Education and Change in the Late Ottoman Empire and Turkey

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-62
Author(s):  
Benjamin C. Fortna
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Late Ottoman

This article addresses the interrelated changes taking place in education during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which schools altered their approach to space, time, and economic priorities in order to align themselves with the shifting conditions of the period. It proceeds by examining a series of tensions between the desiderata of state and society, the collective and the individual, the secular and the religious, the national and the supranational, before assessing the diverse range of responses they elicited.

The End of the Ottoman Empire and the Emergence of Nation-States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick F. Anscombe
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Slight Variation ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Nation States ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Republic Of Turkey

This chapter discusses the end of the Ottoman Empire, looking at three case studies which illustrate the pattern of change seen in the transition from the Ottoman Empire to nation-states. Greece, the first Ottoman territory to gain independence (1830), set precedents in establishing government by non-natives, introducing religious and legal institutions based on European models and working single-mindedly to instill national identity in its population. Almost a century later, King Faysal I (r. 1921–1933) of Iraq followed a similar path, albeit under British direction. The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1922 and offered a slight variation on the pattern in that it built on selected legacies from the late Ottoman Empire. It was the only post-Ottoman country founded primarily by internal effort rather than by European intervention, and the national identity it worked to entrench in the population drew upon the political ideas of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which had dominated Ottoman government from 1908 to 1918. Despite that continuity, the republican government pursued the agenda of tearing down Ottoman institutions and rebuilding state and society as national projects. Such nation-building ultimately succeeded, producing its own instabilities; in new post-Ottoman countries such as Greece, Iraq, and Turkey, social and political re-engineering aroused resistance within the population.

A “YOUNG TURK” ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL: FILIBELI AHMED HILMI AND THE DIVERSE INTELLECTUAL LEGACIES OF THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amit Bein
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Islamic Movements ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Political Works ◽  
The One ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Late Ottoman

Among the late Ottoman thinkers and writers who laid the foundations of intellectual life in modern Turkey, Filibeli Ahmed Hilmi (1865–1914) is a prominent figure. His intellectual legacy survived the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the Republic of Turkey. Virtually all his books have been republished in recent years in simplified modern Turkish versions accessible to present-day readers, and some have also been the subject of academic studies. His oeuvre includes dozens of historical, philosophical, theological, and political works, as well as novels, poems, satirical pieces, and plays. All were produced in a six-year period, between the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and his death by poisoning in 1914. The overtly modernist underpinnings of his works on the one hand, and his Sufi piety and firm rejection of materialism and positivism on the other, have earned him recognition as an early exponent of a modernist, nonliteralist Islamic agenda of a kind that has been conspicuous in a variety of Turkish-Islamic movements in recent decades. His untimely death, later attributed to a Freemason–Zionist conspiracy, added further to his mystique in some Islamic circles. Modernist yet deeply devout, Islamist yet uninterested in scripturalist paths of religious revival, Ahmed Hilmi stands out as a representative of an important intellectual trend that has often been overlooked in studies of the late Ottoman period.

Medieval Turkey

2020 ◽  
pp. 148-172
Author(s):  
Scott Redford
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Islamic Archaeology ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Late Ottoman ◽  
Historical Periods

In this chapter, Islamic archaeology of the medieval (11th–14th centuries) period in Turkey is related to international as well as national developments in the late Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey in areas like cultural policy, economic development, and tourism. These and other factors directly impacted the choice of sites to be excavated, thereby affecting the archaeological record. The author also examines Islamic archaeology in Turkey in relation to that of other historical periods there and raises cases in which the archaeology of this period can address the cultural and economic shift that accompanied the establishment of Turco-Islamic states in former Byzantine lands.

The Study of the Armenian Crisis of the late Ottoman Empire, or, “Seizing the Document by the Throat”

2002 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 35-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selim Deringil
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Late Ottoman ◽  
Second World

For a Turkish historian of the Ottoman Empire of the late nineteenth century, venturing into the Armenian crisis is like venturing into a minefield. It is fraught with dangers, the least of which is to be labeled a traitor by one's countrymen, and the worst of which is to be accused of being a “denialist” by one's Armenian colleagues. Even “balanced” analysis seems to have become politically incorrect of late, at least in some circles. The basic problem in the Armenian-Turkish polemic is that the sides do not actually address each other. They seize upon various capsule phrases, clichés and assumed political positions to heap opprobrium and abuse upon one another, to the point where we are confronted by something resembling a blood-feud. Thus Richard Hovanissian's obsession is to have the “Turkish side” admit, in a great ceremony of mea culpa, the claim of Genocide. On the other hand, Turkish historians and their like-minded foreign colleagues, at best, do contortionist acts to show that what happened to the Armenian people in 1915 does not fit the UN definition of genocide, which was fashioned after the Second World War to account for the Jewish Holocaust.

