(written by Islander)

Let’s address the elephant in the room right quick: Rahvira are NOT a Nazi band, despite the conclusion you might leap to based upon the title of the song we’re premiering. The word aryan has a history and meaning far more ancient than the grotesque appropriation of it that the Nazis made.

The Holocaust was also not the first genocide of the 20th century. That horrid distinction goes to the Ottoman Empire’s near-complete liquidation of the Armenian people during World War I, an event that’s the subject of Rahvira‘s new album and that even the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. devotes attention to. Here is part of what you can find in that Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia:

Sometimes called the first genocide of the twentieth century, the Armenian genocide refers to the physical annihilation of Armenian Christian people living in the Ottoman Empire from spring 1915 through autumn 1916. There were approximately 1.5 million Armenians living in the multiethnic Ottoman Empire in 1915. At least 664,000 and possibly as many as 1.2 million died during the genocide, either in massacres and individual killings, or from systematic ill treatment, exposure, and starvation. Indeed, the origin of the term genocide and its codification in international law have their roots in the mass murder of Armenians in 1915–16.

Additional horrific details are available in this article at Wikipedia. Continue reading »