What do you think?
Rate this book
Turkey and the Armenian Ghost: On the Trail of the Genocide
The first genocide of the twentieth century remains unrecognized and unpunished. Turkey continues to deny the slaughter of over a million Ottoman Armenians in 1915 and the following years. What sets the Armenian genocide apart from other mass atrocities is that the country responsible has never officially acknowledged its actions, and no individual has ever been brought to justice. In Turkey and the Armenian Ghost, a translation of the award-winning La Turquie et le fantôme arménien, Laure Marchand and Guillaume Perrier visit historic sites and interview politicians, elderly survivors, descendants, authors, and activists in a quest for the hidden truth. Taking the reader into remote mountain regions, tiny hamlets, and the homes of traumatized victims of a deadly persecution that continues to this day, they reveal little-known aspects of the history and culture of a people who have been rendered invisible in their ancient homeland. Seeking to illuminate complex issues of blame and responsibility, guilt and innocence, the authors discuss the roles played in this drama by the "righteous Turks," the Kurds, the converts, the rebels, and the "leftovers of the sword." They also describe the struggle to have the genocide officially recognized in Turkey, France, and the United States. Arguing that this giant cover-up has had consequences for Turks as well as for Armenians, the authors point to a society sickened by a century of denial. The face of Turkey is gradually changing, however, and a new generation of Turks is beginning to understand what happened and to realize that the ghost of the Armenian genocide must be recognized and laid to rest.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
260 pages, Hardcover
First published March 9, 2013
7 people are currently reading
117 people want to read
About the author
Laure Marchand
5 books2 followersBorn in 1976, Laure Marchand was for ten years correspondent of Le Figaro and Nouvel Observateur in Turkey. With Guillaume Perrier, she investigated the memory of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey for two books: Turkey and the Armenian Ghost and The Armenian Ghost. With Sylvain Louvet, Laure Marchand is the author of Three Women to Kill for Special Investigation Canal +.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 26, 2016
Genocidul turcilor asupra armenilor din 1915 este una dintre marile tragedii ale secolului trecut. Și este o tragedie încă vie, pentru că a trecut, iată, 100 de ani și Turcia nu a recunoscut încă acest moment, ba chiar îl neagă sau îl consideră un atac al armenilor asupra turcilor.
Doi ziariști francezi acreditați la Istanbul pleacă pe urmele genocidului, căutând urmași ai supraviețuitorilor, urmași ai turcilor implicați, în bine sau în rău, mergând în Anatolia pe urmele puținelor sate rămase în picioare sau ruinelor clădirilor sau bisericilor armenești. Nu suntem în fața unui studiu istoric, ci mai degrabă a unui studiu al ideilor și mentalităților, o istorie orală care începe încet-încet să răbufnească, mai ales că genocidul armean este recunoscut de mai multe state UE, unde Turcia vrea să ajungă.
A se citi și Cartea șoaptelor, de V. Vosganian.
Doi ziariști francezi acreditați la Istanbul pleacă pe urmele genocidului, căutând urmași ai supraviețuitorilor, urmași ai turcilor implicați, în bine sau în rău, mergând în Anatolia pe urmele puținelor sate rămase în picioare sau ruinelor clădirilor sau bisericilor armenești. Nu suntem în fața unui studiu istoric, ci mai degrabă a unui studiu al ideilor și mentalităților, o istorie orală care începe încet-încet să răbufnească, mai ales că genocidul armean este recunoscut de mai multe state UE, unde Turcia vrea să ajungă.
A se citi și Cartea șoaptelor, de V. Vosganian.
May 17, 2015
I've frequently heard people make reference to the Armenian Genocide, yet have read little about it. I was interested in learning more about the genocide and the Turkish response, or lack thereof, to it. And so it was with excitement that I came across this book in an advertisement in the New York Review of Books.
While I give the book four stars, I do so more for the book's exposition of the Turkish denial of the genocide and the minimal response from the international community to the outrages crimes of the early part of the 20th Century. "Turkey and the Armenian Ghost" painfully reminds us of not only of the ignorance, but the outrageous denial, of the genocide.
However, I often found the writing to not be very clear. There were numerous occasions where I had to reread the text to ensure that I followed the authors' line of thought and to make sure I did not miss something. At other times the authors would repeat what they had written earlier, almost word for word. It seemed to me that the book needed further editing.
What I found most disappointing about the book was its lack of a clear story line. The excerpt that I read online — and perhaps one of the better written portions of the book — initially gave me the impression that a story would be told. McGill University Press features the second chapter of the book on its website. It is a well written section that beautifully draws the reader into the experience of the haunting past. Yet after a couple of pages, the authors turn to a writing style that is less narrative, but rather retelling of scattered facts and observations. The successive chapters turn to different persons, cities and political affairs to offer one a glimpse of what seems to be an impossible task: to get the Turkish government and people to formally recognize the genocide. Granted, this is certainly what the authors wanted to do, but I felt they could have interwoven a common narrative thread to hold the book together.
As a whole, the book does achieve its goal of awakening our awareness to the miserable conditions of the Armenian people in Turkey and the Turkish campaign to erase any evidence of the genocide. Perhaps with some further editing, the book might leave an even deeper impression upon the reader.
