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NOTES AND COMMENTS
A RESPONSE TO MICHAEL GUNTER'S REVIEW OF THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES IN OTTOMAN
TURKEY: A DISPUTED GENOCIDE (IJMES 38 [2006]: 598–601)
JOSEPH A. KÉCHICHIAN
Perhaps inadvertently, IJMES rendered a disservice to its readers by
allowing Michael M. Gunter to review The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman
Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, by Guenter Lewy, because not only the book butalso the reviewer pose serious problems.
Perhaps inadvertently, IJMES rendered a disservice to its readers by
allowing Michael M. Gunter to review The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman
Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, by Guenter Lewy, because not only the book but also the reviewer pose serious problems.
First, how is it that a person who has already praised a book on its back
cover is asked to review it in IJMES? Indeed, the words of Gunter's
dust-jacket quote (“A very significant contribution to a long-standing
debate. There is no other comparable work that so objectively, thoroughly,
and meticulously reviews and analyzes so many different sources on both
sides of this bitterly divisive issue”) find their way into his review
virtually unchanged: “This is a very significant contribution to a
long-standing historiographical debate … there is no other comparable work
that so objectively and thoroughly reviews and analyzes so many different
sources on both sides of this bitterly divisive issue.” Because the
dust-jacket quote was written prior to the book's publication, there are
serious questions raised about the conditions under which the IJMES review
was written and the motives of the author. Is it not tantamount to support
for a promotional proclivity or, perhaps, even an example of blatant
conflict of interest that prefigures in the tone and texture of the review?
Second, it is critical to note that Gunter, the reviewer, occupies a central
place in the massive campaign—ardently promoted by successive Turkish
governments—to deny the Armenian genocide. For decades he supported that
campaign even though he has not produced a single work with a focus on this
subject. Gunter has published two studies, Transnational Armenian Activism
(1990) and “Pursuing the Just Cause of Their People”: A Study of
Contemporary Armenian Terrorism (1986), as well as several essays that
examine alleged Armenian “terrorism”—but none of his work was on the
genocide, either directly or indirectly. Such lack of specialized competence
in and of itself certainly does not, and should not, disqualify a reviewer
from engaging in a reasonably crafted assessment if everything else falls
into its proper place.
Unfortunately, this predicament is compounded, not mitigated, by the
attendant fact that Gunter has placed himself in the forefront of a parallel
campaign to promote, directly and indirectly and with remarkable zeal, the
“official” Turkish line of denial of the Armenian genocide (resmi tarih).
This is more significant when one considers that a host of Turkish
historians, free from the shackles of the official line, are not only
refusing to deny the genocide but in one way or another are also recognizing
its occurrence. They are led by Fatma Müge Göcek (University of Michigan),
Halil Berktay (Sabanci University), Engin Deniz Akarli (Brown University),
Selim Deringil (Bogazici University), and, above all, Taner Akçam
(University of Minnesota). Göcek dismisses what she called the Turkish
government's denialist “master state narrative”; Berktay unequivocally
concedes the truth of the “genocide”; Akarli concludes that the relevant
facts “invite the term genocide”; Deringil dismisses a key element in the
Turkish denial syndrome, namely, the bogus “civil war” argument; and Akçam
explicitly concludes, on the basis of a plethora of official and
authenticated Ottoman documents, that the wartime anti-Armenian measures
were genocidal in nature, intent, and outcome. Akçam's latest book, titled A
Shameful Act (a quotation attributed to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk denouncing the
crime perpetrated against the Armenians), is filled with authentic Turkish
sources that remarkably are ignored by Gunter.
In light of these views, Gunter's exaltation of the volume—in such terms as
a hallmark of “academic objectivity and courage” and “no other comparable
work that so objectively and thoroughly reviews and analyses”—calls for a
closer examination of Guenter Lewy and his book.
