NOTES FROM THE INTERNATIONAL FORUM

"The 20th century has gone down in history not only with scientific discoveries and space flights, but also with the greatest tragedies that have claimed the lives of tens of millions of people; such a black page of the past century was the genocide of peoples." With these words, Sergey Mironov, Chairman of the Just Russia Party and head of the party's State Duma faction, opened the International Forum "Genocide in the Historical Memory of Peoples and in the Information Wars of Our Time", which was held in November 2014 at the President Hotel in Moscow.

The forum was organized by the Fair World Institute in cooperation with the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Association for Political Science (RAPN), the Center for the Study of Religion and Religious Tolerance (Belgrade, Republic of Serbia) and the Russian-Armenian Commonwealth.

Before the start of the Forum, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Nikolai Levichev made a speech at a meeting with journalists. Noting that such an event had been planned for a long time, he said: "On the eve of the centenary of the great tragedy of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, we planned to gather intellectual forces to see how today, in the XXI century, the tragic events of the XX century are reflected, which gave humanity not only technological progress, but also terrible tragedies. Who would have thought that by the time the Forum was held, the topic of genocide, especially in the information wars of our time, would become so relevant."

President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan addressed the Forum participants with greetings. It was read out by Yuri Navoyan, President of the Russian-Armenian Commonwealth, expert of the Inter-Parliamentary Commission for Cooperation between the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, who also made a report on "Political and legal aspects of the recognition of the facts of the genocide". In his speech at the Forum, Sergey Mironov, in particular, said:: "The first genocide was the mass extermination of Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks in the Ottoman Empire in 1915... In the middle of the century, the world was shaken by the horrors of the Holocaust. And the 20th century ended with the mass extermination of the Tutsi people in Rwanda... Bloody events are taking place in Iraq and Syria. Staged executions are being broadcast live, and thousands of desperate refugees are crying out for help." All this forces us to realize that a peaceful life is a huge value that is worth fighting for.

Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Doctor of Historical Sciences Hayk Demoyan delivered a report on "The Centenary of the Armenian Genocide: a retrospective look at the great Tragedy". He stressed that wars and genocides should not be forgotten - this is a matter of security of peoples and entire states. "Unfortunately," he said, "living at the beginning of the 21st century, the current generation sees genocide 'online'."

"Lessons of the Holocaust and modern Russia "is the topic of the report by Alla Gerber, Co - Chair of the Holocaust Research and Education Center and President of the Holocaust Foundation. She noted that the Holocaust is a tragedy not only for the Jewish people, but for all of humanity, and expressed concerns about new waves of xenophobia that arise from time to time in our days.

Director of the Study Center

Semyon Bagdasarov dedicated his speech to ethnic processes in the Middle East in the current geopolitical context. He also analyzed the process of genocide in the Ottoman Empire, emphasizing that in fact, there were much more victims of the genocide than is given in official sources, namely, about 5 million.

Grigory Tulchinsky, PhD, Professor of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, devoted his report to" Genocide in the historical consciousness of peoples and the current situation in Europe".

Igor Korotchenko, Editor-in-Chief of the National Defense magazine, member of the Public Council under the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Director of the Center for Analysis of the World Arms Trade, outlined the topic of his report as follows: "The global black market of weapons as a factor contributing to genocide." In particular, he said that the corrupt Ukrainian leadership, which indiscriminately sold off old stocks of weapons of the Soviet Army that ended up on the territory of Ukraine, contributed to filling this market.

Apollo Davidson, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Professor of History at the Higher School of Economics, spoke with great interest. He spoke about how the efforts of various segments of the population of the Republic of South Africa prevented a genocide that seemed inevitable to many. This positive experience deserves careful study and dissemination.

Although the stated topic of the report of Professor Yair Oron of the Open University of Israel was "Zionism and the Armenian Genocide", he focused on the issues of criminal denial of the facts of the genocide. As an example, he cited the repeated non-recognition by the UN Security Council of the genocide of the Tutsi people in Rwanda. In the end, the Security Council did admit the fact of the genocide, but it did so when the severity of the problem had already subsided. Denial of the fact of genocide sets the stage for new outbreaks of genocide, the speaker said.

Two reports were devoted to the genocide of Christians in the XX and XXI centuries. Iosif Zaya, Ph. D., Associate Professor of the Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation, spoke about the genocide of Christians during the First World War on the example of the Assyrians. Anahit Khosroeva, Ph. D., spoke about the persecution and mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world today. She cited numerous examples of Islamic terrorists using intimidation and torture to forcibly convert Christians to Islam or kill them.

Savina Dawood of the Chaldoassyrian Student and Union, spoke about the extremely difficult situation of Assyrian Christians in Iraq.

Director of the Institute of History of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences Ashot Melkonyan dedicated his speech to the significance of the resolution of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of April 14, 1995 in the context of the process of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. In particular, he noted with regret that the parliaments of a number of countries have not yet expressed condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, although this tragic event will soon be one hundred years old.

Head of the Center for the Study of Tropical Africa at the IAfr RAS, Candidate of Historical Sciences Tatyana Denisova, in her report "The Genocide in Rwanda: its causes and the reaction of the world community", gave a lot of relatively little-known facts about how the genocide process developed in this African country, to which the world community and the media paid extremely insufficient attention.

Ivan Krivushin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Faculty of History of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, also presented a report on the Rwandan genocide of 1994. He analyzed in detail the reasons for the actual non-interference of the world community in these tragic events.

Alexander Khachiyan, Vice-President of the Union of Armenians of Russia, raised an important question about the relationship between the concepts of genocide, fascism, terrorism, ethnic cleansing and other manifestations of hatred on religious and national grounds in the report " Genocide: from formula to recognition - a necessary condition on the way to a stable world order. On the role of public organizations and public diplomacy". The speaker spoke about the three-volume scientific work, which contains the maximum amount of specific information about the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

Chairman of the Council of the All-Russian public organization "Federal National and Cultural Autonomy of Kurds of the Russian Federation" Farhat Patiev said with concern that, in his opinion, the world community is currently turning a blind eye to the mass destruction of people in the Middle East and that it is necessary to raise a voice against such phenomena.

Hakob Nazaretyan, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Historical Psychology and Sociology of History", Head of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, made a report on "Historical memory and historical traumas".

Larisa Nikovskaya, Doctor of Social Sciences, Head of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, presented the report "Formation of ethno-cultural tolerance in the modern world".

Other reports and presentations were devoted to various aspects of the genocide problem, as well as presentations in the mode of free discussion and answers of speakers to questions of forum participants.

Materials from the official website of the Just Russia political party were used to prepare the Forum review.

The review was prepared by N. I. PETROV