Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide

by Thomas de Waal

The destruction of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16 was the greatest atrocity of World War I. Around one million Armenians were killed, and the survivors were scattered across the world. Although it is now a century old, the issue of what most of the world calls the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is still a live and divisive issue that mobilizes Armenians across the world, shapes the identity and politics of modern Turkey, and has consumed the attention of U.S. politicians for years. In Great Catastrophe, the eminent scholar and reporter Thomas de Waal looks at the aftermath and politics of the Armenian Genocide and tells the story of recent efforts by courageous Armenians, Kurds, and Turks to come to terms with the disaster as Turkey enters a new post-Kemalist era. The story of what happened to the Armenians in 1915-16 is well-known. Here we are told the "history of the history" and the lesser-known story of what happened to Armenians, Kurds, and Turks in the century that followed. De Waal relates how different generations tackled the issue of the "Great Catastrophe" from the 1920s until the failure of the Protocols signed by independent Armenia and Turkey in 2010. Quarrels between diaspora Armenians supporting and opposing the Soviet Union broke into violence and culminated with the murder of an archbishop in 1933. The devising of the word "genocide," the growth of modern identity politics, and the 50th anniversary of the massacres re-energized a new generation of Armenians. In Turkey the issue was initially forgotten, only to return to the political agenda in the context of the Cold War and an outbreak of Armenian terrorism. More recently, Turkey has started to confront its taboos. In an astonishing revival of oral history, the descendants of tens of thousands of "Islamized Armenians," who have been in the shadows since 1915, have begun to reemerge and reclaim their identities. Drawing on archival sources, reportage and moving personal stories, de Waal tells the full story of Armenian-Turkish relations since the Genocide in all its extraordinary twists and turns. He looks behind the propaganda to examine the realities of a terrible historical crime and the divisive "politics of genocide" it produced. The book throws light not only on our understanding of Armenian-Turkish relations but also of how mass atrocities and historical tragedies shape contemporary politics.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Journalism, War, Ebooks

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2015

Reviews

[Melania 🍒 · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75/5

This book is definitely worth a read (or a listen, in my case). I think it gives you a lot of information about the Armenian-Turkish conflict, especially if, like me, you’re not familiar with it beforehand. It’s not too heavy, nor too light, and it’s an pretty even presentation of the whole situation, as far as I can tell.
The audio version is also really good if you’re into that.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional researched History book --mostly about what came after of the 1915. The Armenian Genocide ranks the longest most bitter historical dispute still alive.

I wanted to read this book --(having Armenian friends) --and knowing that 2015 is the 100th year anniversary since "The Great Catastrophe". Chris Bohjalian, author of "The Sandcastle Girls" was the first person to deepen my heart into this period of history. Having the opportunity to hear him speak about his own Armenian heritage had a stronghold on me.

Being Jewish I continue to include reading about the Holocaust --and even though I've been to Turkey (during the 70's when I was 19 years old)--I had no grasp on magnitude about the changing relations between Armenians and Turks. At times the Turks still seem trapped in politics of the 20th century while the rest of the world has moved on around them.

The word Genocide is still resisted by Turkish Government. Armenians now accept the word -but resist it as much as possible. "The Great Catastrophe" is powerful because it means a general catastrophe. Armenians suffered the most --(arrests, deported in masses, taken from their homes...innocent men and woman, "slaughtered like goats") -- but even those left behind suffered.

Over the years -when trying to better relations between the Armenian and the Turks, the best approach was through connecting music, food, and even the same faces. But the psychological gap was still very big.

This is a perfect read for History Buffs --a stretch for fiction readers (but worth the stretch). I'd suggest an e-reader for fiction readers. Its wonderful to have the dictionary at your finger. tips.

"The Great Catastrophe" is filled with 'details' about powerful interesting political leaders during the day--Bishops -greed, etc. --but two years ago (after reading "The Sandcastle Girls) --I kept asking myself --why didn't I know 'more' about this horrific war --with such a long standing bitterness? And why don't many of my friends now anything either? (approx. 18,000 children were in just ONE CENTER of an orphanage) -- When I just looked at the picture Thomas de Waal included ---it was overwhelming. Many of those children not only had parents or relatives --but some of them did not even know their own name. Over a million Armenians were deported --- so WHY? Why was this war more silent than the Holocaust?

Collective 'awakening' did not begin to take place until around fifty years ago. The Armenians(as a culture were silent with their tragedy & silent suffering) --but somewhere around the 50th anniversary -- Armenians began to speak out --many wanting to close the gap between themselves and their grandparents. --Much like Jewish Communities about the Holocaust. The Civil Rights movement in the United States was the biggest manifestation of the change --change to speak out.

"Armenian-Americans have been provided with a sense of peoplehood, cultural rebirth, and historical continuity. So far, it has been fairly successful." MAY IT CONTINUE!!!

And may the Turks and Armenians continue to bridge their relations --shed their "paranoia" about the word genocide. I like how the author talks about letting the word genocide become normalized and acceptable throughout Turkish society ---(as it has with a small progressive group already).

Thank you Netgalley!

Thank you -very much to the author Thomas de Waal (what a brilliant -inspiring man)

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

We need moral leadership rather than a victimhood complex.

“Eye disease trachoma was so widespread that it was rare to meet adult Kurds with healthy eyes.”

“The Young Turk leaders did face threats to their security, but out of the options they had at their disposal, they came to choose mass murder.”

