The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies

Richard G. Hovannisian

Transaction Publishers, 2007 - History - 449 pages

World War I was a watershed, a defining moment, in Armenian history. Its effects were unprecedented in that it resulted in what no other war, invasion, or occupation had achieved in three thousand years of identifiable Armenian existence. This calamity was the physical elimination of the Armenian people and most of the evidence of their ever having lived on the great Armenian Plateau, to which the perpetrator side soon gave the new name of Eastern Anatolia. The bearers of an impressive martial and cultural history, the Armenians had also known repeated trials and tribulations, waves of massacre, captivity, and exile, but even in the darkest of times there had always been enough remaining to revive, rebuild, and go forward.

This third volume in a series edited by Richard Hovannisian, the dean of Armenian historians, provides a unique fusion of the history, philosophy, literature, art, music, and educational aspects of the Armenian experience. It further provides a rich storehouse of information on comparative dimensions of the Armenian genocide in relation to the Assyrian, Greek and Jewish situations, and beyond that, paradoxes in American and French policy responses to the Armenian genocides. The volume concludes with a trio of essays concerning fundamental questions of historiography and politics that either make possible or can inhibit reconciliation of ancient truths and righting ancient wrongs.

Contents

• The Armenian Genocide Wartime Radicalization or Premeditated Continuum?: 3
• Philosophy and the Age of Genocide Reflections on the Armenian Genocide: 19
• Rethinking Dehumanization in Genocide: 27
• Testimony From Document to Monument: 41
• Across the Chasm From Catastrophe to Creativity: 65
• The Armenian Genocide in James Joyces Finnegans Wake: 81
• Historical Memory Threading the Contemporary Literature of Armenia: 97
• Leon TutundjianTRAuma in ART: 121
• Historicization of the Armenian Catastrophe From the Concrete to the Mythical: 143
• The Diasporic Witness Reconstruction of Testimony by Contemporary Los Angeles Artists: 177
• Musical Perspectives on the Armenian Genocide From Aznavour to System of a Down: 213
• No Mandate Left Behind? Genocide Education in the Era of HighStakes Testing: 229
• Teaching about the Armenian Genocide: 239
• Exposure of the Armenian Genocide in Cyberspace A Comparative Analysis: 245
• The Assyrian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire and Adjacent Territories: 267
• Greek Labor Battalions Asia Minor: 275
• Comparative Aspects of the Armenian and Jewish Cases of Genocide: 291
• The Armenian Genocide in the Syrian Press: 303
• A Legacy of Paradox US Foreign Policy and the Armenian Genocide: 309
• French Society and the Armenian Genocide: 325
• Turkish Historiography and the Unbearable Weight of 1915: 337
• Venturing into the Minefield Turkish Liberal Historiography and the Armenian Genocide: 369
• Can Memory of Genocide Lead to Reconciliation?: 389
• Anatomy of PostGenocide Reconciliation: 409
• About the Contributors: 429
• Index: 435

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 organied 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).

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies
• Editor: Richard G. Hovannisian
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers, 2007
• ISBN: 1412806194, 9781412806190
• Length: 449 pages
• Subjects: History / Europe / Eastern; History / Middle East / General