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ANC of Illinois hosts international conference on Armenian, Assyrian
and Greek Genocides
http://www.armradio.am/en/2013/05/18/anc-of-illinois-hosts-international-conference-on-armenian-assyrian-and-greek-genocides/
11:34 18.05.2013
The largest academic conference ever held focusing on the Armenian,
Assyrian and Greek genocides concluded on Saturday, May 11, after two
days of presentations by more than a dozen scholars from Armenia,
Australia, England and across North America.
The event, titled The Ottoman Turkish Genocides of Anatolian
Christians: A Common Case Study, was organized by the ANC of Illinois,
the Assyrian Center for Genocide Studies and the Asia Minor and Pontos
Hellenic Research Center, and was held at the prestigious Illinois
Holocaust Museum and Educational Center in Skokie on May 10 and 11.
With more than 120 participants each day, the conference was filled to
capacity with an enthusiastic audience.
`There was a great deal of new and interesting research presented
during the conference,' said ANC of Illinois activist Greg Bedian.
`This conference clearly demonstrated the many shared aspects of the
Greek, Assyrian and Armenian genocides and helped to drive home the
concept that these three tragic events were conceived by Turkish
government to destroy the native Christian population and all traces
of their existence from Anatolia.'
The conference was opened by Master of Ceremonies John Davis, Emmy
award winner and long-time reporter and anchorman for CBS affiliate
WBBM-TV in Chicago. In his introductory remarks, Davis thanked the
many sponsors, volunteers, scholars and participants for their
contributions and for making the conference a reality. He then
introduced Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen, who spoke about the
significance of the conference being held at the Holocaust Museum.
Mayor Van Dusen was followed by Greek Consul General Ionna
Efthymiadou, who congratulated the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek
communities for coming together to organize the conference, and
encouraged the scholars to continue their research into the Ottoman
Genocides.
Davis then introduced conference moderator George Shirinian, Executive
Director of the Zoryan Institute of Toronto, Canada. Shirinian's
introductory remarks focused on the importance of these types of
conferences in the advancement of genocide research, and provided an
outline of how the conference would proceed. He then opened the first
session of the conference by introducing Dr. Paul Bartrop, the
Director of the Center of Judaic, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies at
Florida Gulf Coast University. Dr. Bartrop presented the topic
`Considering Genocide Testimony: Three Case Studies.'
During his presentation, Dr. Bartrop discussed the importance of
survivor memoirs as a historical resource, presenting examples from an
Armenian, an Assyrian and a Greek survivor. He noted that while
historians sometimes view survivor accounts as unreliable due to
trauma and bias, they often contain valuable details about massacres,
and sometimes are the only accounts available of particular events.
Following Dr. Bartrop was Stavros Stavridis, PhD candidate and
Historical Researcher at the Australian Institute of Macedonian
Studies, who joined the conference via Skype. Stavridis presentation
was titled `The Assyrian Issue 1914-1935: Australian Documents and
Press.' He reviewed how the Assyrian Genocide was reported on in the
Australian press as well as how the thoughts and actions of various
government and private individuals impacted policy based on
documentation he had researched in the National Archives of Australia
and the collections at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
The final speaker of the opening session was Dr. Anahit Khosroeva,
senior researcher at the Institute of History at the Armenian National
Academy of Sciences, who spoke on the topic `The Assyrian Genocide in
the Ottoman Empire,' discussing the massacres of Assyrians, and
Christians in general, as a continuum from the time of Abdul Hamid to
the Young Turks and into the Republican period, with the purpose of
eliminating the Assyrian, Greek and Armenian populations from
Anatolia.
