Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum

Memorial and Museum of Martyred Turks Massacred by Armenians (Turkish: Ermeniler Tarafından Katledilen Şehit Türkler Anıt ve Müzesi) or Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum (Turkish: Iğdır Soykırım Anıt-Müzesi) is a memorial-museum complex which commemorates massacres of Turks by Armenians during World War I and the Turkish–Armenian War. However, the Turkish government is blamed by promoting Armenian genocide denial on purpose. The construction for the memorial started on 1 August 1997 and it was dedicated on 5 October 1999 in Iğdır, Turkey. Its height is 43.5 metres (143 ft), making it the tallest monument in Turkey.[1]

Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum

In an address at the monument's opening ceremony, Minister of State Ramazan Mirzaoğlu claimed that Armenians killed almost 80,000 people in Iğdır between 1915 and 1920; the Turkish president Süleyman Demirel was also present.[2][3] However, this could be an exaggerated number because according to the Russian census, the entire population of the Surmali district (which included Igdir) by the beginning of the 20th century was 89,055 people, of which Turks ("Tatars") were 46 percent.[4] In the city of Igdir itself, Armenians accounted for 84% of the population.[5][6]

French journalists Laure Marchand and Guillaume Perrier call the monument "the ultimate caricature of the Turkish government's policy of denying the 1915 genocide by rewriting history and transforming victims into guilty parties".[7] Bilgin Ayata on Armenian Weekly criticized the memorial as "aggressive, nationalistic, and outright hostile."[8] The European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy announced that the memorial is designed to deny the Armenian genocide and demanded its closure.[9]

  • Building
  • Entrance to the memorial-museum
  • Noah's Ark next to the memorial-museum

See also

References
  1. Iğdır "Soykırım" Anıt-Müzesi Archived 2015-03-30 at the Wayback Machine, Governorate of Iğdır
  2. Hofmann, Tessa. "Armenians in Turkey: A Critical Assessment of the situation of the Armenian Minority in the Turkish Republic." Forum of Armenian Associations in Europe. October 2002, p. 32.
  3. "Türk-Ermeni İlişkileri Uluslararası Sempozyumu ve "Iğdır Soykırım Anıtı ve Müzesinin" Açılış" (in Turkish). Retrieved 3 May 2015. "1915–1920 yılları arasında Iğdır'da yaklaşık 80 bin kişinin Ermeniler tarafından hunharca katledildiği..."
  4. (in Russian) 1897 Census, Surmalinsky Uyezd Demoscope Weekly
  5. (in Russian) 1897 Census, Igdyr City Demoscope Weekly
  6. (in Russian) Первая Всеобщая перепись населения Российской империи 1897 г. Том 24, Эриванская губерния, г. Санкт-Петербург, 1905
  7. Marchand, Laure; Perrier, Guillaume; Blythe, Debbie (2015). Turkey and the Armenian Ghost: On the Trail of the Genocide. McGill-Queen's Press. pp. 111–112. ISBN 978-0-7735-9720-4.
  8. Bilgin Ayata, "Critical Interventions: Kurdish Intellectuals Confronting the Armenian Genocide", Armenian Weekly, 29 April 2009.
  9. 4 Questions regarding Turkey and the Armenian Genocide

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