Turkish historians invited to look at archives in Armenia

Thursday, April 22, 2010

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

YEREVAN - Hürriyet Daily News

An exhibition on the allegations of genocide opens in the capital, Yerevan. The chief of the Armenian National Archive is ready to cooperate with Turkish historians.

At the center of the Armenian capital of Yerevan, 30 meters below Abovyan Street, lies a subterranean historical archive covering an immense 7,000 square meters.

The underground repository is one of three different locations, including the National Archives building, holding archival documents related to the country.

The documents most valuable to Armenians are, without a doubt, those that shed light on the painful events of 1915. Armenia claims up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed shortly after World War I under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Yerevan insists the events constituted genocide, but Turkey fiercely rejects the label, saying civil strife caused many deaths on both sides.

Turkish-Armenian relations

In a rare interview with a Turkish newspaper, Dr. Amatuni Virabian, the director of the National Archives of Armenia, invited Turkish historians to carry out research in the archives. “We are ready to help them in whatever way we can,” Virabian told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

“The documents in Turkey’s national archives are all in the Ottoman language,” Virabian said. “However, ours are in Armenian, as well as in Russian, English, German and French. This makes things easier for researchers.”

The director also noted that 12,000 documents in the archives have been transferred to the digital medium.

Reflecting on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s suggestion that a committee of Turkish and Armenian historians could be formed to seek out the truth about the 1915 events, Virabian said he believes this might happen very soon.

“But this should not be done under the title of a committee. And the first attempt should not come from officials,” he said. “We must move gradually.”

Virabian added that he was in touch with associate professor Yusuf Sarınay from Turkey’s General Directorate of State Archives.

Responding to a question on why the Armenian archives in the U.S. city of Boston and in Jerusalem had not been opened yet, Virabian said the Boston archive belongs to Dashnaks and the documents there are currently being catalogued. “The archive at the Jerusalem Patriarchate is kept closed for some stupid reason based on enmity between some individuals,” he said.

Focus on Germany’s role

One argument frequently voiced in Turkey is that opening these archives might uncover the connection between the Committee of Union and Progress, the ruling party of the Ottoman Empire between 1908 and 1918, and Armenian Dashnaks. It is also said that such an action might shed light on whether Dashnaks attacked the Muslim population in eastern provinces of Turkey.

“Yes, a cooperation of some sorts might be found out,” Virabian said. “Of course Armenians also attacked Muslims; I cannot deny this as a historian. But the reason for those attacks was avenging the massacres of 1896 and 1915.”

Armenian historians have recently been focusing on Germany’s role in the events of 1915. “In the Armenian archives, there are documents from the archives of Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and the United States,” Virabian said. “These documents lay it bare that Germany had a part in the events. Being an ally of the Ottoman Empire, it could have stopped [the events] if it wanted to. German military officers themselves attended the killings.”

On June 15, 2005, the German Bundestag passed a resolution on the events of 1915 that deplored “the inglorious role of the German Reich in the face of the organized expulsion and extermination of Armenians, which it did not try to stop.”

The National Archives of Armenia is preparing to display historical documents on the 1915 events at its building in Yerevan on April 23.

“We have recordings dating back to 1916 of the survivors of the genocide, in addition to detailed documents and even films about the districts and provinces in eastern Turkey,” Virabian said. “We also have letters sent by the Armenian Patriarchate in Turkey to Echmiazin, the religious center of Armenians.”

“I want to ask something to those who say [the events of 1915] were not genocide,” Virabian added. “What has happened to the Armenians of Anatolia? Have they run away somewhere? If so, what is their address?”