140 Hundert Zuweisen, Ist Also Mithin Nur Wenige Jahre Nach Der

140 LITERATUR hundert zuweisen,ist also mithin nur wenigeJahre nach der Abfassungdes Werkes ent- standen und vermutlich die zweitaltesteder erhaltenen Handschriften. Er ist reich voka- lisiert. Zwar bietet er im allgemeinenden Textus receptus, wie ihn die Wiener Handschrift aufweist,doch rucken ihn zahlreichegemeinsame Varianten in die Nahe des CodexMenzel. Er gehort also tatsachlich zu den "wichtigsten Textzeugen". Nicht allzu haufig sieht sich der mit der islamischen Geschichte befasste Historiker gleich drei verschiedenenTextver6ffentlichungen einer Grundquellegegeniiber. Mit dem Erscheinen des hier angezeigten Buches sind also besonders giinstige Voraussetzungen fur die historischeAuswertung der Chronik des Nesri geschaffen.Man kann daher hoffen, dass das Werk, dem schon öfter die Bemuhungenscharfsinniger Geister gegolten haben, bald neue Bearbeiter finden wird. Dabei konnte die Herausgabe der schon von Menzel vorbereiteten Ubersetzung wesentliche Anregungen geben. Hans Robert Roemer (Mainz) Sir Harry Luke: The Old Turkey and the New. From Byzantium to Ankara. London: Geoffrey Bles 1955. XII, 243 pp. 16 s. (First published in 1936 by MacMillan & Co. Ltd. under the title "The Making of Modern Turkey.") This new editionof Sir Harry's well-knowninterpretation of Ottoman and early republican Turkish history brings back into print a book replete with valuable insights. The author has added a new chapter of I pages to bring his account down to the end of 1954, and embellished this edition with ten illustrations. He has also substituted a dull portrait of sultan Abdul Medjidfor his originalfrontispiece showing "the Khalif Abdul Mejidreceiving homage on his assumption of office in 1922,in the presenceof Rafet [Refet Bele] Pasha, representing the Governmentof Angora" which has considerablymore historical import ance. A number of minor changes and some important correctionshave also been made throughout the volume.There have been no deletionsof more than two or three lines, many longer paragraphs have been broken up into separate paragraphs, and the original text has been preserved in improved form. Sir Harry Luke is the author of ten works dealing with the Near East. He first visited Turkey in 1904, served there in several important official capacities during the next two decades, and was last there in 1954. He supplements his first hand observations with significant readings from standard histories and writes with skill and perception of a high order. His career has included the followingposts: Commissionerin Cyprus, Political Officerin Turkey under Admiral of the Fleet Sir John de Robeck at Constantinople1919- 1920, British Chief Commissionerin Transcaucasia, Chief Secretary of Palestine, and Lieutenant-Governorof Malta. As he says in his preface, "This book is not a history of Turkey. Its object is the more restrictedone of seekingto describethe nature of the Turkish State under the Ottoman Sultans, its nature to-day, and the causes (and to some extent the manner) of the transition ... In its new form it still seeks to be 'an explanation of Turkey."' The author has succeededbest in his first aim, and least in his attempt to describe the nature of Turkey to-day. It is to be regretted that he has not recorded more of his personalimpressions and the changeswhich he himselfhas seen during the past half century. This book retains its ten original chapters on, "The Ottoman Empire as the Heir of Byzantium", "The First Break with Tradition: Selim III and Mahmud II," "The Era of the Tanzimat", "The Christian Millets", "Islam in Turkey", "Young Turks-Pan-Islam- Yeni Turan", "Sultan, Khalif, Republic: The Transition, 1918-1924","The Reform of the Law", "The Language Reform", and "The Last Break With Byzantium". The new final chapter, "Thirty Years On", is a cursory review of the Democrat Party victory in 1950,the current recognition that Islam is still enshrined in the hearts and minds of the Turks, and of Turkey's growing stature in world affairs. It says little about the great economicand social changes of the past twenty years. Recent Turkish willingnessto recognize the greatness of their own imperial Ottoman past is well brought out in his account of the role of the modern Turks who paraded as 141 Janissaries at the grandiosecelebrations held in Istanbul in May, 1953,to commemorate the fifth centenary of the capture of Constantinopleby Fatih MehrnedII, the Conqueror. These same "J anissaries"marched, five months later, in