One is dealing here with a book whose author admits a lack of familiarity
with both Ottoman and Turkish languages. Lewy declares that he does not know
Turkish at all and that he had to depend on “two Turkish speaking persons”
(p. 292, n. 112) as well as on others “who have translated some important
Turkish materials for me” (p. xiii). However, departing from a very common
standard procedure, Lewy repeatedly avoids identifying those who, he says,
helped him in the matter of translation of numerous documents. Would it be
unfair to ask, under these circumstances, why go to such a highly unusual
act of withholding?
Oblivious to this serious problem, Lewy then proceeds to take to task almost
everyone who has published extensively on the Armenian genocide. For
example, Donald Bloxham, Richard Hovannisian, Taner Akçam, and Erik Jan
Zürcher are criticized for their emphasis on the role of the Special
Organization (p. 88); Ronald Suny, Robert Melson, Leo Kuper, and Richard
Hovannisian again for their rejection of the Turkish argument of Armenian
provocation (p. 17); Melson and Hovannisian for their reliance on findings
of the postwar Turkish Military Tribunal prosecuting the authors of the
Armenian genocide (pp. 43, 78); and the late British historian David Lang
and Melson on the relative value of the Naim–Andonian documents (p. 66).
Topping this list is, of course, Vahakn N. Dadrian, who, Lewy admits, is his
special target (p. 282, n. 3), not only in two chapters as he claims, but
also throughout the book (see index, pp. 361–62).
A typical and, quite frankly, revealing blunder in this respect, probably
due to his lack of Turkish, is Lewy's handling of Special Organization Chief
Esref Kusçuba[sdotu ]i's confession of his involvement in the wholesale
elimination of Armenians. In his personal account of an exchange with
wartime Grand Vizier Said Halim Pa[sdotu ]a in Malta, when both were
detained by the British, Kusçubai, referring to his involvement in the
matter of Armenian deportations, identifies himself “as a man who had
assumed a secret assignment” [hadisenin iç yüzünde va[zdotu ]ife almi bir
insan]. Not knowing Turkish, Lewy in an endnote (p. 292, n. 112) admits that
he consulted two “Turkish speaking persons,” whose identities are, as noted
above, suspiciously withheld and who evidently misled him. Dadrian not only
quoted this item separately and identified it in an extra separate endnote
(“Ottoman Archives and Denial of the Armenian Genocide,” in ed. Richard
Hovannisian, The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics [New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1992], 300–310, n. 72), but also provided in italics the
Turkish original text of that very quotation. This single case of
distortion, if not outright falsehood, illustrates the level of scholarship
present in the work. Incidentally, this is the same Dadrian whose three
separate monographs—presumably scrutinized by several anonymous reviewers as
IJMES protocol requires—were published in this journal (18:3 [1986], 23:4
[1991], and 34:1 [2002]).
For all of these “accomplishments,” Lewy has been amply rewarded by Turkish
authorities in Ankara and abroad through the launching of a massive campaign
to distribute his book free of charge to libraries and to select groups of
diplomats. Equally noteworthy, Lewy has been decorated at a special ceremony
in Ankara with, ironically, the Insanliga Karss i Islenen Suçlar Yüksek
Ödülü (High Award for Fighting in Opposition to Crimes Against Humanity) by
the Avrasya Stratejik Arasstirmalar Merkezi (ASAM or, in English, the Center
for Eurasian Strategic Studies). It may be worth noting that ASAM is a
well-known organization whose mission includes the systematic denial of the
Armenian genocide through propagandistic and partisan research and
publications; the organization is sponsored and underwritten by the Turkish
government. Again, none of these facts is indicated in the review as Gunter
chooses not to disclose them.
