Massis Post – Dr. Stefan Ihrig will give an online talk entitled “The Armenian Genocide and the 20th Century” on Sunday, August 30, 2020, at 5:00 p.m. (Eastern U.S. time). The talk is co-sponsored by the Ararat-Eskijian Museum, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), and the Society for Armenian Studies (SAS).

The Armenian Genocide has long been side-lined in the histories of Europe and the world. This poses a whole series of problems for how we understand the past. In this talk, Stefan Ihrig will show how and why the Armenian Genocide was a central event for 20th century world history.

Understanding the wider contexts and implications of the Armenian Genocide is key to understanding the dark 20th century. This talk will also underline why the much-needed re-evaluation of its role in and for history should not and cannot be a partisan issue. It will also discuss why recognition of the genocide is simply not enough. Recognition is only the first step in reconstructing a new history of the last century.

Stefan Ihrig is a professor of history at the University of Haifa and director of the Haifa Center for German and European Studies. For his last book, Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler (Harvard Univ. Press, 2016), he received the 2017 Sonia Aronian Book Prize for Excellence in Armenian Studies from the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research. He is also the author of Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination (Harvard Univ. Press, 2014).