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Here, we present an article by Vartan Matiossian, a historian, literary scholar, translator and educator, published in The Armenian Weekly on May 15. The article is presented in abridged form.

Yes, until World War II, the Medz Yeghern of 1915 was unprecedented not only in the history of our people, but in the entirety of humankind. An entire people, an entire nation coming from the depths of millennia was killed, was dying.

We condemn genocide [genotsid] or zhoghovrtasbanutiun with all our heart and soul.

There is and there cannot be either juridical justification or any motion of prescription for genocide.

Genocide, be it the horrifying slaughter of Armenians in Der or in the banks of the Euphrates in 1915, or the torturing death by massacre of the other peoples during World War II in Majdanek and Büchenwald, must always be condemned without reservations, and its perpetrators must be condemned by all of humankind.

Nagush Harutiunian (1965)

The president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic proclaimed these words at the official commemoration of the genocide on April 24, 1965 in Yerevan. Harutiunian did not hesitate to pair “genocide” (he used the Russian loanword genotsid and the Armenian translation zhoghovrtasbanutiun, literally “democide”; tseghasbanutiun was not yet commonly used in Eastern Armenian) and “Medz Yeghern.”

Almost 50 years later, the official use of Medz Yeghern and genocide as synonyms would show ideological continuity regardless of time and political situation. Serge Sarkisian, the president of the Republic of Armenia, in a speech given in Marseilles in December 2011, said: “We were strong enough to survive the Medz Yeghern [Great Calamity], and we are just as strong now to demand justice.” After routinely inserting the translation “Great Calamity,” Armenian American commentator Harut Sassounian did not make any further comment on its use and reported that Sarkisian had employed “Armenian Genocide” six times in other parts of his speech.

The organized annihilation of 1915 was an unprecedented eruption of pure evil that encompassed not only the wholesale killing of people, but also the devastation of their culture and civilization, the dispossession of their property and ancestral territory, and the dehumanization and traumatization of the survivors and their descendants. That evil component ensured the use of Medz Yeghern (“Great [Evil] Crime”) as the name for a crime of such catastrophic and unprecedented proportions, superseding the more pedestrian Medz Vojir (“Great Crime”). An editorial published in 2005, on the 90th anniversary of the genocide, in “Hai Sird,” the official periodical of the Armenian Relief Society (ARS), even asked “whether the word ‘genocide,’ coined decades later, can begin to describe what we, Armenians, call Metz Yeghern, ‘The Great Crime.’” The legitimacy of the word was not questioned; rather, its insufficiency to describe the dimensions of the event.

Deconstructing Obama’s April 24 statements

The phony polemics around Medz Yeghern have been exacerbated by a remarkable ignorance of its profound historical meaning and a willful adoption of the Turkish-fueled “Great Calamity” hoax. This has led to an inability to accurately interpret the relation of President Barack Obama’s “Meds Yeghern” of April 2009 (and subsequent years) to presidential candidate Barack Obama’s promise on Jan. 19, 2008—“as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.” Consequently, the powers that be have chosen “to send a message to the president and all politicians that if you make a promise to the people, you have to keep your promise,” as Sassounian stated in May 2010. On the eve of the 2010 congressional elections, a privately paid “political ad” even appeared in the Armenian-American press with the following title: “President Medz Yeghern is a liar. Liars must be punished. On November 2, give him a Republican Congress.”6 Around a month before the 2012 presidential elections, Sassounian reportedly issued the following warning: “Pres. Obama has about 30 days to make good on his pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Otherwise, Armenian-Americans will not vote for him for a second term.”

We have chosen a rather different path: to read together the five presidential statements between 2009 and 2013. The analysis showed a constant repetition of several key phrases and/or ideas:

1) “Meds Yeghern,” non-translated (eleven times)

2) “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915…” (five times)

3) “…And my view has not changed” (five times)

4) 1.5 million Armenians (five times)

5) Massacred or marched to their death (five times)

6) “In the final days of the Ottoman Empire” (five times)

7) One of the “worst” (four times) or “great” (one time) atrocities of the 20th century;

8) “Full, frank, and just acknowledgment of the facts” (five times)

9) Armenian contribution “to the world” (two times), “to our nation” (one time), “to our society, our culture, and our communities” (one time)

Reconstructing Obama’s April 24 statements

Here is the reconstruction of the key phrases deconstructed above, namely, the essentials of what Obama has said for the past four years: “I have consistently stated [and I repeat] my own view of that history: the Meds Yeghern was one of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century [that caused] 1.5 million victims massacred or marched to their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. [I want] the achievement of a full, frank, and just acknowledgement of the facts [and I recognize] the Armenian contribution to the world.”

This paragraph repeats the facts of history that are opposed to Turkish denial—that there were 1.5 million victims of massacre or deadly deportation in the Ottoman Empire, one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. Turkish counterfactual history was exemplified by one of its most notorious spokespersons, Yusuf Halaçoğlu, the former president of the Turkish Historical Society and a current member of parliament, back in 2005: 1) “Most Armenians who died, died of disease, whereas most Muslims who died were killed by Armenian gangs”; 2) “Those who keep talking about the nonsense of 1.5 million dead are politicizing this issue. Can you imagine where one would bury 1.5 million people? If you put 300 in the same grave, that would make 5,000 mass graves.”

The rationale of the reconstructed paragraph lies in the “view of that history” that Senator Barack Obama had stated in his June 28, 2006 letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (“The occurrence of the Armenian genocide is not an ‘allegation,’ a ‘personal opinion,’ or a ‘point of view.’ Supported by an overwhelming amount of historical evidence, it is a widely documented fact”),9 re-stated as a presidential candidate on Jan. 19, 2008 (“…my firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable”), and reaffirmed four times in a row that it had not changed.

A unique paragraph

Obama’s 2009 statement also contained a unique paragraph: “Nothing can bring back those who were lost in the Meds Yeghern. But the contributions that Armenians have made over the last 94 years stand as a testament to the talent, dynamism, and resilience of the Armenian people, and as the ultimate rebuke to those who tried to destroy them.” Its legal intent was correctly assessed by the Council of the Bar Association of the Republic of Armenia in early 2010; while stating that it is “time to call things by their proper names,” it did recognize that “Obama the lawyer…has already clearly acknowledged the events of the Armenian Genocide”:

“President Obama used the historical Armenian term ‘Meds Yeghern,’ which is synonymous to ‘genocide,’ a more contemporary term. The term ‘Meds Yeghern’ was used by President Obama twice, and was clearly described as an attempt to destroy the Armenian people. It is obvious that the ‘Meds Yeghern’ term was referred to by President Obama in exactly the same meaning, as we, Armenians, refer to it. The terms ‘Meds Yeghern,’ ‘Hayots Tseghaspanutiun,’ and ‘Armenian Genocide’ have been always absolutely identical. From the legal point of view, President Obama has described a genocide, because an attempt to destroy a people is, by definition, a genocide.

Even though Obama the politician did not use the term genocide, Obama the lawyer, the graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, has already clearly acknowledged the events of the Armenian Genocide. On behalf of the Bar Association of the Republic of Armenia, we would like to express our gratitude to President Obama for his historic statement.

Taking into account the significance of international recognition of genocide in preventing the crime of genocide in the future, we believe that it is the time to call things by their proper names and to condemn the Medz Yeghern defining it as genocide in unequivocal terms.”

The underlined phrase did not appear again in the next presidential statements. We are inclined to believe that it was not sheer coincidence.