The Politics of Naming the Armenian Genocide, Vartan Matiossian (softcover)

This book explores the genealogy of the concept of ‘Medz Yeghern’ (‘Great Crime’), the widely used Armenian term for the annihilation of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire between the years 1915-1923. The author has tackled a subject both omitted and misinterpreted in historiography, taking a combined historical, linguistic, literary, and political perspective. He has drawn upon an impressive collection of Armenian literary and periodical sources, as well as other European languages to trace the development of the concepts pertaining to mass killing and genocide of Armenians from the ancient to the modern periods. The book is an insightful exploration of the politics of naming a catastrophic historical event, with a careful analysis of the use and abuse of Medz Yeghern by the Vatican, Turkey and the US over the past two decades and its repercussions in the Armenian realm.