Turkish history for Turkish civil society.

 

As far as it is known, this is the first time that a collection of Dadrian's

in-depth and multi-faceted studies on the Armenian Genocide, with all their

extensive footnotes, have appeared in Turkey in the Turkish language. As the

publisher has stated, one of the many aspects of the significance of this

publication derives from the fact that the primary sources and data that

Dadrian relies on are mainly authentic Ottoman-Turkish documents; they are

complemented and reinforced by extensive use of the state archive documents

of Imperial Germany and Imperial Austria-Hungary, Turkey's staunch wartime

Allies.

 

Another aspect to this new book's significance is the fact that discussion

of the Armenian Genocide is still a taboo subject in Turkey. In 1995, the

same publishing house had issued a Turkish language edition of Dadrian's

legal analysis of the Armenian Genocide, which originally appeared in the

Yale Journal of International Law under the title "Genocide as a Problem of

National and International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and its

Contemporary Legal Ramifications" (vol. 14, no. 2, 1989, pp. 221 - 334). The

Turkish authorities prosecuted the publisher, the late Ayshe Zarakolu, for

that publication. She was convicted by Istanbul's State Security Court on

charges of "incitement to enmity based on racial and religious differences"

(Clause 2 of Article 312 of the Penal Code), and accordingly faced a heavy

fine and long-term imprisonment. However, a petition to the Turkish Appeals

Court, signed by a dozen American academics from a variety of U.S.

universities, proved instrumental for overturning the verdict of the

Security Court some three years later. The prosecution tried to have this

acquittal reversed, unsuccessfully. In that petition, the American scholars

defended the publication by emphasizing, on the one hand, the impeccable

academic credentials of the author, and, on the other hand, by questioning

"the standards of fairness and justice in democratic Turkey."

 

More recently, the Turkish Government seems to be renewing its pressure on

the Armenian Genocide issue. In May 2003, it required all public employees

to attend a mandatory seminar on "The Baseless Armenian Genocide

Allegations." When some teachers at one such seminar in Elbeyli district

simply asked questions about the Genocide, the meeting dissolved in an

uproar. The government prosecutor indicted six teachers, and one was jailed

briefly, then released on bail. The teachers were to be tried on charges of

instigating social unrest. The teachers' union has mounted a vigorous legal

defense.

 

In such a highly charged atmosphere, it is hoped that such sound, reliable,

academic studies as represented in this book will help provide factual

information for rational discussion.

 

Several thousand copies of that publication have already been distributed in

academic circles, as well as public sectors, in Turkey's three major cities:

Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara. This new volume comprises the following

important studies.

 

1) The Convergent Roles of the State and Government Party in the

Armenian Genocide. (From Studies in the Armenian Genocide. Eds.

Chorbajian and Shirinian. 1999).

 

2) Party Allegiance as a Determinant in the Turkish Military's

Involvement in the World War I Armenian Genocide. (From Revue du Monde

Arménien Moderne et Contemporain, vol. 1, no. 1, 1994).

 

3) The Role of the Turkish Military's Involvement in the Destruction of

Ottoman Armenians. (From Journal of Political and Military Sociology, vol.

20, no. 2, 1993).

 

4) The Role of the Special Organization in the Armenian Genocide during

the First World War. (From Minorities in Wartime. Ed. P. Panayi. 1993).

 

5) The Role of Turkish Physicians in the World War I Genocide of the

Ottoman Armenians. (From Holocaust and Genocide Studies vol. 1, no. 2,

1986).

 

6) The Armenian Genocide: An Interpretation. (From America and the

Armenian Genocide of 1915. Ed. J. Winter, 2003).

 

7) A Textual Analysis of the Key Indictment of the Turkish Military

Tribunal Investigating the Armenian Genocide. (From Journal of Political and

Military Sociology. Special Edition on Collected Essays by Vahakn N.

Dadrian. Vol. 22, no. 1, 1994.)

 

8) The Turkish Military Tribunals Prosecution of the Authors of the

Armenian Genocide: Four Major Court-Martial Series. (From Holocaust and

Genocide Studies vol. 11, no. 1, 1997)

 

Domino amazing isn't it?Published! in Turkey

[DominO123]

Domino amazing isn't it?Published! in Turkey

Yep, we should wait the reaction of the Turkish state. From what I see here, this new book is a bomb compared with the other one translated by Zarakollu, so it is expected that it will face many reactions.

[Boghos]

By Belge there is also the publication of Jenosid in 1995, the turkish version of "Genocide as a problem of national and international law". Translation by Yavuz Alogan.