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Describing the Indescribable: 1915
By MassisPost
Updated: March 6, 2015
By Alan Whitehorn
How does one 'think about the unthinkable?' How does one 'describe the
indescribable?' These are among the analytical and moral challenges in
trying to understand genocide. As Raphael Lemkin, the originator of
the concept of genocide, noted: genocide occurred in history before
the word 'genocide' was created. The history of humans is marked by
episodes of great cruelty and mass killings where groups that were
different were targeted for persecution and slaughter.
Alan Whitehorn
The mass deportations and killings of the Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire peaked during WW I, but occurred before the term genocide
emerged in 1944. In fact, the Young Turk regime's slaughter of the
Armenians would be a catalyst for Lemkin to develop such a legal
concept, in a preliminary way in the 1930s and in final phrasing in
the 1940s.
When trying to understand the events of 1915 onwards, it is useful to
ask: What words and phrases were used by the Armenian survivors,
domestic and foreign witnesses, and newspaper writers to describe what
happened? The challenge was how to describe the indescribable, or what
Churchill would later in 1941 call "the crime without a name".
The influential international newspaper The New York Times reported
extensively on the massacres of the Armenians under the Young Turk
dictatorship. A content analysis overview of The New York Times for
the year 1915 (the peak year of the deportations and killings) reveals
that a variety of words and phrases were used to try to describe the
horrific scenes and deeds. Reviewing the range of the words employed
can assist in conveying the magnitude of the man-made catastrophe that
befell the Armenians.
Among the terms and phrases offered in the articles in The New York
Times in 1915 were the following: "pillage", "great exodus", "great
deportation", "completely depopulated", "wholesale deportations",
"systematically uprooted", "wholesale uprooting of the native
population", "young women and girls appropriated by the Turks, thrown
into harems, attacked or else sold to the highest bidder", "children
are being kidnapped by the wholesale", "kidnapping of attractive young
girls", "rape", "unparalleled savagery", "acts of horror", "murder,
rape, and other savageries", "endure terrible tortures", "revolting
tortures", "their breasts cut off, their nails pulled out, their feet
cut off, or they hammer nails into them just as they do to horses",
"burned to death", "helpless women and children were roasted to
death", "massacres", "slaughter", "atrocities", "unbelievable
atrocities", "systematically murdered men and turned women and
children out into the desert, where thousands perished of starvation",
"million Armenians killed or in exile", "1,500,000 Armenians starve",
"dying in prison camps", "wholesale massacres", "slaughtered
wholesale", "fiendish massacres", "massacre was planned", "most
thoroughly organized and effective massacres this country has ever
known", "extirpating the million and a half Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire", "policy of extermination", "plan for extirpating Christianity
by killing off Christians of the Armenian race", "plan to exterminate
the whole Armenian people", "deliberately exterminated", "virtually
the whole nation had been wiped out", "annihilation of a whole
people", "organized system of pillage, deportations, wholesale
executions, and massacres", "pillage, rape, murder, wholesale
expulsion and deportation, and massacre", "systematic, authorized and
desperate effort on the part of the rulers of Turkey to wipe out the
Armenians", "deliberate murder of a nation", "war of extermination",
"race extermination", "intention was to exterminate the Armenian
race", "Armenia without Armenians", "extinction menaces Armenia",
"death of Armenia", "deportation order and the resulting war of
extinction", and "aim at the complete elimination of all non-Moslem
races from Asiatic Turkey", and "crimes against civilization and
morality".
There are at least ten examples (five in the decades before 1915 and
five in the years after) where the biblical word "holocaust" in the
generic sense is used to describe either the mass burning of Armenians
alive, massacres of Christians or attempt at annihilation of the
Armenian people. The New York Times' references in the 1915-1922 era
to the Armenians' fate include the phrasing "holocaust", "war's
holocaust of horror", "great holocaust" and "final holocaust".
Clearly authors strained for the words that could explain the
magnitude of such horrific scenes and deeds. Witnesses were often
overwhelmed, particularly at the time of the deadly deeds, but also in
the retelling of the painful accounts. For many who witnessed such
atrocities, it was a life-altering experience.
Within a month of the Ottoman Empire's April 24, 1915 arrest,
deportation and later killing of key Armenian leaders in
Constantinople and increasing reports of mass deportations and
massacres, the allied Entente countries of Britain, France and Russia
used the ominous phrase "crimes against civilization and humanity".
This description officially issued on May 24, 1915 (printed in The New
York Times on the same day) was part of a semi-judicial warning to the
Young Turk regime about its crimes and would become a key term in
international law. It was an important step in the development of the
legal concept of genocide.
However, no single word or combination of words or phrases could
adequately convey the magnitude of suffering and horror of what
transpired. Even today, we search for ways to "describe the
indescribable".
