OTTOMAN WOMEN and the STATE DURING WORLD WAR I By
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OTTOMAN WOMEN AND THE STATE DURING WORLD WAR I by ZEYNEP KUTLUATA Sabancı University June 2014 © Zeynep Kutluata 2014 All Rights Reserved OTTOMAN WOMEN AND THE STATE DURING WORLD WAR I APPROVED BY: Yusuf Hakan Erdem ………………………. (Thesis Advisor) Cemil Koçak ……………………….. Halil Berktay .……………………..... Selçuk Akşin Somel ................................... Arzu Öztürkmen .................................. DATE OF APPROVAL: 30.06.2014 OTTOMAN WOMEN AND THE STATE DURING WORLD WAR I Zeynep Kutluata History, PhD Dissertation, 2014 Supervisor: Yusuf Hakan Erdem Keywords: World War I, women, Ottoman State, citizenship, petition, motherhood, widowhood This dissertation is about the ways in which Ottoman women related to the state during World War I. Focusing on printed press, petitions, and telegrams, it analyzes the discourses and practices defining women as citizens within a context of military crisis. It offers a close reading of articles on women’s responsibilities during the war that appeared on the pages of periodical press, specifically women’s journals. It then discusses the content of petitions and telegrams written by Ottoman women to the state between 1914 and 1918. Ottoman women with different ethnic, religious and class identities wrote petitions to the state on financial matters, to complain about military officers, civil servants and local notables, about their relatives who were arrested and deported or those who were kept as prisoners of war in foreign lands, and finally, to apply for religious conversion or to become Ottoman subjects. All of these women identified themselves as “mothers”, “wives”, “sisters” or “daughters” in the petitions and the telegrams they sent to the state. The relationship between Ottoman women and the state during WWI in terms of citizenship practices is complex and complicated. Focusing on this relationship, on the one hand, highlights the hegemonic perspectives about women and womanhood of the period. On the other hand, war circumstances reveal the already existing tensions while at the same time opening up new possibilities of relationship between women and the state. The discourses defining “ideal” citizenship for women by stressing women’s duties as mothers of “the nation”, point at a gap between women as “ideal” and “real” citizens. v BİRİNCİ DÜNYA SAVAŞI’NDA OSMANLI KADINLARI VE DEVLET Zeynep Kutluata Tarih, Doktora Tezi, 2014 Danısman: Yusuf Hakan Erdem Anahtar kelimeler: Birinci Dünya Savaşı, kadınlar, Osmanlı Devleti, vatandaşlık, arzuhal, annelik, dulluk Bu tezde Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nda Osmanlı kadınları ve devlet arasındaki ilişki biçimlerine odaklanılmaktadır. Basılı yayınlar, arzuhaller ve telegraflar üzerinden askeri kriz döneminde kadınları vatandaş olarak tanımlayan söylem ve pratikler analiz edilmektedir. Kadınların savaş dönemindeki sorumlulukları hakkında dergilerde, özellikle kadın dergilerinde, yayınlanan makalelerin yakın okuması yapılmaktadır. Bunun yanısıra, 1914-1918 arasında, Osmanlı kadınları tarafından yazılan arzuhal ve telgraflar incelenmektedir. Farklı etnik, dinsel ve sınıfsal kimliklerden kadınlar ekonomik güçlükler hakkında, ordu mensupları, memurlar ve eşrafla ilgili sıkıntılarını dile getirmek üzere, tutuklanan ve sürülen ya da savaş tutsağı olan akrabaları ile ilgili olarak, din değiştirmek ya da Osmanlı tabiiyetine geçmek için devlete arzuhaller ve telgraflar aracılığıyla başvuruda bulunmuşlardır. Bu kadınlar, devlete gönderdikleri telgraf ve arzuhallerde kendilerini “anne”, “eş”, “kızkardeş” ve “kız evlat” olarak tanımlamışlardır. Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nda Osmanlı kadınları ve devlet arasındaki vatandaşlık ilişkisi karmaşıktır. Bu ilişkiye yoğunlaşmak, bir taraftan dönemin kadınlara ve kadınlıklara ilişkin hegemonik perspektifleri açığa çıkarmaktadır. Diğer taraftan da savaş koşulları kadınlar ve devlet arasındaki ilişkide halihazırda var olan gerilimleri görünür kılmakta ve yeni ilişki olasılıklarını gündeme getirmektedir. Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nda kadınlar için “ideal” vatandaşlığı “milletin” anneleri olarak görevlerini yerine getiren kadınlar üzerinden tanımlayan söylemler, “ideal” ve “gerçek” anneler arasındaki boşluğa işaret etmektedir. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Yusuf Hakan Erdem, for his much appreciated guidance, feedback, comments and patience all through my dissertation writing process. I am also grateful to my committee members Cemil Koçak, Selçuk Aksin Somel, Halil Berktay and Arzu Öztürkmen for their valuable contributions. I would like to extend my special thanks to the faculty and staff of Sabancı University Department of History. I am thankful to my friends Melissa Bilal, Fahriye Dinçer, Ayten Sönmez, Özlem Aslan for providing precious comments on the various versions of the dissertation. Many thanks to Alişan Akpınar for sharing his experience with the documents in the state archives. The research for this dissertation was financially supported by the Center for Gender Studies at Koç University. I am thankfull for their generous support. I am greatly indebted to all my friends and family without whom my life as a graduate student would be much more difficult. I am grateful to my friends in Kültür ve Siyasette Feminist Yaklaşımlar, who supported me emotionally and intellectually during the whole process of writing my dissertation. Finally, I would like to thank my mother Necla Kutluata for always being there. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................................... x INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: RETHINKING FEMALE CITIZENSHIP THROUGH THE IDENTITY OF MOTHERHOOD .......................................................................................................................... 15 1.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 15 1.2. Gender and Nationalism ..................................................................................................... 25 1.3. Gender and Militarism ....................................................................................................... 28 1.4. Motherhood and Militarism ............................................................................................... 30 1.5. Motherhood as a Realm of Women’s Activism: The Case of Kadınlar Dünyası .............. 33 1.6. Opposing mainstream motherhood .................................................................................... 64 1.7. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 2: PETITIONS WRITTEN BY OTTOMAN WOMEN DURING WORLD WAR I ...................... 69 2.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 69 2.2. Petitions on Financial Issues .............................................................................................. 76 2.3. Petitions Complaining about Military Officers, Civil Servants and Local Notables ......... 87 2.4. Petitions Demanding Justice and Mercy Against Forced Deportation .............................. 92 2.5. Petitions for religious conversion and to become Ottoman subjects ............................... 127 2.6. Petitions about Prisoners of War ...................................................................................... 130 2.6. Other issues raised in petitions ......................................................................................... 136 2.8. Conclusion........................................................................................................................ 139 CHAPTER 3: MOTHERS AS THE REPRESENTATIVES OF SOLDIERS’ FAMILIES .............................. 141 3.1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 141 3.2. Feminist Discourse on Peasant Women in Kadınlar Dünyası ......................................... 144 3.3. Nationalist Discourse on Peasant Women ....................................................................... 149 3.4. Telegrams and Petitions of Soldiers’ Families................................................................. 156 viii 3.5. Telegrams and petitions of Non-Muslim Soldiers’ Families ........................................... 170 3.6. Conclusion........................................................................................................................ 174 CHAPTER 4: WIDOWHOOD: AN EXPERIENCE TO BE REGULATED ................................................... 176 4.1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 176 4.2. The Perception of Widowed Women during WWI in Literature ..................................... 177 4.3. Widowed Women in the State Documents ...................................................................... 186 4.4. Philanthropic Institutions for Widowed Women ............................................................. 192 4.5. Dulhane and Dârussınaa: Creating Jobs for Widows ..................................................... 195 4.6. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................