The Friday afternoon session was opened by Dr. Hannibal Travis,
Associate Professor of Law at Florida International University College
of Law. During his presentation, entitled `Cultural and Symbolic
Reparations of the Ottoman Christian Genocide: From Memorials to
Restitution of Historic and Sacred Sites,' Dr. Travis discussed the
destruction of the culture of the victim group that accompanied the
physical killing inherent in the Ottoman Genocides. As part of his
discussion of restitution of cultural monuments, Dr. Travis contrasted
the approaches and outcomes of the renovations of the Holy Cross
Church in Aghtamar and the St. Giragos Church in Diyarbekir.
The next speaker was Dr. Robert Shenk, Professor of English at the
University of New Orleans. Speaking on the topic `American Women,
Massacres, and the Admiral: Deep in Anatolia during the Turkish
Nationalist Revolution,' Dr. Shenk described the devastating role
American Admiral Mark Bristol played in the post-war period as
America's chief diplomat in the area, and how despite pleas from
numerous female American missionaries and even his own officers, he
placed the interests of American commerce ahead of protecting the
remnants of the Christian populations in Anatolia from ongoing
destruction, censoring reports of massacres from information relayed
back to Washington. Dr. Shenk praised the women missionaries for their
bravery, working in a foreign and often savage land, with no
guarantees for their physical safety.
Thea Halo, author of the book Not Even My Name, then spoke on the
topic `The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks 1913-1923: Myths and Facts.'
Halo challenged some common assumptions often used to discount the
brutal treatment of the Greeks during the period of the Great
Catastrophe and offered valuable alternative views regarding Greek
irredentism based on the Megali Idea, and the role of King Constantine
I in protecting Greeks under Ottoman rule. Prof. Ellene Phufas then
closed out the first day of the conference by sharing an excerpt from
her translation, along with Aris Tsilfidis, of These Are the Turks:
First-Hand Accounts from the Slaughter of Nicomedia, the first book of
Greek Genocide survivor accounts which was collected by journalist
Kostas Faltaits and published in Greek in 1921.
The second and final day of the conference began with Master of
Ceremonies John Davis opening the program with welcoming remarks,
after which he invited Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)
National Board Chairman Ken Hachikian to address the conference. In
his comments, Hachikian emphasized that the ANCA has been able to make
important strides in its lobbying activities because `we have the
truth on our side.' He added that research like that being presented
at the conference played an important role in helping to make that
truth better understood. Following Hachikian's comments, Davis asked
Conference Moderator George Shirinian to take the podium and open the
third session of the program.
After brief comments Shirinian introduced Georgia Kouta, a PhD
candidate at King's College in London, England, to present her paper
titled `Redeeming the Unredeemed: The Anglo-Hellenic League's Campaign
for the Greeks in Asia Minor.' Kouta discussed the role of the
Anglo-Hellenic League in London in shaping western public opinion and
British policy on the Ottoman government's treatment of its Greek
minority. She described how The League, which was composed of both
Greek and British members, collected valuable documentation on the
atrocities through Greek and non-Greek eye-witness reports, church and
newspaper accounts, and published pamphlets to raise awareness of the
atrocities.
Kouta was followed by Steven L. Jacobs, Associate Professor and Aaron
Aronov Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Alabama.
Jacobs made an interesting presentation about the writings of Raphael
Lemkin, the author of the word genocide and the father of the UN
Genocide Convention. He described Lemkin's incomplete and unpublished
three volume history of genocide, and described Lemkin's treatment of
the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides.
The Saturday morning session was concluded with a presentation by Dr.
Tehmine Martoyan on `The International Legal Qualification and
Liability of Smyrna's September Tragedy.' In her presentation,
Martoyan examined the possibilities of applying the legal term
`genocide' to the destruction of Smyrna in September,1922. She
reviewed evidence of the premeditated nature and implementation of the
extermination of the Armenian and Greek populations of Smyrna, as well
as the destruction of their homes and businesses so as to prevent the
return of the survivors of Smyrna's destruction.
The fourth and final session of the conference opened with Dr. Gevorg
Vardanyan of the Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute in Yerevan,
Armenia, presenting his topic `The Ottoman Genocide of the Armenians
and Greeks: The Similarities and Structural Peculiarities.' Dr.
