THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OF 1915-1923: A VIEW FROM TBILISI, ISTANBUL AND YEREVAN
On April 19 of the current year in Georgia was held an international conference on “The Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923: a view from Tbilisi, Istanbul and Yerevan” in the French cultural center after A. Duma.
The conference was organized by the Armenian Cooperation Center of Georgia. At the opening ceremony the head of the Center, Karen Elchyan, announced that with every coming year the issue of Genocide becomes more and more actual, moreover, the movement and struggle for this crime to be recognized and condemned includes more and more people.
In the foyer were exhibited historical documents, statistic data and photos of the Genocide victims of 1915-1923.
Historians from Armenian and Georgia appeared with their speeches at the conference. The Expert-Human right advocate Ragip Zarakolu from Turkey (Turkish Human Rights Association) could not come because of his state of health at the last moment. However, his report “They also assassinated poets” was read at the conference and wormy met by the audience.
Lela Dzedzelava, the associate professor of the Tbilisi State University after Javakhishvili, presented her speech on “the Armenian question,” which embraced the whole history of the question, the approach of the western powers to it and its status in the context of the current geopolitical situation.
Another associate professor of the TSU, Ketevan Kutateladze, acquainted the participants with the subject “the issue of the Armenian refugees in the Georgian journal “Klde” and newspaper “Sakartevelo” during 1915.” She took up the matter of helping the Armenian refugees in Georgia and revealed that the Georgian politicians were divided into two parts according to their attitude to the Armenian refugees: National Democrats (“Kled” and “Sakartvelo” are the publications of the above mentioned party) who avoided concentrating a big number of Armenian refugees in Georgia and Social Democrats, who did not pay much attention to it.
Eka Kvachantiradze, the senior research worker of the Institute of History and Ethnology after I. Jivakhishvili, touched upon the subject of “The migration of Armenians into Turkey in 1918” as a result of Turkey’s military expansion in the region.
The candidate of historical science, the “Noravank” Foundation Expert Tamara Vardanyan from Yerevan made a summarized report “Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923. The genocidic policy of Turkey.” At the report were presented the steps of Abdul-Hamid sultan to Armenians and other Christian nations from the standpoint of Young Turks ideology as well as the attitude of the Kemalian government of Turkey to the Armenian question after 1923.
Each report was followed by discussions. Were discussed historical and political problems concerning to the Armenian Genocide and Armenian-Georgian relations.
The conference was participated by Armenian and Georgian intellectuals from Tbilisi, professors from the TSU, Institute of History after Javakhishvili, institutes from Africa and Asia and institutes of oriental studies, the ombudsman’s apparatus representative, and journalists of Georgian press.
The academician Marika Lortkipanidze announced about Turkey’s moral obligation to recognize the Armenian Genocide and her opinion was shared by many of the participants. Almost all the conference participants expressed concern in Panturkist policy and negation of Genocide, which is the fact of continuing genocidic policy. It was unanimously accepted that condemnation of this crime against humanity may serve as a preventive measure against future villainy.
One of the positive estimations to the very event may be considered the fact that the conference was organized independently of the third party, without any mediators.
In the closing of the conference Karen Elchyan assured the participants in continuous character of suchlike conferences on subjects interesting for Armenian and Georgian society and spoke about the organization’s plans to publish the conference materials.
The conference was devoted to the 93-th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire, when was victimized most of the Christian population. Massacres and slaughters are not that seldom in the history of Turkey, but as a result of the Genocide of 1915 were massacred for about one and a half million Armenians, as well as many Greeks and Assyrians. Being the first genocide of the XX century, the Armenian Genocide was preceded by other tragedies – Holocaust, the Genocide in Ruanda, Darfur and others, which were perpetrated only because the ones in blame for the crime against civilization and humanity (this is how the Great Britain, Russian Empire and France condemned the Government of Turkey on May 24, 1915) were not punished. Thus, in spite of Turkey’s initial confession of the crime, later on the state authorities spared no efforts for this page, tragic for the Armenian nation and shameful for Turkey, to be forgotten. Today the issue of the Armenian Genocide is often discussed all over the world on different levels of scientific-political circles. The very question is raised for the first time in Georgia in spite of the country’s direct connection with the events of those years as it was sheltering thousands of survived Armenian refugees.
With reference to the press service of Armenian Cooperation Center of Georgia.
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