Tuesday, December 13, 2022 at 7:30pm Eastern / 4:30pm Pacific
On Zoom and the NAASR YouTube Channel Link.

Photo: Mustafa Reşat Mimaroğlu with his son Sadi in Erzincan in 1910.

PRESENTER
DR. ÜMIT KURT, Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities, University of Newcastle, New South Wales

As a young technocrat working in the Political Unit (Kısmı Siyasi) of the Ministry of Interior under the jurisdiction of Talat Pasha, Mustafa Reşat Mimaroğlu played a pivotal role in planning, organizing and executing the political arrests of Armenian intellectuals and political elites in Istanbul on April 24, 1915. Mustafa Reşat made the execution of genocidal policies and violence easier, more effective, and smooth for Talat Pasha by clearing bureaucratic and administrative hurdles. As a genocide perpetrator, Mustafa Reşat Mimaroğlu then attained influential positions in post-genocide Turkey.

In this talk, Dr. Ümit Kurt will explore Mimaroğlu’s biography including his relationship with the Armenian journalist and professor Diran Kelekian, who was arrested by his former student Mimaroğlu in April 1915 and killed; examine the continuation of a genocidal regime in the modern Turkish Republic and how genocidaires such as Mimaroğlu constituted core elements of the new state; and explore what kinds of administrative/bureaucratic mechanisms made the Armenian Genocide possible and how technocrats like Mustafa Reşat, taking charge of these mechanisms, facilitated the genocide for political decision-makers.

Ümit Kurt is a historian of the modern Middle East, with a research focus on the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He specializes in the late Ottoman socio-economic history, Armenian genocide, mass/collective violence and interethnic conflicts. His broader training also includes the comparative empires, population movements, history of the Ottoman urban and local elites, wealth transfer, and nationalism. He is the author of The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province (Harvard University Press, 2021) and co-author with Taner Akçam of The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide (Berghahn Books, 2017).

CO-SPONSORS
Ararat-Eskijian Museum (AEM)
National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)
Society for Armenian Studies (SAS)