Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks: Writing Ottoman Jewish History, Denying the Armenian Genocide

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-51
Author(s):  
Marc David Baer

What has compelled Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, and abroad to promote a positive image of Ottomans and Turks while they deny the Armenian genocide and the existence of anti-Semitism in Turkey? The dominant historical narrative is that Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 were embraced by the Ottoman Empire, and then later, protected from the Nazis during WWII. If we believe that Turks and Jews have lived in harmony for so long, then it is hard for us to accept that the Turks could have committed genocide against the Armenians. In this article, the author confronts these convictions and circumstances to reflect on what moral responsibility the descendants of the victims of one genocide have to the descendants of victims of another. Baer delves into the history of Muslim-Jewish relations in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to tease out the origin of these many tangled truths. He aims to bring about reconciliation between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, not only to face inconvenient historical facts, but to confront it and come to terms with it. By looking at the complexities of interreligious relations, Holocaust denial, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and confronting some long-standing historical stereotypes, the author sets out to tell a new history that goes against Turkish antisemitism and admits to the Armenian genocide.

Author(s):  
Taner Akçam

Introducing new evidence from more than 600 secret Ottoman documents, this book demonstrates in detail that the Armenian Genocide and the expulsion of Greeks from the late Ottoman Empire resulted from an official effort to rid the empire of its Christian subjects. This book goes deep inside the bureaucratic machinery of Ottoman Turkey to show how a dying empire embraced genocide and ethnic cleansing. Although the deportation and killing of Armenians was internationally condemned in 1915 as a “crime against humanity and civilization,” the Ottoman government initiated a policy of denial that is still maintained by the Turkish Republic. The case for Turkey's “official history” rests on documents from the Ottoman imperial archives, to which access has been heavily restricted until recently. It is this very source that the book now uses to overturn the official narrative. The documents presented here attest to a late-Ottoman policy of Turkification, the goal of which was no less than the radical demographic transformation of Anatolia. To that end, about one-third of Anatolia's 15 million people were displaced, deported, expelled, or massacred, destroying the ethno-religious diversity of an ancient cultural crossroads of East and West, and paving the way for the Turkish Republic. By uncovering the central roles played by demographic engineering and assimilation in the Armenian Genocide, this book will fundamentally change how this crime is understood and show that physical destruction is not the only aspect of the genocidal process.


2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roni Gechtman

Simon Dubnow (1860–1941) was a towering intellectual figure in the history of East European Jewry in the half-century before the Second World War. His influence was manifested mostly in two areas: as the preeminent Jewish historian of his generation and as the main theorist of Jewish diaspora nationalism (Folkism) and intellectual leader of the Folkspartey in Russia (1907-1917). This article examines the relation between the two aspects of Dubnow’s career and legacy. As a historian, Dubnow developed a method for the study of Jewish history he called ‘historism’. Politically, Dubnow was an atypical nationalist, in that he did not demand territorial independence for his people but only the recognition of Jews as a nation with autonomous status within the states where they already lived. I show how Dubnow’s Jewish nationalism and his political views derived, to a large extent, from his historical theory and analysis, and in turn, how his historical interpretations were often informed by his ideological preconceptions. By analyzing and juxtaposing his historical and theoretical works, I argue that the writing of history was for Dubnow a means to achieve his more ambitious goal: to change the future of Jewish society and, by extension, the countries where the Jews lived.


2021 ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
A. Gasparyan ◽  
G. Gazazyan

