ABSTRACT
As scholarly research on the extermination of Ottoman Armenians took shape in the last two decades, researchers engaged in it overlooked the fact that the genocide of the Armenians was silenced and effectively forgotten for most of the twentieth century. The debate that emerged was largely focused on proving—or disproving—that the “events” qualify for the legal term “genocide.” This debate is the direct result of the persistent denial by the Turkish state, many influential actors of international relations, as well as scholarly institutions and intellectual figures. Yet oblivion of the extermination of an important demographic and cultural component that played a key role in the Ottoman civilization, indifference toward the first genocide of modern times, did not make the “event” and its consequences simply disappear. Among its many consequences, it has left its marks on scholarly research and on the profession of historians that still needs to make its own mea culpa.
