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Turkey loses Professor Stanford Shaw

Prof. Stanford J. Shaw, the historian who challenged the Armenian claims of genocide at the hands of the late Ottomans and provided evidence of Turkey’s aiding and fostering Jews during WWII, died on Saturday at the age of 76. Shaw was a professor of Turkish history at Bilkent University in Ankara and at UCLA as well as the founder of the International Journal of Middle East Studies, published by the Cambridge University Press for the Middle East Studies Association.

DAMARIS KREMIDA

ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News

Professor Stanford J. Shaw, the historian who challenged Armenian claims of genocide at the hands of the Ottomans and provided evidence of Turkey’s aiding and fostering Jews before and during World War II, died on Saturday at the age of 76.

Shaw was a professor of Turkish history at Bilkent University in Ankara and at UCLA as well as the founder of the International Journal of Middle East Studies, published by the Cambridge University Press for the Middle East Studies Association.

Grand Unity Party (BBP) Chairman Muhsin Yazýcýoðlu said in a message of condolence that the Turkish nation was “grateful” to Shaw, recalling that his house had been bombed because he said, “Armenian genocide is a lie,” the Anatolia news agency reported. “The Turkish nation won’t forget those who tell the truth while history is spoiled by lies everywhere,” said Yazýcýoðlu.

Professor Shaw is best known in Turkey and the academic world for showing that the Ottomans helped the Jews flee to Turkey, where they made significant economic, cultural and political contributions, and for his research disputing the existence of an Armenian genocide. Shaw’s house in California was bombed in 1977 by Armenian extremists as a result of his research on the alleged genocide.

When Shaw was in Turkey during the 1996-1997 academic year conducting research for a book on the Turkish War for Independence in 1918-1923, he received the first annual award from the Fulbright Alumni Association of Turkey as Fulbright Man of the Year. The award was presented to him by former President of Turkey Suleyman Demirel.

At a time when research methods were still being established in the Turkish academic world Professor Shaw was one of the pioneers in mining archival data in Turkey. Shaw’s first personal contact with Turkey was in 1956 when he studied at the University of Istanbul with professors Omer Lutfi Barkan, Mukrimin Halil Yinanc, Halil Sahillioglu and Zeki Velidi Togan and completed research for his dissertation at Istanbul’s Ottoman archives as well as at the Topkapi Sarayi archives.

With material from his archival research in Turkey as well as Egypt he completed his dissertation, titled “The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517-1798,” and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1958.

Shaw served as an assistant and associate professor of Turkish language and history at the department of history at Harvard University from 1958 until 1968 and as professor of Turkish history at the University of California Los Angeles from 1968 until 1997. His final post was at Bilkent University as professor of Ottoman and Turkish history from 1999 to 2006.

He is the author of numerous books on Turkey and Ottoman history. Among his major works on Turkey are “Between Old and New: The Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III, 1789-1807” (Harvard, 1971); “History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey,” two volumes he co-authored with his wife, Ezel Kural Shaw (Cambridge, 1977); “The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic” (Macmillan, London and New York University Press, 1992); “Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945” (Macmillan, London, and New York University Press, 1993); “Studies in Ottoman and Turkish History: A Life with the Ottomans” (Isis Press, Istanbul, 2000); and “From Empire to Republic: The Turkish War of National Liberation, 1918-1923” (5 volumes, Ankara, Turkey, 2001).

The awards and recognition Shaw received in Turkey and abroad for his research are significant. Among them are honorary degrees from Harvard University (1956) and Bosporus University in Istanbul (1986) and awards for lifetime achievement from the Turkish Historical Society (Turk Tarih Kurumu, Ankara, 1981), the Turkish-American Association (TAA) (1989), the American Friends of Turkey (1992) and the Center for Research on Islamic History, Art and Culture (Yildiz Palace, Istanbul).

The Turkish Academy of Science (TÜBA), which declared him an honorary member in 2005 and recognized him for his academic service, expressed sorrow at the loss. Shaw was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on May 5, 1930.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=62011

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