Western English-language Historiography of the Hamidian Massacres (1970s-2010s)

This historiographical essay explores how the scholarship on the Hamidian massacres has evolved in Western English-language scholarship over the past fifty years introducing the main debates on this topic. The discussion reveals that almost all scholars have reflected on the question of “continuity” between the Hamidian massacres and the Armenian Genocide. Arguing for or against the “continuity” they have made it perhaps the most discussed issue in the scholarship. This paper rejects this dichotomy and argues for a more complex view on Hamidian massacres that should consider both perspectives and not necessarily contrast them. Morover, it contends that positioning the Hamidian massacres in relation to the Armenian Genocide is not enough for its contextulization. The paper argues that the contextualization of the Hamidian massacres should (a) place it and the Armenian Genocide in the context of the Armenian Question, (b) consider the Ottoman massacres of other subject groups in a longer (1820s-1920s) perspective, and (c) observe the Hamidian massacres transcending the “container” of the Ottoman state and discussing the foreign factors in the Ottoman violence.