Superseding in import all these tribulations is, of course, the fundamental
issue of the scholarly value of the book and the related matter of the
competence of its author. Taking full advantage of the fact that the
voluminous corpus of Turkish Military Tribunal files mysteriously
disappeared following the capture of Istanbul by the insurgent Kemalists in
the fall of 1922, Lewy in monotonous refrain repeats the standard
argument—“the original is missing”—as if every single reference to all these
documents was a deliberate and malicious fabrication. A case in point is the
detailed narration of the organization and execution of the Armenian
genocide by General Mehmet Vehip, the commander-in-chief of the Turkish
third Army. The bulk of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was
subject to the military jurisdiction of that army, and the most gruesome and
inexorable aspects of the genocide were inflicted upon that population—prior
to Vehip's taking over the high command. The general's detailed account is
not only prima facie evidence of the great crime, but it is also testimony
to the uprightness and decency of a Turkish military commander—unfortunately
a rarity of rarities in the all-consuming atmosphere of state-sponsored
denials. Even though the original is missing, the full text was read into
the record of the court-martial proceedings on 29 March 1919, with portions
of it having been published in Ta vim-i Va ayi[hamza ], the government's
official gazette (no. 3540, 5 May 1919 and no. 3771, 9 February 1920). This
entire text was also published in the April 1919 issues of the
French-language but Turkish-owned newspaper Le Courrier de Turquie, as well
as in Va it, a Turkish daily, on 31 March 1919.
Without mincing words, this vaunted Turkish general declared that the
central committee of the ruling monolithic political party of Ittihad (the
Union and Progress Party, otherwise identified as CUP), in line with the
terms of “a resolute plan” (mu arer bir plan) and “a definite prior
deliberation” (mu[tdotu ]la bir a[sdotu ]d ta[hdotu ]tinda), ordered “the
massacre and extermination” ( atl ve imha[hamza ]) of Armenians and that
governmental authorities [rüesa[hamza ]-yi [hdotu ]ükumet] meekly and
obediently submitted to this CUP order. Furthermore, the general disclosed
that countless convicts were released from the empire's various prisons for
massacre duty; he described them as “gallows birds” (ipten ve kazikdan
kurtulmus yaranini) and “butchers of human beings” (insan kasaplari) (as
cited in Taner Akçam, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question
of Turkish Responsibility [2006], 154, and in Dadrian, IJMES 34 [2002], 85,
n. 111).
The utterly partisan thrust of Lewy's book has proven to be its very undoing
as revealed by the countless factual and historical errors punctuating it.
This deplorable fact is amply documented in a ten-part Turkish-language
serial analysis undertaken by Akçam. Point by point and item by item, Akçam
depicts these errors, at the same time expressing his amazement as to why a
person with such limited knowledge of the subject would want to venture into
such a project. Still, the errors in the Lewy volume are not only factual
and historical but also include mistranslations and misquotations (see the
Istanbul weekly Agos, June, July, and early August issues in 2006).
Finally, in his review, Gunter notes that “Lewy finds most valuable…the
consular reports…of Leslie A. Davis, the wartime American Consul in Harput.
Of special importance are accounts of his visits to several mass execution
sites, one of the few such reports available from any source.” Nevertheless,
with remarkable abandon, he joins Lewy in glossing over the damning
conclusion this American diplomat, a rare eyewitness to mass murder, reached
when he reported to his superiors in Washington, D.C. In that pungent
summary report, Davis “estimated that the number is not far from a million,”
when giving an approximation of the magnitude of Armenian victims. He also
emphasized that the massacres were not all perpetrated “by bands of Kurds,”
as so emphatically claimed by Lewy (pp. 167, 173–74, 182), but by
government-appointed and government-directed “gendarmes who accompanied” the
deportee convoys. Confirming General Vehip's disclosure, Davis directly
implicated “companies of armed convicts who have been released from prison
for the purpose of murdering the Armenian exiles.” The American consul's
conclusion is compressed in this single statement: “The whole country is one
vast charnel house, or, more correctly speaking, slaughterhouse” (Davis, The
Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian
Genocide, 1915–1917 [1989], 156, 158, 160).
FURTHER COMMENTS
Upon reading the proofs of this exchange, the writer wished to make
clarifications.
“I mailed a letter to IJMES which was shared with Professor Watenpaugh. The
reader may assume that we coordinated our letters, which we have not, and it
may be important to point that out.”
