Massacre

Amassacreis an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless.^[1]It is generally used to describe a targeted killing ofcivilians en masseby an armed group or person.

The word is aloanof a French term for "butchery" or "carnage".^[2]^[3]Other terms with overlapping scope includewar crime,pogrom,mass killing,mass murder,andextrajudicial killing.

Etymology

Massacrederives from late 16th century Middle French wordmacacremeaning "slaughterhouse" or "butchery". Further origins are dubious, though may be related to Latinmacellum"provisions store, butcher shop".^[4]^[5]^[6]

TheMiddle Frenchwordmacecr"butchery, carnage" is first recorded in the late 11th century. Its primary use remained the context of animal slaughter (in hunting terminology referring to the head of a stag) well into the 18th century. The use ofmacecre"butchery" of the mass killing of people dates to the 12th century, implying people being "slaughtered like animals".^[7] The term did not necessarily imply a multitude of victims, e.g.FéneloninDialogue des Morts(1712) usesl'horride massacre deBlois( "the horridmassacreat [the chateau of] Blois ") of the assassination ofHenry I, Duke of Guise(1588), whileBoileau,Satires XI(1698) hasL'Europe fut un champ de massacre et d'horreur"Europe was a field ofmassacreand horror "of theEuropean wars of religion.

The French word was loaned into English in the 1580s, specifically in the sense "indiscriminate slaughter of a large number of people". It is used in reference toSt. Bartholomew's Day massacreinThe Massacre at ParisbyChristopher Marlowe.The term is again used in 1695 for theSicilian Vespersof 1281, called "that famous Massacre of the French in Sicily" in the English translation ofDe quattuor monarchiisbyJohannes Sleidanus(1556),^[8] translatingilla memorabilis Gallorum clades per Siciliam,i.e.massacreis here used as the translation of Latinclades"hammering, breaking; destruction".^[9] The term's use in historiography was popularized by Gibbon'sHistory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire(1781–1789), who used e.g. "massacre of the Latins"of the killing of Roman Catholics in Constantinople in 1182. TheÅbo Bloodbathhas also been described as a kind of massacre, which was a mass punishment carried out on theOld Great SquareinTurkuon November 10, 1599, in which 14 opponents of the Duke Charles (laterKing Charles IX) inFinlandweredecapitated;in theBattle between Duke Charles and Sigismund,Duke Charles defeatedKing Sigismund's troops in theBattle of StångebroinSwedenin 1598 and then made an expedition to Finland, where he defeated the resistance during theCudgel Warand executed theestatesin Turku without consulting Finland's leadingnobles.^[10]

An early use in the propagandistic portrayal of current events was the "Boston Massacre"of 1770, which was employed to build support for theAmerican Revolution.A pamphlet with the titleA short narrative of the horrid massacre in Boston, perpetrated in the evening of the fifth day of March, 1770, by soldiers of the 29th regimentwas printed in Boston still in 1770.^[a]

The termmassacrebegan to see inflationary use in journalism in the first half of the 20th century. By the 1970s, it could also be used purely metaphorically, of events that do not involve deaths, such as theSaturday Night Massacre—the dismissals and resignations of political appointees duringRichard Nixon'sWatergate scandal.

Definitions

Robert Melson(1982) in the context of the "Hamidian massacres"used a" basic working definition "of" by massacre we shall mean the intentional killing by political actors of a significant number of relatively defenseless people... the motives for massacre need not be rational in order for the killings to be intentional... Mass killings can be carried out for various reasons, including a response to false rumors... political massacre... should be distinguished from criminal or pathological mass killings... as political bodies we of course include the state and its agencies, but also nonstate actors... "^[11]

Similarly, Levene (1999) attempts an objective classification of "massacres" throughout history, taking the term to refer to killings carried out by groups using overwhelming force against defenseless victims. He is excepting certain cases ofmass executions,requiring that massacres must have the quality of beingmorally unacceptable.^[b]

The term "fractal massacre" has been given to two different phenomena, the first being the fracturing ofAboriginaltribes by killing more than 30% of the tribe on one of their hunting missions,^[12]and the second being given to the phenomenon of many small killings adding up to a largergenocide.^[13]

References

Notes

^The shortened name "Boston massacre" was in use by the early 1800s(Austin 1803,p. 314) The term "Massacre Day"for the annual remembrance held during 1771–1783 dates to the late 19th century.(De Grasse Stevens 1888,p. 126) The 1772 "Massacre Day of Oration" byJoseph Warrenwas originally titledAn Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772. At the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston; to Commemorate the Bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March, 1770.
^"Although it is not possible to set unalterable rules about when multiple murders become massacres. Equally important is the fact that massacres are not carried out by individuals, instead they are carried out by groups... the use of superior, even overwhelming force..." Levene excludes "legal, or even some quasi-legal, mass executions". He also points out that it is "...most often... when the act is outside the normal moral bounds of the society witnessing it... In any war... this killing is often acceptable." (Levene & Roberts 1999,p. 90)

Citations

^"Definition of a Massacre".Cambridge Dictionary.
^"the definition of massacre".Dictionary.RetrievedNovember 24,2017.
^Gallant, Thomas W.(2001)."Levene (Mark) and Roberts (Penny), (Eds.), The Massacre in History".Crime, History & Societies.5(1): 146–148.doi:10.4000/chs.800.ISBN 1-57181934-7.ISSN 1422-0857.RetrievedSeptember 1,2023.
^"Massacre".Merriam-Webster.RetrievedJanuary 8,2017.
^Harper, Douglas."Massacre".Etymonline.Archived fromthe originalon January 8, 2017.RetrievedJanuary 8,2017.
^"Massacre".Oxford Dictionaries.Oxford University Press.Archived fromthe originalon January 8, 2017.RetrievedJanuary 8,2017.
^"Massacre".Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé(in French).RetrievedMarch 22,2019.
^Sleidanus, Johannes(1695).De Quatuor Summis Imperiis: An Historical Account of the Four Chief Monarchies Or Empires of the World.Nathaniel Rolls. p. 186.OCLC 11990422.
^Sleidanus, I. (1669).Sleidani de quatuor monarchiis libri tres.Apud Felicen Lopez de Haro. p. 301.
^Jutikkala, Eino;Pirinen, Kauko(1988).A history of Finland.Dorset Press.ISBN 0-88029-260-1.
^Melson, Robert (July 1982). "Theoretical Inquiry into the Armenian Massacres of 1894–1896".Comparative Studies in Society and History.24(3): 482–3.doi:10.1017/s0010417500010100.S2CID 144670829.
^"Definition".Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930.Centre For 21st Century Humanities.RetrievedAugust 1,2022.
^Dyck 2016,pp. 192–193.

Sources

Austin, Benjamin (1803).Constitutional Republicanism, in Opposition to Fallacious Federalism: As Published Occasionally in the Independent Chronicle, Under the Signature of Old-South. To which is Prefixed, a Prefatory Address to the Citizens of the United States, Never Before Published.Adams & Rhoades, editors of the Independent Chronicle.
De Grasse Stevens, Augusta(1888).Old Boston: An American Historical Romance.George Allen.ASIN B00087E73Q.
Dyck, Kirsten (2016). Bentrovato, Denise; Korostelina, K. V.; Schulze, Martina (eds.).History Can Bite: History Education in Divided and Postwar Societies.Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.ISBN 9783847106081.
Levene, Mark; Roberts, Penny (1999).The Massacre in History.Berghahn.ISBN 978-1-57181-934-5.