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Daily Sabah, Turkey
Jan 20 2015
Sargsyan's letter to President ErdoÄŸan: Armenia's imagined history
M. HAKAN YAVUZ, Professor at the University of Utah
In the run up to the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign,
President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan invited more than 100 world leaders,
including Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, to attend a special
ceremony on April 23-24 commemorating the bloody battle. The Ottoman
army was engaged on a number of fronts, yet the most crucial battle
was fought in defense of Gallipoli, the gateway to Istanbul, against
the naval forces of the Entente, which hoped to deal a quick knockout
blow to the Ottoman Empire and use the Dardanelles straits to aid the
faltering Russian government. Istanbul's young men sacrificed their
lives in great numbers to win what is now remembered as the Ottoman
army's most important victory in World War I.
The worst of the fighting in Gallipoli began with a major land
invasion on April 25, 1915 after an amphibious naval attack on Ottoman
artillery positions on April 24. During these first hectic days, the
Ottomans prepared for the possibility of losing Istanbul altogether
and began making plans to relocate the government, and the train in
HaydarpaÅŸa stood at the ready to whisk the Ottoman leadership,
including the sultan, to Konya, and install the key government
institutions there. For the Ottomans, it was the darkest hour of World
War I and an existential moment for a Turkish presence in Istanbul.
While Muslim men in Istanbul were mobilized to defend the capital city
where the sultan-caliph resided, Armenian volunteers in eastern
Anatolia were acting as guides for the Russian invasion of Ottoman
territory and participating in the killing of its Muslim population.
The city of Van was lost in early April to Russian-Armenian forces
while the Ottoman army fought with limited resources to defend the
homeland. Under these dire conditions the Ottoman military decided to
remove Armenians from the warzone as well as from strategically
important spots including Istanbul. The relocation of Armenians to the
southern provinces of the Ottoman Empire resulted in the deaths of a
significant number of Armenian civilians. Armenians suffered greatly
during the long trek. Murders and massacres happened indeed, as unruly
tribes, bandits and soldiers acting on their own initiative gorged on
the chaos and opportunism of the war. In addition, the lack of food,
medical means and the harsh roads also played an important role in
this high rate of deaths suffered by many innocent people. Often
forgotten alongside this heavily publicized and decontextualized
aspect of the war is the fact that a large number of Muslim civilians
were killed by Armenian volunteer units and their Russian allies.
Since mid-1965, Armenians have been commemorating these tragic events
on April 24 in a manner that tends to forge a victim identity and pit
Armenian communities against Turkey by demanding the events of 1915 be
recognized as genocide and asking several Turkish provinces to be
included in the Republic of Armenia. This year being the centenary
commemoration of 1915, President Sargsyan established a committee to
coordinate anti-Turkish activities and lobbying efforts to make
historians out of politicians and brand the tragic events of 1915 as
genocide. The Turkish state and public have vehemently rejected the
term, sometimes without recognizing the suffering that the forced
population transfer caused, but also in part because the events of
1915 consisted of mutual killing and mutual suffering more akin to a
civil war, which should not be ignored.
President Sargsyan issued a letter in response to ErdoÄŸan's invitation
that was translated and distributed to the worldwide media. It is very
important to examine the content and the logic of the letter because
this letter is a clear demonstration of how history has been construed
in the minds of Armenian political and academic entrepreneurs. History
has essentially morphed into a fairytale narrative where any and all
claims of Armenian victimhood are accepted blindly. President Sargsyan
begins his letter by pointing out: "World War I is one of the darkest
pages of human history, which resulted in the loss of millions of
innocent lives and the mutilation of destinies." Indeed, the war was a
tragedy of epic proportions for all Ottoman peoples, not just
Armenians. It not only resulted in the deaths and displacement of
Anatolia's Armenians, but resulted in the destruction of the Ottoman
state and the killing of 4 million Muslims and the occupation of the
empire, which subsequently ended with the great Muslim-Greek
population exchange. The Turks were in constant war for an entire
decade until Mustafa Kemal Atatürk liberated the current territories
of Turkey and saved Anatolia as a country for Muslims.
