Let Them Not Return: Sayfo – The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire

Published by Berghahn Books 2017

Let Them Not Return

Sayfo – The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire

Edited by: David Gaunt , Naures Atto and Soner O. Barthoma

Volume 26 in the series War and Genocide

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781785334993

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Author / Editor information

David Gaunt is Professor of History at the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University, and a member of the European Academy. He has written extensively on mass violence and genocide in Eastern Europe and in the Ottoman Empire. His Massacres, Resistors, Protectors (2006) is considered the seminal work on the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean genocide.

Naures Atto is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in World Christianities and their Diaspora in the European Context and Principal Investigator in the Aramaic Online Project at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Hostages in the Homeland, Orphans in the Diaspora: Identity Discourses among the Assyrian/Syriac elites in the European Diaspora (2011).

Soner O. Barthoma is an independent researcher in the field of Political Science and co-coordinator of the Erasmus+ Aramaic Online Project at Freie Universität Berlin. He is the author of several articles about the modern history of Assyrians in Turkey.

David Gaunt is Professor of History at the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University, and a member of the European Academy. He has written extensively on mass violence and genocide in Eastern Europe and in the Ottoman Empire. His Massacres, Resistors, Protectors (2006) is considered the seminal work on the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean genocide.

Reviews

“This reviewer is more than impressed with the effort and care required to produce what amounts to a syllabus of cogent explorations of one of the most shameful chapters known to man…Let Them Not Return is an invaluable publication providing a great deal of information in support of what promises to be a long and arduous campaign to obtain Turkish confirmation of the genocide of its Christian minorities, particularly that of the lesser publicized Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. With its abundant notes and a rich bibliography accompanying each chapter, this book deserves to grace the shelf of every caring Assyrian.” • Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies

“The book is an excellent contribution in presenting new ideas through its 12 chapters, to study the case of Sayfo by dedicated researches, especially concerning the trauma effect of the post-genocide survivors. Indeed, this is an important book and necessary to be consulted to understand various aspects concerning many themes regarding Christians in the Middle East.” • Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Journal

“This volume does not try to arrive at a conclusive evaluation. But it provides three well thought-out steps for future research in… completely unknown topic in Osman history during the First World War.” • H-Soz-Kult

“With a list of top-notch contributors, this is an excellent addition to what little is currently available on this under-researched genocide. The organization of the contributions and the volume’s breadth of scope are particularly impressive.” • Mark Levene, University of Southampton

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	x
Introduction: Contextualizing the Sayfo in the First World War David Gaunt, Naures Atto and Soner O. Barthoma Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 How Armenian was the 1915 Genocide? Ugur Ümit Üngör Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
Chapter 2 Sayfo Genocide: The Culmination of an Anatolian Culture of Violence David Gaunt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
Chapter 3 The Resistance of Urmia Assyrians to Violence at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Florence Hellot-Bellier Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
Chapter 4 Mor Dionysios ‘Abd an-Nur Aslan: Church Leader during a Genocide Jan J. Van Ginkel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
Chapter 5 Syriac Orthodox Leadership in the Post-Genocide Period (1918–26) and the Removal of the Patriarchate from Turkey Naures Atto and Soner O. Barthoma Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
Chapter 6 Sayfo, Firman, Qafle: The First World War from the Perspective of Syriac Christians Shabo Talay Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
Chapter 7 A Historical Note of October 1915 Written in Dayro D-Zafaran (Deyrulzafaran) Sebastian Brock Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
Chapter 8 Interpretation of the ‘Sayfo’ in Gallo Shabo’s Poem Simon Birol Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
Chapter 9 The Psychological Legacy of the Sayfo: An Inter-generational Transmission of Fear and Distrust Önver A. Cetrez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	178
Chapter 10 Sayfo and Denialism: A New Field of Activity for Agents of the Turkish Republic Racho Donef Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
Chapter 11 Turkey’s Key Arguments in Denying the Assyrian Genocide Abdulmesih BarAbraham Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Chapter 12 Who Killed Whom? A Comparison of Political Discussions in France and Sweden about the Genocide of 1915 Christophe Premat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 274
Keywords: Genocide History; History: 20th Century to Present

eBook

Published: May 1, 2017
ISBN: 9781785334993