ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the political shifts around the memory of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey and Armenia, and the corresponding changes in the discourses of ordinary Turks and Armenians interested in building bridges between the two nations. The author tracks three dialogue initiatives he co-facilitated between 2005 and 2016 against the background of the evolving political contexts. Using discourse analysis, he connects the narratives identified with the larger political discourses within which these narratives developed. The author thus identifies three relatively distinct stages in the relationship between the Turkish and the Armenian states: from 2002, the year when Recep Erdogan's AKP party ascended to power, to 2007, characterized by the intensified dialogue between the Turkish and the Armenian societies following the assassination of Hrant Dink, and through to at least 2016, when the official normalization process broke down. As collective memory theories look at historical narratives as socially constructed phenomena, the author then examines the timelines, formed collectively by the dialogue participants, of the most important events that influenced the present-day Armenian-Turkish relations.