The most problematic aspect of Sargsyan's letter is found in the next
paragraph in which he attempts to utilize the hackneyed fable of
Captain Torossian. He claims: "An Armenian artilleryman, Captain
Sarkis Torossian, was one of the conscripts of the Ottoman forces at
the Battle of Gallipoli. He was an officer who devoted himself to the
defense and security of the Empire, and for his faithful service and
heroic deeds received military awards on behalf of the Ottoman Empire.
Whereas the wave of mass atrocities and forced deportations, planned
and implemented by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian people also
led to the death of Sarkis Torossian. Among those 1.5 million
Armenians slaughtered in the Genocide were his parents, who were
brutally killed and his sister died in the deserts of Syrian. "
If we go by what President Sargsyan says, then Torossian was killed in
the massacres against Armenians in 1915. But is that really so? Then
how could he have arrived in the U.S., published his memoirs in
Massachusetts under the title of "From Dardanelles to Palestine: A
true story of five battle fronts of Turkey and her allies and a harem
romance" in 1947, died, and been buried in Pennsylvania in 1954? It
seems that for the sake of labeling the events of 1915 a certain way,
the President Sargsyan's imagination knows no bound. Or rather, no
scrutiny is required when any claim of victimhood fits a national
narrative of suffering.
The story that Captain Torossian recounted in his memoirs is larger
than life: He claims to have been a decorated Ottoman captain who
fought on the Gallipoli front and even sank a British battleship.
Torossian claims that Enver Pasha, the minister of war, awarded him
with the Ottoman State Medal of War and introduced him to high ranking
German officers such as Freiherr von der Goltz and Liman von Sanders.
Upon discovering that most of his family members were killed, he
switched sides and joined the Entente powers against the Ottoman
Empire, avenging the deaths of his family members by defeating the
Ottomans on behalf of the Entente in Damascus. For his bravery
fighting the Ottoman troops, Torossian claims that the British
bestowed upon him many medals.
In 2012, a Turkish translation of Torossian's book came out with a
long introduction by Turkish sociologist, Ayhan Aktar. Another Ottoman
historian, Burhan Sayılır, examined it in terms of dates, places,
names and events, and claimed that the book is, in fact, not
authentic. A group of respected Turkish historians who have been
critical of the Turkish official historiography such as Halil Berktay,
Hakan Erdem and Edhem Eldem discredited the authenticity of the
Torossian story. After a detailed study of the events and the list of
names in the military archives who fought for the Ottoman army, they
concluded that Torossian's story was made up. In response to this
criticism, Taner Akçam, who has an endowed chair at Clark University
to defend the events of 1915 as genocide, wrote several op-eds to
throw his weight behind the authenticity of the story. Akçam
interviewed Torossian's granddaughter, Luise Shreiber, and then
published an Ottoman certificate of decoration for Captain Torossian.
Eldem, a leading authority on late Ottoman history, carefully studied
these documents and concluded that they could not be authentic Ottoman
documents. Moreover, Erdem carefully researched Torossian's narrative
and wrote a 382-page study of the book, titled "Gercek ile Kurmaca
Arasında Torosyan'ın Acayip Hikayesi" (Torossian's Curious Story
Between Reality and Fiction) Moreover, the Turkish military archives
also issued a statement and informed the public that there was no
Captain Sarkis Torossian and no medal was given to such a person.
Although Akçam and Aktar worked hard to authenticate the fiction by
searching for Torossian's medals from the British army in London
archives, they have so far found no glass slipper to make this
fairytale true.
I would agree with the concluding paragraph of President Sargsyan's
letter that, "It is the duty of each of us to deliver the real and
undistorted history to the next generations, thus preventing the
repetition of massacres and building grounds for rapprochement and
future cooperation among nations, especially those that are
neighbors." Indeed, we must all insist on the real and truthful
stories to avoid dehumanizing each other and to build bridges between
the two states. The period was painful for all and it serves no good
purpose to distill the narrative to a formulaic one of
victim-perpetrator. Unfortunately, the politicization and fabrication
of the past events and documents do not help, but rather undermine,
the attempt to mourn the pains of both sides. Torossian's story is an
example of what has gone terribly wrong in the debate on
Ottoman-Armenian history. Even in the face of solid academic findings
that discredit the historicity of Torosyan's story, the Armenian
concocted history reinforces itself through Armenian political needs.
As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.
http://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/2015/01/20/sargsyans-letter-to-president-erdogan-armenias-imagined-history
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Jan 20 2015
Sargsyan's letter to President ErdoÄŸan: Armenia's imagined history
M. HAKAN YAVUZ, Professor at the University of Utah
In the run up to the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign,
President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan invited more than 100 world leaders,
including Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, to attend a special
ceremony on April 23-24 commemorating the bloody battle. The Ottoman
army was engaged on a number of fronts, yet the most crucial battle
was fought in defense of Gallipoli, the gateway to Istanbul, against
the naval forces of the Entente, which hoped to deal a quick knockout
blow to the Ottoman Empire and use the Dardanelles straits to aid the
faltering Russian government. Istanbul's young men sacrificed their
lives in great numbers to win what is now remembered as the Ottoman
army's most important victory in World War I.
The worst of the fighting in Gallipoli began with a major land
invasion on April 25, 1915 after an amphibious naval attack on Ottoman
artillery positions on April 24. During these first hectic days, the
Ottomans prepared for the possibility of losing Istanbul altogether
and began making plans to relocate the government, and the train in
HaydarpaÅŸa stood at the ready to whisk the Ottoman leadership,
including the sultan, to Konya, and install the key government
institutions there. For the Ottomans, it was the darkest hour of World
War I and an existential moment for a Turkish presence in Istanbul.
While Muslim men in Istanbul were mobilized to defend the capital city
where the sultan-caliph resided, Armenian volunteers in eastern
Anatolia were acting as guides for the Russian invasion of Ottoman
territory and participating in the killing of its Muslim population.
The city of Van was lost in early April to Russian-Armenian forces
while the Ottoman army fought with limited resources to defend the
homeland. Under these dire conditions the Ottoman military decided to
remove Armenians from the warzone as well as from strategically
important spots including Istanbul. The relocation of Armenians to the
southern provinces of the Ottoman Empire resulted in the deaths of a
significant number of Armenian civilians. Armenians suffered greatly
during the long trek. Murders and massacres happened indeed, as unruly
tribes, bandits and soldiers acting on their own initiative gorged on
the chaos and opportunism of the war. In addition, the lack of food,
medical means and the harsh roads also played an important role in
this high rate of deaths suffered by many innocent people. Often
forgotten alongside this heavily publicized and decontextualized
aspect of the war is the fact that a large number of Muslim civilians
were killed by Armenian volunteer units and their Russian allies.
Since mid-1965, Armenians have been commemorating these tragic events
on April 24 in a manner that tends to forge a victim identity and pit
Armenian communities against Turkey by demanding the events of 1915 be
recognized as genocide and asking several Turkish provinces to be
included in the Republic of Armenia. This year being the centenary
commemoration of 1915, President Sargsyan established a committee to
coordinate anti-Turkish activities and lobbying efforts to make
historians out of politicians and brand the tragic events of 1915 as
genocide. The Turkish state and public have vehemently rejected the
term, sometimes without recognizing the suffering that the forced
population transfer caused, but also in part because the events of
1915 consisted of mutual killing and mutual suffering more akin to a
civil war, which should not be ignored.
President Sargsyan issued a letter in response to ErdoÄŸan's invitation
that was translated and distributed to the worldwide media. It is very
important to examine the content and the logic of the letter because
this letter is a clear demonstration of how history has been construed
in the minds of Armenian political and academic entrepreneurs. History
has essentially morphed into a fairytale narrative where any and all
claims of Armenian victimhood are accepted blindly. President Sargsyan
begins his letter by pointing out: "World War I is one of the darkest
pages of human history, which resulted in the loss of millions of
innocent lives and the mutilation of destinies." Indeed, the war was a
tragedy of epic proportions for all Ottoman peoples, not just
Armenians. It not only resulted in the deaths and displacement of
Anatolia's Armenians, but resulted in the destruction of the Ottoman
state and the killing of 4 million Muslims and the occupation of the
empire, which subsequently ended with the great Muslim-Greek
population exchange. The Turks were in constant war for an entire
decade until Mustafa Kemal Atatürk liberated the current territories
of Turkey and saved Anatolia as a country for Muslims.