An excerpt from Alan Whitehorn, ed., The Armenian Genocide: The
Essential Reference Guide (Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2015) to be
published in April.
book: 978-1-61069-687-6
e-book: 978-1-61069-688-3
http://massispost.com/2015/03/describing-the-indescribable-1915/
By MassisPost
Updated: March 6, 2015
By Alan Whitehorn
How does one 'think about the unthinkable?' How does one 'describe the
indescribable?' These are among the analytical and moral challenges in
trying to understand genocide. As Raphael Lemkin, the originator of
the concept of genocide, noted: genocide occurred in history before
the word 'genocide' was created. The history of humans is marked by
episodes of great cruelty and mass killings where groups that were
different were targeted for persecution and slaughter.
Alan Whitehorn
The mass deportations and killings of the Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire peaked during WW I, but occurred before the term genocide
emerged in 1944. In fact, the Young Turk regime's slaughter of the
Armenians would be a catalyst for Lemkin to develop such a legal
concept, in a preliminary way in the 1930s and in final phrasing in
the 1940s.
When trying to understand the events of 1915 onwards, it is useful to
ask: What words and phrases were used by the Armenian survivors,
domestic and foreign witnesses, and newspaper writers to describe what
happened? The challenge was how to describe the indescribable, or what
Churchill would later in 1941 call "the crime without a name".
The influential international newspaper The New York Times reported
extensively on the massacres of the Armenians under the Young Turk
dictatorship. A content analysis overview of The New York Times for
the year 1915 (the peak year of the deportations and killings) reveals
that a variety of words and phrases were used to try to describe the
horrific scenes and deeds. Reviewing the range of the words employed
can assist in conveying the magnitude of the man-made catastrophe that
befell the Armenians.
Among the terms and phrases offered in the articles in The New York
Times in 1915 were the following: "pillage", "great exodus", "great
deportation", "completely depopulated", "wholesale deportations",
"systematically uprooted", "wholesale uprooting of the native
population", "young women and girls appropriated by the Turks, thrown
into harems, attacked or else sold to the highest bidder", "children
are being kidnapped by the wholesale", "kidnapping of attractive young
girls", "rape", "unparalleled savagery", "acts of horror", "murder,
rape, and other savageries", "endure terrible tortures", "revolting
tortures", "their breasts cut off, their nails pulled out, their feet
cut off, or they hammer nails into them just as they do to horses",
"burned to death", "helpless women and children were roasted to
death", "massacres", "slaughter", "atrocities", "unbelievable
atrocities", "systematically murdered men and turned women and
children out into the desert, where thousands perished of starvation",
"million Armenians killed or in exile", "1,500,000 Armenians starve",
"dying in prison camps", "wholesale massacres", "slaughtered
wholesale", "fiendish massacres", "massacre was planned", "most
thoroughly organized and effective massacres this country has ever
known", "extirpating the million and a half Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire", "policy of extermination", "plan for extirpating Christianity
by killing off Christians of the Armenian race", "plan to exterminate
the whole Armenian people", "deliberately exterminated", "virtually
the whole nation had been wiped out", "annihilation of a whole
people", "organized system of pillage, deportations, wholesale
executions, and massacres", "pillage, rape, murder, wholesale
expulsion and deportation, and massacre", "systematic, authorized and
desperate effort on the part of the rulers of Turkey to wipe out the
Armenians", "deliberate murder of a nation", "war of extermination",
"race extermination", "intention was to exterminate the Armenian
race", "Armenia without Armenians", "extinction menaces Armenia",
"death of Armenia", "deportation order and the resulting war of
extinction", and "aim at the complete elimination of all non-Moslem
races from Asiatic Turkey", and "crimes against civilization and
morality".
There are at least ten examples (five in the decades before 1915 and
five in the years after) where the biblical word "holocaust" in the
generic sense is used to describe either the mass burning of Armenians
alive, massacres of Christians or attempt at annihilation of the
Armenian people. The New York Times' references in the 1915-1922 era
to the Armenians' fate include the phrasing "holocaust", "war's
holocaust of horror", "great holocaust" and "final holocaust".
Clearly authors strained for the words that could explain the
magnitude of such horrific scenes and deeds. Witnesses were often
overwhelmed, particularly at the time of the deadly deeds, but also in
the retelling of the painful accounts. For many who witnessed such
atrocities, it was a life-altering experience.
Within a month of the Ottoman Empire's April 24, 1915 arrest,
deportation and later killing of key Armenian leaders in
Constantinople and increasing reports of mass deportations and
massacres, the allied Entente countries of Britain, France and Russia
used the ominous phrase "crimes against civilization and humanity".
This description officially issued on May 24, 1915 (printed in The New
York Times on the same day) was part of a semi-judicial warning to the
Young Turk regime about its crimes and would become a key term in
international law. It was an important step in the development of the
legal concept of genocide.
However, no single word or combination of words or phrases could
adequately convey the magnitude of suffering and horror of what
transpired. Even today, we search for ways to "describe the
indescribable".
An excerpt from Alan Whitehorn, ed., The Armenian Genocide: The
Essential Reference Guide (Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2015) to be
published in April.
book: 978-1-61069-687-6
e-book: 978-1-61069-688-3
http://massispost.com/2015/03/describing-the-indescribable-1915/