Scholar Honored for Shedding Light on Forgotten Genocide

YEREVAN — In a moment of long-overdue recognition, the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI) has awarded the James Bryce Memorial Medal to Swedish historian David Gaunt, a leading figure in the study of genocidal campaigns against Christian minorities during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. 

The award ceremony capped a three-day international conference held in Yerevan from May 29 to 31, 2025, marking the 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Titled “A Century of Armenian Genocide Studies: Legacy, Challenges, and Future,” the conference drew 51 scholars from around the world to reflect on a century of research into the atrocities that targeted Armenians, Syriacs (Chaldeans-Assyrians-Chaldeans), and Greeks during World War I. 

Honoring a Voice for the Silenced 

David Gaunt, Professor Emeritus at Södertörn University in Sweden, was honored alongside noted historians Dr. Raymond Kévorkian of the Sorbonne and Dr. Mehmet Polatel of the Hrant Dink Foundation. The award recognizes decades of rigorous scholarship and an unwavering commitment to documenting the often-overlooked genocide of the Christian Syriac population—known in their own language as the Sayfo, or “sword.” 

Gaunt’s landmark 2006 study, Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim–Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I, broke new ground by piecing together archival records from Russian, Turkish, and Western sources alongside eyewitness testimonies. His work revealed patterns of violence, forced conversion, and cultural erasure that paralleled the Armenian Genocide, particularly in the southeastern regions of the Ottoman Empire, e.g. Omid (Diyarbakir), Tur Abdin, Hakkari, and also Urmia. 

“His research gave voice to a community long excluded from the historical narrative,” said Archbishop Mor Polycarpus Aydin of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the Netherlands, who publicly congratulated Gaunt on receiving the award. “This well-deserved honor… gives voice to the memory of a long-silenced chapter of history.” 

A Shared Fate 

While the Armenian case has been more widely acknowledged in academic and political circles, Gaunt’s work highlights the shared fate of the Syriac and Armenian peoples. Both lived as neighbors in Eastern Anatolia and faced similar patterns of forced displacement, massacres, and cultural suppression under the policies of the Ottoman Young Turk regime. 

Estimates suggest that of the approximately 700,000 Syriacs living in the Ottoman Empire at the time, nearly 500,000 were killed, forcibly converted, or erased from the historical record. Gaunt’s work has been instrumental in bringing international academic attention to what many historians now consider a co-genocide. 

Lord Bryce’s Legacy Revisited 

The award is named after Lord James Bryce, the British jurist and historian who, during World War I, was one of the earliest Western voices to publicly denounce the mass killings of Armenians and other Christians. Bryce’s 1916 “Blue Book,” The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, compiled by Arnold Toynbee, remains a seminal document in genocide studies. 

German scholar Gabriele Yonan has revealed that the original manuscript included extensive documentation of the Syriac massacres, but that these references were later excised from the British and French editions—highlighting a historical pattern of marginalization. 

By awarding Gaunt the James Bryce Medal, AGMI appears to be correcting that historical oversight and affirming the importance of inclusive remembrance. 

A Call for Continued Recognition 

Despite growing recognition of the Sayfo in scholarly circles, international political recognition remains limited. Most governments that have officially acknowledged the Armenian Genocide have yet to include the Syriac and Greek genocides in their resolutions. 

Still, historians like Gaunt and institutions like AGMI are working to change that—one meticulously documented footnote at a time.