Studies
on the State–Sponsored Campaign of Extermination of the Christians of
Asia Minor (1912-1922) and Its Aftermath: History, Law, Memory
Edited by Tessa Hofmann, Matthias Bjørnlund and Vasileios Meichanetsidis
The
recent vote against the denial of the Armenian Genocide held by the
French Parliament, and the discussion to recognize the same event by the
Israeli Knesset, brings to the fore the issue of the Turkish
government’s adverse reaction, reflecting perhaps a deep-seated sense of
culpability and apparent unwillingness to accept responsibility for the
first genocide of the Twentieth Century, that of the Christians of the
Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic.
On February 28, 2012 Aristide D. Caratzas is publishing The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks,
a collective work by nineteen distinguished international scholars,
which addresses one of the lesser known aspects of the extermination of
the Ottoman Christians, namely that of the Greeks, and provides a number
of approaches for the study of this event.
The
period of transition from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire to the
foundation of the Turkish Republic was characterized by a number of
processes largely guided by a narrow elite that aimed to construct a
modern, national state. One of these processes was the deliberate and
planned elimination, indeed extermination, of the Christian (and certain
other) minorities. The numbers are stark: most scholars agree that in
1912 there were about 4-5 million Christians in Asia Minor and Thrace
(Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians and others); by 1923 the Christians in the
space that became the Turkish Republic were reduced to less than
300,000.
Raphael
Lemkin, the legal scholar who introduced the term “genocide” into
international law, formulated his early ideas on the definition of this
war crime by studying the destruction of the Christians of Asia Minor,
while the distinguished (recently deceased) Turcologist Neoklis Sarris
has noted that the annihilation of the Christian minorities represented
an integral element of the formation of the Turkish Republic.
As
the editors of this volume note, the recent resolution by the
International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) recognizing the
Greek and Assyrian genocides (December 2007) reinforces the
justification for the study in greater depth of the genocide of the
Greek Christian population of Asia Minor and Thrace.
The
last two decades have seen a massive amount of research of the genocide
of the Armenian population in the Ottoman/Turkish space; our publishing
house has produced a number of works, most notable of which was the
eyewitness testimony of Leslie A. Davis, US Consul in Harput (The Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1917).
Much
less scholarly work has been done on the genocide of the Greeks of Asia
Minor and Thrace; there are many reasons for this, including the fact
that Turkish governments have been successful in intimidating diplomats
in the context of Turkish-Greek relations of the last generation, and of
subverting academic integrity by inducing some scholars (including
Greeks) to make a career as denialists supported by international NGOs,
in the name of countering "nationalism."
The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks therefore
represents an effort to provide an outline and approaches for more
extensive study of the deliberate destruction and elimination of a Greek
presence that spanned over three millennia in the space that became the
Turkish Republic. It includes fifteen article contributions by scholars from Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States, and three appendices (“A Chronology of Major Events,” “A Glossary of Terms,” and “A Select Bibliography,” the last over forty pages).
The thematic approaches developed in The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks include: A group of eight studies under the section titled “Historical
Overview, Documentation, Interpretation;” and two more in a section
titled “Representations and Law,” one of which outlines Lemkin’s studies
of the Christian genocide based on his personal archive. In addition
there are sections titled “Genocide Education,” “Memorialization,” and
“Conceptualization,” which include studies exploring, a) an outline
syllabus for the teaching of the Greek genocide on the secondary level
in the US (in Chicago), b) the erection of monuments in Greece
commemorating the loss of life and homelands, c) the role of genocide in
the creation of nationality, and d) a critical approach in the use of
photographic evidence for the study of the genocide of the Christian
peoples in what is now the space occupied by the Turkish Republic.
Publication Information:
Publication Date: February 28, 2012
Hardcover xii+508 pages, 37 photographs, maps (including a foldout)
ISBN 978-0-89241-615-8
Price: US$75.00
Contents:
“Introduction” — Tessa Hofmann, Matthias Bjørnlund and Vasileios Meichanetsidis
“The Integrity and Courage to Recognize All the Victims of a Genocide” — Israel W. Charny
Historical Overview, Documentation, Interpretation
“Γενοκτονία
εν Ροή, Cumulative Genocide: The Massacres and Deportations of the
Greek Population of the Ottoman Empire (1912-1923)” — Tessa Hofmann
“The
1914 Persecutions of Greeks in the Ottoman Empire and the First Attempt
at an Exchange of Minorities between Greece and Turkey” — John Mourelos
“Danish Sources on the Destruction of the Ottoman Greeks, 1914-1916” — Matthias Bjørnlund
“The Role of Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa (Special Organization) in the Genocide of 1915” — Racho Donef
“The Smyrna Holocaust: The Final Phase of the Greek Genocide” — Nikolaos Hlamides
“The
Immediate Context of the Smyrna Catastrophe: The Peace Treaties and the
Aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922” — Matthew Stewart
“The American Near East Relief and the Megale Katastrophe in 1922”— Harry J. Psomiades
“International Red Cross: A Mission to Nowhere” — Stavros T. Stavridis
Representations and Law
“Genocide of Others: Raphael Lemkin, the Genocide of the Greeks, the Holocaust, and the Present Moment” — Steven Leonard Jacobs
“The Ottoman Genocide of the Greeks and the Other Christian Minorities in Light of the Genocide Convention” — Alfred de Zayas
Genocide Education, Memorialization, Conceptualization
“Teaching the Greek Genocide” — Ronald Levitsky
“Remembering the Genocide and the ‘Unforgettable Homelands:’ The Erection of
Commemorative Monuments in Greece by the Refugees of Asia Minor — Michel Bruneau
and Kiriakos Papoulidis
“The Eastern Question: Genocide in Support of Nationality” — Akis Kalaitzidis and Donald Wallace
Achieving Ever-Greater Precision in Attestation and Attribution of Genocide Photographs —
Abraham Der Krikorian and Eugene Taylor
Appendices: Chronology of Major Events; Glossary of Terms; Select Bibliography
