Armenian Genocide

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the Armenian genocide that occurred at the hands of the Ottoman Empire from the start of the First World War. The paper describes the background of Armenian life and politics under the Ottoman rule. It then discusses the factors leading up to the genocide and how it was carried out by the Turks. The paper concludes by discussing the aftermath of the genocide and the subsequent denial by the Turks.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Background
The Armenian People and the Coming of the Ottomans
Prelude to Disaster
Armenian Life and Politics under Ottoman Rule
Genocide
A Taste of Things to Come: The Hamidian Massacres
The Great Slaughter
Aftermath
The Agony of Turkish Denial

From the Paper:

"It is now more than ninety years since the slaughter came to an end. Hundreds of thousands of Armenian men, women, and children suffered and died cruel and needless deaths at the hands of the Turks. The jingoistic authorities of World War One Turkey used military disaster as an excuse to exterminate an entire people. The state that remained after the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, in the 1920s, was overwhelmingly Muslim and Turkish. Its new rulers did everything possible to extirpate memories of the past, to cause its citizens to believe that they had acted rightly, and steadfastly, in creating a new and purified Turkey that was stronger and better than the old multi-ethnic, multi-religious empire of the sultans. Today, children in Turkish schools are not taught about the Armenian Genocide... well, at least not in those terms. The massacre of one and a half million innocent souls is glossed over, washed free of its character as a global first in the "science" of ethnic cleansing."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Adalian, Rouben Paul. "Chapter 2 The Armenian Genocide." In A Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, edited by Totten, Samuel, William S. Parsons, and Israel W. Charny, 53-90. New York: Routledge, 2004.
• Arkun, Aram. "4 Into the Modern Age, 1800-1913." In The Armenians: Past and Present in the Making of National Identity, edited by Herzig, Edmund and Marina Kurkchiyan, 65-88. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005
• "The Armenian Church beyond Its 1700th Anniversary." The Ecumenical Review 54, no. 1 (2002): 84+
• Balakian, Peter. Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir. New York: Basic Books, 1997
• Barsoumian, Hagop. "9 The Dual Role of the Armenian Amira Class within the Ottoman Government and the Armenian Millet (1750-1850)." In Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, edited by Braude, Benjamin and Bernard Lewis, 171-180. New York: Homes & Meier Publishers, 1982

More papers on Armenian Genocide:

• Analytical Essay # 124118 : "The Armenian Genocide"
• Descriptive Essay # 113515 : "Armenian Genocide"
• Research Paper # 113091 : "Causes of Armenian Genocide"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: