Looking Backward, Moving Forward: Confronting the Armenian Genocide - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765805197 ISBN 13: 9780765805195

Publisher: Routledge, 2003

Synopsis

The decades separating our new century from the Armenian Genocide, the prototype of modern-day nation-killings, have fundamentally changed the political composition of the region. Virtually no Armenians remain on their historic territories in what is today eastern Turkey. The Armenian people have been scattered about the world. And a small independent republic has come to replace the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was all that was left of the homeland as the result of Turkish invasion and Bolshevik collusion in 1920. One element has remained constant. Notwithstanding the eloquent, compelling evidence housed in the United States National Archives and repositories around the world, successive Turkish governments have denied that the predecessor Young Turk regime committed genocide, and, like the Nazis who followed their example, sought aggressively to deflect blame by accusing the victims themselves.

This volume argues that the time has come for Turkey to reassess the propriety of its approach, and to begin the process that will allow it move into a post-genocide era. The work includes “Genocide: An Agenda for Action,” Gijs M. de Vries; “Determinants of the Armenian Genocide,” Donald Bloxham; “Looking Backward and Forward,” Joyce Apsel; “The United States Response to the Armenian Genocide,” Simon Payaslian; “The League of Nations and the Reclamation of Armenian Genocide Survivors,” Vahram L. Shemmassian; “Raphael Lemkin and the Armenian Genocide,” Steven L. Jacobs; “Reconstructing Turkish Historiography of the Armenian Massacres and Deaths of 1915,” Fatma Müge Göçek; “Bitter-Sweet Memories; “The Armenian Genocide and International Law,” Joe Verhoeven; “New Directions in Literary Response to the Armenian Genocide,” Rubina Peroomian; “Denial and Free Speech,” Henry C. Theriault; “Healing and Reconciliation,” Ervin Staub; “State and Nation,” Raffi K. Hovannisian.

About this title

About the Author

Richard G. Hovannisian is distinguished professor of Armenian and Near Eastern history at the University of California, Los Angeles. He served as the associate director of the G.E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies from 1978 to 1995. A member of the UCLA faculty since 1962, he has organized the undergraduate and graduate programs in Armenian and Caucasian history. In 1987, Professor Hovannisian was appointed the first holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History at the UCLA. Among his many works, Hovannisian is the author of Armenia on the Road to Independence, The Republic of Armenia (in three volumes), The Armenian Holocaust and he has edited and contributed to The Armenian Image in History and Literature, The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics; The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, and Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide (1998).

Review

"This is an indispensable guide to the current state of scholarship on the Armenian genocide in the context of contemporary politics and international law. The essays show to what degree we have entered a new phase in scholarly and political discussions of a subject that simply refuses to go away. What until recently has been treated as an Armenian or a Turkish problem here emerges as a matter for all of us."

–Jay Winter, Yale University

 

"Looking Backward, Moving Forward brings the reader an up-to-date and reasoned study of the Armenian Genocide in the context of history, international law and issues that affect the ongoing trauma of the genocide for both the descendants of victims and the perpetrators. This volume, more than any other, suggests new directions in energizing both scholarly and popular understanding of this event."

–Dr. Stephen Feinstein, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Univesity of Minnesota

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0765805197
• ISBN 13: 9780765805195
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 310
• Editor: Hovannisian Richard G.