Sammelrez: Relocation, banishment and
migration in Armenia
Halaçoglu, Yusuf: Facts on the relocation of Ar-
menians 1914-1918 [Ermeni tehciri ve gerçekler
(1914-1918)]. Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Dil ve
Tarih Yük. Kur. - Turkish Historical Society
2002. ISBN: 975-16-1554-2; IX, 137 p., 42 p. Fac-
similes
Halaçoglu, Yusuf; Çalik, Ramazan; Çiçek, Ke-
mal; Özdemir, Hikmet; Turan, Ömer (Hg.):
The Armenians. Banishment and migration [Er-
meniler. Sürgün ve göç]. Ankara: Atatürk Kül-
tür Dil ve Tarih Yük. Kur. - Turkish Historical
Society 2004. ISBN: 975-16-1708-1; X, 223 S.
Rezensiert von: Hans-Lukas Kieser, Schwei-
zerischer Nationalfonds und Universität Zü-
rich
Dialogue on history, responsibility, and truth
is probably not possible with members of
state-sponsored denial campaigns, because
for these protagonists, national or state inter-
ests prevail over scholarly ethics – and these
alone can and must be the ground for a dia-
logue. But, regarding the Armenian genocide
in 1915-1916, the problem is that such denial-
ist historiography is (partly) believed. For this
reason alone, it needs to be scrutinized and,
where necessary, contradicted and refuted. A
large number of „banal“, not extreme, nation-
alists in Turkey, and of migrants in Europe,
are still under the strong influence of nation-
alist agencies, whether state-sponsored or not.
It is important to say that, as a fundamental
recent change, some sustained, critical, „post-
nationalist“ voices can now be heard in the
Turkish media for the first time. The first
free academic conference on the Armenian is-
sue, however, which should have taken place
on 25-27 May 2005 at the Bogaziçi University
in Istanbul, has been „postponed“ in the last
minute under massive threats by the Minister
of Justice.
The two new books presented here attempt
to establish the master narrative of an up-to-
date national historiography on „what hap-
pened with the Armenians in 1915“.1 They
1
For scholarly narratives in German see Akçam,
Taner, Armenien und der Völkermord: die Istanbuler
Prozesse und die türkische Nationalbewegung, Ham-
are exemplary of a much larger recent out-
put from within and beyond state universi-
ties, and of many recent debates on state tele-
vision in Turkey. This is at the same time an
occasion for scrutinizing some primary Turk-
ish arguments that continue to block, in my
eyes, a sincere perspective on the own history.
Both books are written by or with the partic-
ipation of Yusuf Halaçoglu, the president of
the Turkish Historical Society, and both are
published by the Turkish Historical Society
(TTK) in Ankara, in 2001 and 2004 respec-
tively. The second book repeatedly refers to
the first one. Both are regularly and martially
presented as definitive weapons in a national
campaign against the „propagandists“ of an
Armenian genocide, a campaign that has been
running at full power in recent months.
The first book is Ermeni tehciri ve gerçekler
(1914–1918) [The deportation of the Armeni-
ans and the real facts]. An English version has
been published in 2002 under the title Facts on
the relocation of Armenians 1914–1918. My
remarks refer to the Turkish original. It has
a little more than a hundred pages, plus 42
pages with facsimiles of Ottoman state doc-
uments. There is no transcription or transla-
tion of these sources (in modern Turkish or
English), only some references to them in the
book. The book’s main piece is Part II (pp.
47–84) which presents several Ottoman doc-
uments as „convincing proofs“ in the ques-
tion about the realities of the tehcir (deporta-
tion). Halaçoglu introduces them after having
explained in the introduction (pp. 1–10) and
Part I (pp. 11–46) how he understands Turco-
Armenian history since the Middle Ages, and
particularly during the late Ottoman period.
The first pages of the book tend to idealize
the early Turco-Armenian relationship under
„Turkish“ (Seljuk and Turkmen) rule. By con-
trast, Armenian behaviour in the 19th century
is characterized as „fall“. The revealing ex-
pression „as we know“ (p. 11) is used to make
the reply to the vital historical question –
burg: Hamburger Edition, 1996, reprint 2004; and the
introduction in the volumes Kieser, Hans-Lukas, and
Schaller, Dominik (eds.), Der Völkermord an den Ar-
meniern und die Shoah / The Armenian Genocide and
the Shoah, Zürich: Chronos, 2002; Gust, Wolfgang
(ed.), Der Völkermord an den Armeniern 1915/16:
Dokumente aus dem Politischen Archiv des deutschen
Auswärtigen Amts, Springe: Zu Klampen, 2005.
