From Silencing to Mythmaking (1950–Early 1990s)

This chapter analyzes the content of, and changes and continuities in, Turkey’s narrative of the Armenian Genocide between 1950 and the early 1990s. While the genocide was silenced in the decades after World War II, the silence came under increasing international pressure in the 1970s. Armenian terrorism, combined with increased international recognition of the genocide, eventually led Turkish officials to end the silence about the genocide. Starting in 1981, the state’s narrative shifted from silencing and denying the genocide to an actively defended and articulated position that relativized the violence and presented an alternative account of what had happened. This shift also involved substantial continuity, particularly in the denial of official responsibility for the deaths of Armenians. The net effect of these changes involved the strengthening of official denial of the genocide, alongside a limited acknowledgment that something had happened to Ottoman Armenians.