From Empire to Republic : Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide

Rating:
Summary: The First Critical History of Modern Turkey
Review: The difficulties of writing about trauma, about the limit cases in violence like genocide, especially for the historian occupying the perpetrator's subject position have been frequently explored and acknowledged by the scholarship on the Jewish Genocide. Here comes a Turkish historian who for the first time overcomes these difficulties with amazing grace and brushes the painful history of the Modern Turkey against the grain with scholarly balance, honesty and moral responsibility, despite the 90-year old Turkish State denial of the Armenian Genocide during which 800,000 to 1,000,000 Ottoman Armenians perished. Akcam's book, in a sense, can be considered as the first critical history of Modern Turkey since it meticulously `works through' the irrecoverable loss of the catastrophe that buried Eastern Anatolia into darkness since 1915 and especially since it underlines the links between the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Young Turk regime during the Great War and Modern Turkey with abundant historical evidence. In that respect, "From Empire to Republic" opens up the possibility for us the Turks to start `mourning' not only for those Armenians who were massacred during the genocide of 1915 but also for those who suffered the consequences of the 20th century's first ideologically motivated genocide pulling their lives all over again in the deserts of Syria. I strongly recommend From Empire to Republic to those Turkish citizens who are willing to open up their hearts and minds to this `unofficial' account of 1915, which attempts to rescue the `truth' from the hands of the retired diplomats of Turkey who have succeeded in passing as `historians' during the last 50 years, to all human rights scholars, to anyone who is interested in reading a balanced account of the Armenian Genocide and finally to all writers of trauma belonging to the perpetrators' side.

Rating:
Summary: Genocide From the Perspective of Perpetruators
Review: What Turkish scholars in general think about the issue of Armenian genocide is well-known: It was not a genocide. Akcam is perhaps the first Turkish academician who says the opposite. This is one reason why this book needs to be read, especially by the Turkish people.
But why is this important for the others? There are already dozens of books about the Armenian genocide. Does it make a difference to read about the genocide by a Turkish scholar? The book shows it very convincingly that it does. Here are the reasons.
First, the book gives an account of the genocide from the perspective of the perpetuators. There are books written by Turkey-supported academicians but those books do not accept that the Ottomans were the perpetuators. They solely try to knock-out the arguments of the other side. Therefore, we need to know the perspective of the perpetuator and Akcam gives this perspective along with the psychological background of the perpetuators in addition to historical and sociological backgrounds.
Second, he succesfully shows how that psychological background the Turkish society had in that era still hunts today's Turkish society pervasively. This is a significant reason why Turkish society does not want to hear about the genocide. Importantly, Akcam suggests some social-engineering solutions for both sides based on the continuation of the past and present psyche of the Turkish society. This is a significant reason why today's Armenians need to know what Turkish society is up to- psychologically- and try to strip the stereotypes they have about Turks.
Third and fourth, as the book tells it convincingly, the Armenian genocide is not an issue that should be left in the dusty pages of the Ottoman history. There is an administrative continuation from Ittihat ve Terakki which committed the genocide to the foundation of Turkish Republic. Interestingly, Akcam presents the evidence for how the founders of the republic (e.g. M.Kemal Ataturk) in fact admitted the massacres back in the days although because of political reasons. Akcam gives further evidence for the genocide from Turkish resources as well.
As a psychologist I have reservations about the psychoanalytic points but they do not cast a shadow on the value of the book. For those who are interested in the Armenian genocide it is a valuable book. For those who are interested in genocide-psychology studies, there are plenty of food for thoughts. And it is a must read for Turkish people.