“Only about 10 per cent of the Armenians living in Turkey in 1914 remained in the country in 1922 - the most successful murderous cleansing achieved in the 20th century.”

“The notorious Unionist Şükrü Kaya, who had directed the Armenian deportations in 1915, would serve as Atatürk’s interior minister and oversee the forced relocation of the Kurds.”

“The new Turkey lived by the famous formulation of Ernest Renan that a nation-state is founded on a deliberate act of forgetting.”

In 2005, Orhan Pamuk was prosecuted under the new controversial Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, “insulting Turkishness. The charges were eventually dropped, and Pamuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. And that, my friends, is why Turkey is as much of a joke as the other nations it mimics.

“Sooner or later, as Turkey connects more to the world, it seems likely that Turkish society will come to terms with the vexing issue of how up to 2 million native Armenians “went missing” at the end of the Ottoman Empire.”

“Genocide was not the subject of interest of the academic community, until Holocaust scholars and Jewish communities made it one - at which point other people started saying ‘what about us?’”

“The passion to exclude this or that mass killing from the universe of genocide, as well as the intense competition to establish the exclusive “superiority” or unique form of any one genocide ends up creating a fetishistic atmosphere in which the masses of bodies that are not to be qualified for the definition of genocide are dumped into a conceptual black hole, where they are forgotten.”

“Many Jews insisted that the Holocaust should have a unique place in history and should not be compared with other mass atrocities. So being denied a spotlight of their own, all that remained was the famous quotation by Adolf Hitler, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

“The world needs a “Crimes against Humanity Convention,” which would free prosecutors from the definitional and legal shackles imposed by the word “genocide” and thus allow more mass murderers to be brought to justice.”

[Kieran Healy · Rating 5 out of 5]

De Waal finds a way to boil down an incredibly complex narrative of war and murder. Though at times dry and bit heavy on book quotations, I found myself most times enthralled at the process these two peoples went through from 1915 to now. The title is actually interesting in that his argument mostly appears to be that using the word "genocide" is detrimental to reasonable discussion. Hence, "In the Shadow" of it. He shows that just using the politicized term Genocide turns any attempt at normalizing relationships or moving beyond the catastrophe into an argument about the past, rather than an understanding of it. Much like how America is trying to sort out it's treatment of native peoples and enslaved Africans, or Germany and the Jewish people, or France and England and how they treated their colonial territories. Once you throw the word "Genocide" on it, even if that is in fact what it was, it's become such an abused and politically expedient word that reasonable thought around it becomes impossible. Kudos to de Waal for helping me understand not just what happened between Turkey and the Armenian people, but in explaining an approach to help move on and find peace. Originally a four star, but the amount of thought I am putting into things beyond the book moves it up to five.

[Arno Mosikyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Moral leadership rather than victim's complex", can't agree more and The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity (https://auroraprize.com/en/) is the bold call that we are on a right path.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not primarily an overview of the Armenian genocide itself, but rather a concise yet thorough examination of the ways in which that tragedy has affected Armenian-Turkish relations in Anatolia, the Caucasus, and beyond.

[Dominic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone interested in English language study of the current state of the southern Caucasus owes, again, a hearty thanks to Thomas De Waal. With this newest book, ‘The Great Catastrophe’, De Waal has filled in a hole in the available history of Armenian-Turkish relations in the 20th century. By not solely focusing on the history of the Genocide (or “Great Catastrophe”) itself, and instead focusing on the post-Genocide implications for and interactions between Turkey and the Armenians, De Waal offers something new to the general public interested in this subject. To my mind, this has always been a subject which is under-represented in current books/articles on the Genocide and the Caucasus and Turkey more generally.

He also calls out what I believe to be one of the most important dynamics which is often missed in this conversation: the differing goals of the Armenian Diaspora and those Armenians currently living in the Republic of Armenia, and how this differentiation in goals hampers the Republic of Armenia’s negotiating ability with Turkey. This was very clear in the negotiations of the most recent ‘Protocols’, but was little discussed. In short, it costs the Armenian Diaspora very little to nothing, to be inflexible in their demands for Turkey’s full recognition of the Genocide (and in some camps reparations), while the unfortunate current inhabitants of Armenia are more concerned with creating a viable state and the Nagorno Karabagh conflict. This low ‘cost-of-no-deal’ for the Diaspora, when mixed with their out-sized influence on Armenian politics and development has, in large part, led to the continued freeze in movement on opening the Turkish border and ultimately harmed the Republic of Armenia.

For people interested in further reading about the Southern Caucasus the references throughout offers a wealth of good finds on the subject, from books and articles, to documentaries.

I would recommend all of De Waal’s work. I would probably start with Black Garden first, but then this book would probably be the second on my list.

[Yeongbae K · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author used direct quotes liberally throughout the entire book. I found the paragraphs to be jarring when presented in such a way. Without direct quotes, the book would be shorter and the narrative would be easier to follow along.

I do not recommend this book.

[Charles Shapiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives a history of the history of the great catastrophe which is what the Armenians call the genocide against them during the first WWI. The decimation of the Armenians was horrific enough, the political fight to get this crime against humanity recognized is described as a second tragedy.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author takes somewhat of a diplomatic, “but both sides will need to stretch and change in order to reconcile” view of the dynamic between Armenia and its murdering, acquisitive, genocidal neighbors. An interesting angle. Historically solid.