the Presidentialreview at Ankara in honor of the 30th anniversary of the republic and they paraded again on October 29th, 1954 (pp. 221-2).Another interesting sidelight in this last chapter in his descriptionof the renewed pride of the 81,oooMuslim citizens of Cyprus in Turkey. These British subjects are of course of Turkish ethnic stock, descendants of those Turks who ruled and lived in Cyprus from 1571-1878when it was unquestionably Turkish territory. These Cypriot Turks look now to Turkey for help and cultural leadershipin a way which they never did from 1878-1923when the Ottoman Padishah ruled Anatolia (pp. 226-228).In response to requests from the Turks in Cyprus, the Turkish government plans to establish an Imam- Hatip (Prayer Leader-Preacher) School there shortly according to the Istanbul paper Cumhuriyet,25 January, 1956. The discussionof the "Millet" system in the Ottoman Empire, and of the transition from it, to the nationalist republican regime at Ankara are particularly illuminating. It is interesting to learn that the old Turkish word Tany2 (Tengri)was used by Turks in Anatolia and in Cyprus during World War I, long before it temporarily rose to official sanction after 1932 (p. 192).That the patient Anatolian Turks suffered as much if not far more than most of the Ottoman Sultan's subjects is graphicallydepicted in these passages: "In August, 1913 I had occasionto travel across the plains of Anatolia to find neglected fields, empty homesteads,Turkish womenand children starving. I was thus able to realize with peculiarforce how, next to the Armenians,the greatest victim of the Ottoman Empire was the Turkish people itself ... the Young Turk Governmentwere preparing for yett another Balkan war and had recalled every available Turk, after scarcely a respite, to the lines of Chatalja. From every station which I passed between Bozanti and Smyrna men of military age were being collected and despatched to the headquarters of the main Turkish Army in Thrace; and I witnessedmany a pathetic sight as lean old sergeants in tattered uniforms tried to marshal their squads into the train or with rough kindliness to cut short harrowing farewellsfrom aged mothers about to lose their sole support... Meanwhile, in the seaports and commercial towns, Greeks, Jews and Armenians were pursuing their usual avocations, undisturbed by the conscriptionof their Moslemfellow- subjects. It was the Turks, and not the Christians, who bore the heat and burden of the day, who toiled and fought and bled that Turkey might retain provinces largely non- Turkish in population..." (pp. 201-202).This sad Turkey was to struggle through another decade of warfare before achievingindependence for the Turks. Some old errors remain, and a few new ones have crept into this edition. For instance, it is not accurate to claim on p. 4 that there is no word signifying"interest" in Turkish for aldka has this meaning. The first westernizingsteps in the Ottoman empire were taken at the beginning rather than at the end of the i8th century, if not even earlier, p. 30 ff. The eshkenjireform document appeared in May, 1826,not in 1825,and the Janis- saries were destroyed in a few hours on Thursday, June i5th, 1826,and not on the i6th, pp. 26, 36 ff. (Cf. my unpublished study, "The Destruction of the Janissaries in 1826", Princeton, 1951,Chapters III-IV, pp. 118 ff., 190, 192ff.) The Spanish Umayyad Khalifate ended in 1031,not 1492,p. 106. Luke errs in saying that the Islamic factor only entered Turkish policy in the Balkans after 1 5 1 p.7, i og. (Cf.Paul W i t t c k,The Rise ofthe Ottoman Empire, London, 1938passim.) The definition of a milleton p. 8 is far rnore accurate than that in the glossaryon p. 233. Oriental music has been played on the State radio regularly for many years and it is very popular, p. 207. A full English translation of Mustafa Kemal's speech was publishedby F. Koehler,Leipzig, 1929,p. 215, n. i. Three queries are in order here: i. Were the Sultan and Damad Ferid Pasha as good Turkish patriots as indicated on p. 161, and was the Sultan as brave as he is made out to be on p. 165 ?2. What is the source for the interesting Ottoman proclamation, "Our participation in the world war represents the vindication of our national ideal... ", p. 151,11 and 3, for the statement 1 See Tekin Alp, Türkismus und Pantürkismus, Weimar, 1915,p. 50: Rundschreiben des "Komitees für Einheit und Fortschritt"... am Tage nach der Kriegserklärung(cf. WI 23, 1941,p. 12). (Ed.) .

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