Darina MARTYKÁNOVÁ 125 OTTOMAN ENGINEERS: THE REDEFINITION OF EXPERT IDENTITIES DURING THE REIGN OF ABDÜLHAMID II AND THE EARLY YEARS OF THE SECOND CONSTITUTIONAL PERIOD I n 1907, Mustafa Şevki, a young engineer who worked in the Public Works (nafıa) provincial administration of Prishtina, was approached by two young army officers who proposed him to join the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihatveTerakkiCemiyeti, CUP).1 The CUP was a secret organisation that channelled the opposition against the autocratic rule of the sultan Abdülhamid II. Its ranks were full of Muslim (and some non-Muslim) students, officers and civil servants educated in “new-style” schools. Its members were united by their concern for the fate of the Ottoman Empire and their conviction was that the Empire could not be saved and restored to its former glory by using old ways and measures. They believed that only a thorough modernisation could save the Empire, Darina Martykánová, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto de Filosofía, Calle Albasanz, 26-28, 28037 Madrid, Spain.
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[email protected] 1 This article develops some of the ideas briefly outlined in my book Reconstructing OttomanEngineers (see bibliography at the end), using new primary and secondary sources. My thanks go to Feza Günergun for providing me with photocopies of the engineers’ journals from the Second Constitutional Period. I am also grateful to Emmanuel Szurek, Juan Pan- Montojo and Ana Romero for their thought-provoking comments and criticisms. The “Research in Paris” programme of the City of Paris supported my research stay at Cetobac (CNRS – EHESS – Collège de France), during which this article was written.