Dr Umit Kurt

Historian and award-winning researcher Dr Ümit Kurt is digging into hidden stories to better understand the transformations of imperial structures in the Modern Middle East and late Ottoman Empire – and their role in constituting the republican regime.

Ümit's research and teaching are grounded on theories of state and class, social identity, ethnicity and race, and social, economic and environmental histories of violence.

The transformative dimensions of mass violence committed against the minorities of the Ottoman Empire – Armenians, Assyrians, Yazidis, and Greeks – and the historical impact and consequences of the Empire's violent history on the Balkans and the Levant (Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon) are key elements of his research.

"My research highlights the crucial role played by international, inter-state, central, and regional actors, who undertook critical roles in the national and community-building process of the Empire, resulting in the foundation of the new Turkish Republic (1923),” he says.

"It rethinks the classical historical narrative about the emergence of the post-Ottoman Middle East and seeks to understand the wider, global dimensions of mass violence.”

The Armenians of Aintab

His recent book, The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide, which was selected as the PROSE Award Finalist in the category of World History by the Association of American Publishers in January 2022 and the 2022 Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association Book Award Honourable Mention, offers a fresh take on analysing the murder and plunder of Armenians living in Aintab (modern-day Gaziantep).

It provides a new perspective on the local dynamics of genocide and its political, social, and economic legacies," says Ümit.

"It also delivers new insights on the cause and origins of genocidal policies and their impact in the making and re-making of provincial elites and, by extension, of the modern Turkish republic and reveals how genocide was carried out at a grassroots level."

It's a story of an exemplary late Ottoman social history of a prosperous but also deeply traumatised provincial town and a small step in understanding not only what happened but also how and why events transpired.

Where research and personal history meet

The history of Aintab is especially pertinent to Ümit, as it's the very same city where he was born and raised.

In fact, he admits he now fully realises that through having attended the same schools with grandsons and granddaughters of those elites, he has himself witnessed the consequences of Aintab Armenians' physical and material destruction.

"I was raised in Gaziantep by a Kurdish mother and an Arab father but learned none of their mother tongues. My father never let my mother speak Kurdish with my siblings and I. He grew up a Turkish Muslim person par excellence. Presumably, it was the only way for him and his Arab family from Aleppo to survive in Turkey."

His research was inspired by a journey back home after graduating from Middle East Technical University in Ankara in 2007. After finding himself in an unknown suburb to meet a friend, he arrived at a café based in a beautiful stone historic house.

After trying to engage the owner in a conversation about the history of the building – Ümit has presumed it to be Ottoman – he discovered that it had actually belonged to Armenians.

On his way home, he wondered why the Armenians would have handed over such an exquisite property. It turns out it was not by choice but by deportation during the genocide. This story made a huge impact on him, prompting his research focus.

History is about understanding

A great historian, Marc Bloch, once said, "When all is said and done, a single word, 'understanding" is the beacon light of our studies". This is a standpoint Ümit embraces.

"To me, the historian's job is to keep lies from ruling the day, from having the final say. Without historians' patient rigour, we would be at the mercy of what our politicians and pundits tell us about our national histories. The best history writing saves us from that delusion and resignation. It's not simply informative. It's emancipatory, even redemptive."

But understanding doesn't always come easy, especially when formal archive materials are restricted and kept hidden from researchers.

Ümit has bypassed this roadblock in the past by taking a more grassroots approach. In one example relating to his latest book, he went direct to the decedent of a genocide survivor via a family member, who had many old papers and documents written in Ottoman Turkish.

What he found was ground-breaking. It demonstrated the type of policies the Ottoman state and its bureaucrats applied to properties of deported Armenians during the genocide. It blatantly showed and proved the plunder and destruction under the veil of legality.

It's this constant and rigorous effort to approach and reach the historical truth and, most importantly, to make the voices of oppressed and de-humanised groups heard that motivates and excites him the most.

Re-authoring the past

As well as authoring The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide, Ümit has several other books to his name.

These include authoring Antep 1915: Genocide and Perpetrators (İletişim, 2018) and co-authoring The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide (Berghahn, 2017).

He was also co-editor of the volumes of Armenians and Kurds in the Late Ottoman Empire (The Press at Cal. State University Fresno, 2020) and The Committee of Union and Progress: Founders, Ideology, and Structure (The Press at Cal. State University, Fresno 2021).

On top of this, he has published numerous articles in prestigious peer review journals such as the Journal of Genocide Research, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Patterns of Prejudice, Genocide Studies International, Middle Eastern Studies, Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Nations and Nationalism, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Turkish Studies, Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Culture and Religion, Armenian Review, and Journal of Armenian Studies.

Ümit also serves as the Vice Executive Secretary of the International Network of Genocide Scholars. His research project, Global Patterns of Mass Violence: Ottoman Borderlands in Context, 1890-1920, was awarded the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award.

From history to conflict insight

Ümit’s research has provided great benefits for our current understanding of conflicts.

"My research is important for understanding the history of current conflicts in Syria and the Middle East, as well as the recent Balkan conflicts during the dissolution of Yugoslavia and possibly even the ongoing tensions in Cyprus,” he says.

"The legacy of the Ottoman past has played a pivotal role in Turkey's harsh and violent policies towards Yazidis and Kurds in the Middle East. This research illuminates and provides historical context to this continuum of violence. "

A better understanding of these conflicts is obviously of interest not only to academics and the wider public but also to policymakers concerned with these regions of conflict.