An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Stéphanie Prévost (Université de Paris / LARCA (CNRS UMR 8225)):
Re-forming/Revolutionizing the world: Patrick Geddes, the Rawnsleys and British solutions to the Armenian question (1890s)
Abstract:
Until fairly recently, it was generally argued that the Armenian massacres of 1894-1896 had had found little echo in Britain, but for a handful of Gladstonian Liberals. While new sources have shown this to be incorrect, the question of their importance for British Gladstonian Liberalism remains to be asked. This paper will argue that at the time of the Armenian massacres, Gladstonian Christian moralism inherited from the 1876 Bulgarian atrocities crisis proved a decisive plank for the articulation of early Liberal internationalism by a small group of advanced Liberals, Radicals and progressives. The scale of the massacres invited those who felt heirs to the 1870s Bulgarian agitation to rethink Britain’s engagement with the Eastern/Armenian Question with reference to progress, reform and revolution. To some like Edinburgh social reformer Patrick Geddes and his friends the Rawnsley, Aberdeenian Liberal jurist James Bryce and others bringing a solution to the Armenian question implied deciding on pace, means and scale. Altogether they challenged the stalemated Concert of Europe (which had pronounced against a humanitarian intervention on behalf of Ottoman Armenians) and sought to devise a new global governance, both in thought and praxis (like organising Armenian refugee resettlement on an international basis, in lieu of traditional aid). In so doing, they rethought Britain’s place on the international scene and contributed to imagining world order anew. By seeking to weave praxis and thought together in this discussion of early British Liberalism, this paper will significantly depart from the historiography which tends to give little to no visibility to the former. A large place will be made to Scottish Liberal/Radical actors.
Please contact iash@ed.ac.uk for a link to join the seminar.