scholarly journals Book Review: Christine M. Philliou, Turkey: A Past Against History. Oakland: University of California Press, 2021.

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-22
Author(s):  
Evren Altinkas
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Turkish Literature ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Late Ottoman ◽  
Turkish Society

This book depicts transformation of the Ottoman and Turkish society between the Second Constitutional Monarchy (1908) of the late Ottoman Empire and the 1960s of modern Turkey with a focus on the life and works of Turkish journalist author Refik Halid Karay (1888-1965). Karay is known with his short stories and novels in Turkish literature. Using excerpts from Karay’s newspaper articles, stories, and novels, Philliou shows how an Ottoman liberal criticized the policies of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the nationalists in Ankara during the Turkish War of Independence and the subsequent regime in the early years of the Turkish Republic. Using the term muhalefet [opposition], Philliou focuses on the transition of Karay from a dissident figure into a discontent patriot. While doing this, Philliou skillfully draws the framework of Turkish modernity between 1908 and 1960.

The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taner Akçam
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Armenian Genocide ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Young Turks ◽  
East And West ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Late Ottoman

Introducing new evidence from more than 600 secret Ottoman documents, this book demonstrates in detail that the Armenian Genocide and the expulsion of Greeks from the late Ottoman Empire resulted from an official effort to rid the empire of its Christian subjects. This book goes deep inside the bureaucratic machinery of Ottoman Turkey to show how a dying empire embraced genocide and ethnic cleansing. Although the deportation and killing of Armenians was internationally condemned in 1915 as a “crime against humanity and civilization,” the Ottoman government initiated a policy of denial that is still maintained by the Turkish Republic. The case for Turkey's “official history” rests on documents from the Ottoman imperial archives, to which access has been heavily restricted until recently. It is this very source that the book now uses to overturn the official narrative. The documents presented here attest to a late-Ottoman policy of Turkification, the goal of which was no less than the radical demographic transformation of Anatolia. To that end, about one-third of Anatolia's 15 million people were displaced, deported, expelled, or massacred, destroying the ethno-religious diversity of an ancient cultural crossroads of East and West, and paving the way for the Turkish Republic. By uncovering the central roles played by demographic engineering and assimilation in the Armenian Genocide, this book will fundamentally change how this crime is understood and show that physical destruction is not the only aspect of the genocidal process.

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 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.

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