Leading Scholars Debate Motives for Armenian Genocide: Key Turkish Historians Participate

Leading Scholars Debate Motives for Armenian Genocide

Key Turkish Historians Participate

Princeton, N.J. (10 August 1998)—Four distinguished scholars have engaged in an unprecedented exchange of views on factors leading to the Armenian Genocide. Participants include important Turkish and Armenian historians. The exchange appears in the Summer 1998 issue of the journal Armenian Forum.

The debate starts with an essay by Ronald Grigor Suny, professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Suny examines why the ruling Young Turks set out in 1915 to annihilate the Armenian people.

Writing at the request of the editors of Armenian Forum, three leading specialists respond to Suny’s provocative essay. They are Vahakn N. Dadrian, the well-known genocide expert; Engin Deniz Akarli, the Joukowsky Family Professor of History at Brown University; and Selim Deringil, professor of history at Bogazici University in Istanbul. Suny then replies to his critics.

Two significant, related disagreements emerge in the exchange. The first is about the question of "contingency": Was the decision to commit genocide arrived at in response to the specific circumstances of the First World War? Or was the world war simply an opportunity to culminate a long-standing effort to annihilate the Armenian people?

The second disagreement is over the motivations of the Young Turks: To what extent were they motivated by Pan-Turkist fantasies of expanding the Ottoman Empire into the Caucasus and Central Asia? To what extent did they simply seek to consolidate their rule over the Armenian plateau by eliminating Armenians?

Armenian Forum editor Ara Sarafian, himself a specialist on the Genocide, characterized this exchange as a significant opening. "The study of the Genocide is not simply about documentation, but also about interpretation of evidence. The fact that well-established historians are focusing on this vital issue is a good beginning."

Sarafian asserted that "the debate raises important questions, and truly moves forward our understanding of the Genocide. Armenian Forum is pleased to sponsor this exchange. This is the way ahead."

The exchange is accompanied by a selection of photographs of Armenian families in the Ottoman Empire. The photographs, from the Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives in Watertown, Massachusetts, bring home the human dimensions of the Catastrophe.

More on this exchange:
a detailed press release
a talk in Fresno
an interview with The Armenian Weekly

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