Making “Tribes” in the Late Ottoman Empire

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 482-487
Author(s):  
Nora Elizabeth Barakat
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Standard Term ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Early Republican ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Late Ottoman

Oymak. Al. Boy. Cemaat. Taife. Aşiret. These are the terms Ottoman officials used in imperial orders (mühimme) to describe diverse human communities linked by their mobility and externality to village administration in Ottoman Anatolia between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1924, Turkish historian Ahmet Refik compiled Ottoman imperial orders concerning such communities into a volume he titled Anadolu'da Türk Aşiretleri, 966–1200 (Turkish Tribes in Anatolia, 1560–1786). His use of the term aşiret (tribe) in the title is striking, because this term was only used in 9% of the orders in his volume (23 out of 244 total). However, by the late nineteenth century and in Refik's early Republican context, aşiret had become the standard term for these rural, extra-village, mobile human communities, which he understood as similar enough to include in his painstaking effort of compilation.

“As Brave as Armenak Efendi”

2021 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-428
Author(s):  
Yaşar Tolga Cora
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Great War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Late Ottoman

This article examines the different ways in which masculinity and ethnicity were mu- tually constructed during the Great War and the Armenian Genocide by analyzing the memoirs of Armenak Melikyan, an Armenian cavalry officer in the Ottoman Army. It discusses why Melikyan emphasized in his memoirs certain values, such as dutiful- ness, resourcefulness, and hard work, which were all firmly associated with the he- gemonic masculine model of citizen-soldiers in the late Ottoman Empire. The article further examines the emphasis Melikyan laid on the public recognition he received for his qualities as an officer from Muslim/Turkish superiors, thus reflecting both ethnic and gendered hierarchies in the army. The article argues that many Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army performed according to hegemonic masculine models in order to defend their precarious masculinity against physical and psychological challenges. This allowed them to remasculinize themselves in the context of the Great War and the Genocide. The article contributes to the study of military memoirs in the late Ottoman Empire by underlining the relation between social and cultural norms and expecta- tions on the one hand and the individual self-perception of military experiences on the other, in the context of the war and ethnic violence.

scholarly journals Pour la réforme de la justice ottomane: Count Leon Walerian Ostroróg (1867–1932) and his activities in the final decades of the Ottoman Empire

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulina Dominik
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Legal Adviser ◽  
Tanzimat Reforms ◽  
The Republic ◽  
To Come ◽  
Second Constitutional Period ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Republic Of Turkey

