This a book I read with varying degrees of interest; when he was in the first personal, talking about his personal experiences with the various ethnic groups, it was interesting. When he would go off and start cataloging the history of one massacre or uprising after another, it was repetitious and not as interesting. He is an amazing individual, for his patience and perseverance in spending three years on and off in a small village called Varto, in Eastern Turkey. Before becoming interested in what happened to the Armenians and other ethic groups in the early part of the twentieth century, he lived in Istanbul, enjoying it fruits, refining his Turkish, becoming a Turkophile so to speak. The book is about how he goes beneath this superficial, even sybaritic view of Turkey, to discover the truth about its early history, its treatment of various minorities in the East, first the Armenians, then the Alevis (an offshoot of Shia, but more tolerant, human,less severe, and the Kurds. The fact that he speaks fluent Turkish allows him into the homes and offices of various people in Varto, but for the most part, he discovers they are suspicious, of his intentions, and ultimately, when they do speak, there memory is clouded by myth, forgetfulness, lies or fabrications, and fear of the past, what unearthing will bring. He finds very little of the Armenian culture left, as churches and buildings and homes have been destroyed, built over, and used as building materials for new homes. Because there has been such unrest and violence and fear, few of the three groups have gotten a long, and with the exception of the Armenians destructions in 1915 or genocide, there seems to be constant war between the Kurds, the Alevis, and the Turkish govt and its troops. The Kurds seem to be the most violent, the hardest to rule, as they continually harass the armies, for a good half of century, and to a greater or lesser degree, rebel and then coexist. None of these groups comes off very well, though the Armenians are no longer present, except in the relatives, who live in the US and Europe. De Bellaigue seems to avoid the word genocide, though he knows there has been much violence and death, whether using Turkish stats or Armenians. He is equally suspicious of both, though he seems to make most fun of the Turkish stats, their official refusal to own up to large killings. He does, however, make it clear that things were in flux at this period; that the Armenians slaughtered many Turks as well, and at times, their armies controlled large parts of Turkey before the rise of Ataturk and the establishment of Turkey. He puts the blame on all sides, really, though the Turks seem to be the most harsh, perhaps as they fought to establish a country, feared the rise of Armenia and Kurds. There govts have been intolerant of any ethnic minorities over the past 50 years, emphasizing the idea of Turkishness, refusing to admit the idea of Kurdishness or Alevis, though in fact they existed. The book ends with things better in the present then ever before, especially for the Kurds and Alevis, though the Armenians and the idea of Christianity still seems forbidden for the most part, though I read in today's newspaper that a Christian service was held for the first time today in a monastery outside of Trabazon, with over a 1000 attendees, to celebrate the birth of the virgin Mary. The Turks gave special dispensation, this once, for this to happen. The fact that it had to be 'oked' by the Turks suggests the lack of tolerance overall in this country for other religions, The book is worth reading for most Turkophiles, though I would assume someone ignorant of most of Turkish history would find it a bore. Very few people stood out in the book, though it was filled with names that are perhaps dear to the Kurds or Alevis, mostly because they were renowned for their fighting abilities.
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