Assyrian Identity and the Great War

Assyrian Identity and the Great War PDF Author: Bülent Özdemir
Publisher: Whittles
ISBN: 9781849950602
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
'I agree with Professor Ozdemir that there was no genocide of 'Assyrians', but a total migration of Nestorians (with attendant casualties), and a gradual and partial migration of Syrian Monophysites and Uniates, with fewer casualties'. Dr. Andrew Mango, author of Ataturk: the Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey Until the beginning of the 19th century, Nestorians, Chaldeans and Syrian Christians, belonging to various different branches of Eastern Christianity, lived as small, little-known communities within the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. This book examines the situation of these Eastern Christians during the First World War using a wide range of Western and Ottoman archival sources. At the outbreak of the First World War, the Nestorians, Chaldeans, and Syrian Christians found themselves trapped in the middle of the struggle between the Ottoman Empire and the Entente powers. The Syrian Christians and Chaldeans remained faithful to Ottoman rule and were generally quiescent during the war, while the Nestorians, encouraged by Russia, entered the war as the Entente powers' 'smallest ally'. The Eastern Christian communities appeared on the stage at the most critical period of the First World War, and left a tragic story behind them. Owing to modern claims that a mass murder or 'genocide' of the Nestorians and Syrian Christians was committed during 1915, the issue is no longer obscure and has become an international historical and political problem. This book presents interesting new historical material and provides a fascinating perspective on this issue for all scholars and students of Middle Eastern history and geopolitics that is relevant to the regional situation today.

Assyrian Identity and the Great War

Assyrian Identity and the Great War PDF Author: Bülent Özdemir
Publisher: Whittles
ISBN: 9781849950602
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
'I agree with Professor Ozdemir that there was no genocide of 'Assyrians', but a total migration of Nestorians (with attendant casualties), and a gradual and partial migration of Syrian Monophysites and Uniates, with fewer casualties'. Dr. Andrew Mango, author of Ataturk: the Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey Until the beginning of the 19th century, Nestorians, Chaldeans and Syrian Christians, belonging to various different branches of Eastern Christianity, lived as small, little-known communities within the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. This book examines the situation of these Eastern Christians during the First World War using a wide range of Western and Ottoman archival sources. At the outbreak of the First World War, the Nestorians, Chaldeans, and Syrian Christians found themselves trapped in the middle of the struggle between the Ottoman Empire and the Entente powers. The Syrian Christians and Chaldeans remained faithful to Ottoman rule and were generally quiescent during the war, while the Nestorians, encouraged by Russia, entered the war as the Entente powers' 'smallest ally'. The Eastern Christian communities appeared on the stage at the most critical period of the First World War, and left a tragic story behind them. Owing to modern claims that a mass murder or 'genocide' of the Nestorians and Syrian Christians was committed during 1915, the issue is no longer obscure and has become an international historical and political problem. This book presents interesting new historical material and provides a fascinating perspective on this issue for all scholars and students of Middle Eastern history and geopolitics that is relevant to the regional situation today.

The Great War in the Middle East

The Great War in the Middle East PDF Author: Robert Johnson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351744933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Traditionally, in general studies of the First World War, the Middle East is an arena of combat that has been portrayed in romanticised terms, in stark contrast to the mud, blood, and presumed futility of the Western Front. Battles fought in Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Arabia offered a different narrative on the Great War, one in which the agency of individual figures was less neutered by heavy artillery. As with the historiography of the Western Front, which has been the focus of sustained inquiry since the mid-1960s, such assumptions about the Middle East have come under revision in the last two decades – a reflection of an emerging ‘global turn’ in the history of the First World War. The ‘sideshow’ theatres of the Great War – Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Pacific – have come under much greater scrutiny from historians. The fifteen chapters in this volume cover a broad range of perspectives on the First World War in the Middle East, from strategic planning issues wrestled with by statesmen through to the experience of religious communities trying to survive in war zones. The chapter authors look at their specific topics through a global lens, relating their areas of research to wider arguments on the history of the First World War.

