Historical Background

Turkey ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Finkel
Keyword(s):  
Historical Background ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Modern Turkey

Who were the Ottomans and what is their relation to modern Turkey? Today’s Turkish Republic was previously part of an empire ruled over by the Ottoman dynasty. The word “Ottoman” is a Latin transcription of the Arabic for Osman, the reputed founder of the...

Eternal Guests, Mimics, and Dönme: The Place of German and Turkish Jews in Modern Turkey

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 5-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kader Konuk
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
The Other ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
German Jews ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Turkish Culture ◽  
The Status ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
The One ◽  
European Civilization

AbstractThe place of Jews was highly ambiguous in the newly founded Turkish Republic: In 1928 an assimilationist campaign was launched against Turkish Jews, while only a few years later, in 1933, German scholars—many of them Jewish—were taken in so as to help Europeanize the nation. Turkish authorities regarded the emigrants as representatives of European civilization and appointed scholars like Erich Auerbach to prestigious academic positions that were vital for redefining the humanities in Turkey. This article explores the country's twofold assimilationist policies. On the one hand, Turkey required of its citizens—regardless of ethnic or religious origins—that they conform to a unified Turkish culture; on the other hand, an equally assimilationist modernization project was designed to achieve cultural recognition from the heart of Europe. By linking historical and contemporary discourses, this article shows how tropes of Jewishness have played—and continue to play—a critical role in the conception of Turkish nationhood. The status of Erich Auerbach, Chair of the Faculty for Western Languages and Literatures at İstanbul University from 1936 to 1947, is central to this investigation into the place of Turkish and German Jews in modern Turkey.

Beyond Istanbul's ‘Laz Underworld’: Ottoman Paramilitarism and the Rise of Turkish Organised Crime, 1908–1950

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
RYAN GINGERAS
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
Drug Trade ◽  
General Survey ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Global Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
Imperial Politics ◽  
Modern Turkey

AbstractAlthough the Turkish mafia is increasingly recognised as a powerful force in the ongoing trade in weapons, narcotics and people in Europe and beyond, there are few critical histories of organised crime's origins in Turkey. Rather than present some pedantic general survey of the history of organized crime in modern Turkey, this essay attempts to address two broader critical points of departure. First, how did Anatolia's journey from imperial to republican rule impact, and how was it impacted by, criminal gangs? Second, how do we situate the experience of modern gangs in Turkey in a global context? In attempting to answer these questions, this paper looks at the development of criminal syndicates among Laz migrants in the greater Istanbul area during the first half of the twentieth century. The case of the Laz shows particularly how war, migration, imperial politics, urbanisation and the rise of the international drug trade shaped the parallel development of organised crime and the nascent Turkish Republic.

scholarly journals Crossing the Sacred/Secular Divide; Unraveling Turkish Identities

Linguaculture ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-49
Author(s):  
Lisa Morrow
Keyword(s):  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Kemal Ataturk ◽  
Ways Of Life ◽  
The Way

Abstract This paper unpacks the ideas in the poem “Pull Down My Statues” by Süleyman Apaydın, to examine some common descriptors in use about modern Turkey. Taking his inspiration from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic, Apaydın ponders the success of Atatürk’s vision, based on the idea of a secular/sacred divide. Combining this with the way travel in Turkey is heavily promoted using the same themes, I explore how this divide, with its underlying connotations of West versus East and modernity versus tradition (as found in Turkey’s Ottoman past), is applied to Turkish identity. Turks are commonly portrayed as a homogenous people only differentiated by their degree of religiosity, but I argue that this analysis is too simplistic. Turkish identity has never been based on a single clear cut model, and this is becoming obvious as more traditional Islamic ways of life are being reworked by new forms of Islam based on capitalism. Consequently, although it is important to acknowledge Turkey’s past, looking to history for a way to steer through the complexities of the present is no longer useful or even relevant.

