“NATIONALISM” AND KURDISH NOTABLES IN THE LATE OTTOMAN–EARLY REPUBLICAN ERA

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hakan Özoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
World War ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
Hard Data ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Early Republican ◽  
Late Ottoman

The era culminating in World War I saw a transition from multinational empires to nation-states. Large empires such as the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman searched for ways to cope with the decline of their political control, while peoples in these empires shifted their political loyalties to nation-states. The Ottoman Empire offers a favorable canvas for studying new nationalisms that resulted in many successful and unsuccessful attempts to form nation-states. As an example of successful attempts, Arab nationalism has received the attention that it deserves in the field of Middle Eastern studies.1 Students have engaged in many complex debates on different aspects of Arab nationalism, enjoying a wealth of hard data. Studies on Kurdish nationalism, however, are still in their infancy. Only a very few scholars have addressed the issue in a scholarly manner.2 We still have an inadequate understanding of the nature of early Kurdish nationalism and its consequences for the Middle East in general and Turkish studies in particular. Partly because of the subject's political sensitivity, many scholars shy away from it. However, a consideration of Kurdish nationalism as an example of unsuccessful attempts to form a nation-state can contribute greatly to the study of nationalism in the Middle East.

scholarly journals THE LESSONS OF MIDDLE EAST INVOLVEMENT

1969 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Larson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Western Power ◽  
Nation States

Despite the oft- used phrase, history does not repeat itself. What history does do, however, is offer us lessons. If we do not learn history’s lessons, we will repeat the mistakes of history thereby making it appear that history is indeed repeating itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the Middle East. To find historical lessons in the Middle East, one should begin by studying the events of World War I. It was during World War I that the composition of the Middle East changed from the indirectly ruled Ottoman Empire, to the collection of nation states that we know today. It is quite fashionable to blame Britain for the outcome of, and all future problems with, this new Middle East. It has become more fashionable to transform the blame in the present age to the United States. In this paper, I will analyze British involvement in the Middle East; beginning with the contradictory wartime agreements that Britain made which would eventually change the shape of the Middle East. I will argue that the problems in the Middle East cannot be blamed solely, or even mostly, on the British or on the Western power who had inherited this blame, the United States. In conclusion, I will develop lessons of history from this period of British involvement in the Middle East; lessons that the United States has yet to learn.

THE BRITISH MANDATE AND THE UPRISING OF 1920 IN IRAQ

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (73) (1) ◽  
pp. 140-153
Author(s):  
S. S. Shchevelev
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Initial Period ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
British Mandate ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

The article examines the initial period of the mandate administration of Iraq by Great Britain, the anti-British uprising of 1920. The chronological framework covers the period from May 1916 to October 1921 and includes an analysis of events in the Middle East from May 1916, when the secret agreement on the division of the territories of the Ottoman Empire after the end of World War I (the Sykes-Picot agreement) was concluded before the proclamation of Faisal as king of Iraq and from the formation of the country՚s government. This period is a key one in the Iraqi-British relations at the turn of the 10-20s of the ХХ century. The author focuses on the Anglo-French negotiations during the First World War, on the eve and during the Paris Peace Conference on the division of the territory of the Ottoman Empire and the ownership of the territories in the Arab zone. During these negotiations, it was decided to transfer the mandates for Syria (with Lebanon) to the France, and Palestine and Mesopotamia (Iraq) to Great Britain. The British in Iraq immediately faced strong opposition from both Sunnis and Shiites, resulting in an anti-English uprising in 1920. The author describes the causes, course and consequences of this uprising.

“Population Politics” at the End of Empire: Migration and Sovereignty in Ottoman Eastern Rumelia, 1877–1886

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 955-985
Author(s):  
Anna M. Mirkova
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
State Building ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Population Politics

