The Emergence of Collective Memory Behind Deferred Mourning: Assassination of Hrant Dink

Hrant Dink, an Anatolian Armenian journalist, was assassinated on 19 January 2007 by a Turkish nationalist in Istanbul. He was killed because of his opinions supporting human rights and peace between minorities and the Turkish state. The fact that many people who did not even hear his name while he was alive participated in his funeral and bereavement process is deeply rooted in the memory of the societies, particularly Armenians who were precluded from mourning for their losses after a traumatic event that had taken place more than a hundred years by both the state and the majority of the population in Turkey. After Dink’s murder, the memories, representations and stories of the genocide in Armenians’ collective memories came to light. To this end, 10 interviews were conducted with Armenians in Southeastern Turkey. Analyses revealed that although indicating their deepened grief, all participants approached Dink’s murder as a milestone. Many of them have begun to explain their identities that they have hidden up to that time. While some of them withdrew themselves from the society and started to think about leaving Turkey because of the reign of fear, it was a renaissance and a turning point for the emergence of their ethnic identities, and embedded and silent collective memories for most of them. Another common theme was that this murder affected not only the Armenians themselves but also the other peoples' views on Armenians in a positive way. The results are discussed from a cultural psychology perspective.