THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
January 28, 2005, Friday
On a road trip to an Oscar Review Witty and brilliantly acted, with
endearingly offbeat characters, this odd couple odyssey deserves to
be named Best Film
BY Sukhdev Sandhu
Sideways
15 cert, 127 min
At last – Sideways. Alexander Payne’s slanted and enchanted follow-up
to About Schmidt is utter joy, pure 100 per cent-proof bliss, the
most laugh-out-loud funny film to come out of America in years. It’s
a Last of the Summer Wine for grown-ups, a road movie of impeccably
slack structure, effervescent but with a strong bouquet of melancholy
and more than a faint trace of bawdy. Never thought you’d see a
comedy that used Pinot as a metaphor for all that is, or could be,
good about the human spirit? This, most assuredly, is it. Million
Dollar Baby and The Aviator be damned; this, if there’s any justice
in the world, should walk away with the Oscar for Best Picture.
Adapted by Payne and fellow-screenwriter Jim Taylor from a novel by
Rex Pickett, Sideways is the story of an odd couple – Miles (Paul
Giamatti), a middle-school literature teacher who has yet to recover
from a divorce two years previously and is struggling to find a
publisher for his 700-page novel, and his college roommate Jack
(Thomas Haden Church), a former soap star and commercial voiceover
artist – who go on a driving tour of the vineyards of Santa Barbara.
For Miles the trip is a chance to catch up, to have a mellow
golf-and-Grigio vacation. For Jack, a priapic goat at the best of
times, it’s a final hurrah, a chance to get his end away before he
gets married in a week’s time. The former is in a state of low-grade
depression and thinks of himself as a “thumbprint on the window of a
skyscraper”; the latter, louche and carefree, decides to act as his
feel-good therapist – the chief remedy he proposes being that he
should get his rocks off too.
They’re a double act, then. Straight man and funny man. Except that
Payne is too subtle to leave it at that. Miles, it turns out, is more
than a lovable loser: he cheated on his wife and steals from his
mother’s dresser.
Jack, for all that he comes across as an easy-riding knucklehead, can
pull out of his hat winning quotes from John Kennedy Toole novels. As
they clock up the road miles, they find themselves constantly
switching roles: each serves time as a sulker, helping hand,
emotional goad.
Theirs is the real on-off, affectionate/exasperated love affair in
this film, a relationship based on an intimate knowledge and
acceptance of each other’s flaws. But they both strike gold with two
women: Miles finds solace, though his knock-kneed timidity means he
nearly scuppers this chance, with divorced waitress Maya (Virginia
Madsen); Jack hooks up with single-mother Stephanie (Sandra Oh).
It’s rare to find yourself caring about pretty much every character
in a film. Miles and Jack are flawed, fools sometimes, but probably
no more so than we ourselves are. Giamatti has the most beautifully
glass-half-empty kind of face in American movies today. With his
bloodshot eyes, his pale doughy cheeks that scream out “Hit me! I’m a
loser!”, and his gait that resembles a crippled dog, he makes other
nabobs of sob such as Philip Seymour Hoffman and William Macy look
like classroom clowns.
Payne is unusual for the time he spends lingering on actors’ faces:
Jack’s winking, rubber-lipped Jaggerisms; Stephanie’s penetrating
gaze that’s as testing as it is a seduction; the secret sorrows,
trust, fundamental optimism of soul that we divine whenever Maya
smiles. What layers of unspoken history and biography can be revealed
by directors who dare to keep the camera still.
I’m stressing the more autumnal, pensive elements of Sideways but,
first and foremost, it’s an absolute hoot. Haden Church could make
the Yellow Pages sound hilarious. His denunciation of Miles’s “morose
comedown bullshit” is pure poetry. As for the scenes in which Miles,
commando-style, enters the home of one of Jack’s one-night-stands to
retrieve the wallet left behind when the woman’s tattooed husband
returned, make sure you’re sitting upright so that you don’t die
choking with laughter.
Payne is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as a clutch of
twenty- and thirtysomething directors – Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson and
David O Russell among them – whose films, for all their wit and
visual flair, are too often arch and ironic, shuffling between high
theory and pop culture with a zany ostentation that can grate. Payne,
I think, is closer in sensibility to someone like Richard Linklater.
And, like that director’s 2004 masterpiece Before Sunset, Sideways is
above all a triumph of space and time.
It doesn’t hop or jerk or trade in grabby spectacles. Rather, it
unfurls and unwinds gently, like an especially good vintage, its two
hours passing by in an instant but leaving us with an intense feeling
of how quickly human beings can move from youth to maturity to old
age.
About Schmidt pulled in many plaudits, but for me it was a
half-cocked affair that relied too heavily on Jack Nicholson’s
petrified talents and, as a consequence, seemed rather knowing and
smug. This is a far gentler work.
I sense, and certainly hope, that Payne is trying to craft a new kind
of humanist film-making, one whose landscapes, emotional as well as
physical, are all too rarely presented to moviegoers these days.
The America he offers us is a smiling, tacitly inclusive place. Not
that any of the characters mentions or is even surprised by it, but
it’s striking that Stephanie is the half-Chinese daughter of a white
mother and is herself the mother of a half-black daughter. Jack,
who’s about to get married to an Armenian anyway, doesn’t even raise
an eyebrow at this and loves playing with the kid.
Through a windscreen blearily, we see Jack and Miles travel past hazy
vineyards and blue remembered hills. One gorgeous scene, a long-range
snapshot of human happiness perhaps, shows the two picnicking couples
laughing away and sipping wine while sprawled out in a field with the
sun going down behind them. Southern California has rarely looked as
good as this on screen. Nor sounded as good: Rolfe Kent has fashioned
a charmingly low-key jazz score that drifts, gambols and puckers up
in perfect harmony with the ebb and flow of the men’s emotional
fortunes.
