The genocide of Armenians living in the Ottoman empire began in April 1915. Its centenary is being commemorated at a time when the Middle East is undergoing another prolonged and many-sided crisis whose features are disturbingly similar to the era of the catastrophic Great War: massacre, arbitrary arrest and murder, displacement and exile, sectarian violence and indeed genocide. Modern Turkey, the principal inheritor state of the Ottoman empire, is - for reasons of history, geography, demography, and ideology - deeply part of this crisis, while trying desperately to insulate itself from its worst effects.
Turkey's struggle with the inheritance of 1915 is highlighted by the contested status of the events of that year in its public culture. This struggle is itself evidence that long repressed histories are being rediscovered, and entering the public arena in new and challenging ways. A vital role in this process is being played by Armenians in Turkey and the region, among them the writer Vicken Cheterian. In the context of current events, his new book Open Wounds: Armenians, Turks, and a Century of Genocide (C Hurst, 2015) - at once history, memoir, reportage and travelogue - is a major contribution to understanding the present and future as well as the past.
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