Genocide: - DIIS

Torben Jørgensen
received extensive economic and military support from the USA, ending
with membership of NATO in 1952. During the Cold War the role played
by Turkey was important for the US which was in need of military bases
and listening posts along the Turkish-Soviet border. Turkey, however, was
sensitive to possible criticism concerning its incorporation into NATO. The
publication in 1953 of the Turkish historian Esad Uras’ book on the Armenian
question is therefore probably to be seen as an attempt to anticipate
criticism. 30 As a result of the Holocaust, such criticism had become more
likely since the attention of the whole world had thereby been drawn to
the problem of genocide. Uras’ book was able to provide suitable answers
to unpleasant questions put to Turkish diplomats in the West. It had also
become important to make the most of the growing anticommunism and
the rising interest in the US in seeking Turkey’s friendship as a part of the
Cold War strategy. It is hardly a coincidence that Uras several times says
that the weapons that the Turkish troops confi scated from the Armenians
in 1915 were “made in the Soviet Union”. 31 This book was the fi rst attempt
after the establishment of the republic, to directly use the Armenians as its
theme and therefore had considerable infl uence.
Uras stresses that the Armenians had never had a proper state. They had
always stood in a relation of inferiority to other powers. Uras uses a special
methodical argumentation. He comments on several early Armenian
historians who to a great extent used oral myths and traditions. 32 Uras
raises questions regarding the validity of the whole of Armenian history
by presenting the most easily criticisable assertions of these historians, the
false premise of course being that it is impossible to reconstruct Armenian
history solely on the basis of the work of Armenian historians. It is also
necessary to include for example Roman, Greek and other classic histori-
30 Esad Uras (1953), Tahrihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni. Ankara. The book was re-published in an extended
version in 1976 and – extended further – in English: Esad Uras (1988), The Armenians
in History and the Armenian Question. Istanbul. Concerning the Turkish versions see Foss
(1922), p. 14 and note 22.
31 Uras (1988), p. 884.
32 These historians lived from the 5th through to the 11th centuries, e.g. Moses of Koren. Uras
(1988), p. 225-44.
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