A RESPONSE TO MICHAEL GUNTER'S REVIEW OF THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES IN OTTOMAN
TURKEY: A DISPUTED GENOCIDE (IJMES 38 [2006]: 598–601)
JOSEPH A. KÉCHICHIAN
Perhaps inadvertently, IJMES rendered a disservice to its readers by
allowing Michael M. Gunter to review The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman
Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, by Guenter Lewy, because not only the book butalso the reviewer pose serious problems.
Perhaps inadvertently, IJMES rendered a disservice to its readers by
allowing Michael M. Gunter to review The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman
Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, by Guenter Lewy, because not only the book but also the reviewer pose serious problems.
First, how is it that a person who has already praised a book on its back
cover is asked to review it in IJMES? Indeed, the words of Gunter's
dust-jacket quote (“A very significant contribution to a long-standing
debate. There is no other comparable work that so objectively, thoroughly,
and meticulously reviews and analyzes so many different sources on both
sides of this bitterly divisive issue”) find their way into his review
virtually unchanged: “This is a very significant contribution to a
long-standing historiographical debate … there is no other comparable work
that so objectively and thoroughly reviews and analyzes so many different
sources on both sides of this bitterly divisive issue.” Because the
dust-jacket quote was written prior to the book's publication, there are
serious questions raised about the conditions under which the IJMES review
was written and the motives of the author. Is it not tantamount to support
for a promotional proclivity or, perhaps, even an example of blatant
conflict of interest that prefigures in the tone and texture of the review?
Second, it is critical to note that Gunter, the reviewer, occupies a central
place in the massive campaign—ardently promoted by successive Turkish
governments—to deny the Armenian genocide. For decades he supported that
campaign even though he has not produced a single work with a focus on this
subject. Gunter has published two studies, Transnational Armenian Activism
(1990) and “Pursuing the Just Cause of Their People”: A Study of
Contemporary Armenian Terrorism (1986), as well as several essays that
examine alleged Armenian “terrorism”—but none of his work was on the
genocide, either directly or indirectly. Such lack of specialized competence
in and of itself certainly does not, and should not, disqualify a reviewer
from engaging in a reasonably crafted assessment if everything else falls
into its proper place.
Unfortunately, this predicament is compounded, not mitigated, by the
attendant fact that Gunter has placed himself in the forefront of a parallel
campaign to promote, directly and indirectly and with remarkable zeal, the
“official” Turkish line of denial of the Armenian genocide (resmi tarih).
This is more significant when one considers that a host of Turkish
historians, free from the shackles of the official line, are not only
refusing to deny the genocide but in one way or another are also recognizing
its occurrence. They are led by Fatma Müge Göcek (University of Michigan),
Halil Berktay (Sabanci University), Engin Deniz Akarli (Brown University),
Selim Deringil (Bogazici University), and, above all, Taner Akçam
(University of Minnesota). Göcek dismisses what she called the Turkish
government's denialist “master state narrative”; Berktay unequivocally
concedes the truth of the “genocide”; Akarli concludes that the relevant
facts “invite the term genocide”; Deringil dismisses a key element in the
Turkish denial syndrome, namely, the bogus “civil war” argument; and Akçam
explicitly concludes, on the basis of a plethora of official and
authenticated Ottoman documents, that the wartime anti-Armenian measures
were genocidal in nature, intent, and outcome. Akçam's latest book, titled A
Shameful Act (a quotation attributed to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk denouncing the
crime perpetrated against the Armenians), is filled with authentic Turkish
sources that remarkably are ignored by Gunter.
In light of these views, Gunter's exaltation of the volume—in such terms as
a hallmark of “academic objectivity and courage” and “no other comparable
work that so objectively and thoroughly reviews and analyses”—calls for a
closer examination of Guenter Lewy and his book.
