Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence Against the Armenians, 1789-2009, Gocek Fatma Muge, Muge Gocek Fatma

In Denial of Violence, Fatma M�ge G��ek seeks to decipher the roots of this disavowal. To capture the negotiation of meaning that leads to denial, G��ek undertook a qualitative analysis of 315 memoirs published in Turkey from 1789 to 2009 in addition to numerous secondary sources, journals, and newspapers. She argues that denial is a multi-layered, historical process with four distinct yet overlapping components: the structural elements of collective violence and situated modernity on one side, and the emotional elements of collective emotions and legitimating events on the other. In the Turkish case, denial emerged through four stages: (i) the initial imperial denial of the origins of the collective violence committed against the Armenians commenced in 1789 and continued until 1907; (ii) the Young Turk denial of the act of violence lasted for a decade from 1908 to 1918; (iii) early republican denial of the actors of violence took place from 1919 to 1973; and (iv) the late republican denial of the responsibility for the collective violence started in 1974 and continues today.