The Armenian Question 1945-1965

Strategic Report (TASAM) No. 68, May 26, 2014
Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies (TASAM)

Christopher Gunn *

On April 24th and 25th, 1965, Armenians around the world held memorial services to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the massacre and deportations of hundreds of thousands of Armenians living in eastern Anatolia. At the same time, many Armenians also demonstrated against Turks and the Turkish government it held responsible for these events. The largest gatherings were in Yerevan and Beirut, but significant numbers turned out in Paris, New York and in other areas with large Armenian communities. The demonstrations were, and still are, portrayed as spontaneous and uncoordinated outpourings of grief. A condition triggered by the symbolic milestone 1965 represented and the outrage over five decades of Western apathy and cynical self-interest that enabled Turkey and the Turks to escape from justice. In particular, the demonstrations inside the Soviet Union are used to show that the trauma and disappointment of the Armenians were so great that forty-five years of Communism, Soviet oppression, and the police on the ground in April 1965 could not silence them. April 24th and 25th, 1965, was, in other words, a turning point in modern Armenian history: the day Armenians “woke up.”

* Coastal Carolina University.

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