Vardanyan pointed out that there were many common elements to the
Genocides of Greeks and Armenians, including the methods used for
organizing the massacres and the organizers themselves. Pointing out
some of the major differences in the two genocides, Dr. Vardanyan
noted that because of geography and demographics, the Kurds, who had
played a significant role in the Armenian genocide, were generally not
involved in the Greek genocide. He also noted that because of their
proximity to Greece, many of the Greeks in Eastern Thrace were
deported or escaped to Greece as opposed to being killed outright,
like their Pontian and Armenian counterparts.
Professor Dikran Kaligian of Worcester State University spoke on the
`Security and Insecurity in the Ottoman Armenian and Greek
Communities, 1908-1914.' Kaligian described how the restoration of the
Ottoman Constitution had provided a brief period of hope and an
improvement in the personal security for the Armenians and Greeks
living in the empire. He then traced various events that began to
endanger those reforms, including the impact of the counter
revolutionary uprisings, the Balkan Wars, and the evolution of the
Young Turk movement from its liberal Ottomanist orientation toward a
chauvinistic pan-Turanist direction.
The final presentation of the conference was provided by Dr. Suren
Manukyan, a Fulbright Scholar on Sociology of the Armenian Genocide at
Rutgers University and Deputy Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum
& Institute, Yerevan, Armenia. Dr. Manukyan's topic was `Cultural
Preconditions and Process of Social Indoctrination:
Socio-Psychological Dimension of the Ottoman Genocides.' Noting that
the ability to participate in mass murder is not an inherent human
characteristic, he described how the state conditioned the Ottoman
Muslim population to be able to murder the Christians through
propaganda via the mosques, by altering the legal system, and other
methods. He contrasted the Armenian Genocide with the Holocaust,
pointing out that many Armenians met violent deaths, sometimes at the
hands of their neighbors, rather than in the more industrialized
concentration camps.
and Greek Genocides
http://www.armradio.am/en/2013/05/18/anc-of-illinois-hosts-international-conference-on-armenian-assyrian-and-greek-genocides/
11:34 18.05.2013
The largest academic conference ever held focusing on the Armenian,
Assyrian and Greek genocides concluded on Saturday, May 11, after two
days of presentations by more than a dozen scholars from Armenia,
Australia, England and across North America.
The event, titled The Ottoman Turkish Genocides of Anatolian
Christians: A Common Case Study, was organized by the ANC of Illinois,
the Assyrian Center for Genocide Studies and the Asia Minor and Pontos
Hellenic Research Center, and was held at the prestigious Illinois
Holocaust Museum and Educational Center in Skokie on May 10 and 11.
With more than 120 participants each day, the conference was filled to
capacity with an enthusiastic audience.
`There was a great deal of new and interesting research presented
during the conference,' said ANC of Illinois activist Greg Bedian.
`This conference clearly demonstrated the many shared aspects of the
Greek, Assyrian and Armenian genocides and helped to drive home the
concept that these three tragic events were conceived by Turkish
government to destroy the native Christian population and all traces
of their existence from Anatolia.'
The conference was opened by Master of Ceremonies John Davis, Emmy
award winner and long-time reporter and anchorman for CBS affiliate
WBBM-TV in Chicago. In his introductory remarks, Davis thanked the
many sponsors, volunteers, scholars and participants for their
contributions and for making the conference a reality. He then
introduced Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen, who spoke about the
significance of the conference being held at the Holocaust Museum.
Mayor Van Dusen was followed by Greek Consul General Ionna
Efthymiadou, who congratulated the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek
communities for coming together to organize the conference, and
encouraged the scholars to continue their research into the Ottoman
Genocides.
