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Hervé Georgelin describes the book "an ambitious and comprehensive work on the extinction of Christian life on the former central Ottoman lands" and "a clever and learned synthesis".<ref name=Georgelin/> According to Georgelin, the fact that both authors do not belong to any of the affected communities means that they can take a birds'-eye view as opposed to "duplicat[ing] social ethno-religious boundaries, to little heuristic avail".<ref name=Georgelin/>
Hervé Georgelin describes the book "an ambitious and comprehensive work on the extinction of Christian life on the former central Ottoman lands" and "a clever and learned synthesis".<ref name=Georgelin/> According to Georgelin, the fact that both authors do not belong to any of the affected communities means that they can take a birds'-eye view as opposed to "duplicat[ing] social ethno-religious boundaries, to little heuristic avail".<ref name=Georgelin/>


Mark Levene writes that the book lacks attention to nuances and different factions in the Ottoman Empire, and that "everything is reduced to an essentialist [[clash of civilizations]], a thesis they can only sustain by suffocating complexity or simply not engaging with it all".<ref name=Levene>{{cite journal |last1=Levene |first1=Mark |title=Through a Glass Darkly: The Resurrection of Religious Fanaticism as First Cause of Ottoman Catastrophe: The thirty-year genocide. Turkey’s destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894–1924, by Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi, Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 2019, 672 pp., USD$35.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9780674916456 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2020 |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=553–560 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2020.1735560}}</ref> Levene argues that the authors misrepresent the role of embittered Muslim refugees driven out of the Balkans as perpetrators in violence against the Christian minorities in Anatolia, which he compares to the role of Greek refugees from Anatolia used against the [[Jews of Salonika]] and as perpetrators of ethnic cleansing of [[Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia|Slavic-speakers from Greece]]. He concludes that "the exterminatory violence of this period can be best explained not through a traditionally religious prism per se but actually its breakdown as the sinews of the old, hierarchic, Islamic-Ottoman order collapsed psychically and actually under the intolerable weight of both geo-political and nationalizing pressures".<ref name=Levene/> Eileen Kane states that "The biggest problem with this poorly argued book is that it does not tell us how and why people in these particular historical circumstances were motivated to attack and kill people who were, in many cases, their neighbors."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kane |first1=Eileen |title=The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924. By Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2019. xvi, 656 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Glossary. Illustrations. Photographs. Tables. Maps. $35.00, hard bound. |journal=Slavic Review |date=2020 |volume=79 |issue=2 |pages=448–450 |doi=10.1017/slr.2020.113}}</ref>
[[Mark Levene]] writes that the book lacks attention to nuances and different factions in the Ottoman Empire, and that "everything is reduced to an essentialist [[clash of civilizations]], a thesis they can only sustain by suffocating complexity or simply not engaging with it all".<ref name=Levene>{{cite journal |last1=Levene |first1=Mark |title=Through a Glass Darkly: The Resurrection of Religious Fanaticism as First Cause of Ottoman Catastrophe: The thirty-year genocide. Turkey’s destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894–1924, by Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi, Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 2019, 672 pp., USD$35.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9780674916456 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2020 |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=553–560 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2020.1735560}}</ref> Levene argues that the authors misrepresent the role of embittered Muslim refugees driven out of the Balkans as perpetrators in violence against the Christian minorities in Anatolia, which he compares to the role of Greek refugees from Anatolia used against the [[Jews of Salonika]] and as perpetrators of ethnic cleansing of [[Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia|Slavic-speakers from Greece]]. He concludes that "the exterminatory violence of this period can be best explained not through a traditionally religious prism per se but actually its breakdown as the sinews of the old, hierarchic, Islamic-Ottoman order collapsed psychically and actually under the intolerable weight of both geo-political and nationalizing pressures".<ref name=Levene/> Eileen Kane states that "The biggest problem with this poorly argued book is that it does not tell us how and why people in these particular historical circumstances were motivated to attack and kill people who were, in many cases, their neighbors."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kane |first1=Eileen |title=The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924. By Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2019. xvi, 656 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Glossary. Illustrations. Photographs. Tables. Maps. $35.00, hard bound. |journal=Slavic Review |date=2020 |volume=79 |issue=2 |pages=448–450 |doi=10.1017/slr.2020.113}}</ref>


