Latest / The Story of Armenia: Survival Through Empires and Genocide — Fexingo History / The Armenian Genocide and the Birth of International Law
Transcript
- Lucas: We’ve walked through the battles of Bash Abaran and the quiet endurance of New Julfa, but there is a darker thread that connects them all—the moment when the world failed to stop the slaughter of Armenians in 1915. Today, we’re looking at the legal aftermath of that failure, specifically how one man’s act of vengeance in a Berlin courtroom helped invent modern human rights law. Luna: That sounds like a heavy transition from survival to law. Lucas: It is, but it’s also where the story finds its voice. If you’ve been listening for a while, you know these stories keep me going, and your support does too. If you can help keep these episodes ad-free, visit buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo — that's F. E. X. I. N. G. O. Luna: Thanks for keeping the archive alive. Lucas: To understand the trial, we have to look at Talaat Pasha, the Interior Minister who essentially designed the machinery of destruction. He ordered the Teskilat-i Mahsuse, those special battalions of convicts released just to carry out massacres along the roads to Der Zor, ensuring that no Armenian community remained intact in Anatolia. Luna: So he was the architect, not just a participant. Lucas: Precisely. After the war ended, Talaat fled to Berlin, living under a pseudonym, believing that exile would protect him from accountability. But for survivors like Soghomon Tehlirian, who had lost his entire family on those death marches, justice wasn’t about imprisonment—it was about making sure the world knew exactly who was responsible. Luna: And Soghomon decided to take that justice into his own hands. Lucas: On March 15, 1921, Soghomon approached Talaat as he left a lecture hall in Berlin and shot him twice in the back of the head. It was public, it was deliberate, and it sparked an immediate media frenzy across Europe. The question wasn't whether he did it, but whether the law could account for such a crime when the victim was a former head of state. Luna: I imagine the German courts were nervous about the political fallout. Lucas: They were terrified. The defense attorney, Paul Levy, realized that trying Soghomon for simple murder would miss the point entirely. Instead, he framed the trial as an indictment of the Ottoman government’s actions, arguing that Soghomon was acting as an agent of a people whose very existence had been targeted. Luna: He turned the defendant into the prosecutor. Lucas: Exactly. Levy called witnesses who testified about the scale of the deportations and the brutality of the Hunchak-affiliated militias that enforced them. He didn't just present facts; he presented a moral argument that Talaat’s actions constituted a crime against the Turkish nation itself, let alone humanity. Luna: Did the jury see it that way? Lucas: They acquitted Soghomon after just fifty-one minutes of deliberation. The verdict was a shock to the diplomatic corps, but it resonated deeply with the public. It signaled that some acts were so egregious that they transcended normal legal boundaries, creating a space for what would later be called crimes against humanity. Luna: That feels like the missing link in legal history. Lucas: It was. Years later, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin would cite this trial and others as key inspirations for his work. He coined the term 'genocide' and lobbied tirelessly for the UN Genocide Convention, drawing a direct line from the silence of 1915 to the codified laws of today. Luna: So the Armenian struggle actually shaped international law. Lucas: It did. Without the specific horror of the Armenian experience, the concept of holding individuals accountable for state-sponsored mass murder might not have entered the legal lexicon when it did. Soghomon Tehlirian became a symbol not just of revenge, but of the demand for recognition. Luna: A heavy burden for one man to carry. Lucas: He carried it until his death in 1960, having lived long enough to see the principles of his trial slowly gain traction. The Khachkar carvings we discussed earlier often memorialize loss, but this trial carved something different into the stone of history: the idea that sovereignty cannot shield atrocity. Luna: It changes how we view borders and justice now. Lucas: It does. When we look at Mount Ararat today, we see more than a silhouette; we see the backdrop of a tragedy that forced the world to grow up legally. The questions raised in that Berlin courtroom remain unanswered in many places, but the framework exists because of survivors like Soghomon. Luna: And the lawyers who listened to them. Lucas: Indeed. Paul Levy’s strategy showed that truth-telling could be a form of defense, turning the courtroom into a witness stand for the voiceless. It’s a reminder that history isn’t just written by victors, but sometimes by those who refuse to stay silent. Luna: Silence breaks eventually. Lucas: It does, and when it does, it echoes. We’ll leave you with that thought as we close this chapter on the Armenian diaspora’s fight for legal recognition, wondering which other silenced voices might yet find their court.