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ANC-Illinois Hosts International Conference on Ottoman Genocides
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2013/05/22/anc-illinois-hosts-international-conference-on-ottoman-genocides/
May 22, 2013
SKOKIE, Ill. - The largest academic conference ever held focusing on the
Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides concluded on Sat., 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 Armenian
National Committee (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 10-11. 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 the Turkish
government to destroy the native Christian population and all traces
of their existence from Anatolia.'
Prof. Hannibal Travis
The conference was opened by master of ceremonies John Davis, an 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, the
executive director of the Zoryan Institute of Toronto. 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. Bartrop presented the topic
`Considering Genocide Testimony: Three Case Studies,' and 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 Bartrop was Stavros Stavridis, a Ph.D. candidate and
historical researcher at the Australian Institute of Macedonian
Studies, who joined the conference via Skype.
Dr. Steven Leonard Jacobs responds to a question from the audience, as
noted author Thea Halo looks on.
Stavridis's 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, a
senior researcher at the Institute of History at the Armenian National
Academy of Sciences, who spoke on `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.
The Friday afternoon session was opened by Dr. Hannibal Travis,
associate professor of law at Florida International University College
of Law. During his presentation, titled `Cultural and Symbolic
Reparations of the Ottoman Christian Genocide: From Memorials to
Restitution of Historic and Sacred Sites,' 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, Travis contrasted the
approaches and outcomes of the renovations of the Holy Cross Church in
Aghtamar and the St. Giragos Church in Diyarbakir.
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,' 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.
Shenk praised the women missionaries for their bravery, working in a
foreign and often savage land, with no guarantees for their physical
safety.
Moderator George Shirinian and Dr. Paul Bartrop.
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 that was collected by journalist
Kostas Faltaits and published in Greek in 1921.
The second and final day of the conference began with 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 the 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 Shirinian to
take the podium and open the third session of the program.
After brief comments Shirinian introduced Georgia Kouta, a Ph.D.
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 comprised 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 gave 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.
Greek Consul General Ionna Efthymiadou
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 that aimed to prevent
the survivors' return.
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.' Vardanyan
pointed out that there were many common elements to the genocides of
the 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, 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.'
Participants during a presentation by Dr. Dikran Kaligian.
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.
Dr. Gevorg Vardanyan of the Armenian Genocide Museum and Institute
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
and Institute in Yerevan. 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.
The conference proceedings will be published in the near future.
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2013/05/22/anc-illinois-hosts-international-conference-on-ottoman-genocides/
May 22, 2013
SKOKIE, Ill. - The largest academic conference ever held focusing on the
Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides concluded on Sat., 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 Armenian
National Committee (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 10-11. 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 the Turkish
government to destroy the native Christian population and all traces
of their existence from Anatolia.'
Prof. Hannibal Travis
The conference was opened by master of ceremonies John Davis, an 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, the
executive director of the Zoryan Institute of Toronto. 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. Bartrop presented the topic
`Considering Genocide Testimony: Three Case Studies,' and 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 Bartrop was Stavros Stavridis, a Ph.D. candidate and
historical researcher at the Australian Institute of Macedonian
Studies, who joined the conference via Skype.
Dr. Steven Leonard Jacobs responds to a question from the audience, as
noted author Thea Halo looks on.
Stavridis's 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, a
senior researcher at the Institute of History at the Armenian National
Academy of Sciences, who spoke on `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.
The Friday afternoon session was opened by Dr. Hannibal Travis,
associate professor of law at Florida International University College
of Law. During his presentation, titled `Cultural and Symbolic
Reparations of the Ottoman Christian Genocide: From Memorials to
Restitution of Historic and Sacred Sites,' 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, Travis contrasted the
approaches and outcomes of the renovations of the Holy Cross Church in
Aghtamar and the St. Giragos Church in Diyarbakir.
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,' 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.
Shenk praised the women missionaries for their bravery, working in a
foreign and often savage land, with no guarantees for their physical
safety.
Moderator George Shirinian and Dr. Paul Bartrop.
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 that was collected by journalist
Kostas Faltaits and published in Greek in 1921.
The second and final day of the conference began with 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 the 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 Shirinian to
take the podium and open the third session of the program.
After brief comments Shirinian introduced Georgia Kouta, a Ph.D.
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 comprised 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 gave 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.
Greek Consul General Ionna Efthymiadou
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 that aimed to prevent
the survivors' return.
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.' Vardanyan
pointed out that there were many common elements to the genocides of
the 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, 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.'
Participants during a presentation by Dr. Dikran Kaligian.
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.
Dr. Gevorg Vardanyan of the Armenian Genocide Museum and Institute
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
and Institute in Yerevan. 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.
The conference proceedings will be published in the near future.