Abstract
Chapter 2 discusses three main denialist arguments that the Talat Pasha Telegrams and Naim’s memoirs are forgeries: (1) there never was an Ottoman official by the name of Naim Efendi; (2) a non-existent person could not pen memoirs; (3) the cables attributed to Talat Pasha and accompanying the Naim Efendi memoirs were, therefore, Armenian forgeries. Using original, authentic Ottoman documents, this chapter shows that there was indeed a bureaucrat by the name of Naim Efendi and that he penned a memoir.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Dickran H. Boyajian, Armenia: The Case for a Forgotten Genocide (Westwood, NJ: Educational Book Crafters, 1972).
- 2.
There were ongoing massacres during Abdul Hamid reign. For an extensive bibliograpy on the topic, see George N. Shirinian, “The Armenian Massacres of 1894–1897: A Bibliography,” Armenian Review, 47, nos. 1–2 (2001): 113–164.
- 3.
Throughout the text, different terms are used for the same Office: “Office of Deportation,” “Director of Tribal and Immigrant Settlement Affairs,” “Director-General of Immigrant Affairs,” etc., because different people refer to the agency in different ways. The main office was in Istanbul and it also had a branch in Aleppo.
- 4.
The number 52 was given by Krikor Guerguerian himself, who, in 1965, published an article on the subject in Armenian under his nom de plume, “Krieger,” “Aram Andoniani Hradaragadz Turk Bashdonagan Vaverakreru Vaveraganutyunı” [The Truth About the Official Turkish [sic] Documents published by Aram Andonian], Zartonk Gazetesi (publ.), 1915–1965 Hushamadyan Medz Yegherni [Album of the Great Disaster], (Beirut: Atlas, 1965), 238–239. In 1986, Vahakn Dadrian edited and corrected several errors in Guerguerian’s list and prepared a new annotated list of 52 documents. Vahakn N. Dadrian, “The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 18, no. 3 (August 1986): 311–360, 316–317. In fact, whether or not certain quotations of Naim should or should not be counted as “documents” should be the subject of debate. Some of the descriptions that both Guerguerian and Dadrian consider “documents” consist more of Naim’s recounting of information and his recollections of events than of copies of actual documents. Without belaboring the issue further here, we use the figure 52.
- 5.
Aram Andonian wrote memoirs about his arrest on 24 April 1915 and on his subsequent odyssey over the years of deportation and war. See Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian (ed.), Exile, Trauma and Death.
- 6.
We do not know the exact number of the documents that Naim sold to Andonian. Guerguerian claimed that Naim actually delivered three separate original cables dealing with the murder of the Armenian parliamentary deputy Krikor Zohrab, which would make 21 documents all together. Krieger, “Aram Andoniani Hradaragadz Turk Başdonagan Vaverakreru,” 236. However, the number of documents related to Zohrab in the Guerguerian archive is in total six. How many of these documents were given by Naim, or how many of them came through other channels, we do not know. We use the number 24 because it is more accurate.
- 7.
In this work, we do not discuss the authenticity of Şakir’s two letters because they are not relevant for Naim’s memoirs. However, these letters are authentic, not only because the content of the letters is corroborated by information that is accumulated in Armenian Genocide research, but also because Şakir’s signature under the letters is original. Şakir was also a columnist in one of the Unionist newspapers, Şurayı Ümmet (1902–1910), and used his signature under his columns. We compared Şakir’s signature in the letters with those in the newspaper. They are the same, leaving no room for doubt.
- 8.
See note 33 in chapter “Preface.”
- 9.
Naim Efendi, Hatırat [Memoir], [15]. The page numbers are on the original document and can be seen in the text published here.
- 10.
Aram Andonian, Medz Vojirě, 208, 210. There is a photographic image of this document and it contains only numbers (p. 217). A deciphered version was published by Andonian in Naim’s Memoirs. Unfortunately, in the version in our possession, this part of the text is missing.
- 11.
Hatırat [20].
- 12.
The term eşhası malume is used in official Ottoman telegrams to refer to Armenians.
- 13.
Hatırat [07].
- 14.
Hatırat [14].
- 15.
Şinasi Orel ve Süreyya Yuca, Ermenilerce Talat Paşa’ya Atfedilen Telgrafların Gerçek Yüzü (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1983). Neither Orel or Yuca are scholars; Orel was a well-known diplomat. They have not published any other works. It is doubtful that a work examining what are a number of highly difficult technical questions in a considerably detailed and professional manner would have actually been written by two authors who had never before (nor after) put pen to page in such a fashion. For this reason, we felt the need to research the matter more deeply, and this is what we discovered: as we suspected, their book was not actually written by them, but was instead prepared by a team of researchers under the direction of the Turkish Foreign Ministry. The ministry official Kamuran Gürün (author of the widely-distributed work The Armenian File defending the Turkish “official version” of history) played a crucial role in its publication. Initially, it was thought to publish the work without authorship as a sort of government issued “white paper,” but the names of Orel and Yuca, both of whom served on the aforementioned team, were eventually given authorship.
The work itself has been deemed by Turkish Foreign Ministry officials to be one of the most important works on the Armenian question, and when one considers its decades-long impact on the field of Armenian Genocide studies, the officials’ estimation of the book’s value cannot be denied.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Akçam, T. (2018). Introduction. In: Killing Orders. Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69787-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69787-1_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69786-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69787-1
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)