Today the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) will present a verdict on the case ‘Perincek vs. Switzerland.’ Ten years ago the leader of the Labor Party of Turkey, Dogu Perincek, stated at a conference in Switzerland that “the genocide of the Armenians” in the Ottoman Empire was “an imperialist lie.” The Association Switzerland-Armenia sued him for this. Perincek was accused of racial discrimination, and he responded that “the states which were involved in World War I and their peoples could have certain prejudices against each other. But we should avoid the influence of these negative prejudices for the future of our peoples. The conscience of European nations shouldn’t be filled with restrictions on discussions of historic moments.”
The Turkish government has opened its archives for those who wanted to know the truth about the events of 1915, in response to accusations by the Armenian side of committing genocide. Yerevan hasn’t done the same yet, because probably the question of whether the genocide took place or not is still unanswered. There are a lot of works written about the Armenians who call it the first genocide of the 20thcentury, and the Turks who treat it as an example of inter-community fighting and deportations in the war time. Nevertheless, despite the huge amounts of work, there are still disputes on what happened about 100 years ago. Obviously, the events of 1915 were one of the most tragic pages of World War I; but to avoid such tragedies in the future, the problem must be studied thoughtfully.
Vladimir Buldakov, PhD (History), an expert on Russian history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, stated on Vitaly Tretyakov’s show ‘What Is To Be Done?’: “An awful tragedy took place, and nobody doubts it. Killing 300 thousand people (1/20th of the Armenian population) is a great crime. However, was there genocide? Was there a directed policy aimed at elimination of the Armenian nation? I have serious doubts about this.”
It is obvious for the historian that “there was an attempt to deport the Armenians who lived in the near-border territory, from six vilayets. And the attempt was made absolutely awfully. However, there are no convincing documents that it was a well-planned policy directed at killing.”
Another side of the problem, according to Buldakov, is whether the deportation was reasonable: “There was a time when I thought that the Armenians didn’t do anything hostile against the Empire. Later, when I learnt about certain works, I realized clearly that a riot was prepared, and leaders of certain political parties included provisions on the liberation of the Turkish Empire, or Western Armenia, into their programs.”
The historian cited the book by Gabriel Lazian ‘Armenia and the Turkish Court’ which was published in Cairo in 1946 in the Armenian language.
The program of the Armenakan Party. 1885.
- Who should liberate Armenia?
- The Armenian peoples should do it.
- When should the Armenians rise for the fight?
- They should do it when the great powers fight against each other.
- What methods should they use?
- There are various methods, considering the situation. Sometimes they should use arms, sometimes money, sometimes foreign forces.
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The program of the Gnchak Party paid special attention to a rebellion in the Turkish Empire in 1888:
Methods: Propaganda of terrorist activity of shock troops for an attack; formation of regular troops from militants.
The condition: Any war by any power against Turkey.
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“These things make me doubt,” the historian says. “However, by that time, the parties had lost their influence. The first place was taken by Dashnaktsutyun. The first program of 1892 didn’t contain such provisions. However, we shouldn’t forget that the party later became a member of the Second International. And I cannot say that there were no hotheads who used such methods in the party. All my doubts are connected with this.”
