This book collects the known writings of the late Dr. Abraham K. Yoosuf (1866-1924). Despite his short lifetime (58 years), Dr. Yoosuf managed to accomplish many things. He is best known for his work as Assyrian delegate at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919-1920, where he fought for the rights of the Assyrians and their right to self-determination of Assyria.
Assyrians have come a long way from Nineveh to Södertälje - both in space and time. This straightforward book recounts the long, dramatic history of the Assyrians: The ancient Assyrian Empire, how the Assyrians became the first nation to adopt Christianity, how they have been persecuted by the Persians, Arabs, Turks and Kurds, and why they left their homeland of Assyria to settle in Södertälje, Chicago, Gütersloh, Sydney, Enschede and Gothenburg. The book deals with the Assyrian language and self-designation, churches and secular organizations, and also attempts to describe why they are split into different groups with varying views of their identity and history. The book is based on modern, scientific research and provides answers to common questions raised by both Assyrians and non-Assyrians regarding one of Sweden's largest immigrant groups.
Who are the Assyrians and what role did they play in shaping modern Iraq? Were they simply bystanders, victims of collateral damage who played a passive role in the history of Iraq? And how have they negotiated their position throughout various periods of Iraq's state-building processes? This book details the narrative and history of Iraq in the 20th century and reinserts the Assyrian experience as an integral part of Iraq's broader contemporary historiography. It is the first comprehensive account to contextualize this native people's experience alongside the developmental processes of the modern Iraqi state. Using primary and secondary data, this book offers a nuanced exploration of the dynamics that have affected and determined the trajectory of the Assyrians' experience in 20th century Iraq.
For a brief period, the attention of the international community has focused once again on the plight of religious minorities in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. In particular, the abductions and massacres of Yezidis and Assyrians in the Sinjar, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Baghdad, and Hasakah regions in 2007–2015 raised questions about the prevention of genocide. This book, while principally analyzing the Assyrian genocide of 1914–1925 and its implications for the culture and politics of the region, also raises broader questions concerning the future of religious diversity in the Middle East. It gathers and analyzes the findings of a broad spectrum of historical and scholarly works on Christian identities in the Middle East, genocide studies, international law, and the politics of the late Ottoman Empire, as well as the politics of the Ottomans' British and Russian rivals for power in western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean basin. A key question the book raises is whether the fate of the Assyrians maps onto any of the concepts used within international law and diplomatic history to study genocide and group violence. In this light, the Assyrian genocide stands out as being several times larger, in both absolute terms and relative to the size of the affected group, than the Srebrenica genocide, which is recognized by Turkey as well as by international tribunals and organizations. Including its Armenian and Greek victims, the Ottoman Christian Genocide rivals the Rwandan, Bengali, and Biafran genocides. The book also aims to explore the impact of the genocide period of 1914–1925 on the development or partial unraveling of Assyrian group cohesion, including aspirations to autonomy in the Assyrian areas of northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey. Scholars from around the world have collaborated to approach these research questions by reference to diplomatic and political archives, international legal materials, memoirs, and literary works.
This is a revised edition of the author's The Nestorians and Their Muslim Neighbors (Princeton University Press, 1961). Early in the nineteenth century, the Aramaic-speaking "Nestorian" Christians received special attention when American Protestant missions decided to educate and reform them to help meet the challenge that Islam presented to the growing missionary movements. When archaeologist Layard further publicized the historic minority as "Assyrians", the name acquired a new connotation when other forces at work in the region - religious, nationalistic, imperialistic - entangled these modern Assyrians in vagaries and manipulations in which they were outnumbered and outclassed. The study examines Western Christendom's current position on Islam, with emphasis on the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches. The revision draws on a wide variety of sources not used in the original.
During the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire, the ethnic tensions between the minority populations within the empire led to the administration carrying out a systematic destruction of the Armenian people. This not only brought 2,000 years of Armenian civilisation within Anatolia to an end but was accompanied by the mass murder of Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christians. Containing a selection of papers presented at The Genocide of the Christian Populations of the Ottoman Empire and Its Aftermath (1908–1923) international conference, hosted by the Chair for Pontic Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, this book draws on unpublished archival material and an innovative historiographical approach to analyze events and their legacy in comparative perspective. In order to understand the historical context of the Ottoman Genocide, it is important to study, apart from the Armenian case, the fate of the Greek and Assyrian peoples, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the complexity of the situation. This volume is primarily a research contribution but should also be valued as a supplementary text that would provide secondary reading for undergraduates and postgraduate students.
Examining the relationship between the Iraqi state under the Baʿth regime and the Assyrians, a Christian ethno-religious group, Benjamen looks at the role of minorities and identity in twentieth-century Iraqi political and cultural history, based on new sources and bilingual voices for a nuanced and focused historical exploration.
The widespread persecution of the Christian Assyrians by neighboring populations in the Ottoman Empire led to their immigration to the United States. Beginning at the end of the 19th century, with an influx during the Great War, Assyrians settled mostly in eastern Massachusetts, finding an abundance of work along its ports and among its large factory base. Concerned with the welfare of their community, these immigrants established a multitude of cultural, social, and political institutions to help promote awareness of Assyria. The establishment of St. Mary's Assyrian Apostolic Church, the first of its kind outside of the Middle East, prompted the solidarity of Assyrians in Massachusetts and became a model for later settlements of Assyrians in the United States. Through family portraits and documents from both religious and secular institutions, Assyrians of Eastern Massachusetts addresses the adjustment of this community in the United States.
This volume examines how the presence of an American evangelical mission in the borderlands between Qajar Iran and the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century contributed to the development of a secular nationalism among the indigenous Neo-Aramaic speaking Christian population of the region. A particular evangelical configuration of modernity was cultivated at the mission in the antebellum period, one belonging to a visceral realm often unrecognised in characterisations of secularism and the Enlightenment.
