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Kirkus Reviews (Print)
February 1, 2015, Sunday
"THEY CAN LIVE IN THE DESERT BUT NOWHERE ELSE"
A History of the Armenian Genocide
NONFICTION
An authoritative examination of unspeakable horrors.A century after
the elimination of millions of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire, Suny
(History/Univ. of Michigan; The Structure of Soviet History: Essays
and Documents, 2013, etc.) unequivocally calls the event "genocide,"
as distinguished from ethnic cleansing, purges and other forms of mass
killing.
"Genocide," he writes, "is not the murder of people but the murder of
a people." His deeply researched, fair-minded study probes the "two
separate, contradictory narratives" of the event that still persist:
the Turkish denial of genocide, representing the killings as a
rational response to a rebellious, traitorous population that
threatened the survival of the state; and Armenian characterization of
the tragedy as the ferocious determination of imperialist Turkish
Muslims to rid the empire of non-Muslims. Drawing on archival sources,
Suny, whose great-grandparents were victims of the massacre,
thoroughly traces "the genealogy of attitudes and behaviors" and the
historical context "that triggered a deadly, pathological response to
real and imagined immediate and future dangers." For hundreds of
years, he writes, Armenians, although subjects of the Muslim state,
were integrated into a multinational empire. As nationalist and reform
movements arose in the 19th century, however, Ottoman rulers
legitimized their position by identifying certain populations-in this
case, non-Muslim Armenians, Greeks and Jews-as inferior, devious and
subversive. Armenian intellectuals' affinity for European ideas and "a
powerful sense of secular nationality" made the ethnic group
especially suspect. Late in the century, Armenians' victimization by
Ottomans came to the attention of European powers, which further
fueled Muslims' conception of them as alien and alienated. From
1894-1896, extensive massacres intimated what would occur later, when
the militant Young Turks envisioned an ethnonational state that
required the extermination of non-Turks, a policy exacerbated by
social, political and economic chaos at the start of World War I.
Identifying the Ottomans' decisive choices, Suny creates a compelling
narrative of vengeance and terror.
Publication Date: 2015-04-01
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Stage: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-691-14730-7
Price: $35.00
Author: Suny, Ronald Grigor
February 1, 2015, Sunday
"THEY CAN LIVE IN THE DESERT BUT NOWHERE ELSE"
A History of the Armenian Genocide
NONFICTION
An authoritative examination of unspeakable horrors.A century after
the elimination of millions of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire, Suny
(History/Univ. of Michigan; The Structure of Soviet History: Essays
and Documents, 2013, etc.) unequivocally calls the event "genocide,"
as distinguished from ethnic cleansing, purges and other forms of mass
killing.
"Genocide," he writes, "is not the murder of people but the murder of
a people." His deeply researched, fair-minded study probes the "two
separate, contradictory narratives" of the event that still persist:
the Turkish denial of genocide, representing the killings as a
rational response to a rebellious, traitorous population that
threatened the survival of the state; and Armenian characterization of
the tragedy as the ferocious determination of imperialist Turkish
Muslims to rid the empire of non-Muslims. Drawing on archival sources,
Suny, whose great-grandparents were victims of the massacre,
thoroughly traces "the genealogy of attitudes and behaviors" and the
historical context "that triggered a deadly, pathological response to
real and imagined immediate and future dangers." For hundreds of
years, he writes, Armenians, although subjects of the Muslim state,
were integrated into a multinational empire. As nationalist and reform
movements arose in the 19th century, however, Ottoman rulers
legitimized their position by identifying certain populations-in this
case, non-Muslim Armenians, Greeks and Jews-as inferior, devious and
subversive. Armenian intellectuals' affinity for European ideas and "a
powerful sense of secular nationality" made the ethnic group
especially suspect. Late in the century, Armenians' victimization by
Ottomans came to the attention of European powers, which further
fueled Muslims' conception of them as alien and alienated. From
1894-1896, extensive massacres intimated what would occur later, when
the militant Young Turks envisioned an ethnonational state that
required the extermination of non-Turks, a policy exacerbated by
social, political and economic chaos at the start of World War I.
Identifying the Ottomans' decisive choices, Suny creates a compelling
narrative of vengeance and terror.
Publication Date: 2015-04-01
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Stage: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-691-14730-7
Price: $35.00
Author: Suny, Ronald Grigor