Ph.D. Matthias Bjørnlund, historian
Born 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

E-mail: matthiasb@webspeed.dk

Biography:
Affiliated with the Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Copenhagen 2003-2005. MA in history from the University of Copenhagen in 2005. Thesis title: ”Et Folk Myrdes”. Det Armenske Folkemord i Danske Kilder. (”A People is Being Murdered.” The Armenian Genocide in Danish Sources). Freelance researcher.

Forthcoming publications, ongoing research projects:
From Massacre to Genocide and Beyond: Scandinavia, Scandinavians, and the Ottoman Armenians, 1890s to 1920s. 200+ pp. Initial research for the book manuscript is partly funded by a grant from the Danish Ministry of Culture.

Tessa Hofmann, M. Bjørnlund, Vassilios Meichanetsidis, eds., volume on the Greek genocide, i.e. the destruction of the Ottoman Greeks, to be published by Caratzas Publishing Co., New Rochelle, New York 2010/11. 300+ pp.

Articles and book chapters:
“Adana and Beyond: Revolution and massacre in the Ottoman Empire seen through Danish eyes, 1908/9,” Haigazian Armenological Review, Vol. 30, 2010. pp. 125-156.

”’A fate worse than dying’: sexual violence during the Armenian genocide,” in Dagmar Herzog, ed., Brutality and Desire: War and Sexuality in Europe's Twentieth Century, Palgrave Macmillan 2009, pp. 16-58. http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=283305 (click ‘Download sample chapter’).

”The 1914 Cleansing of Aegean Greeks as a Case of Violent Turkification,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2008, pp. 41-57. Published as a chapter in Dominik J. Schaller & Jürgen Zimmerer, eds., Late Ottoman Genocides: The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies, London & New York: Routledge 2009, pp. 34-50. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a790756230&fulltext=713240928 .

”Karen Jeppe, Aage Meyer Benedictsen, and the Ottoman Armenians: National survival in imperial and colonial settings,” Haigazian Armenological Review, Vol. 28, 2008, pp. 9-43. Available for download at http://www.ermenisoykirimi.net/dansk.htm .

“Scandinavia and the Armenian Genocide,” Armenian Weekly, 24 April 2008 special issue, pp 19-22.

“En Excentrisk Komet” [“An Eccentric Comet” – on Åge Meyer Benedictsen, Danish-Jewish-Icelandic Director of the Danish Friends of Armenians], Goldberg. Magasin om jødisk kunst, kultur, religion, samfund [Goldberg. Magazine on Jewish art, culture, religion, society], Vol. 1, No. 4, October 2004, pp. 12-14. Online version: http://goldberg.t2w.dk/Artikler/?member5id=21 .

”’When the Cannons Talk, the Diplomats Must be Silent’ – A Danish diplomat in Constantinople during the Armenian genocide,” Genocide Studies and Prevention, Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall 2006, pp. 197-223.

M. Bjørnlund et al., ”?Que es el Genocidio? En la búsqueda de un denominador común entre definiciones jurídicas y no jurídicas,” [”What is Genocide? A search for common ground between the legal and non-legal definitions”], in Daniel Feierstein, ed., Genocidio: La administración de la muerte en la modernidad, Caseros, Argentina: Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero 2005, pp. 17-48.

M. Bjørnlund & Eric Markusen, ”Utilitarian Genocide,” in Dinah L. Shelton, ed., Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, Thomson Gale 2005. Online version: http://www.enotes.com/genocide-encyclopedia/utilitarian-genocide .

M. Bjørnlund et al., ”The Christian churches and the construction of a genocidal mentality in Rwanda,” in Carol Rittner et al., eds., Genocide in Rwanda: complicity of the churches?, St. Paul, MN: Paragon House 2004, pp. 141-167.

Educational materials:
“Conscientious objection: Protest and intervention during the Armenian genocide,” article prepared for the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS) course Holocaust and Genocide: Past, Present and Future Genocides, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2009. Course instructor: Torben Jørgensen. 14pp.

Recent conferences and workshops (lectures, etc., excluded):
The State of the Art of Armenian Genocide Research: Historiography, Sources, and Future Directions. Workshop at Clark University, Worcester, MA., USA, 9-10 April 2010. Presented the paper “From Massacre to Genocide and Beyond: Scandinavia, Scandinavians, and the Ottoman Armenians, 1890s to 1920.”

Academic Conference on the Asia Minor Catastrophe. Conference organized by the Pontian Greek Society of Chicago, Westin Hotel, Rosemont, Il., USA, 7 November 2009. Presented the paper “The persecution of Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna, 1914-16: A special case in the course of the late Ottoman genocides.”

Genocide: The Future of Prevention. Conference organized by the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INOGS), University of Sheffield, Great Britain, 9-12 January 2009. Presented the paper “Denmark, the ‘Armenian Question,’ and violent Turkification in the late Ottoman Empire.”

Nordic Perspectives on Colonialism. Conference organized by Netværk for Global Kulturhistorie (Network for Global Cultural History), University of Aarhus, in Höör, Sweden, 11-12 January 2007. Presented the paper ” Karen Jeppe, Aage Meyer Benedictsen, and the Ottoman Armenians: National survival in imperial and colonial settings.”