Prof. Dr. Türkkaya Ataöv
EIT Coloqium Lecture Series
Supported by Turkish Student Association, Friends of Turkey in Arkansas, and Raindrop Turkish House
Turks and Armenians: What Really Happened on April 24, 1915
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Friday, April 2, 2010 – Little Rock
3:00-5:00pm
Dickinson Hall, Room 100,
University of Arkansas-Little Rock
2801 S. University Ave.
Little Rock, AR
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There has been a big question as to what really took place on April 24, 1915, in the Ottoman Empire. Various ethnic interest groups have offered conflicting versions of the events.
On April 24, 1915, 235 leaders out of 77,735 Armenians of Istanbul were moved to and placed under house arrest in the Anatolian city of Çankırı. They were free to move about the city in the day time, and confined to house arrest at night. All were eventually released. One died due to natural causes. Two were murdered by two hooligans, who were tried and executed for their crimes.
In May 1915, many Armenians in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire were relocated from the war zones in response to the Armenian Revolt which reached its most destructive point in the Van Revolt of March 1915. In June 1915, the relocation reached port cities in Western Anatolia, where Armenian rebels were importing and transporting arms and ammunition to Armenian nationalists in the east.
In November 1915, the relocation ended. The relocation was a military response to a military problem. Having initially “slaughtered about 120,000 non-Armenians” in Eastern Anatolia, as recorded even by the British, and seized control of the Ottoman city of Van, with the backing of the invading Russians, the Armenians posed a great military danger to the 3rd, 4th, and the 6th Ottoman armies, as well as to the Ottoman civilian Muslim and Jewish populations.
There is absolutely no similarity between the Armenian case and the Holocaust, as Jews never engaged in an armed revolt to create a Jewish state in Germany. To equate the Armenian case with genocide, is to dilute the definition of genocide and understate the suffering of the Jews.
Whether the events of 1915 constitute genocide is not a political question, where truth may be sacrificed for election purposes at Congressional district levels. History and jurisprudence have their own methodologies that should be respected by all.
In a national speaking tour, Prof. Türkkaya Ataöv, a highly respected historian and professor will give a lecture on the political landscape and events of April 24, 1915 which will serve to enlighten the general public with a view toward reconciliation based on truth. Details of this lecture are included herein.
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Biographical Sketch of Prof. Dr. Türkkaya Ataöv
Türkkaya Ataöv is Professor Emeritus in International Relations at Ankara University, Turkey. He did his graduate work in the United States, where he received two M.A.s (NYU & Syracuse Univ.) and a Ph.D. (1959, Syracuse U., NY). He taught at Ankara Univ. for more than four decades and lectured in several American, British, Russian, German, Dutch, Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern, African and Australian universities.
He is the author of close to 140 books (most of which have been in foreign languages and printed in Europe or in the Americas), a few hundred academic treatises, and a few thousand newspaper articles. His writings have been translated into 20 languages and appeared in 17 European, 13 Asian, 5 African, and 3 American states and Australia.
He was elected to central executive positions of UN-related international organizations, dealing with racial discrimination, human rights, terrorism, nuclear war, and exchange of prisoners of war.
Professor Ataöv published 80 books or booklets on the Armenian issue, was invited (as “witness of authority”) by the Paris court to the two (1984 & 1985) trials of Armenian terrorists, participated in the UN (1985) Geneva meetings of the Human Rights Commission on the Genocide Convention, and partook in several meetings of the European Parliament that dealt with the Armenian issue.
Professor Ataöv received 17 academic awards or medals in recognition of his published works and activities. They include two (Italian and Federal Yugoslavian) presidential medals, two UN-affiliated awards, and several honorary doctorates and academic citations.
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