Orientalism, the ‘Terrible Turk’ and Genocide

Bibliographic Data

ID12980222
AuthorsMehmet Yavuz (0000-0001-9870-0694, University of Utah, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume23
Issue2
Pages111-126
Publication date2014-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMiddle East Critique (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1943-6149 • E-ISSN: 1943-6157
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/19436149.2014.905082
OpenAlexW1994912641
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited8

This article examines the connections between Orientalism and the construction of the stereotypic image, the ‘terrible Turk.’ It focuses on the major politically motivated texts that were produced during the First World War as war propaganda. These texts portrayed Turks as the enemy of civilization at a time when Britain and later the United States were at war with the Ottoman Empire, which unofficially was known as Turkey in the West. In the years after the First World War, the essentially racist characterizations of Turks in these polemical texts made them undiplomatic and they essentially were forgotten. In recent decades, however, diverse international actors have been recycling these texts in a concerted effort to delegitimize the Republic of Turkey and to ‘otherize’ Turks as ‘genocidal’ for deporting the Armenian population out of eastern Anatolia in 1915. By examining the motives behind both the Armenian and Turkish reframing of the 1915 events as a Turkish genocide campaign against Armenians or an Armenian mezalim [atrocity] against Muslims, the article criticizes both approaches and provides a new framework for mutual understanding between Christians and Muslims

Ancient history · Armenian · Civilization · Empire · Genocide · Orientalism · Political science · Population · Sociology · Turkish · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Philosophy · Turkey's Politics and Society · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact

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