Armenians living in Turkey and the assassination of Hrant Dink: loss, mourning and melancholia

Official URL: http://192.168.1.20/record=b1421135 (Table of Contents)

On January 19 2007, Hrant Dink, an Armenian journalist who had dedicated his life to Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and known by his critiques of Turkey's denial of the Armenian genocide, was assassinated in the street by a radical nationalist. After the event, a strong civil resistance movement was ignited unexpectedly. Istanbul saw one such demonstration. Rather than a mere protest, it was a spontaneous reaction, where a hundred thousand people gathered and started shouting slogans such as: "We are all Armenian, we are all Hrant" and "Long live the brotherhood of the people." In my thesis, I will try to explain the affect of being Armenian in Turkey, based on the new political atmosphere after the assassination of Hrant Dink, through the notions of trauma, memory, mourning and melancholy. I will examine the civil associations and organizations founded after the assassination. This paper will give me the chance to review the literature that turns the corpus of melancholy and trauma upside down by attributing to them an activating role.