40080 - The genocides before the Genocide

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Vicky Baklessi

Reading the archives of Lemkin, it becomes immediately obvious that many peoples of Mankind preoccupied him and not only one. The references to genocides before the coining of the word and its acceptance by the United Nations, are clear and numerous. Amongst them we find the Armenians, the Assyrians and the Greeks in the same framework but also the Bohemians and the Jews together. His analyses relate also to deep past to establish the terminology in a diachronic manner. He didn’t content to one singular example in order to explain the legal notion of genocide. So each people who has been submitted to genocide before 1948, can make use of the references of Lemkin’s archives to prove that the example of their genocide consisted of a substrate for the coining of the notion. So the genocides before the Genocide as a notion may exploit the work of this Righteous man of Mankind, especially when they are being accused because of the timing. In this context, the peoples may recognize him also as a Righteous man for them. In this manner, they resist even more efficiently to the barbarity of oblivion. It is also good to use time isomorphisms for the recognitions that have not yet occurred. So the Assyrians are connected to the Greeks (1994) and to the Armenians (1996), while the Romani, the Bohemians as Lemkin mentions are connected to the Jewish people (Nuremberg Trials). In consequence they have available an additional tool to confront the barbarians who continue to doubt the existence of their genocide.