This book examines how Armenia and Armenians were portrayed in Britain at a decisive moment in modern history.
It illustrates how British observers represented the 'in-between' position of Armenians and considers the early development of atrocity narratives which related acts of violence and oppression by the Ottomans. It goes on to examine responses to the massacres of the Armenians during the First World War, showing how established images of Armenians were transformed in the wake of this crisis. Laycock then turns to the post-war period when attempts were made to define and establish an independent Armenian nation state in the midst of international efforts to provide for the relief and resettlement of Armenian refugees. The book ends with the long-term implications that British and international 'abandonment' of the Armenians had for their subsequent place in public memory.
This book will be of interest to scholars modern British history, Armenian history and wider issues within European studies -- .
Introduction From cradle of civilisation to victim nation: Britain and Armenia 1875 - 1925 1. Imagining Armenia: Otherness, orientalism and ambiguity 2. The boundary of the civilised world? Images of Armenia during the late nineteenth century 3. ‘The murder of a nation’ Representing the Armenian genocide of 1915 4. Armenian Refugees: Representation, relief and repatriation 5. Post-War Armenia: Visions, realities and responses Conclusions The Armenian past, present and future in the British imagination -- .
Joanne Laycock is Senior Lecturer in History at Sheffield Hallam University
Reviews for Imagining Armenia: Orientalism, Ambiguity and Intervention, 1879–1925
Significantly, Laycock's Imagining Armenia is an imaginative study of the permutations of the concept of the 'other' in relation to Britain and Armenia during a turbulent historical period, culminating in the First World War and the genocide of the Armenians. -- .
