Film Discussion: “Genocide in the Orient – The Tragedy of the Assyrians”
A documentary film on the Assyrian Genocide (also known as Sayfo, “the sword”), released resently in France, highlights the Assyrian tragedy during World War I. It is entitled LES GENOCIDES D’ORIENT: LA TRAGÉDIE DES ASSYRIENS
[Genocide in the Orient: The Tragedy of the Assyrians].
Introduction: Reclaiming a Silenced Past
Genocide in the Orient: The Tragedy of the Assyrians confronts one of the most obscured and repressed chapters in the history of the First World War — the extermination of Christian minorities within the late Ottoman Empire, with a particular focus on the Assyro-Chaldeans. Through archival imagery, haunting landscapes, and the commentary of five distinguished historians — Taner Akçam, Joseph Yacoub, Edhem Eldem, Duygu Tasalp, and David Gaunt — the film reconstructs a forgotten genocide and exposes the enduring silence that surrounds it in modern Turkey.
While the Armenian genocide has gradually entered international consciousness, the suffering of the Assyrians has long remained marginal in historical and political discourse. The documentary situates this tragedy within the broader context of the
Ottoman Empire’s collapse, nationalist radicalization, and the logic of ethnic homogenization that defined the emergence of modern Turkey.
Taner Akçam situates the origins of the genocide not in 1915, but earlier — in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913). He explains that the Ottoman Empire’s loss of nearly all its European territories and much of its Christian population constituted “a deep trauma” for the ruling elites. From this moment, he argues, “the Ottoman government understood there was no possibility to live side by side with Christians.”
Joseph Yacoub adds that after the Balkan defeat, non-Turkish and non-Muslim communities were perceived as existential threats to Anatolia’s integrity — a perception that laid the ideological foundation for later acts of extermination.
By 1913, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) — a nationalist revolutionary movement — seized power through a coup, forming a dictatorial triumvirate under Talaat, Enver, and Djemal Pasha.
As historian Edhem Eldem observes, Ottoman politics thereafter “shifted toward fascism, dictatorship, and militarism,” merging Islam with the language of security and national survival.
Duygu Tasalp reinforces this point: for the Unionists, nationhood was “built upon Islam,” and the Muslim “dominant nation” was thus entitled — even obliged — to subjugate or eliminate the non-Muslim others.
World War I: The Context for Extermination
When World War I broke out, the Ottoman Empire entered on the side of Germany. The Eastern Front — along the border with Russia — became a crucible of paranoia and suspicion. Akçam notes that Armenian volunteers joined the Russian army, an act
that Ottoman authorities interpreted as a betrayal. This perception extended to other Christian groups, including the Assyrians, whose communities straddled the frontier. As David Gaunt explains, the Assyrians’ limited contact with the Russians — driven
by desperation and survival — was used by the Ottoman state as justification for collective punishment: “They had no alternative… but the Turks knew about this. They had intercepted messages.”
Thus began the logic of preemptive annihilation. In 1914–1915, the Ottoman authorities targeted Assyrian villages in the Hakkari region. Joseph Yacoub recounts how Kurdish tribes, armed and encouraged by the state, spearheaded attacks that decimated the Assyro-Chaldean population. “This was the spark,” he says, “that truly ignited the region.” Half the Assyrian population perished through massacre, starvation, or forced marches.
The Machinery of Genocide
By spring 1915, as Ottoman forces suffered defeat in the Caucasus, the CUP resolved upon what Taner Akçam calls the “final decision to exterminate the Armenians and remove the entire population from Anatolia.” Although the Assyrians were not initially designated as a central target, Akçam explains that local authorities implemented parallel deportations, erasing the distinction between Armenian and Assyrian Christians.
Duygu Tasalp highlights the bureaucratic coordination of this process: daily telegrams flowed between the Interior and War Ministries, detailing deportations and property confiscations. Eldem adds that war conditions enabled “organized extermination,” with military mobilization and the pretext of treason justifying atrocities. Kurdish militias, backed by the CUP, became instruments of terror across eastern Anatolia. One of the epicenters was Diyarbakir, governed by Rechid Bey, who organized mass killings with impunity. Tasalp’s stark testimony enumerates the methods of destruction — women and children thrown into wells, ravines, and rivers, “archaic” yet profoundly dehumanizing techniques that prefigured the logic of later genocides. Despite moments of resistance — most notably the siege of Ainwardo, where hundreds of Assyrians resisted for nearly two months — the outcome was annihilation. Survivors were driven south into the Syrian desert, where starvation completed the genocidal plan.
As Tasalp underscores, deportation itself was conceived as extermination: Ottoman parliamentary records show that leaders knew deportees would not survive. David Gaunt grimly quantifies this policy: “20 percent survived, 80 percent died on the way.” Aftermath and Denial: From Empire to Republic The war ended in 1918, leaving Anatolia devastated and largely emptied of its Christian populations. The triumvirs fled to Germany, and for a brief moment, postwar tribunals attempted to hold perpetrators accountable. Akçam recounts that Allied occupation of Istanbul compelled Ottoman authorities to stage trials (1919–1920), and Duygu Tasalp notes that several CUP officials were indeed condemned. Yet, as Gaunt points out, public backlash was fierce: “Reshid Bey… committed suicide… others were sent to Malta,” effectively ending the judicial process.
At the Paris Peace Conference (1919), Joseph Yacoub reminds us, Assyro-Chaldean delegates sought recognition and a national homeland, but their pleas “were not heard by the great powers.” Their tragedy was overshadowed by geopolitical interests — the drawing of new borders across the Middle East.
Tasalp describes how remnants of the CUP regrouped in Anatolia under Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) and how these same figures “formed the political personnel of the new Republic of Turkey.” The Kemalist revolution thus institutionalized a profound
historical silence: the Republic’s birth coincided with the erasure of its Christian victims. “Turkey,” she asserts, “was born out of genocide… The taboo lies in the fact that we exist because they no longer exist.” Akçam identifies two enduring reasons for denial: political continuity (the same cadres that organized the genocide founded the Republic) and fear of reparations. Admitting guilt, he explains, would mean acknowledging responsibility and potential compensation claims. Eldem expands this argument to a global level, suggesting that the great powers themselves preferred to “sweep this story under the rug” — a tacit complicity born of political convenience.
Memory and Recognition
The film closes by tracing the slow re-emergence of memory. Whereas the Armenian diaspora long preserved its history through activism and testimony, the Assyrian Genocide remained nearly invisible until the 21st century. Duygu Tasalp notes that 2015, the centenary of the genocide, marked a turning point: new voices in Turkey, Europe, and beyond began calling for recognition. Even Pope Francis publicly named the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek massacres as “the first genocide of the 20th
century.”
Yet, Tasalp concludes, Turkey “missed this opportunity” to face its past — moving instead toward renewed authoritarianism and isolation. The film’s final images linger over the empty monasteries of Tur Abdin, their silence speaking louder than denial
itself.
Conclusion: Confronting the Void
Genocide in the Orient: The Tragedy of the Assyrians is both historical reconstruction and moral meditation. By giving voice to historians from Turkey, France, and Sweden, it dismantles the nationalist myth of a “homogeneous Anatolia” and restores the Assyrians to the tragic map of the 20th century. The strength of the film lies in its chronological clarity and intellectual integrity: each scholar connects historical facts to moral consequences, revealing a continuum from imperial collapse to state denial. The documentary’s ultimate message is not only about what was destroyed but about what remains—the silence, the ruins, and the fragilework of remembrance.
Video:
https://vimeo.com/1092757727/
