Interview with Mattias Bjørnlund

 

                                               By   Vahram Emiyan  

 

 

 

Matthias Bjørnlund was born in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark. During 2003-2005 he was affiliated with the Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Copenhagen as workshop leader in connection with the commemoration of the international Auschwitz Day, and as a writer for www.folkedrab.dk . In 2005, Mr. Bjørnlund obtained his MA in history from the University of Copenhagen. His Thesis was “A People is Being Murdered: The Armenian Genocide in Danish Sources”.

Mr. Bjørnlund has participated in many conferences and workshops concerning the Armenian Genocide. He is the author of many researches and articles on the Armenian Genocide. He is currently working on a book entitled “The Armenian Question: Mission, Cultural Encounters, Genocide. The History of Denmark and the Armenians, 1900-1940”, which is partially funded by a grant from the Danish Ministry of Culture. Mr. Bjørnlund is also working as a researcher and translator of Danish documents on the Armenian Genocide for an upcoming Danish section of the German website www.armenocide.de .

Mr. Bjørnlund granted me the following interview.

 

Vahram Emiyan:- When did you become interested in the Armenian Genocide and why?

 

Dr. Mattias Bjørnlund :- I guess it started some five years ago,  I was interested in the Holocaust and genocide in general and the genocide in Rwanda in particular. Basically what I discovered was that there are a lot of materials in Danish archives about the Armenian Genocide. I found some of those, and the ball kept rolling, as they say, and I found more and more so I decided this was what I was going to do.

 

V. Emiyan:- What can you say about the Scandinavian archives regarding the Armenian Genocide?

 

Dr. M. Bjørnlund :- I know the Danish archives best, but I know there are relevant materials in the archives of all three Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. To take Denmark, we had a diplomatic minister in Constantinople as did Sweden. Probably not so much diplomatic material in Norway’s archives as it only had a consul general. In Danish archives there are, I would say, hundreds of diplomatic relevant reports concerning the Armenian Genocide directly and the Young Turk policies during the WWI. Then there are of course the missionaries. In Kharpert alone during the Genocide there were many missionary witnesses as there were in Mush and various other places. There are relief workers and a Danish workshop engineer, and we have Scandinavian people going to Turkey immediately after the war to build railroads for the Turkish Republic, street engineers and so on. They would witness the aftermath of the Genocide and some of them talk to the perpetrators who would outright admit the killing of Armenians. And there are also Swedish and Nordic withnesses. These archives may be for now at the fringes of the study of the Armenian Genocide, but I think in it will grow in the coming years.

 

V. Emiyan:- During your research concerning the Armenian Genocide on these archives which discovery do you think is the most significant and why?

 

Dr. M. Bjørnlund :- The general importance is that there is so much to discover and how it in every way it confirms what we already knew from various other sources and even adds knew information on what we know. No surprise that the way all the Scandinavian witnesses say this was systematic annihilation. One would expect that. While Scandinavians are different from other witnesses to the Armenian Genocide, they completely confirm what other witnesses have said on that. I guess that the one thing that surprised me the most is the level of knowledge in the Scandinavian countries during the genocide and how much was written in the papers about it. Not what the people were witnessing about the Armenian Genocide, but how it disseminated into the papers about it in rather detail. For instance during the world war there were German atrocities in Belgium, the Russian deportation of Jews and a whole area of radical policies, the people in Scandinavian countries and the journalists were able to see that the Armenian Genocide was something special within the realm of destruction that was WWI.

 

V. Emiyan:- What can you say about Scandinavian-Armenian relations?

 

Dr. M. Bjørnlund :- For the most part. as in most places in the western world, serious Scandinavian relations with the Armenians began with the Abdul Hamid massacres. This is when people began to be aware that was such a thing as Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, that they were oppressed and massacred. In Denmark I now the relations don’t go very far back. It is different in Sweden. The Swedish-Armenian relations go back further. Of course the relations continued during the genocide and after the genocide. We find organizations which had relations with the Armenians in Yerevan.

 

V. Emiyan:- The Scandinavian states have a reputation of deep humanitarian beliefs and yet none of them has recognized the Armenian Genocide. Why?

 

Dr. M. Bjørnlund :- Realpolitic! It’s not that they don’t know that it was a genocide. It’s about politics. It’s about people wanting to get Turkey into the EU and thus don’t want to use the term genocide and also in the Scandinavian countries there is the people factor as in France there are many Armenian voters in Scandinavian countries it’s the other way around and thus it’s a different situation.  And of course nobody wants to antagonize Turkey. I’m not saying that these are good reasons, but basically this is the reality.

 

V. Emiyan:- Is this your first visit to Lebanon? And what can you say about the purpose of your visit?

 

Dr. M. Bjørnlund :- I had visited Lebanon ten years ago, but I didn’t get to see much this time around it was different and I must say I enjoyed it. Regarding the purpose of my visit, is to give two lectures one on the Armenian Genocide in the Scandinavian archives and one on the Danish missionary Maria Jacobson who founded the Birds Nest Armenian orphanage in Jbeil and is buried there. I had the chance of visiting her tomb.

 

V. Emiyan:- What are your plans for the future?

 

Dr. M. Bjørnlund :- Continuing working on a book on Danish-Armenian relations of course during the Armenian Genocide, but also before and after that spanning from 1900 to 1940, and as I work in genocide I’m thinking of writing about other aspects of Young Turk policies like the  destruction of the Ottoman Greeks and the Assyrians.

 

V. Emiyan:- Why 1900 to 1940?

Dr. M. Bjørnlund :- All delimitations are somewhat arbitrary right? But I begin with 1900 because this is the aftermath of the Abdul Hamid massacres and 1940 because with the outbreak of WWII the communications between Denmark and Danish missionaries for instance in Lebanon were cut off. But it also marks the beginning of the of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and it also marks the periode when there is a new genocide, the Holocaust. So that’s my mane reason, but I will have the chance to speak about Danish scholars today and if there are some relevant things that happened befor 1900 I will go back and refer to them as well.