In 1930 the Committee for the study of Turkish History (Türk Tarihi Tetkik Heyeti) was established with the support of the Turkish Hearths.[4] In 1931 the Association for the Study of Turkish History (Türk Tarihi Tetkik Cemiyeti) was founded, which in 1935 was renamed in Turkish Historical Society.[5] in 1940, the Turkish Historical Society arose to an association working for the public interest.[4] On 11 August 1983, it was elevated to a by the constitution protected institution under the Atatürk High Institution of Culture, Language and History (Atatürk Kültür, Dil ve Tarih Yüksek Kurumu, AKDTYK).[4]
According to Turkish historian Doğan Gürpınar, by the 2000s the THA's "main function became the production and reproduction of the official line to counter Armenian allegations, in addition to publishing numerous monographs on Turkish history following a Rankean-cum-statist methodology and perspective."[6]
Publications
In 1930 the book Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları (The Mainlines of Turkish History) which emphasized the ability of Turks was published under the auspices of the Committee for the study of Turkish History[5] This book, printed only 100 times, formed the basis for the Turkish History Thesis, which posited that Turks emigrated in several waves to China, India, Northern Africa and Europa to populate the areas and bringing the native people there civilization.[7] In 1932 it released a four-volume history text for all secondary schools in Turkey upon request of the Ministry of Education. The text claimed that the ancient Turks have already had the ideas of nationality and the Turkish race.[8]
The institute releases a regular bulletin called Belleten.[1]
In July 2008 its president Yusuf Halaçoğlu was dismissed.[10] It was speculated that the decision reflected the government's desire for rapprochement with Armenia.[citation needed] Shortly before the decision, foreign minister Ali Babacan greeted Armen Martirosyan, Armenia's ambassador to the United Nations, in a reception related to Turkey's temporary accession the UN Security Council.[11] Before that, president Serzh Sargsyan had invited his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gül, to a World Cup qualifying game between the two countries' national soccer teams.[12]
In 2009, the president of the organization falsely claimed:
The research Yusuf Halaçoğlu conducted at the Ottoman, UN, US, German, French, British, and Russian archives has revealed that the Armenians murdered 532,000 Muslims whereas the number of Armenians who died during the deportations was around 47,000. Of these, 37,000 perished due to hunger, illness, and the strain of travel; 8,000 were killed by Arab, Kurdish, and Turkish bandits on the deportation routes, and 1,500 were unregistered deaths. In addition, 67 state officials were tried and executed for failing to protect the deported Armenians.[13]
Göçek notes that Halaçoğlu does not speak all the languages in the archives that he purportedly consulted and many of the claims he made are not just false but actually impossible.[14]
Presidents by the following years
Prof. Dr. Refik TURAN Current the Chairman of Turkish Historical Society (2015-2020)
^Galip, Özlem Belçim (2020). New Social Movements and the Armenian Question in Turkey: Civil Society vs. the State. Springer International Publishing. p. 153. ISBN978-3-030-59400-8.
^ abcBayir, Derya (2016-04-22). Minorities and Nationalism in Turkish Law. Routledge. p. 110. ISBN978-1-317-09580-4.
^ abUzer, Umut (2016). An Intellectual History of Turkish Nationalism. The University of Utah Press. p. 102. ISBN9781607814658.
^Gürpinar, Doğan (2013). "Historical Revisionism vs. Conspiracy Theories: Transformations of Turkish Historical Scholarship and Conspiracy Theories as a Constitutive Element in Transforming Turkish Nationalism". Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. 15 (4): 412–433. doi:10.1080/19448953.2013.844588. S2CID145016215.
^White, Jenny (2014). Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks: Updated Edition. Princeton University Press. p. 26. ISBN978-0691161921.
^Landau, Jacob M. (1981). Pan-Turkism in Turkey. London: C. Hurst & Company. p. 76. ISBN0905838572.
^"Presidents" (in Turkish). Turkish Historical Society. Archived from the original on 2008-07-25. Retrieved 2008-07-25.
^Göçek 2015, p. 460. "First, one should note that Halaçoğlu does not know any foreign languages, so it would be impossible for him to personally conduct research in the UN, US, German, French, British, and Russian archives; he probably relied on information gathered by others. Second, given that the Armenian population at the end of the Ottoman Empire was around 1.5 to 2 million, and given that a typical Ottoman household of the period comprised five members, including the women, children, and the elderly, the figure Halaçoğlu cites would imply that one in every three Armenians murdered Muslims, which is not only improbable but actually impossible. Third, in terms of the Armenian deaths, given that about 300,000 Armenians survived the massacres, and given that there were initially 1.5 million Armenians in the empire, it is difficult to account for what happened to the rest. Fourth, even though the CUP government tried some of the perpetrators, it did so not to punish them for the crimes they committed but instead for keeping the plundered Armenian wealth for their personal use. Halaçoğlu engages in such falsification for the denial of responsibility."
