Study of the Armenian Genocide
Historical work on the genocide has been almost entirely pro-Armenian or pro-Turkish and therefore implicated in a political conflict still unresolved today. Armenian historians seek to exorcise the trauma experienced by earlier generations, to pass on the memory of this trauma, and to present the genocide of the Armenians as the founding element of contemporary Armenian identity.
British historian Arnold Toynbee, whose 1917 report remains a critical primary source, changed his evaluation later in life, concluding, "These…Armenian political aspirations had not been legitimate....Their aspirations did not merely threaten to break up the Turkish Empire; they could not be fulfilled without doing grave injustice to the Turkish people itself."
For Turkish historians, supporting the national republican myth is essential to preserving Turkish national unity. The usual Turkish argument is that the deportations were necessary because the Armenians had allied themselves with the Russian army in wartime, and argue that around 600,000 Armenians perished during the marches, largely due to isolated massacres, disease, or malnourishment. "There was no genocide committed against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire before or during World War I." Dissident historians in Turkey are trying to reclaim the Armenians as part of Ottoman and Turkish history and acknowledge the wrongs done to the Armenians as a condition for reconciliation with them on the basis of confidence in Turkish national unity.
Defining genocide
Hebrew University scholar Yehuda Bauer suggests of the Armenian Genocide, "This is the closest parallel to the Holocaust."[145] He nonetheless distinguishes several key differences between the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, particularly in regard to motivation:
[T]he Nazis saw the Jews as the central problem of world history. Upon its solution depended the future of mankind. Unless International Jewry was defeated, human civilization would not survive. The attitude towards the Jews had in it important elements of pseudo-religion. There was no such motivation present in the Armenian case; Armenians were to be annihilated for power-political reasons, and in Turkey only... The differences between the holocaust and the Armenian massacres are less important than the similarities—and even if the Armenian case is not seen as a holocaust in the extreme form which it took towards Jews, it is certainly the nearest thing to it.
Bauer has also suggested that the Armenian Genocide is best understood, not as having begun in 1915, but rather as "an ongoing genocide, from 1896, through 1908/9, through World War I and right up to 1923." Lucy Dawidowicz also alludes to these earlier massacres as at least as significant as WWI era events:
In 1897, when the Dreyfus Affair was tearing France apart, Bernard Lazare, a French Jew active in Dreyfus's defense, addressed a group of Jewish students in Paris on the subject of anti-Semitism. "For the Christian peoples," he remarked, "an Armenian solution" to their Jew-hatred was available. He was referring to the Turkish massacres of Armenians, which in their extent and horror most closely approximated the murder of European Jews. But, Lazare went on, "their sensibilities cannot allow them to envisage that." The once unthinkable "Armenian solution" became, in our time, the achievable "Final Solution," the Nazi code name for the annihilation of the European Jews.
Law professor Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide" in 1943, has stated that he did so with the fate of the Armenians in mind, explaining that "it happened so many times... First to the Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action." Several international organizations have conducted studies of the events, each in turn determining that the term "genocide" aptly describes "the Ottoman massacre of Armenians in 1915–1916." Among the organizations affirming this conclusion are the International Center for Transitional Justice, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the United Nations' Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.[149][150] One public figure who objected to the use of the term "genocide" was Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who was subsequently rebutted by Dr Israel Charny, executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem.
In 2002, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) was asked by the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission to provide a report on the applicability of the Genocide Convention to the controversy. An independent legal counsel drafted memorandum for the ICTJ stated that in the opinion of the independent legal counsel "legal scholars as well as historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be justified in continuing to so describe [the events as genocide]"[152] and further that the Republic of Turkey was not liable for the event.[citation needed]
In 2005, the International Association of Genocide Scholars affirmed that scholarly evidence revealed the "Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens – an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches" and condemned Turkish attempts to deny its factual and moral reality. In 2007, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity produced a letter signed by 53 Nobel Laureates re-affirming the Genocide Scholars' conclusion that the 1915 killings of Armenians constituted genocide.
While some consider denial to be a form of hate speech or politically minded historical revisionism, several western academics have expressed doubts as to the genocidal character of the events. The most important counterpoint may be that of British scholar Bernard Lewis. While he had once written of "the terrible holocaust of 1915, when a million and a half Armenians perished", he later came to believe that the term "genocide" was distinctly inaccurate, because the "tremendous massacres" were not "a deliberate preconceived decision of the Turkish government." This opinion has been joined by Guenter Lewy.
Academic views within the Republic of Turkey are often at odds with international consensus: this may partly stem from the fact that to acknowledge the Armenian genocide in Turkey carries with it a risk of criminal prosecution. Many Turkish intellectuals have been prosecuted for characterizing the massacres as genocide.
Bat Ye'or has suggested that "the genocide of the Armenians was a jihad." Ye'or holds jihad and what she calls "dhimmitude" to be among the "principles and values" that led to the Armenian Genocide. This perspective is challenged by Fà'iz el-Ghusein, a Bedouin Arab witness of the Armenian persecution, whose 1918 treatise aimed "to refute beforehand inventions and slanders against the Faith of Islam and against Moslems generally... [W]hat the Armenians have suffered is to be attributed to the Committee of Union and Progress... It has been due to their nationalist fanaticism and their jealousy of the Armenians, and to these alone; the Faith of Islam is guiltless of their deeds." Arnold Toynbee writes that "the Young Turks made Pan-Islamism and Turkish Nationalism work together for their ends, but the development of their policy shows the Islamic element receding and the Nationalist gaining ground." Toynbee, and various other sources, report that many Armenians were spared death by marrying into Turkish families or converting to Islam. El-Ghusein points out that many converts were put to death, concerned that Westerners would come to regard the "extermination of the Armenians" as "a black stain on the history of Islam, which ages will not efface." In one instance, when an Islamic leader appealed to spare Armenian converts to Islam, El-Ghusein quotes a government functionary as responding that "politics have no religion", before sending the converts to their deaths.
Noam Chomsky has suggested that, rather than the Armenian Genocide having been relegated to the periphery of public awareness, "more people are aware of the Armenian genocide during the First World War than are aware of the Indonesian genocide in 1965". Taner Akçam's A Shameful Act has contextualized the Armenian Genocide with the desperate Ottoman struggle at Gallipoli, suggesting that panic of imminent destruction caused Ottoman authorities to opt for deportation and extermination.[172]
On October 10, 2009 in Zurich, despite overwhelming opposition by Armenians in Armenia and in the Diaspora, the Armenian government signed the Armenia-Turkey Protocols, one of the provisions of which stipulates the establishment of a research commission "to study the two country's historical grievances."[173] The agreement must still be ratified by the parliaments of both countries in order to take effect.
Just a day before, on 9 October 2009 in London, Geoffrey Robertson QC, eminent jurist, barrister and judge, published a detailed legal opinion, entitled "Was there an Armenian Genocide?" which comprehensively and methodically demolished the British Government's reasons for not formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide.[neutrality is disputed]
Republic of Turkey and the Genocide
It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article titled Republic of Turkey and the Armenian Genocide.
Denial of the Armenian Genocide and Insulting Turkishness
According to Kemal Çiçek, the head of the Armenian Research Group at the Turkish Historical Society, in Turkey there is no official thesis on the Armenian issue. The Republic of Turkey's formal stance is that the deaths of Armenians during the "relocation" or "deportation" cannot aptly be deemed "genocide," a position that has been supported with a plethora of diverging justifications: that the killings were not deliberate or were not governmentally orchestrated, that the killings were justified because Armenians posed a Russian-sympathizing threat as a cultural group, that Armenians merely starved, or any of various characterizations recalling marauding "Armenian gangs." Some suggestions seek to invalidate the genocide on semantic or anachronistic grounds (the word "genocide" was not coined until 1943). Turkish World War I casualty figures are often cited to mitigate the effect of the number of Armenian dead.
Turkish governmental sources have asserted that the historically demonstrated "tolerance of Turkish people" itself renders the Armenian Genocide an impossibility. One military document leverages 11th century history to cast doubt on the Armenian Genocide: "It was the Seljuk Turks who saved the Armenians that came under the Turkish domination in 1071 from the Byzantine persecution and granted them the right to live as a man should." A Der Spiegel article addressed this modern Turkish conception of history thus:
"Would you admit to the crimes of your grandfathers, if these crimes didn't really happen?" asked ambassador Öymen. But the problem lies precisely in this question, says Hrant Dink, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Istanbul-based Armenian weekly Agos. Turkey's bureaucratic elite have never really shed themselves of the Ottoman tradition — in the perpetrators, they see their fathers, whose honor they seek to defend. This tradition instills a sense of identity in Turkish nationalists — both from the left and the right, and it is passed on from generation to generation through the school system. This tradition also requires an antipole against which it could define itself. Since the times of the Ottoman Empire, religious minorities have been pushed into this role.
In 2007, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a circular that calls the government institutions to use "1915 Events" (in Turkish, 1915 Olayları) phrase instead of the "so-called Armenian genocide" (in Turkish, sözde Ermeni soykırımı) phrase. Turkey has started an "Initiative to Resolve Armenian Allegations Regarding 1915", by using archives in Turkey, Armenia and other countries. Armenian president Robert Kocharian rejected this offer by saying, "It is the responsibility of governments to develop bilateral relations and we do not have the right to delegate that responsibility to historians. That is why we have proposed and propose again that, without pre-conditions, we establish normal relations between our two countries."
Additionally, Turkish foreign minister of the time, Abdullah Gül, invited the United States and other countries to contribute to such a commission by appointing scholars to "investigate this tragedy and open ways for Turks and Armenians to come together". The Turkish government continues to protest against the formal recognition of the genocide by other countries and to dispute that there ever was a genocide.
Controversies
Efforts by the Turkish government and its agents to quash mention of the genocide have resulted in numerous scholarly, diplomatic, political and legal controversies. Prosecutors acting on their own initiative have utilized Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code prohibiting "insulting Turkishness" to silence a number of prominent Turkish intellectuals who spoke of atrocities suffered by Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire (as of yet, most of these cases have been dismissed). These prosecutions have often been accompanied by hate campaigns and threats, as was the case for Hrant Dink, who was prosecuted three times for "denigrating Turkishness", and murdered in 2007. Later, photographs of the assassin being honored as a hero while in police custody, posing in front of the Turkish flag with grinning policemen, gave the academic community still more pause in regard to engaging the Armenian issue. The leading lawyer behind the prosecutions, Kemal Kerinçsiz, is accused of plotting to overthrow the government as being a member of the alleged Ergenekon network.
In 1982, the Israeli Foreign Ministry attempted to prevent an international conference on genocide, held in Tel Aviv, from including any mention of the Armenian Genocide. Several reports suggested that Turkey had warned that Turkish Jews might face "reprisals", if the conference permitted Armenian participation. This charge was "categorically denied" by Turkey; the Israeli Foreign Ministry supported Turkey in this protestation that there had been no threats against Jews, suggesting that its misgivings as to the genocide conference were based on considerations "vital to the Jewish nation."
In the same year (1982), the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington D.C. (ITS) was established by a $3 million grant from the Turkish Government. Israel Charny identifies ITS and some of its foremost deniers of the Armenian genocide, such as Stanford Shaw, Heath W. Lowry, and Justin McCarthy, as the Turkish government's principal agency in USA for promoting research on Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, but also denial of the Armenian Genocide.
A 1989 U.S. Senate proposal to recognize the Armenian Genocide stoked the ire of Turkey. The proposal occurred in the context of the publication of internal U.S. documents which laid out a State Department official's eyewitness report that "thousands and thousands of Armenians, mostly innocent and helpless women and children, were butchered", in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey responded by blocking United States Navy visits to Turkey and suspending some U.S. military training facilities on Turkish territory. The American scholar who assembled the U.S. archive documents for publication went into hiding after a series of anonymous threats.
In 1990, psychologist Robert Jay Lifton received a letter from the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, questioning his inclusion of references to the Armenian Genocide in one of his books. The ambassador inadvertently included a draft of the letter, presented by scholar Heath W. Lowry, advising the ambassador on how to prevent mention of the Armenian Genocide in scholarly works. In 1996, Lowry was named to a chair at Princeton University that had been financed by the Turkish government, sparking a debate on ethics in scholarship.
During a February 2005 interview with Das Magazin, novelist Orhan Pamuk made statements implicating Turkey in massacres against Armenians and persecution of the Kurds, declaring: "Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it". Subjected to a hate campaign, he left Turkey, before returning in 2005 in order to defend his right to freedom of speech: "What happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was a major thing that was hidden from the Turkish nation; it was a taboo. But we have to be able to talk about the past". However, when asked about his speech on CNN TURK television, Pamuk stated that “I did not estimate the number of killed Armenians, I did not use the word genocide, I did say Armenians were killed, but I did not say Armenians were killed by Turks”. Lawyers of two Turkish ultranationalist professional associations led by Kemal Kerinçsiz then brought criminal charges against Pamuk. On January 23, 2006, however, the charges of "insulting Turkishness" were dropped (because of formal reasons without finding it necessary to judge on the essence of the case), a move welcomed by the EU — that they had been brought at all was still a matter of contention for European politicians.
According to some newly discovered documents that belonged to the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, over 970,000 Ottoman Armenians disappeared from official population records from 1915 through 1916. These documents have been published in a recent book titled The Remaining Documents of Talat Pasha (aka "Talat Pasha's Black Book") written by the Turkish journalist Murat Bardakçı. The book is a collection of documents and records that once belonged to Mehmed Talat, known as Talat Pasha, the primary architect of the Armenian deportations. The documents were given to Mr. Bardakçı by Mr. Talat’s widow, Hayriye Talat Bafralı, in 1983. According to the documents, the number of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire before 1915 stood at 1,256,000. The number plunged to 284,157 two years later in 1917.
After the meeting with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Turkey's PM announced that Turkish Government may order the expulsion of all illegal Armenian immigrants from Turkey. The statement came after recent US House Committee and Swedish Parliament resolutions over the Armenian Genocide affirmation. He repeated the same statement in BBC interview right after telling, that there are 100,000 illegal Armenian citizens living in Turkey and that:
“If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don't have to keep them in my country.”
The answer to Erdoğan came from the Armenian Prime Minister; he said that this kind of threat reminded Armenians of the Armenian Genocide and neither did they add to the relationships of two countries. The exact number of illegal Armenians in Turkey is unknown, but the estimation is only 12,000 – 13,000 contrary to number used by the Turkish prime minister.
Armenia has been involved in a protracted ethnic-territorial conflict with Azerbaijan, a Turkic state, since Azerbaijan became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. The conflict has featured several pogroms, massacres, and waves of ethnic cleansing, by both sides. Some foreign policy observers and historians have suggested that Armenia and the Armenian diaspora have sought to portray the modern conflict as a continuation of the Armenian Genocide, in order to influence modern policy-making in the region. According to Thomas Ambrosio, the Armenian Genocide furnishes "a reserve of public sympathy and moral legitimacy that translates into significant political influence... to elicit congressional support for anti-Azerbaijan policies."
The rhetoric leading up to the onset of the conflict, which unfolded in the context of several pogroms of Armenians, was dominated by references to the Armenian Genocide, including fears that it would be, or was in the course of being, repeated. During the conflict, the Azeri and Armenian governments regularly accused each other of genocidal intent, although these claims have been treated skeptically by outside observers.
Recognition of the Genocide
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Resolution, April 24, 1998:
"Today we commemorate the anniversary of what has been called the first genocide of the 20th century, and we salute the memory of the Armenian victims of this crime against humanity".
As a response to the continuing denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish State, many activists among Armenian Diaspora communities have pushed for formal recognition of the Armenian genocide from various governments around the world. 20 countries and 42 U.S. states have adopted resolutions acknowledging the Armenian Genocide as a bona fide historical event. On March 4, 2010, a US congressional panel narrowly voted that the incident was indeed genocide; within minutes the Turkish government issued a statement critical of "this resolution which accuses the Turkish nation of a crime it has not committed." The Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) and the singe largest organisation with the AAA the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) have as their main lobbying agenda to press Congress and the President of the United States for an increase of economic aid for Armenian (already the second larges per capita after Israel) and the reduction economic and military assistance for Turkey. The efforts also include reaffirmation of a genocide by Ottoman Turkey in 1915.
Despite his previous public recognition and support of Genocide bills, as well as the election campaign promises to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide, the U.S. President, Barrack Obama, although repeating that his views on the issue have not changed, has thus far abstained from using the term 'genocide'. On April 24 commemoration speeches President Obama has yet referred to the Armenian Genocide only by the Armenian synonym Metz Eghern ("Mec Eġeṙn").
Cultural lossThe premeditated destruction of objects of Armenian cultural, religious, historical and communal heritage was yet another key purpose of both the genocide itself and the post-genocidal campaign of denial. Armenian churches and monasteries were destroyed or changed into mosques, Armenian cemeteries flattened, and, in several cities (e.g. Van), Armenian quarters were demolished.
Aside from the deaths, Armenians lost their wealth and property without compensation. Businesses and farms were lost, and all schools, churches, hospitals, orphanages, monasteries, and graveyards became Turkish state property. In January 1916, the Ottoman Minister of Commerce and Agriculture issued a decree ordering all financial institutions operating within the empire's borders to turn over Armenian assets to the government. It is recorded that as much as 6 million Turkish gold pounds were seized along with real property, cash, bank deposits, and jewelry. The assets were then funneled to European banks, including Deutsche and Dresdner banks.
After the end of World War I, Genocide survivors tried to return and reclaim their former homes and assets, but were driven out by the Ankara Government.
In 1914, the Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople presented a list of the Armenian holy sites under his supervision. The list contained 2,549 religious places of which 200 were monasteries while 1,600 were churches. In 1974 UNESCO stated that after 1923, out of 913 Armenian historical monuments left in Eastern Turkey, 464 have vanished completely, 252 are in ruins, and 197 are in need of repair (in stable conditions).
Armenian Genocide reparations
Referring to the restitution for the damage caused to the Armenian nation due to the Genocide it can be stated that those could be of financial, estate or territorial nature alike, and may be claimed individually or collectively as well as by the State.
The grounds of the International LawThe United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law provide in part, that reparation may be claimed individually and where appropriate collectively, by the direct victims of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, the immediate family, dependants or other persons or groups of persons closely connected with the direct victims. According to Henry Theriault, while current members of Turkish society cannot be blamed morally for the destruction of Armenians, present-day Republic of Turkey, as successor state to the Ottoman Empire and as beneficiary of the wealth and land expropriations brought forth through the genocide, is responsible for reparations.
Particularly important are Principles 9 and 12 that state, that civil claims relating to reparations for gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law shall not be subject to statutes of limitations (article 9), and that restitution shall be provided to re-establish the situation that existed prior to the violations of human rights or international humanitarian law. The restitution requires, inter alia – return to one's place of residence and restoration of property.
Professor of International Law of Geneva School of Diplomacy (J.D. – Harvard, Dr.phil. – Göttingen), former Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee and former Chief of Petitions at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Dr. Alfred de Zayas stated, that because of the continuing character of the crime of genocide in factual and legal terms, the remedy of restitution has not been foreclosed. Thus the survivors of the genocide against the Armenians, both individually and collectively, have standing to advance a claim for restitution. Whenever possible complete restitution or restoration to the previous condition should be granted. But where is not possible, relevant compensation may be substituted as a remedy.
Sèvres TreatyAlthough there are different opinions on the legitimacy of the Treaty of Sèvres and its relativity to reparation claims, there are specialists who claim that some of its elements retain the force of law. In particular, the fixing of the proper borders of an Armenian state was undertaken pursuant to the treaty and determined by a binding arbitral award, regardless of whether the treaty was ultimately ratified. The committee process determining the arbitral award was agreed to by the parties and, according to international law, the resulting determination has legal force regardless of the ultimate fate of the treaty.
LawsuitsIn July 2004, after California Legislature passed the Armenian Genocide Insurance Act, descendants of Armenian Genocide victims settled a case for about 2400 life insurance policies from New York Life written on Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Around 1918, the Turkish government attempted to recover for the people it had killed with the argument that there are no identifiable heirs to the policy holders. The settlement provided 20 million dollars, of which 11 million was for heirs of the Genocide victims.
Commemoration
Memorials
Over 135 memorials, spread across 25 countries, commemorate the Armenian Genocide.
In 1965, the 50th anniversary of the genocide, a 24-hour mass protest was initiated in Yerevan demanding recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Soviet authorities. The memorial was completed two years later, at Tsitsernakaberd above the Hrazdan gorge in Yerevan. The 44 metres (144 ft) stele symbolizes the national rebirth of Armenians. Twelve slabs are positioned in a circle, representing 12 lost provinces in present day Turkey. At the center of the circle there is an eternal flame. Each April 24, hundreds of thousands of people walk to the genocide monument and lay flowers around the eternal flame.
Another memorial, at Alfortville, Paris, was bombed on May 3, 1984, by a hit-team headed by Grey Wolves member Abdullah Çatlı and paid by the Turkish intelligence agency (MİT).
Art
The earliest example of the Armenian genocide on art was a medal issued in St. Petersburg, signifying Russian sympathy for Armenian suffering. It was struck in 1915, as the massacres and deportations were still raging. Since then, dozens of medals in different countries have been commissioned to commemorate the event.
Several eyewitness accounts of the events were published, notably those of Swedish missionary Alma Johansson and U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr. German medic Armin Wegner wrote several books about the events he witnessed while stationed in the Ottoman Empire. Years later, having returned to Germany, Wegner was imprisoned for opposing Nazism, and his books were subjected to Nazi book burnings. Probably the best known literary work on the Armenian Genocide is Franz Werfel's 1933 The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. It was a bestseller that became particularly popular among the youth of the Jewish ghettos during the Nazi era.
Kurt Vonnegut's 1988 novel Bluebeard features the Armenian Genocide as an underlying theme. Other novels incorporating the Armenian Genocide include Louis de Berniéres' Birds without Wings, Edgar Hilsenrath's German-language The Story of the Last Thought, and Polish Stefan Żeromski's 1925 The Spring to Come. A story in Edward Saint-Ivan's 2006 anthology "The Black Knight's God" includes a fictional survivor of the Armenian Genocide.
The first film about the Armenian Genocide appeared in 1919, a Hollywood production entitled Ravished Armenia. It resonated with acclaimed director Atom Egoyan, influencing his 2002 Ararat. There are also references in Elia Kazan's America, America or Henri Verneuil's Mayrig. At the Berlin Film Festival of 2007 Italian directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani presented another film about the events, based on Antonia Arslan's book, La Masseria Delle Allodole (The Farm of the Larks).[228] Richard Kalinoski's play, Beast on the Moon, is about two Armenian Genocide survivors.
Arshile Gorky's The Artist and His Mother (ca. 1926–1936)The paintings of Armenian-American Arshile Gorky, a seminal figure of Abstract Expressionism, were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss of the period.[229] In 1915, at age 10, Gorky fled his native Van and escaped to Russian-Armenia with his mother and three sisters, only to have his mother die of starvation in Yerevan in 1919. His The Artist and His Mother painting is based on a photograph with his mother taken in Armenia before his mother's passing. Since 2010 the paining is located in the Gerard L. Cafesjian Museum of Art in Yerevan, to where many of Gorky's masterpieces have been relocated.
In 1975, famous French-Armenian singer Charles Aznavour recorded the song "Ils sont tombés" ("They Fell"), dedicated to the memory of Armenian Genocide victims.
American composer and singer Daniel Decker has achieved critical acclaim for his collaborations with Armenian composer Ara Gevorgyan. The song "Adana", named for the province of a 1909 pogrom of the Armenian people, tells the story of the Armenian Genocide. "Adana" has been translated into 17 languages and recorded by singers around the world.
The American band System of a Down, composed of four descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors, has promoted awareness of the Armenian Genocide, through its lyrics, including P.L.U.C.K. and in concerts.
In late 2003, Diamanda Galás released the album Defixiones, Will and Testament: Orders from the Dead, an 80-minute memorial tribute to the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek victims of the genocide in Turkey. "The performance is an angry meditation on genocide and the politically cooperative denial of it, in particular the Turkish and American denial of the Armenian, Assyrian, and Anatolian Greek genocides from 1914 to 1923".