According to Laura Robson, the book is "intended to serve not just as history but also as warning".<ref name="Robson" /> She argues that Morris and Ze'evi, who rely heavily on British and American sources, have a limited understanding of how the Ottoman millet system actually operated in practice, and underestimate the role of the expulsions and mass killings of Muslims during the [[Balkan Wars]] as a trigger for the genocide.<ref name="Robson" /> David Gutman writes that the authors lack engagement with secondary sources, and disputes many of their conclusions.<ref name=Gutman/> Mustafa Aksakal states that the book is less persuasive than other publications on mass violence in the late Ottoman Empire and "The handling of some of the source material raises doubts about the extent and care taken in research."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Aksakal |first1=Mustafa |title=The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |date=2020 |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=335–337 |doi=10.1093/hgs/dcaa030}}</ref>
According to Laura Robson, the book is "intended to serve not just as history but also as warning".<ref name="Robson" /> She argues that Morris and Ze'evi, who rely heavily on British and American sources, have a limited understanding of how the Ottoman millet system actually operated in practice, and underestimate the role of the expulsions and mass killings of Muslims during the [[Balkan Wars]] as a trigger for the genocide.<ref name="Robson" /> David Gutman writes that the authors lack engagement with secondary sources, and disputes many of their conclusions.<ref name=Gutman/> [[Mustafa Aksakal]] states that the book is less persuasive than other publications on mass violence in the late Ottoman Empire and "The handling of some of the source material raises doubts about the extent and care taken in research."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Aksakal |first1=Mustafa |title=The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |date=2020 |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=335–337 |doi=10.1093/hgs/dcaa030}}</ref>


[[David Gaunt]], a historian of the [[Assyrian genocide]], states that the book may become "a reference work for those desiring a broad introduction to the totality of late Ottoman anti-Christian campaigns". He praises the "sheer amount of incriminating testimony that Morris and Ze’evi have managed to assemble", including demonstrating the personal responsibility of [[Mustafa Kemal]] for completing the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the empire's remaining Christian population. However, he faults the authors' interpretation in some places, stating "the Assyrians... were less of a passive victim than Morris and Ze'evi maintain" and that the international law concept of genocide may not be the best way to understand endemic ethnic and religious violence in Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gaunt |first1=David |title=When Perpetual Persecution Becomes Ottoman Genocide |journal=Bustan: The Middle East Book Review |date=2020 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=1–19 |doi=10.5325/bustan.11.1.0001 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/bustan.11.1.0001?seq=1 |issn=1878-5301}}</ref>
[[David Gaunt]], a historian of the [[Assyrian genocide]], states that the book may become "a reference work for those desiring a broad introduction to the totality of late Ottoman anti-Christian campaigns". He praises the "sheer amount of incriminating testimony that Morris and Ze’evi have managed to assemble", including demonstrating the personal responsibility of [[Mustafa Kemal]] for completing the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the empire's remaining Christian population. However, he faults the authors' interpretation in some places, stating "the Assyrians... were less of a passive victim than Morris and Ze'evi maintain" and that the international law concept of genocide may not be the best way to understand endemic ethnic and religious violence in Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gaunt |first1=David |title=When Perpetual Persecution Becomes Ottoman Genocide |journal=Bustan: The Middle East Book Review |date=2020 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=1–19 |doi=10.5325/bustan.11.1.0001 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/bustan.11.1.0001?seq=1 |issn=1878-5301}}</ref>

Revision as of 09:15, 28 July 2022

Book cover

The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924 is a 2019 history book written by Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi. They argue that the Armenian genocide and other contemporaneous persecution of Christians in the Ottoman Empire constitute an extermination campaign, or genocide, carried out by the Ottoman Empire against its Christian subjects.