Pour la réforme de la justice ottomane: Count Leon Walerian Ostroróg (1867–1932) and his activities in the final decades of the Ottoman Empire Following the final partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795 the Ottoman Empire became one of the chief destinations for the Polish political émigrés. Poles fled to Istanbul hoping for Ottoman support in their efforts to regain independence. Their participation in the Ottoman public sphere was not limited to the activities aimed at the restoration of an independent Poland; rather, Polish émigrés also played an active role in the enterprise of modernization of the Ottoman state since the era of the Tanzimat reforms (1839–1876). While one can say that the intensity of the Polish participation in the Ottoman public sphere decreased substantially after the Ottoman defeat in the war against Russia (1877 –1878) and during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909), the subsequent 1908 Young Turk Revolution and the coming to power of the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Fırkası) was a watershed event that attracted some Polish émigrés from France to come to the Ottoman Empire.This paper focuses on the work of Count Leon Ostroróg (1867–1932), who came to prominence as a legal adviser to the Ottoman Ministry of Justice in the Second Constitutional Period (1908–1918). He played an important role in the reform projects of the Ottoman legal system. Meanwhile, he was actively engaged in the life of the Istanbul’s Polish, French and Levantine communities. By focusing on his major works this paper discusses Ostroróg’s views on the late Ottoman Empire and his stance towards the transformation of the multicultural and multiethnic Ottoman Empire into the nation-state of the Republic of Turkey in the aftermath of the WWI and towards a number of far-reaching reforms that characterized that period. Pour la réforme de la justice ottomane: Hrabia Leon Walerian Ostroróg (1867–1932) i jego działalność w późnym Imperium Osmańskim Po ostatnim rozbiorze Rzeczpospolitej Obojga Narodów w 1795 roku Imperium Osmańskie było jednym z najważniejszych kierunków, jakie obrała polska emigracja polityczna. Polacy przyjeżdżali nad Bosfor mając nadzieję na osmańskie wsparcie w próbach odbudowania niepodległego państwa polskiego. Aktywność Polaków w Porcie Osmańskiej nie ograniczała się jednak wyłącznie do planowania przyszłych powstań przeciwko zaborcom. Emigranci odegrali znaczącą rolę w przygotowaniu reform mających na celu reorganizację Imperium Osmańskiego poczynając od okresu Tanzimatu (1839–1876). Choć działalność polskiej emigracji zmalała po przegranej Imperium Osmańskiego w wojnie przeciwko Rosji (1877–1878) i podczas panowania Sułtana Abdülhamida II (na tronie od 1876 do 1909), rewolucja młodoturecka w 1908 roku i dojście do władzy Komitetu Jedności i Postępu (İttihat ve Terakki Fırkası) były przełomowymi wydarzeniami, które stały się impulsem dla polskich emigrantów urodzonych we Francji do przybycia do Państwa Osmańskiego.Tematem tego artykułu jest działalność Hrabiego Leona Ostroroga (1867–1932), który w okresie młodotureckim (1908–1918) zasłynął jako doradca prawny w osmańskim Ministerstwie Sprawiedliwości. Ostroróg odegrał znaczącą rolę w przygotowaniu projektów reform osmańskiego systemu prawnego. Równocześnie był on również aktywnie zaangażowany w życie polskiej, osmańskiej oraz lewantyńskiej społeczności Stambułu. Koncentrując się na najważniejszych pracach opublikowanych przez Ostroroga, artykuł poddaje pod dyskusję poglądy Ostroroga na sytuację Imperium Osmańskiego w ostatnich latach jego istnienia oraz na zmiany zachodzące w wyniku I wojny światowej, kiedy to wielokulturowe i wieloetniczne imperium przeobraziło się w Republikę Turcji.

The Politics of Taxation and the “Armenian Question” during the Late Ottoman Empire, 1876–1908

2012 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 770-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadır Özbek
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Tax Collection ◽  
Administrative Practices ◽  
Communal Violence ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Collection Practices ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Late Ottoman

AbstractThis article explores the social and political context of the Ottoman Armenian massacres during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II focusing on the empire's tax regime. Although important research has been done on the massacres of 1894–1897, little has been written on the role the tax regime and collection practices played in preparing the context for increased state and communal violence in the “six provinces” (vilayat-ı sitte)—Erzurum, Van, Bitlis, Mamretülaziz, Sivas, and Diyarbekir—where the great majority of Ottoman Armenians lived. Political and social historians have paid little attention to the Ottoman state's administrative practices in Eastern Anatolia, particularly its tax collection practices, as part of the larger context of the “Armenian Question.” Perhaps Ottoman economic and financial historians have been reluctant to consider tax collection as politics. In any case, key linkages between the tax regime and the social and political catastrophe it helped to create have been missed. In this paper I establish a bridge between social and political history and fiscal history. I analyze tax collection as everyday politics to offer a new window into the political disturbances in the empire's six provinces populated mostly by Armenians and Kurds. The study of the Ottoman tax system as an instance of state administrative practices at the quotidian level, rather than as merely a legal and institutional apparatus, illuminates the complicated realities of the late Ottoman state and society, and the “Armenian Question.”

Ottoman Muslim and Turkish women in an international context

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICOLE A. N. M. VAN OS
Keyword(s):  
Women's Movements ◽  
Turkish Women ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
International Context ◽  
Turkish Government ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The One ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Late Ottoman

Women's movements in the late Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey are explored in an international context. The international contacts of individual and organized women in both the first and the second waves of ‘feminist’ activism are considered. It is necessary to determine the influence, on the one hand, of Turkish women on the international scene of the women's movement and, on the other hand, the influence of the international organizations on Turkish policies vis-à-vis women. In this way a little light can be shed on the indirect ways Turkish women, through international networks, were and are able to exert influence on the changing policies of the Turkish government regarding the position of women in their society.

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