Competing Intellectual Currents within Modern Turkish Conservatism: The Bergsonian Connection

DIYÂR ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-253
Author(s):  
Mustafa Aslan
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
European History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Critical Juncture ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Modern Turkey

The philosophy of Henri Bergson (1859-1941) emerged during a critical juncture of European history as a reaction to the predominance of Enlightenment rationalism and positivism. Essentially, it strived to contest the peculiar convictions of these intellectual traditions and reintroduce the primacy of creativity, transcendence and human agency. As such, its influence had travelled across time and place. In modern Turkey, the thought of Bergson particularly influenced a group of conservative literati including İsmail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu (1886-1978), Peyami Safa (1899-1961), Hilmi Ziya Ülken (1901-1974) and Mustafa Şekip Tunç (1886-1958). For these intellectuals, Bergson represented the face of the ‘Other West’ and they appropriated his ideas with the aim of transforming the starkly positivist and rationalist disposition of Kemalism while being firmly committed to the ideals of the Modern Turkish Republic. On a different side of Turkey’s intellectual spectrum, another figure also appealed to Bergson and his philosophy. It was Necip Fazıl Kısakürek (1904-1983), who fiercely dissented the project of the republic for its pro-Western foundations and reconceptualized Islam as a totalizing ideology. Hence, through a critical cross-reading of different primary and secondary sources, the present article contrasts these competing currents of Turkish conservatism, their appropriations of Bergsonian philosophy and attitudes toward their society’s experience of the Turkish revolution and modernity.

scholarly journals THE FIRST TRANSLATIONS OF THE QURʾAN IN MODERN TURKEY (1924–38)

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 435a-435a
Author(s):  
M. Brett Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Turkish Language ◽  
Kemal Ataturk

In 1925, the Turkish parliament commissioned a translation of the Qurʾan from Arabic to Turkish as well as a Turkish-language Qurʾanic commentary. This project is commonly misunderstood as an initiative engineered by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) and linked to the radical institutional reforms of 1924: abolition of the Islamic caliphate, prohibition of the Sufi orders, and closure of the medreses. In fact, parliament's support of a Qurʾan translation was not a radical nationalist reform but an initiative supported and executed by devout intellectuals who opposed other facets of Islamic reform in the early years of the Turkish republic.

The Historical Background of the Highly Critical Perception of Christians by the Turkish Society

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-205
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Haede
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Kemal Ataturk ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Christian Population ◽  
Islamic Society

In Turkey, considered a secular and democratic role model for other countries with a Muslim majority, both state and society perceive Christians very critically. There are historical experiences and ideas that contribute to this surprising finding. In the Qur’an, the Holy Book of Muslims, Christians who do not accept the claim of Muhammad to be God’s prophet, are perceived as rebellious liars. Christians in early Islamic society were widely tolerated, but had a status as second-class-citizens. The Ottoman Empire as the front state against the Christian world and the savior of Sunni Islam widely tolerated Christians; thedhimmistatus of Christians as second-class-citizens however was continued in themillet-system. As the power of the Ottomans decreased and Western ideas of nationalism began to influence the Empire during the nineteenth century, the Muslim majority began a search for identity. Secessions of Christian peoples and interference by “Christian” foreign nations triggered more severe clashes between the remaining Christian population and the state. The wide-ranging activities of Western missionaries in the Ottoman Empire were perceived as a part of Western colonialism. During the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, the leaders of the Young Turk movement were motivated by their desperate battle to save a rest of the Empire as a homeland for the Muslim population. The perception of Christians as the enemy of the new Republic was more firmly established. Though Mustafa Kemal Atatürk gave a revolutionary modern and secular character to Turkey, there was an intentional Turkification of society. A study of Turkish newspapers confirms that these perceptions are widely valid until today. Missiology has to help develop an appropriate response of Christians to the situation inside and outside of Turkey.

