'Saving Damascus' Christians': MEMO in Conversation with Eugene Rogan

In 1860, Syria’s ancient and thriving Christian community nearly came to an end. A civil war raged in Mount Lebanon, which saw widespread massacres of Christians by Druze militias, and on 23 May 1860, the violence taking place in present-day Lebanon spread to Damascus. Local Muslims, spurred on by fear and rumours, hit the streets and began attacking Christian businesses, shops and properties. An 8-day riot ensued and the majority of the city’s Christians were left displaced, however, this moment did not turn into a genocide thanks to the actions of different Muslim notables and the Algerian exile Emir Abdelkadir, who managed to save the lives of 85% of the Christian population. The week-long lawlessness was severely punished by the Ottomans, but beyond punishment, Istanbul rebuilt Damascus and its communities by bringing them together and integrating them. They were so successful that 30-years later, the idea a similar event could happen again was unthinkable. But what actually happened in 1860? What caused it? What lessons does it have for us today? Joining MEMO Conversation to answer these questions is Oxford historian Eugene Rogan, who’s new book The Damascus Events uncovers this bloody episode.

Eugene Rogan is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at Oxford University, where he has taught since 1991, a Fellow of St Antony’s College and Director of the Middle East Centre. He took his B.A. in economics from Columbia, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Middle Eastern history from Harvard. In 2017 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. He is author of The Arabs: A History (2009, 2017), named a best book of 2009 by The Economist, The Financial Times, and The Atlantic Monthly. His new book, The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East (2015), was named a best book of 2015 by The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. His earlier works include Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire (Cambridge University Press, 1999), for which he received the Albert Hourani Book Award of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and the Fuad Köprülü Prize of the Turkish Studies Association; and The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (Cambridge University Press, 2001, second edition 2007, with Avi Shlaim). His works are translated into 18 languages.

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