Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I, and: Turkey's Modernization: Refugees from Nazism and Atatürk's Vision (review)

In spite of the ossification of the competing views of both Ankara and Yerevan, interest in and research on the Armenian Genocide and related experiences continue. A swelling wave of scholarship on the violent years between the Balkan Wars and the establishment of the Turkish Republic and of Soviet Armenia has taken shape, led by a growing number of fine scholars. Through the spadework and activism of individuals such as Taner Akçam, Halil Berktay, Ronald Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek, Dikran Kaligian, Ayhan Akhtar, Fuat Dündar, and Hans Lukas Kieser, historians are beginning to confront the full ramifications of the Ottoman government's decision during the First World War to suppress or liquidate a series of populations in Anatolia. It has become increasingly clear that the destruction of the empire's Armenian citizenry was a vital component of a radical agenda to remake portions of the Ottoman hinterland. The two works under review contribute to this growing body of research and add several important revelations regarding the implementation and legacy of both Ottoman and Turkish state policy.

In his most recent work, David Gaunt sheds light on an often overlooked and underappreciated aspect of the Ottoman deportations during the First World War. At its core lies the fate of a distinctive subset of Anatolia's diverse Eastern Christian population, a group collectively made up of the ancient Chaldean, Nestorian, and Syriac sects of Christianity. Gaunt, a veteran researcher who has investigated the Holocaust in the Baltic states and Belarus, premises the present study on a summary of the complex historical evolution of these three distinct churches. In turning towards the "year of the sword" (or Sayfo, as it was termed by its survivors), Gaunt provides an incredibly detailed and textured reading of the suffering inflicted upon this population.

The author presents the reader with an incredible array of archival sources. Documentary and oral accounts elicited from Ottoman, Arabic-speaking Christian, British, German, French, Russian, and other eye-witnesses leave little doubt as to the intent and outcomes of Istanbul's policies during this period. Gaunt cites in painful detail the suddenness and capriciousness with which the Ottoman state seized upon local Nestorian, Syriac, or Chaldean communities along the Ottoman/ Iranian frontier, condemning tens of thousands to death or exile.

In emphasizing the plight of this small segment of Anatolia's population, Gaunt rightly places the Armenian Genocide and various other aspects of Ottoman policy during the First World War in their broader context. Massacres, Resistance, Protectors continues down the path first blazed by Fuat Dündar in demonstrating that the deportations and atrocities undertaken by the wartime Ottoman government entailed a complete demographic "re-engineering" of Anatolia. As a Christian and primarily non-Turkish-speaking population, these so-called Oriental Christians (like Armenians and Greeks) were targeted for liquidation in the hope of securing the Ottoman lands from foreign imperial interests. Eliminating Nestorians, Syriacs, and Chaldeans, it was hoped, would help consolidate Istanbul's control over this critical portion of the empire. While several Muslim (mostly immigrant) groups in Ottoman Anatolia also fell victim to mass deportation, Gaunt is correct in stressing the degree to which native Christians and European imperialists were paired in the minds of Ottoman administrators, making the very presence of such a potentially "dangerous" population grounds for extermination.

Its survey of various archival and printed sources, as well as the numerous translations and oral accounts woven into the text, make Massacres, Resistance, Protectors an invaluable resource for scholars. Certain conclusions, however, should not be accepted uncritically. Although it is commonly accepted that Istanbul's prime motivation for decimating the Christian communities of Anatolia lay in the desire...