I could go on and on about Sideways. Brilliantly acted, cannily paced
and immaculate in rhythm and tone, I wish it had gone on indefinitely
too. That said, it has an ending as exquisite as that of The Office
Christmas special. Make sure you see it. Then make sure you see it
again. Like good wine, it improves with age.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
January 28, 2005, Friday
HUMAN RESOURCES
SOURCE: Rossiiskie Vesti, NN 1 – 2, January 20 – 26, 2005, p. 8
by Sergei Pikhtov
President of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, dashed to Kiev for a
meeting with his new counterpart as soon as Viktor Yuschenko’s
victory in the presidential race was unofficially proclaimed. The two
presidents enjoyed some skiing and signed the so called Carpathian
Declaration, a document calling the latest developments in Ukraine
“the third wave of liberation in Europe.”
The trip to Ukraine was preceded by a visit to Estonia where
Saakashvili discussed new forms of co-operation with this Baltic
state. The Georgian leader proposed Political Initiative 3 3 several
days later, an idea of co-operation between Lithuania, Latvia, and
Estonia on the one hand and Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan on the
other. The Baltic states are supposed to help the republics of the
Caucasus in rapprochement with Europe within the framework of the so
called “politics of neighborhood”. What the idea is essentially about
is establishment of a new regional organization where presence of the
seventh member, the United States, can be seen with an unaided eye.
Anti-Russian bias of the future organization is undeniable too.
Washington’s political games in the region can only be applauded.
Using EU money and giving its puppets of ally’s specific tasks to
perform, the White House expects to reach its objectives with minimum
effort and resources expended. Where promotion of geopolitical
interests is concerned, American diplomats could teach their Russian
opposite numbers a thing or two.
What does Washington need it for? Primarily, it is a continuation of
its policy of finding political vassals on the borders of Russia and
simultaneous promotion of America’s “vital interests”. Proclaiming
co-operation with post-Soviet countries as a priority of its foreign
policy, the Kremlin made it plain that the Commonwealth was the last
realm it still had the stamina for.
Reaction of the US Department of State was prompt. Madame Rice’s
structure saw its chance to effectively and cheaply bind Moscow’s
hands and dampen activeness of Russian diplomacy in other spheres.
Cold War methods gave way to political technologists who already
proved their effectiveness in the struggle for power in the
pot-Soviet zone. Among other things, the matter concerns formation of
twin parties by the Americans, New Time in Latvia and Republic in
Estonia. They ousted the right-nationalist movements that had played
their role already. Financed and assisted by the Americans, actively
making use of the administrative resources, these parties easily won
the majority of seats in national parliaments. Approximately the same
scenario was used in the elections of president of Latvia and
Lithuania who had returned to their native countries after years of
life in the United States. Georgia’s turn came then where the Velvet
Revolution scenario was tried on orders from the same
decision-makers.
Russia is losing this contest of political technologies. It lacks the
necessary resources and a coordinated policy. Russian businesses do
not understand the necessity to take interests of the state into
account. As far as they are concerned, profits right here and now are
more important than interests of the state or long-term stability of
their own operations.
Moreover, what role are the Baltic states supposed to play here? They
are expected to show something in return for their membership in the
European Union and NATO. They make a fine Trojan horse in the EU,
criticizing the countries that try to emphasize their independence
from Washington in dealing with purely European problems. At the same
time, the Baltic states as Russia’s antagonists impede the EU-Russia
rapprochement which also plays into Washington’s hands.
Establishment of the anti-Russian alliance of the Baltic states and
republics of the Caucasus answers the same interests. No other
economic or political reason can explain this conspicuous and even
obsessive intention to develop bilateral contacts between countries
that are so different in commerce as such only the sale of Georgian
wine and Armenian cognac may be profitable, only in theory and only
marginally. According to the Estonia Foreign Ministry, Georgia is
108th on the list of Tallinn’s trade partners. Export from Georgia to
Estonia amounted to less than 100,000 euros in 2003. That is a laugh
even by the standards of a single company.
In fact, “friendship” between Estonia and Georgia does not begin
right away. Estonia with its Western partners’ money already trained
Georgian officials and military in answering NATO and EU requirements
to enable official Tbilisi to talk to Brussels so that it would be
understood. The whole training took the form of seminars and
consultations because the Estonians themselves cannot offer anything
more productive.
These contacts were bilateral until now. An attempt is being made now
to elevate them to a regional level and set up something like GUUAM.
It stands to reason that GUUAM must have some weak link that worries
the Americans. The matter clearly concerns Armenia and its President
Robert Kocharjan. Armenia’s reaction to the 3 3 initiative was
branded as “hesitant” in the very first comments. “The policy was
proclaimed but what exactly is meant has not been formulated yet.
Contents of the policy are being formulated at this point,” Kocharjan
said.
Kocharjan said as well that his country is prepared for closer
co-operation with the Baltic states within the framework of the
policy of “new neighbors”. He said that he would continue
consultations with Saakashvili of Georgia but he himself “is not sure
that the Baltic states themselves have a consensus on the matter
yet.”
Kocharjan’s stand on the matter is understandable. A veteran
politician, he immediately saw the initiative for what it really was
an attempt to drag him into a confrontation with Russia. He does not
want to turn it down out of hand, however, because Moscow is unlikely
to offer his country more than the Americans can. It does not
therefore take a genius to guess that President of Estonia Ruutel
discussed precisely this initiative with the Armenian leadership on
his visit to Yerevan last fall, offering the experience of his own
country in becoming a NATO member. Following the talks, Prime
Minister of Armenia A. Margarjan announced that Armenia was prepared
to develop bilateral co-operation with Estonia in the sphere of
security and defense and did not object to discussion of an
appropriate accord between defense ministries. Speaking of
development of relations, Margarjan also mentioned the importance of
the 3 3 co-operation initiative. Time will show if he really meant
something by that.