One is dealing here with a book whose author admits a lack of familiarity
with both Ottoman and Turkish languages. Lewy declares that he does not know
Turkish at all and that he had to depend on “two Turkish speaking persons”
(p. 292, n. 112) as well as on others “who have translated some important
Turkish materials for me” (p. xiii). However, departing from a very common
standard procedure, Lewy repeatedly avoids identifying those who, he says,
helped him in the matter of translation of numerous documents. Would it be
unfair to ask, under these circumstances, why go to such a highly unusual
act of withholding?
Oblivious to this serious problem, Lewy then proceeds to take to task almost
everyone who has published extensively on the Armenian genocide. For
example, Donald Bloxham, Richard Hovannisian, Taner Akçam, and Erik Jan
Zürcher are criticized for their emphasis on the role of the Special
Organization (p. 88); Ronald Suny, Robert Melson, Leo Kuper, and Richard
Hovannisian again for their rejection of the Turkish argument of Armenian
provocation (p. 17); Melson and Hovannisian for their reliance on findings
of the postwar Turkish Military Tribunal prosecuting the authors of the
Armenian genocide (pp. 43, 78); and the late British historian David Lang
and Melson on the relative value of the Naim–Andonian documents (p. 66).
Topping this list is, of course, Vahakn N. Dadrian, who, Lewy admits, is his
special target (p. 282, n. 3), not only in two chapters as he claims, but
also throughout the book (see index, pp. 361–62).
A typical and, quite frankly, revealing blunder in this respect, probably
due to his lack of Turkish, is Lewy's handling of Special Organization Chief
Esref Kusçuba[sdotu ]i's confession of his involvement in the wholesale
elimination of Armenians. In his personal account of an exchange with
wartime Grand Vizier Said Halim Pa[sdotu ]a in Malta, when both were
detained by the British, Kusçubai, referring to his involvement in the
matter of Armenian deportations, identifies himself “as a man who had
assumed a secret assignment” [hadisenin iç yüzünde va[zdotu ]ife almi bir
insan]. Not knowing Turkish, Lewy in an endnote (p. 292, n. 112) admits that
he consulted two “Turkish speaking persons,” whose identities are, as noted
above, suspiciously withheld and who evidently misled him. Dadrian not only
quoted this item separately and identified it in an extra separate endnote
(“Ottoman Archives and Denial of the Armenian Genocide,” in ed. Richard
Hovannisian, The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics [New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1992], 300–310, n. 72), but also provided in italics the
Turkish original text of that very quotation. This single case of
distortion, if not outright falsehood, illustrates the level of scholarship
present in the work. Incidentally, this is the same Dadrian whose three
separate monographs—presumably scrutinized by several anonymous reviewers as
IJMES protocol requires—were published in this journal (18:3 [1986], 23:4
[1991], and 34:1 [2002]).
For all of these “accomplishments,” Lewy has been amply rewarded by Turkish
authorities in Ankara and abroad through the launching of a massive campaign
to distribute his book free of charge to libraries and to select groups of
diplomats. Equally noteworthy, Lewy has been decorated at a special ceremony
in Ankara with, ironically, the Insanliga Karss i Islenen Suçlar Yüksek
Ödülü (High Award for Fighting in Opposition to Crimes Against Humanity) by
the Avrasya Stratejik Arasstirmalar Merkezi (ASAM or, in English, the Center
for Eurasian Strategic Studies). It may be worth noting that ASAM is a
well-known organization whose mission includes the systematic denial of the
Armenian genocide through propagandistic and partisan research and
publications; the organization is sponsored and underwritten by the Turkish
government. Again, none of these facts is indicated in the review as Gunter
chooses not to disclose them.