Publication history

The book was written by Israeli historians Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi and published by Harvard University Press in 2019. A Greek edition is forthcoming.[1] Morris is a specialist in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while Ze'evi is known for his previous work on early modern Ottoman history.[2]

Content

The central argument of the book is that the Hamidian massacres, the Armenian genocide, Assyrian genocide, and Greek genocide should be understood as a single event, which targeted all the Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire.[3][4][2] The authors note that it is not disputed by scholars that while five million Christians lived in the lands that became Turkey in 1894 (20 percent of the population), only tens of thousands remained in 1924, and at least two million were murdered by Muslims.[5] The authors identify a pattern that repeats, with minor variations, across the time period under study. The first targets of attack are men of military age and those with influence, then women and children are handled later.[6] Following previous scholarship, the authors identify Islam and religious fundamentalism as the primary causes of the genocide, which had as its aim the foundation of a pure, Muslim state.[7][8] Victims were asked to convert to Islam, which sometimes saved the lives of targeted women and children.[5] The book is more than 640 pages long.[6]

Reception

Hervé Georgelin describes the book "an ambitious and comprehensive work on the extinction of Christian life on the former central Ottoman lands" and "a clever and learned synthesis".[6] According to Georgelin, the fact that both authors do not belong to any of the affected communities means that they can take a birds'-eye view as opposed to "duplicat[ing] social ethno-religious boundaries, to little heuristic avail".[6]

Mark Levene writes that the book lacks attention to nuances and different factions in the Ottoman Empire, and that "everything is reduced to an essentialist clash of civilizations, a thesis they can only sustain by suffocating complexity or simply not engaging with it all".[9] Levene argues that the authors misrepresent the role of embittered Muslim refugees driven out of the Balkans as perpetrators in violence against the Christian minorities in Anatolia, which he compares to the role of Greek refugees from Anatolia used against the Jews of Salonika and as perpetrators of ethnic cleansing of Slavic-speakers from Greece. He concludes that "the exterminatory violence of this period can be best explained not through a traditionally religious prism per se but actually its breakdown as the sinews of the old, hierarchic, Islamic-Ottoman order collapsed psychically and actually under the intolerable weight of both geo-political and nationalizing pressures".[9] Eileen Kane states that "The biggest problem with this poorly argued book is that it does not tell us how and why people in these particular historical circumstances were motivated to attack and kill people who were, in many cases, their neighbors."[10]

According to Laura Robson, the book is "intended to serve not just as history but also as warning".[8] She argues that Morris and Ze'evi, who rely heavily on British and American sources, have a limited understanding of how the Ottoman millet system actually operated in practice, and underestimate the role of the expulsions and mass killings of Muslims during the Balkan Wars as a trigger for the genocide.[8] David Gutman writes that the authors lack engagement with secondary sources, and disputes many of their conclusions.[2] Mustafa Aksakal states that the book is less persuasive than other publications on mass violence in the late Ottoman Empire and "The handling of some of the source material raises doubts about the extent and care taken in research."[11]

David Gaunt, a historian of the Assyrian genocide, states that the book may become "a reference work for those desiring a broad introduction to the totality of late Ottoman anti-Christian campaigns". He praises the "sheer amount of incriminating testimony that Morris and Ze’evi have managed to assemble", including demonstrating the personal responsibility of Mustafa Kemal for completing the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the empire's remaining Christian population. However, he faults the authors' interpretation in some places, stating "the Assyrians... were less of a passive victim than Morris and Ze'evi maintain" and that the international law concept of genocide may not be the best way to understand endemic ethnic and religious violence in Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia.[12]