Analysis of the matter will be incomplete without consideration of
the problem of the Baltic consensus. After all, it certainly seems
that they perceive the new form of co-operation differently. In the
Caucasus, the rapprochement initiative belongs to Georgia. In the
Baltic states, the idea is promoted by Estonia. These are the two
countries whose relations with Moscow leave particularly much to be
desired.
Neither Lithuania nor Latvia displayed any particularly vivid foreign
political interest in the Caucasus until now. Bearing in mind certain
discord in the relations between the Baltic states which is bound to
worsen now that their objective (membership in the EU and NATO has
been reached); it makes sense to expect this consensus to be formal.
The situation being what it is Russia should exploit the weaknesses
of the construction instead of relying solely on its relations with
Armenia to thwart the initiative as such.
As for the weaknesses in question, it will not hurt to mention the
growing anti-Americanism in Estonia the local authorities are finding
it more and more difficult to counter and keep in check. Political
scientist Paul Goble who settled in Estonia was shocked last autumn
to be told of results of an opinion poll indicating that the locals
dislike the Russians and the Americans equally. There is nothing odd
about this attitude with regard to the Russians, but when it applies
to representatives of the Empire of Virtue, it is certainly worth
some serious contemplation.
Goble believes that it is happening because the Estonians are sick of
showing their gratitude, because they have finally seen that this
doggy devotion annuls their own accomplishments. It means that the
Kremlin may tentatively count on appearance of an other weak link in
the chain, the people of Estonia that may find these political games
with construction of the Baltic-Caucasus bridge under supervision of
the American foreman oddly familiar, remembered from its own not very
distant past.
ORIGINAL-LANGUAGE: RUSSIAN

M2 Presswire
January 28, 2005
Kansas State University: K-State student Union features Smithsonian
photography exhibit
M2 PRESSWIRE-JANUARY 28, 2005-Kansas State University: K-State
Ttudent Union features Smithsonian photography exhibit ©1994-2005 M2
COMMUNICATIONS LTD
MANHATTAN – The William T. Kemper Art Gallery at Kansas State
University’s K-State Student Union is now featuring “Antoin Sevruguin
and the Persian Image,” a photography exhibition from the Smithsonian
Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
The exhibition will be on display in the gallery through Friday,
March 4.
The gallery, on the first floor, is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5
p.m. and admission is free.
The exhibition includes 35 black-and-white photographs made from
original negatives and vintage prints housed in the archives of the
Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art. It
presents a glimpse into the history of Iran through the eyes of one
of the nation’s most creative photographers, Antoin Sevruguin.
Sevruguin, an Armenian Christian, lived most of his life in Tehran
traveling among the diverse worlds of Iranian society. His
photographs document Iran’s struggle at the turn of the 20th century
to balance an ancient past with the modern present. His work included
a great diversity of themes. Street scenes, images of common people,
ceremonies, palace officials, archaeological studies and mountain
landscapes fill the numerous plate-glass negatives he shot throughout
his career.
Sevruguin’s patronage was equally diverse. He served the royal court
of the shahs and he ran a portrait studio open to the public. He also
journeyed to sites of early Persian civilization to photograph the
ruins of the Iranian past.
Most of Sevruguin’s work was destroyed as a result of the Iranian
constitutional crisis of 1906 and the transition from the Qajar to
the Pahlavi dynasty. Today, the Myron Bement Smith Collection of the
Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art
archives houses one of the world’s largest collections of surviving
work by Sevruguin. The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and adjacent Freer
Gallery of Art together form the national museum of Asian art at the
Smithsonian. More information is available online at
Each year, the Smithsonian Institutions Traveling Exhibition Service
shares the Smithsonian’s collections and research programs with
millions of people outside Washington, D.C. One of the Smithsonian’s
four National Programs, the exhibition service makes available a wide
range of exhibitions about art, science and history. Exhibition
descriptions and tour schedules are available at
(M2 Communications Ltd disclaims all liability for information
provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties.
Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at
on the world wide web. Inquiries to
[email protected]).

Tacoma News Tribune, WA
Jan 28 2005
TAM exhibit celebrates fellowship of `the Neddy’
JEN GRAVES; The News Tribune
Last updated: January 28th, 2005 08:50 AM

Every year, a nominating committee and a separate selection committee
choose two local artists to receive $10,000 each from the Behnke
Foundation. The artists must be devoted not only to their work, but
to the artistic community, and the award, the Neddy Artist
Fellowship, is named after the painter Robert E. `Ned’ Behnke, who
died of complications from AIDS in 1989. The award began 10 years
ago.
A gallery of art funded by the National Endowment for the Arts could
tell a tale, but assembling the recipients of a short-lived award is
not the most promising basis for an art museum exhibition. Luckily,
it turns out there is something about the Neddy.
Each of the 14 artists in the show opening Saturday at the Tacoma Art
Museum is forceful. Each communicates vigorous conviction, from Cris
Bruch’s staunchly reserved, handcrafted wall hives titled
`Strangeland’ to Donnabelle Casis’s noisy, messy splashes of
hyper-hues.
Most of these names are known to the contemporary Seattle
gallerygoing world, making the show something of a family snapshot:
Bruch, Casis, Michael Spafford, Claudia Fitch, Claire Cowie, Jeffry
Mitchell, Mark Takamichi Miller, Juan Alonso. That is not to say that
the choices have been insular or redundant. The Neddy respectably
represents emerging to mid-career to established artists. Though the
award was originally designated for painters alone, since 1998 awards
have also gone to photographers, printmakers and sculptors.