While I give the book four stars, I do so more for the book's exposition of the Turkish denial of the genocide and the minimal response from the international community to the outrages crimes of the early part of the 20th Century. "Turkey and the Armenian Ghost" painfully reminds us of not only of the ignorance, but the outrageous denial, of the genocide.
However, I often found the writing to not be very clear. There were numerous occasions where I had to reread the text to ensure that I followed the authors' line of thought and to make sure I did not miss something. At other times the authors would repeat what they had written earlier, almost word for word. It seemed to me that the book needed further editing.
What I found most disappointing about the book was its lack of a clear story line. The excerpt that I read online — and perhaps one of the better written portions of the book — initially gave me the impression that a story would be told. McGill University Press features the second chapter of the book on its website. It is a well written section that beautifully draws the reader into the experience of the haunting past. Yet after a couple of pages, the authors turn to a writing style that is less narrative, but rather retelling of scattered facts and observations. The successive chapters turn to different persons, cities and political affairs to offer one a glimpse of what seems to be an impossible task: to get the Turkish government and people to formally recognize the genocide. Granted, this is certainly what the authors wanted to do, but I felt they could have interwoven a common narrative thread to hold the book together.
As a whole, the book does achieve its goal of awakening our awareness to the miserable conditions of the Armenian people in Turkey and the Turkish campaign to erase any evidence of the genocide. Perhaps with some further editing, the book might leave an even deeper impression upon the reader.
September 7, 2021
Recognition. Contrition. Commemoration. And perhaps, possibly, reparation. These are what the Turkish government owe to the memory of the Armenian genocide and to the descendants of this heinous massacre.
This book is full of features of different people, such as Armenians living in Turkey surreptitiously, as well as braver Turks who denounce their government's and institution's hardline stance of denial about the genocide. The Armenian genocide wasn't simply the physical slaughter of thousands of people due to their ethnicity during the campaign to turn modern Turkey into an exclusively ethnonational state. Instead, it amounted to total evisceration of an entire civilization. Cultural genocide was conducted by destroying churches, land monuments, and wiping the archival memory and textbook teaching clean of any recollections of the long existence of Armenians within the multicultural Anatolian land. Survivors of the genocide, such as children, were inserted into Turkish families, Islamized through forced conversion and removal of names, until they were thoroughly assimilated into the dominating Turkish culture. Armenians who remained in their old homeland were forced to convert to Islam due to a crippling wealth tax on non-Muslims, lack of opportunities for non-Muslims, and most significantly, reprisals and overt hostility towards any people who set themselves differently from the fiercely nationalistic Turkish country. Armenian women were taken as brides and harem slaves into Turkish families. Material belongings and land were stripped away from Armenians, in effect depriving them economically.
The authors, 2 French journalists, express this all in clear, unequivocal language. They also offer a clear answer to the skeptic's question: Why emphasize the Armenian genocide when other people have also suffered, such as native Americans? The answer is that the Turkish government is engaged, as few governments have, in an active, systematic, widespread, and relentless campaign to force their own fictions into the narrative of the genocide and ultimately create a climate of denial that wipes away assertions of the genocide from history. The government tries to cultivate seeds of doubt about the event, by labeling the genocide as 'theory' and 'opinion' instead of historical fact. Archives are being emptied of proof and firsthand testimonials about the genocide. Foreigners's supporting accounts are dismissed as persecution of an increasingly victimhood-minded Turkish government. The hundreds of thousands of Armenian deaths are being repainted as accidental deaths of war marches, rather than a maliciously designed program of ethnic cleansing. Teaching about the genocide is nonexistent in the curriculum. Foreign governments are actively intimidated against acknowledgement of the genocide through a rigorous lobby. Armenians in the Turkish state live in a precarious, unstable state of safety, driven to hide their Armenian identity and proclaim their Turkish-ness to be left alone in peace. Instead of war crimes trials and reconciliation missions that have happened in other genocide-shellshocked countries such as Rwanda and Serbia, the generals and nationalists who perpetuated the Armenian genocide are revered as the founders of the Turkish modern state, entwining them with national pride in the founding myths of the country. According to the book, this is all preventing healing from happening.
This book is full of features of different people, such as Armenians living in Turkey surreptitiously, as well as braver Turks who denounce their government's and institution's hardline stance of denial about the genocide. The Armenian genocide wasn't simply the physical slaughter of thousands of people due to their ethnicity during the campaign to turn modern Turkey into an exclusively ethnonational state. Instead, it amounted to total evisceration of an entire civilization. Cultural genocide was conducted by destroying churches, land monuments, and wiping the archival memory and textbook teaching clean of any recollections of the long existence of Armenians within the multicultural Anatolian land. Survivors of the genocide, such as children, were inserted into Turkish families, Islamized through forced conversion and removal of names, until they were thoroughly assimilated into the dominating Turkish culture. Armenians who remained in their old homeland were forced to convert to Islam due to a crippling wealth tax on non-Muslims, lack of opportunities for non-Muslims, and most significantly, reprisals and overt hostility towards any people who set themselves differently from the fiercely nationalistic Turkish country. Armenian women were taken as brides and harem slaves into Turkish families. Material belongings and land were stripped away from Armenians, in effect depriving them economically.