Davis then introduced conference moderator George Shirinian, Executive
Director of the Zoryan Institute of Toronto, Canada. Shirinian's
introductory remarks focused on the importance of these types of
conferences in the advancement of genocide research, and provided an
outline of how the conference would proceed. He then opened the first
session of the conference by introducing Dr. Paul Bartrop, the
Director of the Center of Judaic, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies at
Florida Gulf Coast University. Dr. Bartrop presented the topic
`Considering Genocide Testimony: Three Case Studies.'
During his presentation, Dr. Bartrop discussed the importance of
survivor memoirs as a historical resource, presenting examples from an
Armenian, an Assyrian and a Greek survivor. He noted that while
historians sometimes view survivor accounts as unreliable due to
trauma and bias, they often contain valuable details about massacres,
and sometimes are the only accounts available of particular events.
Following Dr. Bartrop was Stavros Stavridis, PhD candidate and
Historical Researcher at the Australian Institute of Macedonian
Studies, who joined the conference via Skype. Stavridis presentation
was titled `The Assyrian Issue 1914-1935: Australian Documents and
Press.' He reviewed how the Assyrian Genocide was reported on in the
Australian press as well as how the thoughts and actions of various
government and private individuals impacted policy based on
documentation he had researched in the National Archives of Australia
and the collections at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
The final speaker of the opening session was Dr. Anahit Khosroeva,
senior researcher at the Institute of History at the Armenian National
Academy of Sciences, who spoke on the topic `The Assyrian Genocide in
the Ottoman Empire,' discussing the massacres of Assyrians, and
Christians in general, as a continuum from the time of Abdul Hamid to
the Young Turks and into the Republican period, with the purpose of
eliminating the Assyrian, Greek and Armenian populations from
Anatolia.
The Friday afternoon session was opened by Dr. Hannibal Travis,
Associate Professor of Law at Florida International University College
of Law. During his presentation, entitled `Cultural and Symbolic
Reparations of the Ottoman Christian Genocide: From Memorials to
Restitution of Historic and Sacred Sites,' Dr. Travis discussed the
destruction of the culture of the victim group that accompanied the
physical killing inherent in the Ottoman Genocides. As part of his
discussion of restitution of cultural monuments, Dr. Travis contrasted
the approaches and outcomes of the renovations of the Holy Cross
Church in Aghtamar and the St. Giragos Church in Diyarbekir.
The next speaker was Dr. Robert Shenk, Professor of English at the
University of New Orleans. Speaking on the topic `American Women,
Massacres, and the Admiral: Deep in Anatolia during the Turkish
Nationalist Revolution,' Dr. Shenk described the devastating role
American Admiral Mark Bristol played in the post-war period as
America's chief diplomat in the area, and how despite pleas from
numerous female American missionaries and even his own officers, he
placed the interests of American commerce ahead of protecting the
remnants of the Christian populations in Anatolia from ongoing
destruction, censoring reports of massacres from information relayed
back to Washington. Dr. Shenk praised the women missionaries for their
bravery, working in a foreign and often savage land, with no
guarantees for their physical safety.
Thea Halo, author of the book Not Even My Name, then spoke on the
topic `The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks 1913-1923: Myths and Facts.'
Halo challenged some common assumptions often used to discount the
brutal treatment of the Greeks during the period of the Great
Catastrophe and offered valuable alternative views regarding Greek
irredentism based on the Megali Idea, and the role of King Constantine
I in protecting Greeks under Ottoman rule. Prof. Ellene Phufas then
closed out the first day of the conference by sharing an excerpt from
her translation, along with Aris Tsilfidis, of These Are the Turks:
First-Hand Accounts from the Slaughter of Nicomedia, the first book of
Greek Genocide survivor accounts which was collected by journalist
Kostas Faltaits and published in Greek in 1921.
The second and final day of the conference began with Master of
Ceremonies John Davis opening the program with welcoming remarks,
after which he invited Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)
National Board Chairman Ken Hachikian to address the conference. In
his comments, Hachikian emphasized that the ANCA has been able to make
important strides in its lobbying activities because `we have the
truth on our side.' He added that research like that being presented
at the conference played an important role in helping to make that
truth better understood. Following Hachikian's comments, Davis asked
Conference Moderator George Shirinian to take the podium and open the
third session of the program.
After brief comments Shirinian introduced Georgia Kouta, a PhD
candidate at King's College in London, England, to present her paper
titled `Redeeming the Unredeemed: The Anglo-Hellenic League's Campaign
for the Greeks in Asia Minor.' Kouta discussed the role of the
Anglo-Hellenic League in London in shaping western public opinion and
British policy on the Ottoman government's treatment of its Greek
minority. She described how The League, which was composed of both
Greek and British members, collected valuable documentation on the
atrocities through Greek and non-Greek eye-witness reports, church and
newspaper accounts, and published pamphlets to raise awareness of the
atrocities.
Kouta was followed by Steven L. Jacobs, Associate Professor and Aaron
Aronov Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Alabama.
Jacobs made an interesting presentation about the writings of Raphael
Lemkin, the author of the word genocide and the father of the UN
Genocide Convention. He described Lemkin's incomplete and unpublished
three volume history of genocide, and described Lemkin's treatment of
the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides.
The Saturday morning session was concluded with a presentation by Dr.
Tehmine Martoyan on `The International Legal Qualification and
Liability of Smyrna's September Tragedy.' In her presentation,
Martoyan examined the possibilities of applying the legal term
`genocide' to the destruction of Smyrna in September,1922. She
reviewed evidence of the premeditated nature and implementation of the
extermination of the Armenian and Greek populations of Smyrna, as well
as the destruction of their homes and businesses so as to prevent the
return of the survivors of Smyrna's destruction.
The fourth and final session of the conference opened with Dr. Gevorg
Vardanyan of the Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute in Yerevan,
Armenia, presenting his topic `The Ottoman Genocide of the Armenians
and Greeks: The Similarities and Structural Peculiarities.' Dr.
Vardanyan pointed out that there were many common elements to the
Genocides of Greeks and Armenians, including the methods used for
organizing the massacres and the organizers themselves. Pointing out
some of the major differences in the two genocides, Dr. Vardanyan
noted that because of geography and demographics, the Kurds, who had
played a significant role in the Armenian genocide, were generally not
involved in the Greek genocide. He also noted that because of their
proximity to Greece, many of the Greeks in Eastern Thrace were
deported or escaped to Greece as opposed to being killed outright,
like their Pontian and Armenian counterparts.
Professor Dikran Kaligian of Worcester State University spoke on the
`Security and Insecurity in the Ottoman Armenian and Greek
Communities, 1908-1914.' Kaligian described how the restoration of the
Ottoman Constitution had provided a brief period of hope and an
improvement in the personal security for the Armenians and Greeks
living in the empire. He then traced various events that began to
endanger those reforms, including the impact of the counter
revolutionary uprisings, the Balkan Wars, and the evolution of the
Young Turk movement from its liberal Ottomanist orientation toward a
chauvinistic pan-Turanist direction.
The final presentation of the conference was provided by Dr. Suren
Manukyan, a Fulbright Scholar on Sociology of the Armenian Genocide at
Rutgers University and Deputy Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum
& Institute, Yerevan, Armenia. Dr. Manukyan's topic was `Cultural
Preconditions and Process of Social Indoctrination:
Socio-Psychological Dimension of the Ottoman Genocides.' Noting that
the ability to participate in mass murder is not an inherent human
characteristic, he described how the state conditioned the Ottoman
Muslim population to be able to murder the Christians through
propaganda via the mosques, by altering the legal system, and other
methods. He contrasted the Armenian Genocide with the Holocaust,
pointing out that many Armenians met violent deaths, sometimes at the
hands of their neighbors, rather than in the more industrialized
concentration camps.