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I was in a discussion with a pair of Turkish exchange students and got into an argument about the Armenian Genocide. I am almost absolutely positive their stance is wrong, but I don't have any good sources to reference. Does anybody know solid and respectable works on the Armenian Genocide/Massacre (unfortunately English only)?

Hmm... for once, this is kind of the behaviour we'd like to discourage in History - asking people to be googleboting for you, because the Armenian genocide is fairly well-documented, and so you know you should be looking for documents.
following bibliography would be the best and most solid in factology?

So I am willing to help you out here.

1) Pick the most modern studies.
2) Pick those which are scientific inquiries, like monographies, and which center around investigation of German and Turkish documents on the matter, as well as other documental evidence - photographic, records, people's remembrances; do not pay any attention to short articles in newspapers.

Quibbling over the technical definion of whether it was genocide or just large-scale massacres is pointless in my view, since the scale of the massacre does not change regardless of whether you slap "genocide" or it or not. I am not a fan of how the word "genocide" has been abused in modern, often politically driven historiography and especially in political journalism. But there is undeniable evidence that an extremely large-scale massacre has occured, whcih was perpetrated by the Turkish government and military leadership.

What is the "stance" your turkish students are holding? Oh, and if it's "denial" - you can't really argue against that.

In my experience arguments over the Armenian genocide usually boil down to legalistic squabbling over the definition of 'genocide' itself. I don't think there's any serious doubt that a fuckload of people died, the question is over the intentions of the Ottoman government and the extent of its actions.

Yeah, basically is a whole load of talk about the word "genocide". Hence why I consider it useless to discuss about "genocide" - to be fair, the whole term is ill-defined and thus frequently misused. Just explain the massacre, deliberate nature of the acts, and it's political and racist underpinnings, and it should be enough.

It would never be enough for the deniers (watch out for the line "Turkish people were so hospitable in the past and so they of course could not kill Armenian civilians... all who died were Russian soldiers!"), but for most normal people that's enough regardless of whether it was "genocide" or just a huge ethnic cleansing in the form of a massacre.

Sometimes I wonder if the Turks are embarrassed by the fact that they as a people were pretty trapped in the medieval age at the start of the 20th century, and then do their best to bury their misdeeds as deep as possible, even going as far as denying it.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Sometimes I wonder if the Turks are embarrassed by the fact that they as a people were pretty trapped in the medieval age at the start of the 20th century, and then do their best to bury their misdeeds as deep as possible, even going as far as denying it.

DIng. That's the sound of you hitting the nail on the head. Oh, and they'd also like to forget the west the other ethnic cleansing they engaged in - like against the greeks.

Having said that, unless there is anything new being presented here in the next few hours, I'll lock the topic.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Sometimes I wonder if the Turks are embarrassed by the fact that they as a people were pretty trapped in the medieval age at the start of the 20th century, and then do their best to bury their misdeeds as deep as possible, even going as far as denying it.

Then I have met a few people who said modern day Turkey is not the Ottoman empire, hence it is not our fault.

Thanas wrote:DIng. That's the sound of you hitting the nail on the head. Oh, and they'd also like to forget the west the other ethnic cleansing they engaged in - like against the greeks.

Not to mention, some of the most recent offences were committed in the 50s in the Constantinople Pogrom. There's either too much nationalistic and ethnic pride or they just plainly cannot get over their past.

Thanas wrote:Having said that, unless there is anything new being presented here in the next few hours

I would not object, but I'd like to remind my colleague that this forum is rather slow-paced when it comes to discussion. Perhaps giving several days before locking would be better.

^Or people can simply PM you or me if they want to continue the discussion. We can always unlock topics.

EDIT: And locked.