Superseding in import all these tribulations is, of course, the fundamental
issue of the scholarly value of the book and the related matter of the
competence of its author. Taking full advantage of the fact that the
voluminous corpus of Turkish Military Tribunal files mysteriously
disappeared following the capture of Istanbul by the insurgent Kemalists in
the fall of 1922, Lewy in monotonous refrain repeats the standard
argument—“the original is missing”—as if every single reference to all these
documents was a deliberate and malicious fabrication. A case in point is the
detailed narration of the organization and execution of the Armenian
genocide by General Mehmet Vehip, the commander-in-chief of the Turkish
third Army. The bulk of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was
subject to the military jurisdiction of that army, and the most gruesome and
inexorable aspects of the genocide were inflicted upon that population—prior
to Vehip's taking over the high command. The general's detailed account is
not only prima facie evidence of the great crime, but it is also testimony
to the uprightness and decency of a Turkish military commander—unfortunately
a rarity of rarities in the all-consuming atmosphere of state-sponsored
denials. Even though the original is missing, the full text was read into
the record of the court-martial proceedings on 29 March 1919, with portions
of it having been published in Ta vim-i Va ayi[hamza ], the government's
official gazette (no. 3540, 5 May 1919 and no. 3771, 9 February 1920). This
entire text was also published in the April 1919 issues of the
French-language but Turkish-owned newspaper Le Courrier de Turquie, as well
as in Va it, a Turkish daily, on 31 March 1919.
Without mincing words, this vaunted Turkish general declared that the
central committee of the ruling monolithic political party of Ittihad (the
Union and Progress Party, otherwise identified as CUP), in line with the
terms of “a resolute plan” (mu arer bir plan) and “a definite prior
deliberation” (mu[tdotu ]la bir a[sdotu ]d ta[hdotu ]tinda), ordered “the
massacre and extermination” ( atl ve imha[hamza ]) of Armenians and that
governmental authorities [rüesa[hamza ]-yi [hdotu ]ükumet] meekly and
obediently submitted to this CUP order. Furthermore, the general disclosed
that countless convicts were released from the empire's various prisons for
massacre duty; he described them as “gallows birds” (ipten ve kazikdan
kurtulmus yaranini) and “butchers of human beings” (insan kasaplari) (as
cited in Taner Akçam, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question
of Turkish Responsibility [2006], 154, and in Dadrian, IJMES 34 [2002], 85,
n. 111).
The utterly partisan thrust of Lewy's book has proven to be its very undoing
as revealed by the countless factual and historical errors punctuating it.
This deplorable fact is amply documented in a ten-part Turkish-language
serial analysis undertaken by Akçam. Point by point and item by item, Akçam
depicts these errors, at the same time expressing his amazement as to why a
person with such limited knowledge of the subject would want to venture into
such a project. Still, the errors in the Lewy volume are not only factual
and historical but also include mistranslations and misquotations (see the
Istanbul weekly Agos, June, July, and early August issues in 2006).
Finally, in his review, Gunter notes that “Lewy finds most valuable…the
consular reports…of Leslie A. Davis, the wartime American Consul in Harput.
Of special importance are accounts of his visits to several mass execution
sites, one of the few such reports available from any source.” Nevertheless,
with remarkable abandon, he joins Lewy in glossing over the damning
conclusion this American diplomat, a rare eyewitness to mass murder, reached
when he reported to his superiors in Washington, D.C. In that pungent
summary report, Davis “estimated that the number is not far from a million,”
when giving an approximation of the magnitude of Armenian victims. He also
emphasized that the massacres were not all perpetrated “by bands of Kurds,”
as so emphatically claimed by Lewy (pp. 167, 173–74, 182), but by
government-appointed and government-directed “gendarmes who accompanied” the
deportee convoys. Confirming General Vehip's disclosure, Davis directly
implicated “companies of armed convicts who have been released from prison
for the purpose of murdering the Armenian exiles.” The American consul's
conclusion is compressed in this single statement: “The whole country is one
vast charnel house, or, more correctly speaking, slaughterhouse” (Davis, The
Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian
Genocide, 1915–1917 [1989], 156, 158, 160).
FURTHER COMMENTS
Upon reading the proofs of this exchange, the writer wished to make
clarifications.
“I mailed a letter to IJMES which was shared with Professor Watenpaugh. The
reader may assume that we coordinated our letters, which we have not, and it
may be important to point that out.”