scholarly journals Doing Nation in Empires: The Emergence of Turkey and Austria

Author(s):  
Kevser Muratovic ◽  
Florian Gimpl

This article examines nation-building in relation to education and educationalinstitutions, taking two former big players in European politics in the wake of theFirst World War as examples: the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Empire. TheHabsburg Empire is examined by focusing particularly on textbooks around and after1918, comparing them with each other and understanding them as major tools forspreading national ideas within state school. As will be shown, the idea of an Austriannation can hardly be found, neither before nor immediately after the break of 1918,in the sense of the ideology of a nation-state. On the other hand, the Ottoman Empireis being examined as an example for doing nation in a process of transformation ofsocial structures within non-western societies through western-style schools, thuscontributing to nationally substantiating the Republic of Turkey. This article examinesthe imperial foundations of these two nation-states and how they and the precedingempires dealt with the modern concept of nation and nationalism.Key words: Austria; Habsburg Empire; nation-building; Ottoman Empire; Turkey

Author(s):  
Frederick F. Anscombe

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.


2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arzu Öztürkmen

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.


2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lerna Ekmekcioglu

AbstractThis article focuses on the years after World War I, especially the first decade following the 1923 establishment of the Republic of Turkey, in order to analyze the position of minorities in the developing “we” of the new nation as projected by its political elite. Situating the discussion in the context of the League of Nations interwar minority protection regime, I demonstrate that the Treaty of Lausanne, which the Ankara government and the Allies signed in July 1923, played an important role in the conflicting treatment that minorities have since received in Turkey. The treaty's minority protection clauses entrenched divisions that had already been formed in the Ottoman Empire during the violence of the preceding decade, including the Armenian genocide. Moreover, reminding Turkish leaders of how 19th-century European imperial powers had used the cause of Ottoman Christians’ suffering as an excuse to infringe on Ottoman sovereignty, these clauses alarmed the Turkish political elite, especially as the “Great Powers” themselves were not bound by such minority protection guarantees. The goal of preventing a repetition of this unbalanced international power dynamic, which, according to the new Turkey's leaders, had led to the demise of the Ottoman Empire, engendered paradoxical policies toward non-Muslim Turkish citizens; they have been largely excluded from a Turkness (Türklük) to which they were sometimes included, even forcibly included.


2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERIK JAN ZÜRCHER

The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923. In the first 20 years of its existence, the political leadership of the republic embarked on a process of nation building in Anatolia and at the same time changed the face of Turkish society, stamping on it a particular brand of secular modernity. This article tries to find out what were the common characteristics of the small band of men who made up the leadership of the republic and to what extent their shared background and experience can help explain the course they charted for Turkey after its creation. One of the conclusions is that Turkey, although located geographically for more than 90% in Asia, is in fact a creation of Europeans, who shaped the country after their own image.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-56
Author(s):  
Holbek Davronov ◽  

This article discusses the education system and its important aspects, which were the basis for the development of the Ottoman Empire, which reached its peak of development in the XVI th century. There is also evidenceof the extensive attention paid to the field by sultans and other officials, as well as credible sources on its results. The article emphasizes that relations between independent Uzbekistan and the Republic of Turkey have always been in the spirit of friendship and solidarity, the proximity of the two peoples is associated not only with ethnicity, but also with the unity of language and religion, the historical unity of cultures.Index Terms: “Sibyan” schools, “dorut-talim”, “Darul-ibn”, “khalfa”, “Pusar”, Vaqfiya, “mudarris”, “mufid”, “donishmand”, “suhte”, Dor-al hadis, Dor al -kurra, Dor-at-tib


1975 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanford J. Shaw

One of the most significant, but unstudied, aspects of the reforms accomplished in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century under the leadership of the Tanzimat statesmen and of Sultan Abd ul-Hamid II was a radical transformation of the traditional Ottoman tax structure and the introduction of the system that has remained in force, with relatively few changes, to the present day, at least in the Republic of Turkey.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-177
Author(s):  
Didem Havlioğlu

Since the 1950s, historiographical trends in scholarship have re-considered the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent nation-state building of the Republic of Turkey. The social and political evolution of the imperial system into a nation-state has been alternatively explained through geopolitical pressures, domestic resistance, the expanding economy and modernism in Europe, and the inability of the Ottoman establishment to cope with the rapid changes of the nineteenth century. Constructing one holistic narrative of a vast time period of upheaval is a difficult endeavor for any scholar. In the case of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the Republic of Turkey, ethno-religious networks, two world wars, geopolitical competition between the great powers, regional and pan-regional insurgencies, demographic displacement, nationalist fervor sweeping through the Balkan and Arab provinces and into Anatolia, and finally the Kurdish armed resistance renders succinct historical narratives all but impossible to achieve. Thus, while there are many stories of the end of the Ottoman Empire, an overview of the issues for students and general audiences is a much needed, but audacious, undertaking. Yet for understanding the Middle East and Southeastern Europe today, a critical narrative must be told in all its complexity.


2013 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 55-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niklas Foxeus

The achievement of independence in 1948 was in many ways a watershed in Burma’s history. At this time, a variety of Buddhist movements emerged that were part not only of a ‘Burmese Buddhist revival’, in which even the government was involved, but also a general re-enchantment of Asia. In the period following World War II, projects of nation-building and further modernization were implemented in many newly independent Asian nation states. The theories of modernization adopted by the rulers had presupposed that a new, rationalized and secularized order that had set them on the path of ‘progress’ would entail a decline of religion. However, instead there was a widespread resurgence of religion, and a variety of new, eclectic religious movements emerged in Southeast Asia. In the thriving religious field of postcolonial Burma, two lay Buddhist movements associated with two different meditation techniques emerged, viz.; the insight meditation movement and the concentration meditation movement. The latter consisted of a variety of esoteric congregations combining concentration meditation with esoteric lore, and some of these were characterized by fundamentalist trends. At the same time, the supermundane form of Buddhism became increasingly influential in the entire field of religion. The aim of the present article is to discuss how this supermundane dimension has reshaped the complex religious field in Burma, with particular emphasis on the esoteric congregations; to present the Burmese form of esoteric Theravāda Buddhism, and to situate the fundamentalist trends which are present in these contexts.


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