THE FIRST TRANSLATIONS OF THE QURʾAN IN MODERN TURKEY (1924–38)

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Brett Wilson
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Intellectual Milieu ◽  
Early Republican ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Muhammad Rashid Rida ◽  
Turkish Language ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Kemal Ataturk

The debut of Turkish-language translations of the Qurʾan in the newly founded Republic of Turkey sparked lively debates over whether Qurʾan translation was possible or desirable, who should engage in interpretation of the text, and what characteristics a Turkish-language rendering of the Qurʾan should have. Whereas the abolition of the Islamic caliphate, closure of themedreses, and prohibition of the Sufi orders have received considerable attention in histories of early republican Turkey, the state-sponsored translation of the Qurʾan into Turkish remains both neglected and misunderstood. Muhammad Rashid Rida, who was highly influential in shaping opinion in the Muslim world, portrayed the state-sponsored project as a long-term plot to displace the Arabic Qurʾan. Other accounts misrepresent the involvement of President Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) in the promotion of Qurʾan translation by anachronistically suggesting that he sparked the initiative and led a “campaign” in support of it. Mustafa Kemal had no hand in the composition of Turkish Qurʾan translations published in 1924, other than helping create the political context in which they could be published. Their composition began well before the foundation of the Turkish republic, and their inspiration emerged from the intellectual milieu of the late Ottoman public sphere.

scholarly journals The Political and Economic Role of Turgot Ozal in the History of Modern Turkey

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Amanj Hasan Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
Effective Role ◽  
Turkish State ◽  
Modern Turkey

It has been argued that the experiences of governance in countries, have been proven that the leaders have a visible and effective role on different dimension (political, economic, military ... ) which they have the ability to direct historical events positively or direct to destroy and unstable situations.In the early eighty century, the modern Turkish Republic (TurkodOzal) who held the highest government posts in the country, a technocrat who was able to make the biggest political and economic change in Turkey. In addition, he has remarked to move the Turkish economy towards a bright future by his ideas and observation. In term of the political situation, he could develop the Turkish foreign relations with the East and West, also he had friendly attitudes with regards to the Kurdish nations. Beside this, (TurkodOzal) is the second founder of the Turkish state from the point of view of Turkish society, those are the reasons to do research about (TurkodOzal). .This research based on historical scientific specialization, methodology and descriptive analysis method has been used to do the research, and we tried as much as possible to be objective with the academic sources used.The research structure has been divided into three chapters, those included some parts, the first chapter is about, personality education and end of TurkutOzal. The second chapter, it has been discussed the political and economic life of him in two parts. The third and final chapter which introduce to two parts , In the first we discussed the Ozal attitude about the Kurds. In the second part which shows the international Turkish relationship, and his personal relations with America and its impact on the development relationship between USA and TurkesinceOzal in power.In conclusion, we have to say that this research is acceptable and that it is free of defects any other research, and where it cannot be upgraded to perfection.

scholarly journals From the Ottoman Empire to Post-1923

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-311
Author(s):  
Deniz Yonucu ◽  
Talin Suciyan
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Armenian Genocide ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Armenian Population

Abstract The author of The Armenians in Modern Turkey, historian Talin Suciyan, puts the Armenian genocide survivors at the center of her research to provide a new perspective on the history of the Turkish Republic. Suciyan analyzes the experiences and lives of its Armenian population several decades after the genocide. In this interview, Deniz Yonucu speaks with Suciyan on her research and innovative anthrohistorical approach to understanding the paths that led to the annihilation of Armenians, the effects of the genocide in modern Turkey, and the importance of focusing attention on the experiences of survivors after catastrophic experiences of genocides. The survivor as described in this interview is neither a wretched of the earth, who is forced to live a tortured life, nor a subaltern whose voice cannot acquire speech. The survivor instead is an existence whose past, present and future is constantly denied, and therefore robbed from her.

Recent Studies on the September Pogrom in Istanbul 1955

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-417
Author(s):  
Annika Törne
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Minority Politics ◽  
Preparatory Phase

Drawing on theories of nationalism, two recent books by Dilek Güven and Ülkü Ağır engage with the September Pogrom in Istanbul on the 6th and the 7th of September 1955. To explain the pogrom’s emergence from its historical background both studies discuss the role of Young Turkish ideology, ethnic violence in the course of Turkish nation building, and the development of minority politics throughout the Turkish Republic. On the basis of interviews and archival materials, Dilek Güven meticulously reconstructs the course of events, the actors, their motives and the context. Ülkü Ağır analyses the Turkish press discourse in the pogrom’s preparatory phase focusing on the Greek Orthodox community. Critically discussing the two studies, this article scrutinises current conceptualisations of collective violence in research devoted to post-Genocidal Turkey.

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