Turning the gallery walls red, orange and blue, TAM declared this a
party. Curator Rock Hushka organized it, culling works from
galleries, collectors, the artists and, in a few cases, TAM’s own
holdings. A few of the pieces are brand new or up to 20 years old,
but most date from the last five years.
The artists intermingle formal and conceptual concerns. Abstract
paintings by Lauri Chambers, layered photographs by Doug Keyes and
surrealistic scenes by Benjamin Wilkins differ wildly, but
individually their range seems limited by fussiness. Susan Dory
creates the shifty buzz of an electrical charge in her color fields
of airbrushed and swiped-on shapes. The playfulness of Bruch’s
sculptures belies their labor-intensive birth and tight structure.

Good thing the ceilings in the big fish-tank gallery soar – Fitch’s
three white, blue and gold upside-down Buddha chandeliers have
decided to drop in, dangling from strands of `milk drops,’ as the
title has it. Fitch’s classically shaped ceramic vessels are also
spotted and have nipples and rolls of fat, like wild, headless
Chinese Fu-dog cookie jars.
They guard a corner devoted to war, the only conscious theme (which
is jarringly segregated). Dionne Haroutunian’s prints bear lucid
witness to the genocide in her Armenian family’s history. Mary Ann
Peters presents the series `Poor Liberty,’ scratchy protest drawings
depicting the Statue of Liberty victimized.
Most convincing are Cowie’s characters, faintly rendered in expansive
white backgrounds that make them look as though they’ve been
dislocated from somewhere else. `Soldiers’ is a whispery crew of
absurd little figures huddled between a high wall and a
stiff-postured commander. Cowie’s globby white sculptures drip with
gesso, watercolor and anomie. `The Conversation’ is an enchanting
gathering of toy-sized storybook sad sacks and freaks engaging each
other.
Mitchell employs a similar light – ness of touch in `Peony, Peony,
Begonia, Peony,’ a suite of four drawings. Each watercolor flower
puckered its paper, forming delicate, scalloping curtains around the
image. Mitchell works in many moods and mediums; witness his
relentlessly twinkling, gilded ceramic baroquerie `Zum Goldenen Walde
(To the Golden Forest)!’
Brashness meets its makers in Alonso and Miller. Alonso captures a
vivid rococo symbol in paint so thick that the surface is icy. Miller
got liquid exuberance from pooling neon acrylic on the canvas. For a
later series of 24 paintings, Miller nabbed a set of doubles from
photographic prints awaiting their owners in a store. He painted
every one of them (12 are on display here) in thick, painstakingly
blended impasto, spending more time composing these images than their
owners and subjects did.
Spafford, the first to win the Neddy and a regional fixture, oversees
it all. For 40 years, he has distilled and abstracted the classicism
of Greek and Roman mythology, maintaining its heroic scale. At TAM is
his restrained hand-to-hand combat composition, `One Greek, One
Trojan II’ from 2004, and his brutal, terrifying 1986 triptych
`Europa and the Bull,’ which recently came into TAM’s collection.
Raise a glass – these artists got the funding they deserved.

“Aztag” Daily Newspaper
P.O. Box 80860, Bourj Hammoud,
Beirut, Lebanon
Fax: +961 1 258529
Phone: +961 1 260115, +961 1 241274
Email: [email protected]
On the Foundations of Turkey: An Interview with Muge Gocek
By Khatchig Mouradian
January 29, 2005
“Historians have primarily been concerned with protecting the interests of
the state. This has been the dominant historiography since the founding of
the Turkish Republic,” says Muge Gocek in this interview. She adds, however,
“Today, there are new works, like the works of Taner Akcam and the
interviews of Halil Berktay that approach the State’s views critically.
These, put together with the fact that recently – in the last two decades –
especially the Aras publishing house in Turkey has been translating
Turkish-Armenian literature into Turkish, make me think, or hope and wish
that there may be a post-national critical narrative developing.”
Gocek, Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, certainly does much more than hoping and
wishing, however, regarding what she calls a “post-national critical
narrative.” She is one of the few Turkish voices in wilderness, organizing
conferences that bring together Turkish and Armenian scholars who are
prepared to set aside prejudices and confront history with all
its ugliness. She writes papers and gives lectures on the Armenian genocide,
and is currently, authoring a book on the subject.
The number of Turkish scholars that challenge the state’s point of view
regarding the Armenian genocide – any Turkish diplomat would immediately
tell you it is the “so-called Armenian genocide” — is not extensive.
However, their work speaks for itself. It is already catching the attention
of their Armenian colleagues, as well as historians, publicists and
politicians in the West.
Will the dominant Turkish elite have the courage to confronts its past and
acknowledge the suffering that the government of the Young Turks in the
Ottoman Empire inflicted on a considerable segment of its subjects? Will the
souls of more than a million Armenians that perished because of
state-sponsored killings finally rest in peace? For what they believe will
be for the good of all on both sides of the divide, Gocek and some of her
like-minded Turkish colleagues want to make sure that the answers to these
questions are all in the affirmative.
You can call them ‘turncoats’ or you can call them ‘pioneers’. They will not
feel intimidated by the first label. Nor will they be blinded by the second.
However you will describe them, one thing is certain: their work is a
harbinger of things to come.
Aztag- How did your research interests lead you to research the fate of the
Armenians in the early 20th century Ottoman Empire?
Muge Gocek- When I came to do my doctoral degree here in the US, I was
interested in the decline of the Ottoman Empire, especially in the elements
that led to its demise, and also in the rise of the Turkish Republic–my
dissertation was titled “the Rise of the Bourgeoisie and Demise of the
Empire”. During my research, I was alerted to the role the religious
minorities played in the Ottoman Empire and how, with the emergence of the
nation-state, these minorities were drawn out of the picture, and how their
exclusion led to the formation of a different type of society in Turkey. But
at that particular juncture, my interest in the minorities didn’t go beyond
that.
