| Vahakn N. Dadrian | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 26, 1926 Constantinople |
| Fields | Sociology |
| Institutions | Zoryan Institute |
| Notable awards | Movses Khorenatsi medal of Armenia (1998) President of the Republic Prize Gold Medal of Armenia (2009) Citation of Merit on the 80th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide (1995) International Association of Genocide Scholars, Lifetime Achievement Award (2005) St. Sahag and St. Mesrob Medal and Encyclical from His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians (2005) Nagorno Karabakh Republic Ministry of Education, Atayan Memorial Gold Medal (2000)[1] |
Vahakn N. Dadrian (Armenian: Վահագն Տատրյան; born May 26, 1926 in Constantinople),[2] currently the director of Genocide Research at Zoryan Institute, is a professor of sociology, and an internationally-renowned expert on the Armenian genocide.[3]
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Dadrian first studied mathematics at the University of Berlin, after which he decided to switch to a completely different field, and studied history at the University of Vienna, and later, international law at the University of Zürich. He completed his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.
The particularity of Dadrian's research is that by mastering many languages, including German, English, French, Turkish, Ottoman Turkish and Armenian; he has researched archives of different countries, and extensively studied materials in various languages in a way that very few, if anyone has done before him. He was awarded an honorary doctorate degree for his research in the field of Armenian Genocide Studies by the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, and later, in 1998, he was made a member of the Academy and honored by the President of Armenia, the republic's highest cultural award, the Khorenatzi medal. In 1999, Dadrian was awarded on behalf of the Holy See of Cilicia the Mesrob Mashdots Medal. [4] The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation sponsored him as director of a large Genocide study project, which culminated with the publication of articles, mainly in the Holocaust and Genocide studies magazines.
While Dadrian's specialization is genocide in general, most of his study concerns the Armenian genocide, even though he has publications regarding such cases as the Holocaust and the destruction of the American Indians.
Dadrian's latest project is the translation of the Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919-20 from Ottoman Turkish to English.
One of the main critics of Dadrian is Guenter Lewy, who, in a response to critics equating Lewy's position on the Armenian genocide "with that of the Holocaust-denier David Irving", accuses Dadrian of being "guilty of willful mistranslations, selective quotations, and other serious violations of scholarly ethics."[5] In his book, Guenter Lewy mentions, among others, V. N. Dadrian's defense of the authenticity of the book published by Mevlanzade Rifat, and of the "Ten Commandments" (both regarded as dubious, or fakes, even by some supporters of "genocide" label, because the analysis by Canadian historian Gwynne Dyer in 1973), V. N. Dadrian's allegations against Turkish sociologist Ziya Gökalp, the use of Jean Naslian's Memoirs (criticized as unreliable even by Dashnak intellectual James H. Tashjian and pro-Dashnak writer Yves Ternon) praising of Turkish court-martial of 1919-1920 (whose material is entirely lost, and which did not allow to the defendants the right of cross-examination of testimonies and documents produced by the prosecution), and misleading references to writings of Esref Kuscubasi Bey and German General Felix Guse.[6] Similarly, Malcolm E. Yapp, professor emeritus at London University, estimates that V. Dadrian's method "is not that of an historian trying to find out what happened and why but that of a lawyer assembling the case for the prosecution in an adversarial system";[7] Mary Schaeffer Conroy, professor of Russian history at Colorado University, Denver, criticizes V. N. Dadrian's inaccuracies, selective use of sources and failure to use Turkish archives, then concludes: "This book is more a work of journalism than solid history and is not recommended".[8]
Hilmar Kaiser, a German historian who supports the "genocide" label for Armenian case, said however that "serious scholars should be cautioned against accepting all of Dadrian's statements at face value", because his frequent "misleading quotations" and the "selective use of sources".[9] Donald Bloxham expresses a similar view: the accusations leveled by V. Dadrian "are often simply unfounded"; especially, "the idea of a German role in the formation of genocidal policy [...] has no basis in the available documentation";[10] and if V. Dadrian supports the authenticity of the so-called "Ten Commandments", on the other hand, "Most serious historians accept that this document is dubious at best, and probably a fake. It was the subject of controversy some twenty years before Dadrian rediscovered it for publication in 1993. The document's donor originally offered it for sale to the British authorities in February 1919, a time when numerous fraudulent documents were in circulation. Reference to this supposed 'smoking gun' is tellingly absent in the best recent scholarship on the development of the genocide by the likes of Hans-Lukas Kieser, Hilmar Kaiser, Taner Akcam, Halil Berktay and Ronald Suny."[11] Clive Foss considers that V. Dadrian's conclusions are "based on circumstantial and often dubious evidence" and that he "has simply failed to make his case".[12][13]
In 1991, Dadrian was dismissed from State University College at Geneseo for sexual harassment after a female student had complained he had kissed her on the lips. Prior to this, a college arbitrator had found him guilty on four charges of sexual harassment in 1981, but had allowed him to return to work because the arbitrator believed they were singular events that would not happen again.[14]
A few typos and small factual errors, such as the implication that Russian-Ottoman relations were always adversarial in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mar the book. However, the most egregious flaws in this book are its polemical tone, its sketchiness, and its failure to use Turkish archival sources. Therefore, while the book delivers intriguing insights into Ottoman-Kurdish relations and the views of individual Turkish statesmen regarding Armenians, and while it suggests convincing theories for Turkish massacres of Armenians, it does not convincingly document these theories. It is thus unsatisfying as a whole. This book is more a work of journalism than solid history and is not recommended.
Another reviewer finds likewise that the book is "based on circumstantial and often dubious evidence" and that the author "has simply failed to make his case."