NIKOLAY HOVHANNESYAN: THIS BOOK IS A STRONG MESSAGE TO TURKEY

PanARMENIAN.Net
27.01.2010 14:48 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Tekeyan Cultural Center in Yerevan hosted the
presentation of "Armenian Genocide" book today, January 27. The book
was published in 10 languages, including Turkish.

"My first book, dedicated to the Armenian Genocide, was published
in March 1965. For the past year, I worked at a number of problems
related to Middle East, Arabian world, Artsakh, yet I always touched
upon the issue of Genocide in some way or another," the author of
the book, RA National Academy member Nikolay Hovhannesyan said.

According to him, "Armenian Genocide" book differs from other
monographs on the subject. While working at the book, I was guided
by a principle "no whining". I attempted to narrate the most tragic
pages of our history and do it in a dignified manner. I believe I
managed to avoid the most common shortcoming of our historiography,"
he emphasized.

"My friend characterized this book as a strong message to Turkey,"
the author noted.

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic
destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during
and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres, and
deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to
lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths
reaching 1.5 million.

The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be
April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250
Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.

Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes
and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of
food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were
indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse.

To date, twenty countries and 44 U.S. states have officially recognized
the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars
and historians accept this view. The Armenian Genocide has been also
recognized by influential media including The New York Times, BBC,
The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the
Genocide survivors.