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Armenian-Turkish Research Project

Nearly one hundred years ago Armenians suffered one of the first genocides of the twentieth century. That atrocity was the most severe example of the extreme forms of population politics that accompanied the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of new states in Southeastern Europe and Eurasia.  Alongside Armenians, virtually every population group -- Muslims from the Caucasus and the Balkans, Greeks, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, Jews, Kurds --experienced ethnic cleansings and massacres from the late nineteenth and well into the twentieth centuries. Those experiences have left deep traces of bitterness in the region and among diaspora populations.  Alternate histories -- of people of diverse ethnicities and religions in the very same region, who lived side by side in relative peace -- have often been forgotten.

As part of its ongoing work to promote research and knowledge about genocides and other crimes against humanity, the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has established the Armenian-Turkish Research Project. Research on the history of the late Ottoman Empire and the Armenian genocide has advanced rapidly in the last fifteen years.  But there is still a great deal we need to learn. Moreover, stability and progress in the area stretching from Southeastern Europe into Turkey, the Middle East, and Central Asia is dependent upon a process of coming to terms with the past, of recognizing past atrocities and fostering reconciliation among diverse populations.

With the understanding that knowledge about the past is critical to any progress in the future, the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has established four research areas

  1. The Common Body of Knowledge (PDF) involves the collection, dissemination, and posting of key documents relating to the history of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Genocide.  As a subset of this effort, the Collection of Istanbul Newspapers, 1908-22 entails the collection, digitization, and dissemination of Turkish newspapers of this period. The newspapers are a critical source for the history of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Genocide, and this project will ensure their long term preservation.
  2. Young Turk Decision Making, 1914-16 (PDF) reconstructs virtually on a day to day basis the policies and implementation of the Armenian Genocide. The researchers use Ottoman and German archival sources to determine the degree of intentionality in the actions of both the Young Turks and their German allies in relation to the Armenian population.
  3. Art, Memory, and the Armenian Genocide (PDF) examines significant artists and how their work memorialized the Armenian Genocide.
  4. Crimes against Humanity in the German Imperial Realm, 1878-1945 (PDF) considers German interests in the Ottoman Empire and situates the Armenian Genocide in the context of other atrocities in the modern era.

The Armenian-Turkish Research Project is designed to foster scholarly research and increase public knowledge about the history and politics of ethnic and national conflict in the eastern Mediterranean, an area of critical strategic importance.  We hope that the knowledge we develop and disseminate can contribute to reconciliation among the diverse peoples of the region, which is a necessary part of any successful democratization process. The Armenian-Turkish Research Project is an ongoing effort involving University of Minnesota faculty in collaboration with colleagues at various other institutions around the world.  Donations to the project may be sent to the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Taner Akcam (foreground) and Hrank Dink, Turkish-Armenian editor of AGOS assassinated in Istanbul on January 19, 2007

The Intimidation Campaign Against Taner Akçam

University of Minnesota sociologist-historian Taner Akçam, an international authority on the 1915 Armenian Genocide, is the target of an ongoing intimidation campaign to portray him as a convicted terrorist and a traitor to his native Turkey. A noted writer and lecturer on Turkish nationalism, the Armenian Genocide, and Armenian-Turkish dialogue, Prof. Akçam relocated to the United States in 2001, the year that his writings began to appear in English and the campaign against him was launched in response. In a sensational commentary published by the Washington, DC–based Assembly of Turkish American Associations, Akçam was denounced as a mastermind of terrorist violence, including the assassinations of American and NATO military personnel. Disseminated online by the 19,000-member Turkish Forum and posted since 2004 at the influential Genocide-denialist site Tall Armenian Tale, these allegations were soon copied to well over 10,000 Web pages, including Akçam’s book reviews at Amazon and his persistently vandalized biography at Wikipedia. He began receiving death threats after Turkish Forum posted his contact information so that readers could “send greetings to this traitor.” Following the November 2006 publication of Akçam’s critically acclaimed study, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, the campaign intensified. Akçam’s lectures and book tour were violently disrupted, and poison-pen letters were emailed to the hosting universities. Tellingly, a planned disruption at Yeshiva University was called off after conference organizers appealed to the Turkish Consulate in New York. In February 2007, en route to lecture at McGill University Law School, Akçam was detained in the Montreal airport for nearly four hours on suspicion of terrorism. He was shown, as evidence, his vandalized Wikipedia biography. Just one month before the Montreal incident, the assassination of Akçam’s friend and colleague, Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, had put Turkey’s intellectuals on high alert. They knew that in the months before his murder, Dink had been targeted as a traitor by an increasingly vicious media campaign. Leading the pack was Hürriyet, one of the most widely read newspapers in Turkey. In May 2007, citing the heightened danger to his own life, Akçam unmasked the secretive Webmaster of Tall Armenian Tale as Turkish-American illustrator Murad “Holdwater” Gümen of New York City. Death threats and denunciations followed. Hürriyet portrayed Akçam as a cowardly traitor who “vomits hate towards our country.” No attempt was made to interview him, and his letter to the editor was ignored. “Once again, intellectuals and activists who dare to question the government’s ‘official history’ are being put on notice,” said Akçam on July 16. “This shameful campaign not only endangers my life and the lives of my colleagues, my family and friends; ironically enough, the very notion of free expression is being undermined by the very institution that depends on it most: the public press. “And what is the point, after all?” he continued. “I published a scholarly study that deviated from the official position of the Turkish State. One should ask the Turkish authorities whether they truly believe that shooting the messenger will prove that their position on 1915 is the correct one.”

July 17, 2007 Contact: Prof. Taner Akçam, (612) 624-2988

Articles and Petitions

American and British Relief Posters About Armenia, c.1915

give or we perish

World War I Poster from 1918. W.T. Benda. 23 x 36 inches, circa 1918.

lest we perish

"Lest We Perish" By E.F. Bettsbains

This is a Classic, Haunting Image of a Middle Eastern Girl with Her Arms out in Plea, measures 20 x 30"

child at your door

This is an Original 1918 Poster "The Child at Your Door".  This poster pleads for relief for the 400,00 starving Orphans in the Near East Charcoal Sketch leaves you with an unforgettable image of the orphan.  Measures: 14" x 21".

save a life

Armenian-Syrian WWI Poster, 1918

This Simple, yet Powerful, typographic windowcard values Saving a Life at 17 Cents a Day with 2.5 Million Starving by the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief in New York, measures 18 x 12".
poster 1 poster 3 poster 7 armenia syria relief armenian relief armenian relief