Արդի ժամանակաշրջանում խիստ կարևորվում է հայ-քրդական հարաբերությունների ուսումնասիրման անհրաժեշտությունըֈ Հայերը և քրդերը դարեր շարունակ ապրել են կողք կողքի և շփվել որպես հարևան ժողովուրդներ: Այդ առնչությունները եղել են տարաբնույթ՝ իրենց մեջ ներառելով ինչպես քաղաքական, այնպես էլ տնտեսական ոլորտները: Բարդ ու հակասական է եղել հայ և քուրդ ժողովուրդների անցած պատմական ուղին: XIX դարի վերջին և XX դարի սկզբին քրդական շարժումները, որոնք թեև առանձին վայրերում հանդես եկան հայկական շարժումների հետ միահյուսված, այնուամենայնիվ չհանգեցրին հայ ազգային-ազատագրական շարժման հետ ձուլվելուն: Այս բոլորով հանդերձ՝ պատմության տրամաբանությունը հուշում է, որ քուրդ ժողովուրդը վաղ թե ուշ ստեղծելու է իր սեփական ազգային պետությունը: Հետևաբար տեսանելի կամ հեռավոր ապագայում հայ ու քուրդ ժողովուրդների ճակատագրերը, որպես տարածաշրջանային անմիջական հարևաններ, կրկին անխուսափելիորեն բախվելու են: Քրդական գործոնի դերը մասնավորապես Հայկական հարցում ունեցավ խիստ բացասական հետևանքներ: Այս գործոնը տիպաբանորեն պատկանում է Հայոց ցեղասպանության իրականացման առանցքային հարցերին: Հետևաբար քրդերի հակահայկական գործողությունները համարվում են Օսմանյան կայսրության քաղաքականությունից բխող հետևանք: / In modern times there is a necessity to study the history of relations between Armenians and Kurds.Armenians and Kurds have lived side by side for many centuries and they have communicated as neighbor countries. The communication has been of various types, including both political and economic spheres. Meanwhile, the historic destiny of these two neighbor countries was complex and contradictory. At the end of IX and at the beginning of XX centuries Kurdish movements co-acted with Armenian forces in some places, nevertheless they did not contribute to the formation of alliance. Nonetheless, the historical logics prompts that sooner or later the Kurdish people will have their own national country. Thus, in the future, the destinies of two neighbor countries will unavoidably collide. The Kurdish factor had a negative influence especially in the Armenian question. This factor typologically belongs to the main questions of realizing Armenian genocide. Consequently, the anti-Armenian actions done by Kurds are observed as the result of the policy of The Ottoman Empire.


2016 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Konrad Matyjaszek

Wall and window: the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto as the narrative space of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish JewsOpened in 2013, the Warsaw-based POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews is situated in the center of the former Nazi Warsaw ghetto, which was destroyed during its liquidation in 1943. The museum is also located opposite to the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes and Martyrs, built in 1948, as well as in between of the area of the former 19th-century Jewish district, and of the post-war modernist residential district of Muranów, designed as a district-memorial of the destroyed ghetto. Constructed on such site, the Museum was however narrated as a “museum of life”, telling the “thousand-year old history” of Polish Jews, and not focused directly on the history of the Holocaust or the history of Polish antisemitism.The paper offers a critical analysis of the curatorial and architectural strategies assumed by the Museum’s designers in the process of employing the urban location of the Museum in the narratives communicated by the building and its main exhibition. In this analysis, two key architectural interiors are examined in detail in terms of their correspondence with the context of the site: the Museum’s entrance lobby and the space of the “Jewish street,” incorporated into the main exhibition’s sub-galleries presenting the interwar period of Polish-Jewish history and the history of the Holocaust. The analysis of the design structure of these two interiors allows to raise a research question about physical and symbolic role of the material substance of the destroyed ghetto in construction of a historical narrative that is separated from the history of the destruction, as well as one about the designers’ responsibilities arising from the decision to present a given history on the physical site where it took place.Mur i okno. Gruz getta warszawskiego jako przestrzeń narracyjna Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLINOtwarte w 2013 roku warszawskie Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN stanęło pośrodku terenu dawnego nazistowskiego getta warszawskiego, zburzonego podczas jego likwidacji w 1943 roku, naprzeciwko powstałego w roku 1948 Pomnika Bohaterów i Męczenników Getta; jednocześnie pośrodku obszaru dawnej, dziewiętnastowiecznej warszawskiej dzielnicy żydowskiej i powojennego modernistycznego osied­la Muranów, zaplanowanego jako osiedle-pomnik zburzonego getta. Zlokalizowane w takim miejscu Muzeum przedstawia się jako „muzeum życia”, opowiadające „tysiącletnią historię” polskich Żydów, niebędące insty­tucją skoncentrowaną na historii Zagłady Żydów i historii polskiego antysemityzmu.Artykuł zawiera krytyczną analizę kuratorskich i architektonicznych strategii przyjętych przez twórców Mu­zeum w procesie umieszczania środowiska miejskiego w roli elementu narracji historycznej, komunikowanej przez budynek Muzeum i przez jego wystawę główną. Szczegółowej analizie poddawane są dwa kluczowe dla projektu Muzeum wnętrza architektoniczne: główny hall wejściowy oraz przestrzeń „żydowskiej ulicy” stanowiąca fragment dwóch galerii wystawy głównej, poświęconych historii Żydów w Polsce międzywojen­nej oraz historii Zagłady. Analiza struktury projektowej tych dwóch wnętrz służy próbie sformułowania od­powiedzi na pytanie badawcze dotyczące właściwości fizyczno-symbolicznych materialnej substancji znisz­czonego getta w odniesieniu do narracji abstrahującej od historii jego zniszczenia oraz odpowiedzialności projektantów wynikającej z decyzji o umieszczeniu narracji historycznej w fizycznej przestrzeni, w której wydarzyła się historia będąca tej narracji przedmiotem.


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