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"WHY GENOCIDE? THE FATE OF THE ARMENIANS AND ASSYRIANS AT THE END OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE" SUNY IN BERLIN
AGA Online
Feb 27 2014
Berlin-Wannsee, 6. Marz 2014, 19:30 Uhr: "Why Genocide? The Fate
of the Armenians and Assyrians at the End of the Ottoman Empire"
- Vortrag von Prof. Ronald Suny an der American Academy in Berlin
(Am Sandwerder 17-19)
27.02.2014 17:33 PDF Version
Understanding why the Young Turk government decided in early
1915 to deport - and eventually massacre - its Armenian subjects
requires attention both to strategic calculations of a government
perceiving immediate dangers and to the emotional environment in
which construction of enemies and allies were made. Rather than
propose that the genocide was the planned first step in creating a
Turkish nation-state (Kemalism avant la lettre), Ronald Suny proposes
that the Young Turks were more empire-preservers than nation-makers,
and that the genocide was a pathological response to a perceived
existential threat. Distinct from earlier massacres (1894-1896,
1909), which had different etiologies, the mass murders of 1915 were
a radical ethno-religious cleansing to reshape Anatolia and render
the Armenians politically and culturally impotent. To explain why
the Young Turks committed genocide, Suny investigates what he calls
their "affective disposition:" the emotional environment and world
view that led them to construct the Armenians as subversive to the
empire and nation's continued existence.
This event will be livestreamed.
BIOGRAPHY
Ronald Suny is the Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and
Political History at the University of Michigan, where he directed the
Eisenberg Institute of Historical Studies. He is also a professor
emeritus of political science and history at the University of
Chicago. Suny's work has centered on the non-Russian nationalities
of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, imperialism, and social
and cultural history. From 1981 to 1995, Suny held the first Alex
Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of
Michigan, where he founded and directed the Armenian Studies Program.
His many accolades include election to presidency of the American
Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, two fellowships at
the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford,
a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, and a Guggenheim
Fellowship. Together with his Michigan colleague Fatma Muge Gocek he
was awarded the Academic Freedom Prize by the Middle East Studies
Association for their success in bringing together Armenian and
Turkish scholars to investigate the Armenian genocide.
Suny is the author of several books, including Looking Toward Ararat:
Armenia in Modern History (Indiana, 1993), and the co-editor of A
State of Nations: Empire and Nation-making in the Age of Lenin and
Stalin (Oxford, 2001), and A Question off Genocide: Armenians and
Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford, 2011). He has served
on the editorial boards of Slavic Review, International Labor and
Working-Class History, International Journal of Middle East Studies,
The Armenian Review, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies,
Armenian Forum, and Ab Imperio. A frequent guest on news broadcasts
such as the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour, Voice of America, and National
Public Radio, Suny also writes for The New York Times, The Washington
Post, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, New Left Review, Dissent, and
other publications.
AMERICAN ACADEMY PROJECT
Why Genocide? The Fate of the Armenians and Assyrians at the End of
the Ottoman Empire
At the Academy, Suny will complete Why Genocide? The Fate of the
Armenians and Assyrians at the End of the Ottoman Empire, under
contract with Princeton University Press. Instead of looking at the
deportations and massacres of Armenians and Assyrians in 1915 as the
outcome of nationalist or religious conflict, Suny argues that the
Armenian genocide occurred when state authorities decided to remove
the Armenians from eastern Anatolia in order to realize a number
of strategic goals. He employs the concept "affective disposition"
to explain an environment in which the Armenians were seen as an
existential threat to the Empire and the Turkish people, thus rendering
genocide, in the minds of the perpetrators, rational. Rather than a
long-planned and orchestrated program of extermination, the Armenian
genocide appears as more a vengeful and determined act of suppression
that turned into an opportunistic policy to rid Anatolia of Armenians
in a racialist vision of a Turanian empire.
http://www.aga-online.org/event/detail.php?locale=de&eventId=64
AGA Online
Feb 27 2014
Berlin-Wannsee, 6. Marz 2014, 19:30 Uhr: "Why Genocide? The Fate
of the Armenians and Assyrians at the End of the Ottoman Empire"
- Vortrag von Prof. Ronald Suny an der American Academy in Berlin
(Am Sandwerder 17-19)
27.02.2014 17:33 PDF Version
Understanding why the Young Turk government decided in early
1915 to deport - and eventually massacre - its Armenian subjects
requires attention both to strategic calculations of a government
perceiving immediate dangers and to the emotional environment in
which construction of enemies and allies were made. Rather than
propose that the genocide was the planned first step in creating a
Turkish nation-state (Kemalism avant la lettre), Ronald Suny proposes
that the Young Turks were more empire-preservers than nation-makers,
and that the genocide was a pathological response to a perceived
existential threat. Distinct from earlier massacres (1894-1896,
1909), which had different etiologies, the mass murders of 1915 were
a radical ethno-religious cleansing to reshape Anatolia and render
the Armenians politically and culturally impotent. To explain why
the Young Turks committed genocide, Suny investigates what he calls
their "affective disposition:" the emotional environment and world
view that led them to construct the Armenians as subversive to the
empire and nation's continued existence.
This event will be livestreamed.
BIOGRAPHY
Ronald Suny is the Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and
Political History at the University of Michigan, where he directed the
Eisenberg Institute of Historical Studies. He is also a professor
emeritus of political science and history at the University of
Chicago. Suny's work has centered on the non-Russian nationalities
of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, imperialism, and social
and cultural history. From 1981 to 1995, Suny held the first Alex
Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of
Michigan, where he founded and directed the Armenian Studies Program.
His many accolades include election to presidency of the American
Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, two fellowships at
the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford,
a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, and a Guggenheim
Fellowship. Together with his Michigan colleague Fatma Muge Gocek he
was awarded the Academic Freedom Prize by the Middle East Studies
Association for their success in bringing together Armenian and
Turkish scholars to investigate the Armenian genocide.
Suny is the author of several books, including Looking Toward Ararat:
Armenia in Modern History (Indiana, 1993), and the co-editor of A
State of Nations: Empire and Nation-making in the Age of Lenin and
Stalin (Oxford, 2001), and A Question off Genocide: Armenians and
Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford, 2011). He has served
on the editorial boards of Slavic Review, International Labor and
Working-Class History, International Journal of Middle East Studies,
The Armenian Review, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies,
Armenian Forum, and Ab Imperio. A frequent guest on news broadcasts
such as the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour, Voice of America, and National
Public Radio, Suny also writes for The New York Times, The Washington
Post, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, New Left Review, Dissent, and
other publications.
AMERICAN ACADEMY PROJECT
Why Genocide? The Fate of the Armenians and Assyrians at the End of
the Ottoman Empire
At the Academy, Suny will complete Why Genocide? The Fate of the
Armenians and Assyrians at the End of the Ottoman Empire, under
contract with Princeton University Press. Instead of looking at the
deportations and massacres of Armenians and Assyrians in 1915 as the
outcome of nationalist or religious conflict, Suny argues that the
Armenian genocide occurred when state authorities decided to remove
the Armenians from eastern Anatolia in order to realize a number
of strategic goals. He employs the concept "affective disposition"
to explain an environment in which the Armenians were seen as an
existential threat to the Empire and the Turkish people, thus rendering
genocide, in the minds of the perpetrators, rational. Rather than a
long-planned and orchestrated program of extermination, the Armenian
genocide appears as more a vengeful and determined act of suppression
that turned into an opportunistic policy to rid Anatolia of Armenians
in a racialist vision of a Turanian empire.
http://www.aga-online.org/event/detail.php?locale=de&eventId=64