2012/11/28 by Ryan Gingeras · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Turkey's Politics and Society #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics
paper · doi:10.1093/ehr/ces294
openalex publication_date 2012/11/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
As we approach the hundredth anniversary of the First World War, historians continue to come to grips with the origins, progression and consequences of this epoch-defining conflict. If one turns to the Middle Eastern theatre, and surveys the repercussions of the war on the Ottoman Empire, a number of challenges and controversies beset the work of contemporary historians. Ranking among the most difficult topics of exploration from this period are the mass internal deportations of Ottoman Christians during the war and the fate of Anatolia’s Armenian population. Over the last ninety years scholars and laymen alike have struggled over the question of criminal culpability in the case of the Armenian deportations, resulting in the creation of two well-defined camps of interpretation. One side, comprising the vast bulk of scholars, contends that the deportations, as well as a wave of concurrent massacres, constituted an act of genocide upon the Armenians. The other side, which is largely restricted to significant academic and political circles in the Republic of Turkey, argues that no genocide occurred; instead, the violence inflicted upon the Armenian population was a small (and incidental or accidental) part of a larger conflict that featured greater amounts of suffering among the empire’s Turkish population.