Contending Interpretations Concerning the Armenian Genocide: Continuity and Conspiracy, Discontinuity and Cumulative Radicalization

Some historians who write about and document the Armenian Genocide may still differ on the significance of the massacres of 1894–1896 and on the process that initiated the mass murder during and following the First World War. One group of historians argues that the genocide was, in effect, a continuation of the 1894–1896 massacres and that its origins were rooted in Islam and Ottoman culture. A second group of historians contends that the genocide was qualitatively different from the massacres and that it was driven by a policy of radicalization during the First World War. This historiographical disagreement has some parallels to that between historians of the Holocaust who stress the role of German culture and the ideology of the leadership as against those who emphasize the cumulative radicalization of Nazi policy that was spurred by the Second World War. The second view of the Armenian Genocide is, in effect, a critique of the first. After examining these two approaches, this article concludes with an evaluation of some of the assumptions of the second view.