However, as a historical sociologist, I was very interested in writing about
the histories of social groups that had not had a voice in history; this was
eventually compounded by my interest in the lack of democratization and the
lack of the participation of social groups in determining the Turkish
political structure. I was especially distressed about what was happening to
the Kurds and to other minority groups in Turkey today.
The way that the Armenians came into the picture had to do with my
particular location in the US. Whenever I told Armenians I was a Turk, I was
immediately asked to account for killing all those Armenians; I’m still
telling them that I honestly had nothing to do with it!
Initially, the issue was extremely politicized for me to venture into that
field. Anyhow, at the time I was working on other projects, and that is why
I put off getting involved in this matter. But then all my interests came
together and after I established my professional standing here and got
tenure, I figured that, as an academic, this was an issue I had to research
for a number of reasons. The most important reason is something which is
not covered much and that has to do with the emotional aspect of what
happened: The Armenians I talked with were so hurt because of this awful
thing that had happened in the past; they were not able to mourn it properly
because it was not recognized. Regardless of what happened, if one doesn’t
recognize something that has happened to someone, and something that has
been an extremely traumatic experience, it increases the trauma even more
and warps them emotionally. That’s why when I said “look, I feel for you as
a human being, I’m willing to listen to what made you suffer so much, made
your life so miserable, tell me what happened to you,” people were
immediately so much relieved that they almost became speechless. That was
an extremely eye-opening experience for me: I never realized how much
acknowledging and sharing people’s emotions and sufferings can make them and
you better people, part of a humane community.
Just as eye-opening for me was that in Turkey, when this issue came up, the
Turks I talked to became extremely angry. That made me realize how much the
official historiography there had left out what had happened in the past. I
got the best education Turkey had to offer before I came to the US and I
myself wasn’t aware of what happened, because there are no sources that I
could have read and critically studied other than the ones that presented
the Turkish State’s version of history. This was, of course, very hard to
overcome and I was able to do so because I came to the US and continued my
scholarship. The position that emerges in Turkey is unfortunately one based
on the ignorance of our own past, partly because of the partial knowledge
that exists out there in what passes as Turkish scholarship and also
because, as a consequence of the alphabet reforms, people cannot read the
original Ottoman texts themselves, and the translation of those Ottoman
sources into Latin script has been controlled by the government as well.
Still, because of personal experiences and hearsay, there is a general
awareness in society that things are not what they are portrayed to be and
that in the public rhetoric there are some missing elements. In Turkey,
there is general criticism of the State control over knowledge today and I
think that criticism is also reflected on the Armenian issue as well.
Given the existing state of affairs –the strong emotions of the Armenians
here and the strong emotions in Turkey– and the fact that I had now
established my own credentials as an academic, I thought it was the right
time for me to pick this topic up for further analysis. Of course, the first
thing I had to do was to prove that I really was not an Armenian. This had
to be done because the nationalist Turks thought I had to have some Armenian
blood in me since no Turk in is his/her right mind would engage in such
“destructive” behavior toward the Turkish state, because they see what I’m
doing as leading to the destruction of the Turkish nation-state. Likewise,
whenever I presented my thoughts to the Armenian audiences here in the US,
they would say that I had to be Armenian, since they couldn’t think of any
Turk who could say such things, because they believed Turks in general were
not capable of being so reasonable or say things that are critical of Turkey
and the Turks. What is of course very striking here is that both sides have
the same prejudice. That’s how I am probably going to start the book I’m
writing on the subject. But I had to go back and trace all my ancestors to
see if there was one part which was Armenian.
Aztag- They really got you doubting didn’t they?
Muge Gocek- Well, if there was an element of truth in it, I wanted to make
sure it was I who discovered it first, rather than have them discover it at
some point. My ancestors all come from Anatolia-I do not have any Balkan
origins at all. One of my ancestors was from Agn (Kemalye), from a village
called Bashvartenik, however. I went there to discover who my ancestors
were–my mother’s grandfather had left there in 1903– and it turns out we
are Sunni Muslims to the core, and came there from the Caucasus in the 16th
century. I asked the people there why the place is called Bashvartenik, an
Armenian name meaning ‘large rose bushes’, and they said, “Before we came,
there were Armenians here, but they had migrated to Agn”. Obviously, my
ancestors had no connection to the Armenians in any way, especially to 1915.
However, I still cannot convince them that I’m not an Armenian.
What I’m trying to do is to come to terms with how the historiography on
1915 was created in Turkey. I’m writing a book on this as we speak, with the
hopes that if we see the dynamics behind the creation of this
historiography, if we understand the dynamics, people can go from denial to
remembrance to respect.
Another thing that I tell audiences here is that recognition of what
happened in 1915 will be very cathartic for the Armenians, but for the
Turks, it will be the beginning of a very long process, an arduous process
because there are many other social groups in Turkish history that have also
suffered; there are the Greeks, the Assyrians, of course, the Kurds, and, at
certain junctures, the Islamists. Turkey has a lot to come to terms with and
it is going to be a very long and difficult process.
Aztag- In one of your papers, you refer to “the other silences” in Turkish
history.
Muge Gocek- Exactly! I was originally going to write on the silences of
Turkish history and speak about all the different groups that suffered – in
addition to the groups I mentioned previously, I was also interested about
the terrible fate of the leftist intellectuals in Turkey and how they too
were suppressed. But Ronald Suny was here, and he and I would meet and talk
about these things, and he thought I was the only Turk who thought
critically about Turkish history and about the Armenian problem. I said no
there are others, and that’s how we started thinking about bringing together
scholars from both sides. The first workshop we held was at the University
of Chicago in 2000 and we had another at the University of Michigan in 2002
and one at Minnesota in 2003. In all these workshops, what we first tried
to do was develop a common language; I think we have been able to do this,
the group keeps growing and hopefully we can now start working on joint
projects together.
