The Times Higher Education Supplement
January 14, 2010

Genocide before the Holocaust

BYLINE: Piotr A. Cieplak

Genocide before the Holocaust. By Cathie Carmichael. Yale University
Press, 288pp, £ 25.00. ISBN 9780300121179. Published 28 August 2009

The word "genocide" was coined by the Polish-born Jewish lawyer
Raphael Lemkin in 1943. Taking its roots from Greek and Latin, it
describes the targeted and intentional killing or destruction of a
racial, ethnic or religious group. It properly entered the language of
international law in 1948 with the adoption of the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by the United
Nations General Assembly.

Cathie Carmichael’s Genocide before the Holocaust examines a number of
different instances of ethnic, religious and nationalistic violence in
Europe (loosely defined and focusing mostly on the east) from the late
19th century until 1941. Most of these instances can be described as
genocidal in character and intent. However, Carmichael’s examination
does not fall into the trap of applying the term in an anachronistic
and forced manner. Instead, it busies itself with a detailed analysis
of particular historical events.

Carmichael writes: "We can only really understand these events in
their genuine historical context, although universal theories about
human behaviour in extremis as well as the impact of propaganda and
literary ideas are clearly very necessary to develop. Generally, I
remain sceptical as to how far we can compare genocides, or, indeed,
human suffering." This does not, however, stop her from reaching, as
she puts it, "tentative conclusions" about ideas of race, religion,
nationhood, citizenship and the place and situation of minorities in
an ever-more-globalised world.

The book is impressive in its geographical and historical scope. Its
focus on ethnic, religious and national mass violence oscillates
around the decline and break-up of the Habsburg, Ottoman and Romanov
empires. Within this, Carmichael pays particular attention to the
plight of Jews in Imperial Russia and Ukraine, and Armenians and
Muslims in the Caucasus and the Balkans.

She examines different manifestations of ethnic and cultural
discourses including: the decline of the empires; the increasingly
problematic need to define a citizen and/or a member of a nation;
colonial discourse (although this discussion could have been further
developed) and the apartheid-like running of subjugated states;
religion; literary inspirations for and treatment of mass,
group-oriented violence; as well as questions of the legal dimension
of nationalism, exclusion and institutionalised prejudice and
persecution.

Carmichael notes that "as the regimes changed in Russia, Turkey and
the Balkans, so notions about citizenship changed. This did not just
happen in these regions, but was a contestation about the nature of
modernity itself. In an increasingly globalised system – which would
be a fair way to describe the long 19th century up to the First World
War – a person could be a citizen of one state and have interests in
another simultaneously."

The emphasis on different, sometimes opportunistic and dangerous,
definitions of citizenship and cultural and historical belonging
provides Carmichael with an opportunity to examine a variety of
perspectives and insights as to where these notions originated. This,
however, does not prevent her from reaching more general conclusions:
"If globalisation implied movement of peoples, religious and political
ideas, capital, culture and loyalties, then population elimination
represented a full- scale attack on that very process of
globalisation."

This book’s greatest shortcomings are its inadequate length and
reliance on secondary literature, but these could be seen as
emblematic of an enterprise trying to cover such large and diverse
historical and geographical material. Carmichael’s argument
occasionally gets lost in the multitude of direct quotations and
presentations of other historians’ ideas. It would be fascinating to
see these ideas critiqued in more detail in a larger work.

Despite this, Genocide before the Holocaust provides an informed,
useful and insightful overview of ethnic and religious persecutions of
minorities in the period it considers.

Piotr A. Cieplak is a doctoral researcher in the department of French,
University of Cambridge.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress