Mark Mazower on Turkey's relation to its past

Mark Mazower, history professor at Columbia University, reflects on Turkey's attitude to its past and notably the mass murders of Armenians between 1915 and 1916. "Most Turkish nationalists do not so much deny the killings themselves as claim they need to be seen in the context of an all-out assault on what was left of the ottoman empire itself. It is certainly true - though Europe still ignores the unpalatable fact - that the expansion of national states, mostly Christian, was accompanied by the killing and expulsion of Muslims from the Balkans and Russia. To explain is not to justify. Yet the escalation of violence in Anatolia after 1914 was certainly linked to the upheavals that had preceded it. Franker discusssion of the Armenian genocide thus has the potential to open up an entirely different perspective on Europe's modern history as a whole. There are many ways the Turkish government can help this along."

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