AbstractThis article explores the migrations of Turkish Muslims after the 1878 Peace Treaty of Berlin, which severed much of the Balkans from the Ottoman Empire as fully independent nation-states or as nominally dependent polities in the borderlands of the empire. I focus on one such polity—the administratively autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia—which, in wrestling to reconcile liberal principles of equality and political representation understood in ethno-religious terms, prompted emigration of Turkish Muslims while enabling Bulgarian Christian hegemony. Scholars have studied Muslim emigration from the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire gradually lost hold of the region, emphasizing deleterious effects of nationalism and aggressive state-building in the region. Here I look at migration at empire's end, and more specifically at the management of migration as constitutive of sovereignty. The Ottoman government asserted its suzerainty by claiming to protect the rights of Eastern Rumelia's Muslims. The Bulgarian dominated administration of Eastern Rumelia claimed not only administrative but also political autonomy by trying to contain the grievances of Turkish Muslims as a domestic issue abused by ill-meaning outsiders, all the while insisting that the province protected the rights of all subjects. Ultimately, a “corporatist” model of subjecthood obtained in Eastern Rumelia, which fused the traditional religious categorization of Ottoman subjects with an ethnic one under the umbrella of representative government. The tension between group belonging and individual politicization that began unfolding in Eastern Rumelia became a major dilemma of the post-Ottoman world and other post-imperial societies after World War I.

scholarly journals WOMEN'S VISIBILITY IN PETITIONS FROM GREATER SYRIA DURING THE LATE OTTOMAN PERIOD

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 765-781 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fruma Zachs ◽  
Yuval Ben-Bassat
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
World War ◽  
General Overview ◽  
Late Ottoman

AbstractThis article focuses on petitions by Ottoman women from Greater Syria during the late Ottoman era. After offering a general overview of women's petitions in the Ottoman Empire, it explores changes in women's petitions between 1865 and 1919 through several case studies. The article then discusses women's “double-voiced” petitions following the empire's defeat in World War I, particularly those submitted to the King-Crane Commission. The concept of “double-voiced” petitions, or speaking in a voice that reflects both a dominant and a muted discourse, is extended here from the genre of literary fiction to Ottoman women's petitions. We argue that in Greater Syria double-voiced petitions only began to appear with the empire's collapse, when women both participated in national struggles and strove to protect their rights as women in their own societies.

scholarly journals SHINY THINGS AND SOVEREIGN LEGALITIES: EXPROPRIATION OF DYNASTIC PROPERTY IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND EARLY TURKISH REPUBLIC

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-463
Author(s):  
Ceyda Karamursel
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
World War ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Entry Points ◽  
To Come ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Late Ottoman

AbstractThis article probes the legal expropriation of dynastic property in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic. Focused on the period from Abdülhamid II's deposal in 1909 to the decade immediately following the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, it takes parliamentary debates as entry points for exploring how this legislative process redefined the sovereign's relationship with property. Although this process was initially limited only to Yıldız Palace, the debates that surrounded it heuristically helped to shape a new understanding of public ownership of property that was put to use in other contexts in the years to come, most notably during and after World War I and the Armenian genocide, before establishing itself as the foundation of a new ownership regime with the republican appropriation and reuse of property two decades later.

scholarly journals In the Shadow of Empire: States in an Ottoman System

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 811-834
Author(s):  
Jonathan Endelman
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Eastern State ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Colonial Experience ◽  
Tanzimat Reforms

What is the origin of the Middle Eastern state? Although social scientists have traditionally emphasized the role of the European colonial experience, especially the British and French mandates following World War I, the late Ottoman era from the Edict of Gülhane in 1839 that inaugurated the Tanzimat reforms until World War I represents a period at least as critical to understanding origins of the state in the region. Certain Ottoman provinces known as Eyalet-i Mümtaze or exceptional/special provinces developed under the aegis of the Ottoman Empire that acquired many statelike attributes without becoming independent polities. Moreover, the nature of the Ottoman Imperial center changed to become more similar to that of a territorially delimited state as opposed to the classic multifaceted polity that had been the earlier norm. These developments resulted in a blurring of lines that had traditionally defined state and empire during the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. To illustrate this change, economic, administrative, and political examples are presented from Egypt and Turkey. This comparative analysis will identify ways the evolution of the two states was similar as well as critical differences such as the extent of foreign intervention and the role played by representative assemblies. The formation of imperial states within the empire as well as the transformation of the empire to become more statelike resulted in strong state institutions in places such as Egypt and Turkey that long preceded the main European colonial intervention in the region after World War I.

ATROCITY PROPAGANDA AND THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE MASSES IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE DURING THE BALKAN WARS (1912–13)

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Doğan Çetinkaya
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Turkish Language ◽  
Late Ottoman

AbstractDuring the Balkan Wars (1912–13), the mobilization of the home front became significant for the belligerent states, which initiated propaganda activities demonizing their enemies and galvanizing the emotions of their publics. This paper explores one type of such mobilization efforts from above, atrocity propaganda, through which states sought to invoke hatred and mobilize public support for war by focusing on the atrocities (mezalim) that their coreligionists had suffered at the hands of enemies. Although the term “atrocity propaganda” has been used exclusively in the context of World War I in the historiography, the practice it describes was effectively utilized during the earlier Balkan Wars. In the Ottoman Empire, both state and civil initiatives played crucial roles in the making of atrocity propaganda, which was disseminated through intense coverage in the Turkish-language press. The imagery it employed shifted with the onset of the wars, becoming increasingly shocking. Atrocity propaganda contributed to the well-known radicalization of nationalism in the late Ottoman Empire.

Modern Dance Alla Turca: Transforming Ottoman Dance in Early Republican Turkey

2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arzu Öztürkmen
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
World War ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Early Republican ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Republic Of Turkey

This essay looks at the works of Selma Selim Sırrı (b. 1906) and her father Selim Sırrı Tarcan (1874–1956), who wrote on dance in the 1920s, a period that marked the transition from the Ottoman Empire to modern Turkey. The Ottoman Empire ruled across the Mediterranean world between the thirteenth and twentieth centuries, collapsing after World War I. The Republic of Turkey was declared in 1923, distancing itself from the Ottoman tradition to adopt a westernization reform program. Written in the early Republican era, the works of Selma Selim Sırrı and Selim Sırrı Tarcan mark the shift from Ottoman dance traditions to a more Western approach to dance. Inspired by Isadora Duncan, Selma Selim Sırrı (1926) explored the idea of modern dance for Ottoman women in a booklet entitled Selma Selim Sırrı Hanım'ın Bedii Raksları (The Aesthetic Dances of Miss Selma Selim Sırrı, see Fig. 1). Her father was the author of Halk Dansları ve Tarcan Zeybeği (Folk Dances and the Tarcan Zeybek, see Fig. 2), a book that focused on the process of refining folk dances, in particular the zeybek genre, to suit the tastes of an educated, urban audience.

The Middle Eastern Regional Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Perthes ◽  
Hanns W. Maull
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
World War ◽  
Regional Powers ◽  
Old Order ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
Arab States ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Us Intervention

The Middle East has long been dominated by conflict interactions, both among Arab states and with the non-Arab regional powers Israel and Iran. Yet despite much violence and wars the old order in the Middle East—established at the end of World War I—was remarkably stable until 2011, when it disintegrated as a result of the “Arab spring.” The principal cause for this has been the weakness of the Arab states. Outside powers have been invited into the region to compensate for those weaknesses, but they have also exploited them. The disastrous US intervention in Iraq 2003 for a while dampened the willingness of outside powers to intervene, but since the intervention in Libya 2011 there has been a return to interventionism. None of these has been able, however, to overcome the principal dilemma of the region: the weakness of the Arab states.

scholarly journals THE ARMENIAN QUESTION AND THE WARTIME FATE OF THE ARMENIANS AS DOCUMENTED BY THE OFFICIALS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE'S WORLD WAR I ALLIES: GERMANY AND AUSTRIA–HUNGARY

2002 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vahakn N. Dadrian
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
World War ◽  
Genocidal Intent ◽  
Armenian Population ◽  
Large Sections

The wartime fate of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian minority continues to be controversial. The debate in the main revolves around the causes and nature of that fate. Some historians have alleged that what is involved is centrally organized mass murder—or, to use contemporary terminology, genocide. This school of thought maintains that the Ottoman authorities were waiting for a suitable opportunity to undertake the wholesale liquidation of the empire's Armenian population, and the outbreak of World War I provided that opportunity. The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, or Unionists), who controlled the Ottoman government, they argue further, did in fact undertake this liquidation under cover of the war.1 Others, however, dispute these assertions, especially that of genocidal intent. This group maintains that Armenian acts of disloyalty, subversion, and insurrection in wartime forced the central government to order, for purposes of relocation, the deportation of large sections of the Armenian population. According to this argument, apart from those who were killed in “intercommunal” clashes—that is, a “civil war”—the bulk of the Armenian losses resulted from the severe hardships associated with poorly administered measures of deportations, including exhaustion, sickness, starvation, and epidemics. In other words, this school of thought holds that the Ottoman Empire, in the throes of an existential war, had no choice but to protect itself by resorting to drastic methods; therefore, the tragic fate of the Armenians must be understood in the context of the dire conditions of World War I.2 These views are encapsulated in the formula that the noted Middle East historian Bernard Lewis has used—namely, the desperate conditions of “an embattled empire.”3

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