Aztag- You have come a long way. At the very beginning, there were many
historians who had reservations and refused to take part in the workshops.
Muge Gocek- Yes. Quite a number of them initially stayed out of it; some
wanted us to write declarations stating that we are recognizing the Armenian
genocide before we even started. It was interesting because Ron himself
said, “look, we are scholars and that goes against the nature of
scholarship”. We just went along with the ones who were willing to take the
risk and come, and then of course time proved us right.
Aztag- Some even confused your workshop with the meetings of the
Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC), didn’t they?
Muge Gocek- Yes. It is very interesting, because that confusion was there on
both sides; both the Armenians and some of the Turks I talked to thought
that I was inviting them to this place where we were going to advocate the
views of the Turkish State. I think this demonstrates how ingrained and
dominating the political narrative of the Turkish state is in this matter.
It’s very hard for people to perceive that there is scholarship done
independently of the Turkish state, that there is a Turkish society that is
separate from the Turkish state. Even in the Armenian Republic, some
newspaper editorials appeared stating that the scheduling and timing of our
workshop had been strategically planned in relation to the reconciliation
meetings. This was very ironic because the scheduling was actually done with
respect to when Ronald Suny, I, and others had free time in our teaching
schedules…
The whole politics around the subject was actually one of the reasons why we
decided at the very beginning that the workshop should be closed to the
public. We didn’t want participants marching in and declaring what we should
be doing, but nevertheless we thought that there ought to be a public
component to the workshop where we shared the results of our workshop with
others. Now we have a public presentation session at each workshop where we
summarize what we have accomplished. We also invite some journalists to
attend so that they could see for themselves what’s happening and report on
it to the larger public.
Aztag- You speak about three phases in Turkish historiography. Based on what
criteria did you make this distinction?
Muge Gocek- When Ronald Suny and I decided to do the workshops, he said that
we should start them off by presenting surveys of existing historiographies
on 1915, suggested he would look at the English-language historiography
himself and I could look at the Turkish-language historiography. He thought
that the critical analysis of the historiography would set the tone for the
workshop very nicely. I said “ok, sure no problem.” I figured it wouldn’t
take me long to get the official historiography down since it just keeps
repeating itself. However, because I am an Ottoman specialist, I didn’t stop
with the official Turkish historiography, went further back, and researched
the Ottoman historiography on the Armenians starting from the late 1800’s.
And that is when I realized that at first, there was an Ottoman
interrogative narrative; the Ottoman state was trying to understand what was
going on, was attempting to decipher it, and this continued all the way
until sultan Abdul Hamid’s reign. In 1878, when the subject of reform comes
up, when the Ottoman administrators talk about the reform, some like Ahmed
Izzet Pasha try to undertake the reforms, others resist them entirely.
Furthermore, the first incidents were seen as the subjects being unhappy
with the situation and initially there is no rhetoric that developed against
them. The hostile stand against the Armenians developed later when they
gradually started to be portrayed as “the other”.
The rhetoric of the Committee of Union and Progress to justify what was
going on was much more different and proto-nationalist, and this rhetoric
was then adopted by the Turkish Nation-State. The ensuing Republican period
acquired a defensive narrative as the historians were primarily concerned
with protecting the State’s interests. This has been the dominant
historiography since the founding of the Turkish Republic. I call it the
Republican defensive narrative.
Today, there are new works, like the works of Taner Akcam and the interviews
of Halil Berktay that approach the State’s views critically. These, put
together with the fact that recently in the last two decades, especially the
Aras publishing house in Turkey has been translating Turkish-Armenian
literature into Turkish, make me think, or hope and wish, that there may be
a post-national critical narrative developing.
Aztag- Is being a Turkish historian an advantage when you are dealing with
the Archives in Turkey?
Muge Gocek- The problem is that the type of research that’s done by Turkish
historians tends to be extremely scholastic in nature; it either focuses
exclusively on just deciphering one or two documents or describing the state
of affairs through lots of documents with very little analysis. Of course,
since the alphabet reform severed the connection of most Turks with their
own past, there wasn’t a very large body of historians in Turkey to start
with; in addition, the Republic was moving forward and did not want to look
back and study its past – it was much more concerned with progress. There
aren’t too many Turkish students and faculty – that is, in relation to the
size of our country –
who conduct research in the archives and the ones who do tend to, as I said,
focus on institutions and such and are not willing to risk or are not
encouraged to work on politically charged issues.
What happened to me was that when I was very interested in the
westernization of the Ottoman Empire – which is what the first two of my
sole-authored books are on-I did an interim project on education.
Considering the fact that the ways western knowledge was brought into the
Ottoman Empire varied according to the type of school that brought this
knowledge, I thought it would be very interesting to compare a State school,
like the Galatasaray lyceum, with a quasi-missionary school like the Robert
College and a minority school, like the Uskudar Djemaran. I picked Djemaran
just by chance – it could have been a Greek school or a Jewish one instead,
but I wanted it to be a minority school that was established around the same
time period with Galatasary and Robert College and that was still in
existence today in one form or another, and that happened to point out
Djemaran.
When I went into the Ottoman archives to research the documents existing on
these three schools, I had no trouble getting documents on the first two,
but then had all the trouble on the third one. I was very surprised because
this was education; what I was looking at really did not have any political
bearings at the time. The fact that I was systematically not shown any
documents that the Ottoman Armenians themselves had written not only on this
school but on education as a whole made me realize that even though the
archives were open, the documents that the people got to see were actually
inspected by a group of people/officials before they were permitted out. I
was told that all such documents I located in the catalogues were either
missing, miscataloged, in repair or actually not related to my topic. There
was something strange about this and I did write to them about this and said
that I both as a scholar and a Turkish citizen was very disillusioned by the
fact that it wasn’t as open as it should be. The archives may be open to
others who use them selectively and who upfront tell what it is that they’re
going to “find” from the archives. Obviously, that’s not how scholarship
works. Therefore, although the archives are there and technically indeed
open, how much of an advantage that gives the Turkish scholars or anyone is
debatable.
