This study focuses on the major impacts of reported historical traumas among ethnic groups (Armenian, Kurdish, and Turkish) in Anatolia, Turkey, since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and how an understanding of significant psychosocial impacts might support current reconciliation and healing efforts among these politically conflicted groups. Historical trauma is here defined as the complex, lasting, and devastating physical, social, and psychological impacts upon a massive number of people at the same time and in similar ways. Collective trauma often affects the society at multiple levels: from micro (individual) to mezzo (local community) to macro (culture and the society at large). These multilevel traumas are inevitably passed on to subsequent generations and thus become transgenerational and historical. Applying a transdisciplinary framework, this study serves as a demonstration of historical traumas in Anatolia. The theoretical arguments of this research shed light and provide interpretation for what is going on in Turkey today and historically amongst Turks, Kurds, and Armenians. Furthermore, this research reveals epistemologies of ignorance in Turkey as keeping the lid on transgenerational experiences of trauma and preventing appropriate healing modalities. The epistemology of ignorance intends to keep information away from people, and in Turkey's case, it is currently tied to the maintenance of the Turkish National identity. In other words, transgenerational trauma has created an epistemology of ignorance, whereby certain historical realities have been consciously and unconsciously suppressed, and this, in turn, has deepened the trauma by not acknowledging it or beginning to address it.

The deep wounds that exist from long-standing conflicts between Turks, Kurds, and Armenians have not yet been sufficiently addressed and healed. Nermin Soyalp explains the collective traumas and their significant psychosocial impacts in terms of the potential for reconciliation among these politically conflicted groups. Discussion centres on the transgenerational implications of the Balkan wars of 1912-1913, the Armenian genocide of 1915-1917, the Greco-Turco war of 1920-1922, the formation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the population exchange with the Balkans in 1924, the conflict between the Turkish government and Kurdish identity since the formation of the Republic, as well as the impacts of assimilation policies on minorities. Drawing on the complexities of history, psychology, and identity, this book elucidates how collectively and historically shared traumas become inherently more complex, and more difficult to address, generation by generation. Epistemologies of ignorance in Turkey have suppressed the transgenerational experiences of trauma and prevented healing modalities. The Turkish state and society have consciously and unconsciously denied historical realities such as the Armenian genocide and Kurds ethnopolitical rights. The result is a collective dehumanization that fuels further trauma and conflicts. The collective traumas of Anatolia have impacted its society at multiple levels -- psychological, physical, economic, cultural, political, and institutional. The author, a dialogue facilitator for the non-profit Healing the Wounds of History organisation, proposes systemic healing modalities that address the dynamics at play. The research that underpins this work is highly relevant to the healing of other historical and cultural traumas.

The first genocide of the twentieth century remains unrecognized and unpunished. Turkey continues to deny the slaughter of over a million Ottoman Armenians in 1915 and the following years. What sets the Armenian genocide apart from other mass atrocities is that the country responsible has never officially acknowledged its actions, and no individual has ever been brought to justice. In Turkey and the Armenian Ghost, a translation of the award-winning La Turquie et le fantôme arménien, Laure Marchand and Guillaume Perrier visit historic sites and interview politicians, elderly survivors, descendants, authors, and activists in a quest for the hidden truth. Taking the reader into remote mountain regions, tiny hamlets, and the homes of traumatized victims of a deadly persecution that continues to this day, they reveal little-known aspects of the history and culture of a people who have been rendered invisible in their ancient homeland. Seeking to illuminate complex issues of blame and responsibility, guilt and innocence, the authors discuss the roles played in this drama by the "righteous Turks," the Kurds, the converts, the rebels, and the "leftovers of the sword." They also describe the struggle to have the genocide officially recognized in Turkey, France, and the United States. Arguing that this giant cover-up has had consequences for Turks as well as for Armenians, the authors point to a society sickened by a century of denial. The face of Turkey is gradually changing, however, and a new generation of Turks is beginning to understand what happened and to realize that the ghost of the Armenian genocide must be recognized and laid to rest.

In this pathbreaking study, Pamela Steiner deconstructs the psychological obstacles that have prevented peaceful settlements to longstanding issues. The book re-examines more than 100 years of destructive ethno-religious relations among Armenians, Turks, and Azerbaijanis through the novel lens of collective trauma. The author argues that a focus on embedded, transgenerational collective trauma is essential to achieving more trusting, productive, and stable relationships in this and similar contexts. The book takes a deep dive into history - analysing the traumatic events, examining and positing how they motivated the actions of key players (both victims and perpetrators), and revealing how profoundly these traumas continue to manifest today among the three peoples, stymying healing and inhibiting achievement of a basis for positive change. The author then proposes a bold new approach to “conflict resolution” as a complement to other perspectives, such as power-based analyses and international human rights. Addressing the psychological core of the conflict, the author argues that a focus on embedded collective trauma is essential in this and similar arenas.

The Armenian Genocide has lately attracted a lot of attention, despite the Turkish government's attempts at denial. It has been developed into a central obstacle to Turkey's entry into the European Union. As such it attracts the highest political and public attention. What is largely ignored in the debate, however, is the fact that Armenians were not the only victims of the Young Turk's genocidal population policies. What is still largely forgotten is the murder, expulsion and deportation of other ethnic groups like Assyrians, Greeks, Kurds and Arabs by the Young Turks. This not only increases the number of victims, but also changes the perspective on the foundation of modern Turkey and as such on modern Turkish history more generally. The Thematic Issue of the JGR, the republication of which is proposed here, is the first publication, which addresses these wider issues. It contributes not only to our understanding of the Young Turks' population and extermination policies in all its complexities and so helping to bring the forgotten victims' stories "back" into genocide scholarship, but to our understanding of modern Turkey more generally. It is an indispensable tool for everybody interested in one of the great historical controversies of our time. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research.

After the Armenian genocide of 1915, in which over a million Armenians died, thousands of Armenians lived and worked in the Turkish state alongside those who had persecuted their communities. Living in the context of pervasive denial, how did Armenians remaining in Turkey record their own history? Here, Talin Suciyan explores the life experienced by these Armenian communities as Turkey's modernisation project of the twentieth century gathered pace. Suciyan achieves this through analysis of remarkable new primary material: Turkish state archives, minutes of the Armenian National Assembly, a kaleidoscopic series of personal diaries, memoirs and oral histories, various Armenian periodicals such as newspapers, yearbooks and magazines, as well as statutes and laws which led to the continuing persecution of Armenians. The first history of its kind, The Armenians in Modern Turkey is a fresh contribution to the history of modern Turkey and the Armenian experience there.