Fresno State Armenian Studies Publishes Book on Committee of Union and Progress
Posted on September. 16. 2021
The Armenian Studies Program announced the publication of its latest book, “The Committee of Union and Progress: Founders, Ideology, and Structure,” Volume 13 in the Armenian Series of The Press at California State University, Fresno, reports Asbarez.
The book will be presented and discussed at a special virtual event to be held at 10 a.m. PST on Saturday, September 25. Participants can register for the Zoom event online. Editors of the book, Dr. Ümit Kurt, Ara Sarafian, and Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian, as well as book contributors Dr. Hans-Lukas Kieser and Dr. Dikran Kaligian, will take part in the presentation, which will be co-sponsored by The Society for Armenian Studies.
The volume includes a collection of articles that reflect on Ottoman Armenians and the Turkish nationalist movement of the Committee of Union and Progress before WWI. The articles provide new, critical insights on the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923.
Chapter 1
The contents of the book include an “Introduction,” by Ümit Kurt and articles: “The Unionist Regime: Ideology in Command,” by Raymond H. Kévorkian; “Ziya Gökalp, Duumvir,” by Hans-Lukas Kieser; “When Revolutionaries Must Govern: The Vicissitudes of ARF-CUP Relations,” by Dikran Kaligian; “The Post-Revolutionary Period in Aintab and the Curious Case of Necmeddin Bey,” by Ümit Kurt; and “Homeland and Nation Revisited: A Discourse Analysis of the Memoirs of Young Turks,” by Duygu Coşkuntuna.
The chapters included in this work were first presented as papers at a conference entitled “The Committee of Union and Progress: Founders, Ideology, and Structure,” organized by Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian and Dr. Ümit Kurt, and sponsored by the Armenian Studies Program of California State University, Fresno, between October 12 to 13, 2018. The papers have since been edited and appear here in a single volume with a new historical introduction and illustrations.
“’The Committee of Union and Progress’ present a new approach to the study of this important period when the CUP came to power,” said Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian, general editor of the Armenian Series. “The book will provide scholars with new insights into the political party which ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1908 through the end of World War I. The inner workings of the party are key to understanding the decision which ultimately led to the Armenian Genocide.”