Aztag- Where do you go from here?
Muge Gocek- Well, there is the next workshop we’re planning in Salzburg in
April 2005 and the increasing number of scholars participating in our
workshops is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction. We are also in
the process of putting out edited volumes out of all the papers presented at
our workshops. Most of the papers were of very high quality, so we decided
to do an edited volume on the ones that focused on the Armenian massacres
and another one on the background of those events. This way, there will be a
new body of scholarship that all scholars could draw upon.
There have been other examples of such undertakings as well and I laud them
all. Recently, other conferences are also bringing together Turkish and
Armenian scholars. Nobody should have any monopoly over this. It should be a
general movement. Given the current world context, I think with time, there
is going to be more and more scholarship that is critical of the official
stand in Turkey. A stand manned -I’m saying “manned” because there are no
women among them- by people who are not even professional academics, but
rather retired bureaucrats or historians who do their work in an amateurish
manner. With time, people in Turkey will recognize the things that
transpired in their past and will come to terms with it; I know that they
have the courage and perseverance to do so. What I want to be extremely
careful about, however, is that because this process is being introduced
after a very long silence, one should work in a way that recognizes the
total lack of knowledge among the Turks concerning what happened to the
Armenians of Anatolia. I think that it is probably going to take us a decade
or so to see Turkish society reconcile with its past, to get concrete
results. That’s how I think when the days are sunny and I’m in a good mood!
Aztag- Well then, I wouldn’t dare ask you what you think if you aren’t in a
good mood!
Muge Gocek- Well I also get distressed at times. We hear of Turks living in
the US who think people like me are ‘turncoats’; that we are out to destroy
the Turkish Republic. There are these nationalist Turkish-Americans out
there, mostly professionals dying to be the mouthpieces of the Turkish
State, who know nothing about the Armenian issue other than what the State
has instructed them to believe, or who have maybe read at most one
propaganda piece on the topic, but are of course sure everything in there is
correct because they have no scholarly training to assess its quality. Then
they have the guts to get out in public and denigrate you without even
bothering to read what you have written!
But this also happens to my Armenian colleagues: nationalism and scholarship
do not go well together. They have to see that you cannot scare scholars
into not doing research, into getting them to fear you and censor
themselves. That isn’t healthy and pleasant — and it also won’t work. But
obviously that conflict comes with the territory, it comes with the subject,
and we are in this profession to do what we want and choose to do, and
thankfully the freedom of thought and expression is something guaranteed to
those academics among us who live and practice scholarship in the United
States, and I’m going to practice that for good, and that’s the way it goes.
It’s just that at times it becomes difficult and unpleasant, but life is
sometimes unfair, so what can you do, right?
Aztag- We spoke about the Armenians not having the chance to fully mourn,
but you’ve also written that even Turkey hasn’t had the chance to mourn. Can
you explain what you mean by that?
Muge Gocek- Turkey has not had the chance to mourn either. I think because
of building this new nation on new Republican principles, the Turkish people
themselves have never had the chance to come into terms with the traumas in
their own past; the Balkan wars, the traumatic expulsion from the Balkans,
the various uprisings, rebellions, and other murders in Turkey itself that
were put down so violently. These haven’t been acknowledged and publicly
mourned either. All these societal issues will have to come up, hopefully in
a constructive way. That’s what I meant.
Nations usually come to a point in their histories when they are able to
face their past and undertake such mourning in order to heal for a healthier
future, and I think Turkey has reached that point because the level of
education in Turkey has increased dramatically and with education the
capacity to think as a society increases as well.
Aztag- Some historians and sociologists argue that the Armenian genocide and
other tragedies are at the foundations of the Turkish Republic, so
recognizing the Genocide would really shake those foundations and that is
why Turkey is so reluctant to face its past.
Muge Gocek- Well, it would definitely shake it, but Turkey has gone through
many earthquakes and is nevertheless still there. If there is a foundation
and you know there are problems with it, would you live in that house? You
would have to if you have no place to go, but you would know that
eventually, at one point it’s going to cause trouble. You know you’ll
eventually have to fix the foundation. Otherwise, the whole thing will
eventually collapse. So you have to get the tools out and start working on
it; you can’t keep pretending all is fine, you can’t keep painting the
surface over and over again with expensive paint to make it appear strong –
none of that is going to work in the long run if the foundations are shaky.
Aztag- And scholars like you are not only looking at the building, but also
studying the foundations.
Muge Gocek- Exactly. I think in Turkey most people look at the building and
judge things by appearance alone. And they see of the foundations only what
Mustafa Kemal and the official historiography built for them. They don’t
realize that those foundations run deeper and include many things that
happened before the founding of the Turkish Republic. I think that’s where
the problem with the foundations is located.
Aztag- I read that you like translating novels from Turkish into English;
there must be a story there.
Muge Gocek- Oh yes, I do. I did translate one of the novels of Elif Shafak.
Why did I become interested in that? In a society where the official
historiography and official documents don’t give you much information about
what has actually transpired in history, literature becomes extremely
important in capturing the past. Literature conveys the spectrum of meanings
in a society and that’s why I’m very interested in novels that highlight the
multi-ethnic, multi-cultural fabric of Turkish society, past and present.
These works haven’t been translated enough, however; that’s why I have
translated Elif Shafak because I think she is a very important Turkish
novelist who captures that fabric.
Aztag- I’m currently reading “Snow”, Orhan Pamuk’s latest novel.
