THE ZORYAN INSTITUTE Newsletter - Azad-Hye

Vahakn Dadrian, Zoryan’s Director of Genocide Research,and Taner Akçam, renowned Turkish Sociologistand Historian, are collaborating to present the resultsof their archival research on the Takvim-i Vekâyi.The Takvim-i Vekâyi, the official gazette of the Ottomangovernment, provides the only official record of themilitary tribunals prosecuting the Armenian Genocide.It documents the indictments, court sittings and verdictsfor thirteen trials, whichtook place 1919-1922 inIstanbul, of individuals accusedof crimes against theArmenians in 1915. Thesemilitary tribunals were extensiveand represent one of theperiod’s most important politicalundertakings. The Takvim-iVekâyi is a primesource of legal and eyewitnesstestimony for theGenocide.The gazette was printed in Arabic script and is currentlydispersed in different libraries throughout theworld. It is very difficult to get a complete collectionowing to the attempts of the Turkish state to systematicallyremove as many of the existing issues fromcirculation as possible. However, working with the Institutefor the last five years, the authors have beenResearchCurrent Major Research Project:Building a Common Body of Knowledge (CBK)True peace can be achieved only if Turkey and Armeniacan engage one another in open dialogue abouttheir past. As their narratives are so politicized andentrenched, this will not happen without having a commonbasis of historical facts that are universally recognized.Zoryan is working to develop this material in collaborationwith university research centres. The objectiveis to provide knowledge on the history of theevents surrounding 1915, in both Turkish and English,that will be shared by Turkish and Armenian civil societiesand academia. To achieve this, teams of scholars,translators and editors are engaged in locating, collecting,researching, analyzing, editing, translating, andpublishing this material in Turkish, English and otherVahakn Dadrian and Taner Akçam Joint ProjectProfessors Akçam and Dadrian teaching at the Genocideand Human Rights University ProgramPage Twolanguages. This enormous, long-term project is basedon Ottoman, German and various other archival materialsamounting to thousands of pages, and will takemany years to complete.The more such documents are analyzed and madeavailable in modern Turkish and English, the moreknowledge will be created and the greater the empoweringof Turkish civil society to question the officialstate narrative and restore accurate history and memory.Such a common body of knowledge, accessible toall, can serve as a catalyst for dialogue, leading eventuallyto normalization of relations between the twosocieties in their homelands and their diasporas.able to compile a complete collection of these gazettes,have transliterated them into modern Turkish,and translated them into English.The Key Indictment focused on the Cabinet Ministersand top leaders of the Committee for Union and Progress(CUP). The main feature of the Key Indictment isthe set of forty-one documents contained within it.Most of these documents consist of decoded telegramssent to and from theInterior Minister (Talât), theIIIrd and IVth Army Cdr., theDeputy Cdr. of the Vth ArmyCorps and the XVth Divisionfrom Ankara province, theDirectors of the Special Organization,two Military Governorsof Istanbul, and a hostof governors and districtcommissioners.The authors provide readerswith an authoritative Englishtranslation, accompanied by an extensive historicaland legal introduction. Against the ongoing industry ofdenial undertaken by the Turkish state and the contemporarypolitical background of independent Armeniain its relation to Turkey, this record assumes criticalrelevance. The Turkish edition will appear soon andthe English edition will follow shortly thereafter.