History

Anatomy of a crime: The Turkish Historical Society's manipulation of archival documents

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The Turkish Historical Society (Türk Tarih Kurumu, THS) recently published a “landmark” book, Ermeniler: Sürgün ve Göç (The Armenians: Expulsion and Migration) (Ankara, 2004), by Hikmet Özdemir, Kemal Çiçek, Ömer Turan, Ramazan Çalık and Yusuf Halaçoğlu. In the preface, historian Yusuf Halaçoğlu, the president of the THS, makes the following claim:

“[T]he various documents which we have presented in the book, belonging to various countries, possess the quality of entirely refuting the claims put forward by the Armenians until today” (p vii).

In fact, the book presents no new evidence to refute “claims” of genocide. Rather, by disputing the Armenian population figures before and after the deportation, the authors contend that most of the Armenians survived, and therefore, no systematic massacre could have occurred.

Publication Title

Journal of Genocide Research

Publication Date

6-1-2005

Volume

7

Issue

2

First Page

255

Last Page

277

ISSN

1462-3528

DOI

10.1080/14623520500127548

Keywords

Armenia, Armenian genocide, Middle East, World War I, genocide

Share

COinS