Gocek- I’m including that book in my ‘post-nationalist narrative’. There
recently appeared one or two critical articles in Turkey on all the Armenian
elements in it. When you go to Kars–I was in Kars this summer–you cannot
avoid seeing all the Armenian houses, buildings, and structures, and the
fact that Pamuk does mention all that has been noticed in Turkey.
Interestingly enough, I think in that novel he does a much better job
capturing those multi-ethnic elements than the Islamic ones on which he is
rather weak. Still, he’s obviously cognizant of those elements of Turkey’s
past and it’s good that people outside of Turkey see that.
I mean the Turkish standpoint is so dominated by the State narrative that
the people do not realize that many Turkish intellectuals are aware of these
dynamics and write about them, until, of course, their works are translated
into English. That’s why the works that deal with those dimensions have to
be translated. And it is a shame only Orhan Pamuk gets to be translated
because there are many others who do just as good a job who are not yet
translated into English.

AGBU Press Office
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022-1112
Phone 212.319.6383 x.118
Fax 212.319.6507
Email [email protected]
Website
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 28, 2005
AGBU ADDRESSES THE LAWSUIT FILED BY HIS BEATITUDE ARCHBISHOP MESROB
MUTAFYAN, ARMENIAN PATRIARCH OF ISTANBUL
NEW YORK, NY – We regret the actions of His Beatitude in filing a
lawsuit against the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU). We believe
that His Beatitude has not been fully informed of the true position with
regard to AGBU’s operation of the Melkonian Educational Institute. AGBU
remains committed to serve and pursue the best interests of the Armenian
nation and not the particular interests of the few, no matter how vocal.
The decision to close the Melkonian Educational Institute was carefully
considered and is fully permitted under the terms of the unconditional
grant made to AGBU. In addition, contrary to the allegations made,
through the years AGBU has paid to the Patriarchate of Constantinople,
pursuant to Garabed Melkonian’s wishes, all sums provided for by him and
much more, as evidenced by receipts and other documents. As throughout
our history, AGBU will continue to honor the vision of its many generous
benefactors including the late Garabed Melkonian, for the benefit of all
Armenians worldwide.
– AGBU CENTRAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

ArmenPress
Jan 28 2005
PRESIDENT KOCHARIAN’S MESSAGE ON THE OCCASION OF ARMY DAY
YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS: On the occasion of Army’s Day
President Robert Kocharian sent a congratulatory address, which
states:
“Dear country fellows: I congratulate you on the occasion of
Army’s Day. This a new holiday for the Republic of Armenia. However,
this holiday is great and precious for everyone. It has been
established through the heroic deeds of the sons of the Armenian
people on the borders of Karabagh and Armenia, and through the
collective will of our people. The Armenian Army has been forged in
the flames of the war as a splendid manifestation of national
self-expression and dignity.
The Army of the Republic of Armenia is a reliable safeguard of our
borders, guarantor of peaceful and secure life of our people, and an
important constituent of our advancement.
Dear servicemen: With a special feeling I congratulate you on the
occasion of Army’s Day. Your difficult and devoted service to our
Fatherland, your professional skills and high combat spirit are the
cornerstones of our freedom and independence. I wish you successful
service.
Once again I congratulate all of us on the occasion of this great
holiday, and wish peaceful skies and stable development for the
benefit of our country and our people.

ArmenPress
Jan 28 2005
SAUR TO INVEST $25 MILLION IN 4 YEARS TO IMPROVE WATER SUPPLIES
YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS : The French company Saur that won
an international tender for running Armenia’s water and sewage system
has pledged to invest $2 or $3 million this year to improve water
supplies and gradually phase out water rationing. Patrick Loren, the
chief manager of Armenian Water and Sewage company, said one of the
priorities will be to decrease losses of water.
The company operates water supplies to 300 rural and 37 urban
communities. Another priority, according to him, is the installment
of water meters, repair of decayed pipes, restoration of water
purifying stations. Out of 176,846 active households only 73,000 have
installed meters. The company plans to raise this figure by another
30,000 this year.
Two pilots projects will be implemented in Sevan and Dilijan. Next
year the project will include other towns and rural settlements. The
company’s four-year investment project envisages a total of $25,5
million investments, of which $23 million will come from a World Bank
long-term credit, another $2.5 million will come from the government
budget.

Azeri, Armenian foreign minister to discuss Karabakh on 2 March
Turan news agency
28 Jan 05
BAKU
Another round of talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign
ministers, Vardan Oskanyan and Elmar Mammadyarov, will be held in
Prague on 2 March, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov
said at today’s press conference.
The latest meeting between the two ministers was mediated by the OSCE
Minsk Group and took place on 11 January 2005.
In all, Mammadyarov and Oskanyan have held eight meetings in the
period starting from April 2004.

Agenzia Giornalistica Italia, Italy
Jan 28 2005
SHOAH: CIAMPI, EU WAS ANSWER TO HOLOCAUST
(AGI) – Rome, Jan. 27 – In his speech coinciding with the Holocaust
Day, Italian Head of State Carlo Azeglio Ciampi said that Europe’s
strength “lies in its ability to overcome past divisions and in the
yearn of its peoples to create a common future based on the same
history”. He added that “the intention to work together in the
respect of human dignity, minorities’ rights and differences is
essential if European integration is to be achieved. I am pleased to
have the opportunity to say this today, as we remember the
Holocaust”, he said during his meeting with Armenian president Robert
Kocharian. “This is the spirit of European relationships with
bordering nations”, he continued, “and it is how Europe operated in
the Balkans, where it restored dialogue and peaceful cohabitation, or
in the Caucasus, where its aim is to achieve lasting development,
democracy and peace”. (AGI) –
271836 GEN 05