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The 'shameful' history of Armenian genocide
Professor Taner Akcam will reflect on the history of Armenian genocide and the refusal of other nations to accept responsibility for the atrocity, more than a century later.
Leading historian Professor Taner Akcam reflects on the history of Armenian genocide and refusals by other nations to accept responsibility for the 1915 atrocity, more than a century later. Under the cover of the First World War, Armenians were subjected to systematic, organised, and wholesale slaughter. More than one million Armenians were murdered, starved, raped and left to die.
Professor Akcam's talk will discuss this horrific episode, as well as subsequent significant events. Following the war, the allies tried to prosecute the perpetrators of the genocide in a series of trials where the term ‘crimes against humanity’ was first used. At the same time, the Turkish nationalist movement rose up from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, eventually undermining the trials and hiding the history of the genocide.
This event was held at the University of Sydney on Thursday 9 August 2018.
Speakers
- Professor Taner Akcam holds the Kaloosdian and Mugar Chair of Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University. Professor Akçam is widely recognised as one of the first Turkish scholars to write extensively on the Ottoman-Turkish genocide of the Armenians in the early 20th century. He is the author of more than 10 scholarly works as well as numerous articles in Turkish, German and English on Armenian genocide and Turkish nationalism. His best-known books, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibilityand Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire have received several awards. Akçam’s latest book is Killing Orders: Talat Pasha’s Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide (Palgrave 2018).
Image (at top): Armenians are marched to a nearby prison in Mezireh by armed soldiers, 1915.