The authors, 2 French journalists, express this all in clear, unequivocal language. They also offer a clear answer to the skeptic's question: Why emphasize the Armenian genocide when other people have also suffered, such as native Americans? The answer is that the Turkish government is engaged, as few governments have, in an active, systematic, widespread, and relentless campaign to force their own fictions into the narrative of the genocide and ultimately create a climate of denial that wipes away assertions of the genocide from history. The government tries to cultivate seeds of doubt about the event, by labeling the genocide as 'theory' and 'opinion' instead of historical fact. Archives are being emptied of proof and firsthand testimonials about the genocide. Foreigners's supporting accounts are dismissed as persecution of an increasingly victimhood-minded Turkish government. The hundreds of thousands of Armenian deaths are being repainted as accidental deaths of war marches, rather than a maliciously designed program of ethnic cleansing. Teaching about the genocide is nonexistent in the curriculum. Foreign governments are actively intimidated against acknowledgement of the genocide through a rigorous lobby. Armenians in the Turkish state live in a precarious, unstable state of safety, driven to hide their Armenian identity and proclaim their Turkish-ness to be left alone in peace. Instead of war crimes trials and reconciliation missions that have happened in other genocide-shellshocked countries such as Rwanda and Serbia, the generals and nationalists who perpetuated the Armenian genocide are revered as the founders of the Turkish modern state, entwining them with national pride in the founding myths of the country. According to the book, this is all preventing healing from happening.
July 9, 2018
This is a collection of previously published articles by two French journalists stationed in Istanbul, all regarding Armenians currently living in Turkey and the lingering stain of Genocide cover-up upon modern Turkish society. Much of the material was fascinating to me as the granddaugher and niece of Genocide survivors. I recently travelled to Turkey with a tour group comprised of other members of the diaspora searching for their roots. This long-standing tour is, in fact, the subject of Chapter 2 of this book. Some of the book covers Armenians who are the Islamicized descendents of survivors. Other articles are about Turks and Kurds who are sympathetic to the cause. There is chapter on the assassination of Hrant Dink, the renowned Armenian journalist, with those behind the teenage assassin never coming to justice. Most strange is the way the modern Turkish state has completely erased the fact that one third of the Ottoman subjects were Christian. I witnessed this myself- museums and historic sites where the word Armenian is never to be seen. It is a frightening thing to see how history can be erased. While I'm thankful to these journalists for their work, I'm only giving the book three stars because I found the writing to be uneven, at times so spot on but at other times just plain confusing.
March 22, 2022
Yaşadıkları yerleri, yaşadıkları sıkıntıları en başından başlayarak yakın zamanlara kadar getiren güzel bir kitap. Politikacılar, insanlar, miras bırakılan acılar ve bolca özlem. KOnuyla ilgili iseniz mutlaka okumanızı öneririm.
September 7, 2024
This isn’t a comprehensive historical account of the unfolding of the genocide, nor does it try to be. Nevertheless, it contains some unforgettable reporting on encounters with survivors and descendants of survivors, in Turkey and the diaspora. Highly recommended.
June 21, 2018
Anadolu'da yiten Ermeni izlerinin günümüzde takibini gösteren bir kitap.
August 25, 2016
Ancheta jurnalistico-istorică abordează genocidul armean din 1915 într-o perspectivă insolită și intrepidă, cea a unei crime fondatoare a Republicii. Folosindu-se în special de mărturiile martorilor secundari, cât și de anumite documente din Arhiva Otomană la Istanbul și Arhiva Republicii, Laure Marchant și Guillaume Perrier devoalează secretul comun al societății turce. Fără a abjura exhaustiv kemalismul, autorii se îndepărtează de postura de simpli detractori, dorind ca prin opera lor să realizeze un apel la deșteptarea memoriei, denunțând doar elementele negative ale regimului implementat de ”omul destinului, cum ar fi negaționismul; facerea din agresori eroi sau chestiunea confiscării averilor armenilor deportați – aflată într-o permanentă dezbatere până în prezent.
https://recenziilesipovestiletale.wor...
https://recenziilesipovestiletale.wor...
March 21, 2016
This book is not a history of the genocide if this was what you are looking for. Nevertheless, it should be very interesting for anyone who wants to understand the current situation in Turkey and the relations between the countries in the area. Although it mostly hints about what happened in 1915, talking more about the present times, this book is very human, presenting a series of stories marked by what happened more than 1oo years ago - the stories of those killed for what they believed, the stories of those that try to make peace, the stories of those looking for their roots. There were a lot of things I did not understand before reading this book, so I'm happy I found it. These stories deserve to be known.
June 2, 2015
This was not the book that I was looking for initially. I was looking for a history of the Armenian genocide and this book is not about that, it is about the current issues surrounding it in Turkey. I was going to give up on it when I discovered it, but then I found that this book was well written and interesting in its own right. It tells a very good tale about the current state of affairs.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews