The Returning Hero and the Exiled Villain: The Image of the Armenian in Ottoman Society, 1908-1916

Abstract

This essay explores the evolution of photographic constructions of Armenian identity and the place of Armenians within Ottoman society through a comparison of images made in the aftermath of the revolution of 1908 with those produced during the 1915-16 period. In the earlier period, recurring motifs of return and reconciliation can be discerned, with there being pictured a new, inclusive Ottoman society. While Armenians were depicted as a vital element within post-revolutionary society, the photographic medium simultaneously identified those that that were thought not to belong and was complicit in their social exclusion. During the Armenian Genocide, photography was employed in a similar visual strategy, with Armenians finding themselves in a changed position, being targeted by the lens and marked as lying outside of a reconceptualised Ottoman society.