migration in Armenia
Halaçoglu, Yusuf: Facts on the relocation of Ar-
menians 1914-1918 [Ermeni tehciri ve gerçekler
(1914-1918)]. Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Dil ve
Tarih Yük. Kur. - Turkish Historical Society
2002. ISBN: 975-16-1554-2; IX, 137 p., 42 p. Fac-
similes
Halaçoglu, Yusuf; Çalik, Ramazan; Çiçek, Ke-
mal; Özdemir, Hikmet; Turan, Ömer (Hg.):
The Armenians. Banishment and migration [Er-
meniler. Sürgün ve göç]. Ankara: Atatürk Kül-
tür Dil ve Tarih Yük. Kur. - Turkish Historical
Society 2004. ISBN: 975-16-1708-1; X, 223 S.
Rezensiert von: Hans-Lukas Kieser, Schwei-
zerischer Nationalfonds und Universität Zü-
rich
Dialogue on history, responsibility, and truth
is probably not possible with members of
state-sponsored denial campaigns, because
for these protagonists, national or state inter-
ests prevail over scholarly ethics – and these
alone can and must be the ground for a dia-
logue. But, regarding the Armenian genocide
in 1915-1916, the problem is that such denial-
ist historiography is (partly) believed. For this
reason alone, it needs to be scrutinized and,
where necessary, contradicted and refuted. A
large number of „banal“, not extreme, nation-
alists in Turkey, and of migrants in Europe,
are still under the strong influence of nation-
alist agencies, whether state-sponsored or not.
It is important to say that, as a fundamental
recent change, some sustained, critical, „post-
nationalist“ voices can now be heard in the
Turkish media for the first time. The first
free academic conference on the Armenian is-
sue, however, which should have taken place
on 25-27 May 2005 at the Bogaziçi University
in Istanbul, has been „postponed“ in the last
minute under massive threats by the Minister
of Justice.
The two new books presented here attempt
to establish the master narrative of an up-to-
date national historiography on „what hap-
pened with the Armenians in 1915“.1 They
1
For scholarly narratives in German see Akçam,
Taner, Armenien und der Völkermord: die Istanbuler
Prozesse und die türkische Nationalbewegung, Ham-
are exemplary of a much larger recent out-
put from within and beyond state universi-
ties, and of many recent debates on state tele-
vision in Turkey. This is at the same time an
occasion for scrutinizing some primary Turk-
ish arguments that continue to block, in my
eyes, a sincere perspective on the own history.
Both books are written by or with the partic-
ipation of Yusuf Halaçoglu, the president of
the Turkish Historical Society, and both are
published by the Turkish Historical Society
(TTK) in Ankara, in 2001 and 2004 respec-
tively. The second book repeatedly refers to
the first one. Both are regularly and martially
presented as definitive weapons in a national
campaign against the „propagandists“ of an
Armenian genocide, a campaign that has been
running at full power in recent months.
The first book is Ermeni tehciri ve gerçekler
(1914–1918) [The deportation of the Armeni-
ans and the real facts]. An English version has
been published in 2002 under the title Facts on
the relocation of Armenians 1914–1918. My
remarks refer to the Turkish original. It has
a little more than a hundred pages, plus 42
pages with facsimiles of Ottoman state doc-
uments. There is no transcription or transla-
tion of these sources (in modern Turkish or
English), only some references to them in the
book. The book’s main piece is Part II (pp.
47–84) which presents several Ottoman doc-
uments as „convincing proofs“ in the ques-
tion about the realities of the tehcir (deporta-
tion). Halaçoglu introduces them after having
explained in the introduction (pp. 1–10) and
Part I (pp. 11–46) how he understands Turco-
Armenian history since the Middle Ages, and
particularly during the late Ottoman period.
The first pages of the book tend to idealize
the early Turco-Armenian relationship under
„Turkish“ (Seljuk and Turkmen) rule. By con-
trast, Armenian behaviour in the 19th century
is characterized as „fall“. The revealing ex-
pression „as we know“ (p. 11) is used to make
the reply to the vital historical question –
burg: Hamburger Edition, 1996, reprint 2004; and the
introduction in the volumes Kieser, Hans-Lukas, and
Schaller, Dominik (eds.), Der Völkermord an den Ar-
meniern und die Shoah / The Armenian Genocide and
the Shoah, Zürich: Chronos, 2002; Gust, Wolfgang
(ed.), Der Völkermord an den Armeniern 1915/16:
Dokumente aus dem Politischen Archiv des deutschen
Auswärtigen Amts, Springe: Zu Klampen, 2005.
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