The Great War and the Middle East

The Great War and the Middle East PDF Author: Rob Johnson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191506303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The First World War in the Middle East swept away five hundred years of Ottoman domination. It ushered in new ideologies and radicalised old ones - from Arab nationalism and revolutionary socialism to impassioned forms of atavistic Islamism. It created heroic icons, like the enigmatic Lawrence of Arabia or the modernizing Atatürk, and destroyed others. And it completely re-drew the map of the region, forging a host of new nation states, including Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia - all of them (with the exception of Turkey) under the 'protection' of the victor powers, Britain and France. For many, the self-serving intervention of these powers in the region between 1914 and 1919 is the major reason for the conflicts that have raged there on and off ever since. Yet many of the most commonly accepted assertions about the First World War in the Middle East are more often stated than they are truly tested. Rob Johnson, military historian and former soldier, now seeks to put this right by examining in detail the strategic and operational course of the war in the Middle East. Johnson argues that, far from being a sideshow to the war in Europe, the Middle Eastern conflict was in fact the centre of gravity in a war for imperial domination and prestige. Moreover, contrary to another persistent myth of the First World War in the Middle East, local leaders and their forces were not simply the puppets of the Great Powers in any straightforward sense. The way in which these local forces embraced, resisted, succumbed to, disrupted, or on occasion overturned the plans of the imperialist powers for their own interests in fact played an important role in shaping the immediate aftermath of the conflict - and in laying the foundations for the troubled Middle East that we know today.

Let Them Not Return

Let Them Not Return PDF Author: David Gaunt
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785334999
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The mass killing of Ottoman Armenians is today widely recognized, both within and outside scholarly circles, as an act of genocide. What is less well known, however, is that it took place within a broader context of Ottoman violence against minority groups during and after the First World War. Among those populations decimated were the indigenous Christian Assyrians (also known as Syriacs or Chaldeans) who lived in the borderlands of present-day Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. This volume is the first scholarly edited collection focused on the Assyrian genocide, or “Sayfo” (literally, “sword” in Aramaic), presenting historical, psychological, anthropological, and political perspectives that shed much-needed light on a neglected historical atrocity.

The Assyrian Genocide

The Assyrian Genocide PDF Author: Hannibal Travis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351980254
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
For a brief period, the attention of the international community has focused once again on the plight of religious minorities in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. In particular, the abductions and massacres of Yezidis and Assyrians in the Sinjar, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Baghdad, and Hasakah regions in 2007–2015 raised questions about the prevention of genocide. This book, while principally analyzing the Assyrian genocide of 1914–1925 and its implications for the culture and politics of the region, also raises broader questions concerning the future of religious diversity in the Middle East. It gathers and analyzes the findings of a broad spectrum of historical and scholarly works on Christian identities in the Middle East, genocide studies, international law, and the politics of the late Ottoman Empire, as well as the politics of the Ottomans' British and Russian rivals for power in western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean basin. A key question the book raises is whether the fate of the Assyrians maps onto any of the concepts used within international law and diplomatic history to study genocide and group violence. In this light, the Assyrian genocide stands out as being several times larger, in both absolute terms and relative to the size of the affected group, than the Srebrenica genocide, which is recognized by Turkey as well as by international tribunals and organizations. Including its Armenian and Greek victims, the Ottoman Christian Genocide rivals the Rwandan, Bengali, and Biafran genocides. The book also aims to explore the impact of the genocide period of 1914–1925 on the development or partial unraveling of Assyrian group cohesion, including aspirations to autonomy in the Assyrian areas of northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey. Scholars from around the world have collaborated to approach these research questions by reference to diplomatic and political archives, international legal materials, memoirs, and literary works.

Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities

Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities PDF Author: Joanna Bocheńska
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319930885
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities: The Call of the Cricket offers insight into little-known aspects of the social and cultural activity and changes taking place in different parts of Kurdistan (Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran), linking different theoretical approaches within a postcolonial perspective. The first chapter presents the book’s approach to postcolonial theory and gives a brief introduction to the historical context of Kurdistan. The second, third and fourth chapters focus on the Kurdish context, examining ethical changes as revealed in Kurdish literary and cinema narratives, the socio-political role of the Kurdish cultural institutions and the practices of countering othering of Kurdish migrants living in Istanbul. The fifth chapter offers an analysis of the nineteenth-century missionary translations of the Bible into the Kurdish language. The sixth chapter examines the formation of Chaldo-Assyrian identity in the context of relations with the Kurds after the overthrow of the Ba’ath regime in 2003. The last chapter investigates the question of the Yezidis’ identity, based on Yezidi oral works and statements about their self-identification.

A Companion to Assyria

A Companion to Assyria PDF Author: Eckart Frahm
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118325230
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 648

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Book Description
A Companion to Assyria is a collection of original essays on ancient Assyria written by key international scholars. These new scholarly contributions have substantially reshaped contemporary understanding of society and life in this ancient civilization. The only detailed up-to-date introduction providing a scholarly overview of ancient Assyria in English within the last fifty years Original essays written and edited by a team of respected Assyriology scholars from around the world An in-depth exploration of Assyrian society and life, including the latest thought on cities, art, religion, literature, economy, and technology, and political and military history

Narratives of Identity

Narratives of Identity PDF Author: William Taylor
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443869465
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
The relationship between the Syrian Orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire and the Church of England developed substantially between 1895 and 1914, as contacts between them grew. As the character of this emerging relationship changed, it contributed to the formation of both churches’ own ‘narratives of identity’. The wider context in which this took place was a period of instability in the international order, particularly within the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the outbreak of the First World War, effectively bringing this phase of sustained contact to an end. Narratives of Identity makes use of Syriac, Garshuni, and Arabic primary sources from Syrian Orthodox archives in Turkey and Syria, alongside Ottoman documents from the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul, and a range of English archival sources. The preconceptions of both Churches are analysed, using a philosophical framework provided by the work of Paul Ricoeur, especially his concepts of significant memory (anamnesis), translation, and the search for mutual recognition. Anamnesis and translation were extensively employed in the formation of ‘narratives of identity’ that needed to be understood by both Churches. The identity claims of the Tractarian section of the Church of England and of the Ottoman Syrian Orthodox Church are examined using this framework. The detailed content of the theological dialogue between them, is then examined, and placed in the context of the rapidly changing demography of eastern Anatolia, the Syrian Orthodox ‘heartland’. The late Ottoman state was characterised by an increased instability for all its non-Muslim minorities, which contributed to the perceived threats to Ottoman Syrian Orthodoxy, both from within and without. Finally, a new teleological framework is proposed in order to better understand these exchanges, taking seriously the amamnetic insights of the narratives of identity of both the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of England from 1895 to 1914.

The Fall of the Ottomans

The Fall of the Ottomans PDF Author: Eugene Rogan
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465056695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
"A remarkably readable, judicious and well-researched account" (Financial Times) of World War I in the Middle East By 1914 the powers of Europe were sliding inexorably toward war, and they pulled the Middle East along with them into one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict. Unlike the static killing fields of the Western Front, the war in the Middle East was fast-moving and unpredictable, with the Turks inflicting decisive defeats on the Entente in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Gaza before the tide of battle turned in the Allies' favor. The postwar settlement led to the partition of Ottoman lands, laying the groundwork for the ongoing conflicts that continue to plague the modern Arab world. A sweeping narrative of battles and political intrigue from Gallipoli to Arabia, The Fall of the Ottomans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Great War and the making of the modern Middle East.

Assyrian Identity and the Great War

Assyrian Identity and the Great War PDF Author: Bülent Özdemir
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781849954051
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description