In The New York Times, journalist Bruce Clark writes that "The reader is left wondering what the authors ultimately feel about the treatment of civilians in situations of total war." By weighing up the arguments for and against the forced deportation of civilians in certain situations, the authors imply, in contrast to established international law, that it might sometimes be justified. However, he praises the book for "offer[ing] a subtle diagnosis of why, at particular moments over a span of three decades, Ottoman rulers and their successors unleashed torrents of suffering".[13] In Agos, Vicken Cheterian criticizes the book, saying that it offers few new insights. "The two authors, by posing this question as the start of their investigation, give the impression as if no historian had noticed before them about the exterminations of Ottoman Christians, as if no one had written this history before them."[14] Alex J. Bellamy opined that the "important, beautifully crafted book" "contributes significantly to our understanding of what happened during these 30 years of violence, as well as to our understanding of genocide more broadly".[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ Iaonnidis, Sakis (23 June 2016). "The 30-year genocide of Christians in Turkey (book review)". Kathimerini. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  2. ^ a b c Gutman, David (2019). "The thirty year genocide: Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894–1924". Turkish Studies. Routledge: 1–3. doi:10.1080/14683849.2019.1644170.
  3. ^ Fisk, Robert (21 February 2019). "This new history of the Christian genocide during the Ottoman Empire sounds a dark warning for the future". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  4. ^ Robins, James (4 May 2019). "Would Turkey exist as a nation if it hadn't annihilated its Christians?". The Spectator. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  5. ^ a b Ze’evi, Dror; Morris, Benny (2020). "Response to Critique: The thirty-year genocide. Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894–1924, by Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi, Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 2019, 672 pp., USD$35.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9780674916456". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (4): 561–566. doi:10.1080/14623528.2020.1735600.
  6. ^ a b c d Georgelin, Hervé (2020). "Remarks About Continuity in Morris' and Ze'evi's The Thirty-Year Genocide". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (4): 535–540. doi:10.1080/14623528.2020.1735578.
  7. ^ Pschichholz, Christin (2020). "Introduction: Old and New Assumptions in The Thirty-Year Genocide: Reflections on Historical Research: The thirty-year genocide. Turkey's destruction of Its Christian minorities, 1894–1924, Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi, Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 2019, 672 pp., USD$35.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9780674916456". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (4): 533–534. doi:10.1080/14623528.2020.1735539.
  8. ^ a b c Robson, Laura (2020). "Minorities, Islam, Genocide?: The thirty-year genocide. Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894–1924, by Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi, Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 2019, 672 pp., USD$35.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9780674916456". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (4): 541–547. doi:10.1080/14623528.2020.1735587.
  9. ^ a b Levene, Mark (2020). "Through a Glass Darkly: The Resurrection of Religious Fanaticism as First Cause of Ottoman Catastrophe: The thirty-year genocide. Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894–1924, by Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi, Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 2019, 672 pp., USD$35.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9780674916456". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (4): 553–560. doi:10.1080/14623528.2020.1735560.
  10. ^ Kane, Eileen (2020). "The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924. By Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2019. xvi, 656 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Glossary. Illustrations. Photographs. Tables. Maps. $35.00, hard bound". Slavic Review. 79 (2): 448–450. doi:10.1017/slr.2020.113.
  11. ^ Aksakal, Mustafa (2020). "The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 34 (2): 335–337. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcaa030.
  12. ^ Gaunt, David (2020). "When Perpetual Persecution Becomes Ottoman Genocide". Bustan: The Middle East Book Review. 11 (1): 1–19. doi:10.5325/bustan.11.1.0001. ISSN 1878-5301.
  13. ^ Clark, Bruce (23 April 2019). "Turkey's Killing Fields". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  14. ^ Chetarian, Vicken (13 September 2019). "When Two Israeli Historians Discover (the other) Genocide". Agos. Retrieved 15 December 2020.
  15. ^ Bellamy, Alex J. (2020). "The thirty-year genocide: Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities 1894–1924". International Affairs. 96 (1): 247–249. doi:10.1093/ia/iiz268.
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