The most problematic aspect of Sargsyan's letter is found in the next
paragraph in which he attempts to utilize the hackneyed fable of
Captain Torossian. He claims: "An Armenian artilleryman, Captain
Sarkis Torossian, was one of the conscripts of the Ottoman forces at
the Battle of Gallipoli. He was an officer who devoted himself to the
defense and security of the Empire, and for his faithful service and
heroic deeds received military awards on behalf of the Ottoman Empire.
Whereas the wave of mass atrocities and forced deportations, planned
and implemented by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian people also
led to the death of Sarkis Torossian. Among those 1.5 million
Armenians slaughtered in the Genocide were his parents, who were
brutally killed and his sister died in the deserts of Syrian. "
If we go by what President Sargsyan says, then Torossian was killed in
the massacres against Armenians in 1915. But is that really so? Then
how could he have arrived in the U.S., published his memoirs in
Massachusetts under the title of "From Dardanelles to Palestine: A
true story of five battle fronts of Turkey and her allies and a harem
romance" in 1947, died, and been buried in Pennsylvania in 1954? It
seems that for the sake of labeling the events of 1915 a certain way,
the President Sargsyan's imagination knows no bound. Or rather, no
scrutiny is required when any claim of victimhood fits a national
narrative of suffering.
The story that Captain Torossian recounted in his memoirs is larger
than life: He claims to have been a decorated Ottoman captain who
fought on the Gallipoli front and even sank a British battleship.
Torossian claims that Enver Pasha, the minister of war, awarded him
with the Ottoman State Medal of War and introduced him to high ranking
German officers such as Freiherr von der Goltz and Liman von Sanders.
Upon discovering that most of his family members were killed, he
switched sides and joined the Entente powers against the Ottoman
Empire, avenging the deaths of his family members by defeating the
Ottomans on behalf of the Entente in Damascus. For his bravery
fighting the Ottoman troops, Torossian claims that the British
bestowed upon him many medals.
In 2012, a Turkish translation of Torossian's book came out with a
long introduction by Turkish sociologist, Ayhan Aktar. Another Ottoman
historian, Burhan Sayılır, examined it in terms of dates, places,
names and events, and claimed that the book is, in fact, not
authentic. A group of respected Turkish historians who have been
critical of the Turkish official historiography such as Halil Berktay,
Hakan Erdem and Edhem Eldem discredited the authenticity of the
Torossian story. After a detailed study of the events and the list of
names in the military archives who fought for the Ottoman army, they
concluded that Torossian's story was made up. In response to this
criticism, Taner Akçam, who has an endowed chair at Clark University
to defend the events of 1915 as genocide, wrote several op-eds to
throw his weight behind the authenticity of the story. Akçam
interviewed Torossian's granddaughter, Luise Shreiber, and then
published an Ottoman certificate of decoration for Captain Torossian.
Eldem, a leading authority on late Ottoman history, carefully studied
these documents and concluded that they could not be authentic Ottoman
documents. Moreover, Erdem carefully researched Torossian's narrative
and wrote a 382-page study of the book, titled "Gercek ile Kurmaca
Arasında Torosyan'ın Acayip Hikayesi" (Torossian's Curious Story
Between Reality and Fiction) Moreover, the Turkish military archives
also issued a statement and informed the public that there was no
Captain Sarkis Torossian and no medal was given to such a person.
Although Akçam and Aktar worked hard to authenticate the fiction by
searching for Torossian's medals from the British army in London
archives, they have so far found no glass slipper to make this
fairytale true.
I would agree with the concluding paragraph of President Sargsyan's
letter that, "It is the duty of each of us to deliver the real and
undistorted history to the next generations, thus preventing the
repetition of massacres and building grounds for rapprochement and
future cooperation among nations, especially those that are
neighbors." Indeed, we must all insist on the real and truthful
stories to avoid dehumanizing each other and to build bridges between
the two states. The period was painful for all and it serves no good
purpose to distill the narrative to a formulaic one of
victim-perpetrator. Unfortunately, the politicization and fabrication
of the past events and documents do not help, but rather undermine,
the attempt to mourn the pains of both sides. Torossian's story is an
example of what has gone terribly wrong in the debate on
Ottoman-Armenian history. Even in the face of solid academic findings
that discredit the historicity of Torosyan's story, the Armenian
concocted history reinforces itself through Armenian political needs.
As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.
http://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/2015/01/20/sargsyans-letter-to-president-erdogan-armenias-imagined-history
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress