Historein

Vol. 13, 2013

Review of N. Diamantouros, Th. Dragonas and F. Birtek (eds), Ελλάδα και Τουρκία: Εκσυγχρονιστικές γεωγραφίες και χωρικές αντιλήψεις του έθνους [Spatial conceptions of the nation: modernising geographies in and Turkey]

Kanner Efi University of https://doi.org/10.12681/historein.203

Copyright © 2014 Efi Kanner

To cite this article:

Kanner, E. (2013). Review of N. Diamantouros, Th. Dragonas and F. Birtek (eds), Ελλάδα και Τουρκία: Εκσυγχρονιστικές γεωγραφίες και χωρικές αντιλήψεις του έθνους [Spatial conceptions of the nation: modernising geographies in Greece and Turkey]. Historein, 13, 123-126. doi:https://doi.org/10.12681/historein.203

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Nikiforos Diamantouros, Thalia The authors’ main argument is that its inter- Dragonas, Faruk Birtek (eds) nal cohesion derives rather from its mythical than its “real” elements (28). The Ελλάδα και Τουρκία: is then examined as a multisemic notion com- Εκσυγχρονιστικές γεωγραφίες και prising four components: irredentism, cultur- χωρικές αντιλήψεις του έθνους al westernisation, Greek-Orthodox ethnore- ligious identity and the imperial vision of the [Spatial conceptions of the nation: regeneration of the Byzantine Empire. What modernising geographies in Greece all these actually constituted were the ingredi- and Turkey] ents of the utopian dream of the Greater Hel- lenic state (Megali Ellada) – hence the lack of Athens: Alexandria, 2012, 446 pp. precise geographic limitations of the imagi- nary Greek nation and state. Through a se- By Efi Kanner ries of spatial representations of the Hellenic University of Athens state, from the Rigas Feraios map to the map of Greater Greece in 1920, the authors point This book is the third in a series of collective out its blurred spatial figure, as it was imag- volumes edited in the context of an interdis- ined by the followers of the Megali Idea. This is ciplinary dialogue among Greek and Turk- attributed to the very utopian character of the ish social scientists about the development latter, to its belonging to a “nonspatial” real- processes of their countries. Both previous ity, something that permitted it to be constant- volumes treated the subject of the transition ly reformulated according to the various po- from the multiethnic to the litical imperatives of the period between 1844 Greek and Turkish nation-states.1 The first and 1922, when Greece was defeated in Asia volume focused on state building and citizen- Minor, and even beyond. ship in Greece and Turkey, whereas the sec- ond examined the ways modernity and - Yonca Köksal examines the construction of peanness were perceived in each case. This new social spaces during the Ottoman Tanz- third volume, which is divided into three parts, imat (reform) era, in order to assess the co- treats the delicate topic of spatial conceptions existence, at a local level, of Ottomanism and of the Greek and Turkish nations. separatist Balkan . She asserts that state interventions during the Tanzimat The first part examines the hard path of transi- period created new spatial arrangements es- tion from imperial to national spatial concep- pecially in the port cities (avenues, squares, tions. It was an uncertain and uneven transi- places of leisure, etc), that enabled interaction tion, something that becomes obvious from between people of various ethnoreligious or- the fact that imperial visions inspired spatial igins. This interaction corroborated Ottoman- conceptions of both the Greek and Turkish na- ism, the loyalty to the empire and the sultan, tion-states. which was the main objective of Ottoman re- formers. On the other hand, the non-Muslim Anastasia Stouraitis and Andreas Kazamias local elites who backed those interventions treat the Greek Great Idea (Megali Idea), the also played a crucial role within their own mil- major expression of Greek from lets. They created institutions (mainly educa- the nineteenth century until 1922, as a utopia. tional) that reinforced ethnoreligious identities.

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Most of those identities challenged Ottoman- nationalist discourse as a whole (120–121). ism and were transformed, in due course, into The final solution of the problem, i.e. the par- national ones. tial ecclesiastical affiliation of the new lands to the Greek church and the maintenance of the Yannis Tsiomis refers to the new geography patriarchate’s spiritual authority over them, that legislation enacted during the regency at- constituted a victory of the nation-state logic. tempted to impose on the newborn Greek state. It was in fact an incomplete victory that cre- This intervention, through a 1834 act, made a ated the complicated ecclesiastical status break with the Ottoman spatial arrangement of the new lands. This status, along with the and comprised the following: a clear division complexities caused by the Eastern bloc’s col- between unproductive mountainous areas and lapse, is the root of the conflict that broke out productive lowland regions; the country’s ad- between patriarchate and the Greek church in ministrative division into prefectures, provinc- 2004. es and municipalities; a modernisation stim- ulus for agriculture and industrialisation; the M. Asım Karaömerlioğlu sees “Anatolianism” creation of new lowland and port cities; plans (Anadoluculuk) as a version of Turkish nation- for a population transfer from mountainous alism that followed the demise of Ottoman- areas to valleys. Those path-breaking meas- ism. Unlike Pan-turanism, Anatolianism views ures were part and parcel of the modernisa- , and not the central Asian valleys, as tion project to which the regency was totally the cradle of the Turks. According to this the- committed. Their implementation collided with ory, the year 1071, the starting point of Seljuk “local realities” and thus failed. rule in Anatolia, marks the beginning of Turk- ish history. This theory confers a prominent Anastassios Anastassiadis treats the very place to Islam and agrarian culture as parts delicate issue of the complicated negotiations of Turkish identity. Agrarianism led Nurettin over the ecclesiastical status of the regions Topçu, an emblematic figure of this trend of that were integrated in Greece after the Balkan thought, to adopt a position combining antilib- wars. It was actually a power game involving eralism, anticosmopolitism, anticommunism three parts: the patriarchate, and of course antisemitism. Though Topçu the Orthodox church of Greece and the Greek never held any public office, he decisively influ- state. Complications derived from the fact that enced rightwing thought in Turkey, especially the expansion of the Greek church’s jurisdic- the Turkish–Islamic synthesis theory. tion over the so-called “new lands” would re- strict the already diminished patriarchate’s Nur Yalman examines the construction of pub- domains. On the other hand, the patriarchate’s lic space and political debates in contemporary authority over the churches of the new lands Turkey in accordance with the stance vis-à- would undermine the Greek church’s posi- vis the Ottoman past. The ways the Ottoman tion as the unique ecclesiastical authority in past is imagined determines the visions of the the Greek nation-state and also the control of Turkish nation, in diverse areas, from architec- the latter over the religious institutions func- ture to foreign policy. He grosso modo distin- tioning within its borders. Anastassiadis very guishes four basic problematics: the Kemal- succinctly follows these negotiations using the ist one; the one expressed by the governing Foucauldian concept of “power micromechan- Justice and Development Party (AKP), which ics” to show that peripheral conflicts shape the “nourishes a nostalgia for an imaginary Otto-

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http://epublishing.ekt.gr | e-Publisher: EKT | Downloaded at 24/09/2021 11:03:40 | HISTOREIN VOLUME 13 (2013) man past” (194); the once concerning ethnic The third part discusses versions of identity identities in Turkey, an issue tightly linked with that, inscribed in the locality, have been alter- the Kurdish one; the debate on the character natives to (though not incompatible with) the of Islam in Turkey, i.e. on the compatibility of national one since the nineteenth century. secularism and the Sunni state institutions or the existence of Sufi orders. Paraskevas Konortas uses the case study of Thrace to point out the “war of identities” in the In the second part of the book, two examples region from the nineteenth century to 1923. concerning modern Cyprus are presented, Thrace was, along with Macedonia, the bone showing the endeavours of Greek and Turkish of contention between the Constantinople pa- nationalisms to Hellenise and Turkify, respec- triarchate and the Bulgarian exarchate, a con- tively, the island’s space. flict that was given a “national” character by the representatives of Greek and Bulgarian Yael Navaro-Yashin describes the way that nationalism. Konortas successfully describes the Turkish occupation since 1974 has trans- the variety of identities attributed to the Ortho- formed the landscape in northern Cyprus. Sov- dox populations of the region by the patriar- ereignty is confirmed by the changing of place chate, exarchate, Greek kingdom, Bulgarian names in the region, the redistribution of land state and Ottoman authorities. This provoked property and the display of Turkish identi- a battle of jurisdictions, with the Greek Ortho- ty symbols all over the place. It is an overtly dox elites of , local communal authori- political intervention led by the new, self-de- ties, as well as Greek or Bulgarian agents, at- clared state’s mapping agency, land registry tempting to attach them to different and often and armed forces. The parallels with similar conflicting causes/identities. , armed Israeli interventions in Palestine, as well as the force as well as mapping and statistics equally emphasis on the colonial roots of such prac- constituted weapons in this “identity war”. The tices, are of particular interest. However, this decisive factor in national affiliations was the official policy is not uncontested, since Turkish power balance between the states that final- Cypriots are unwilling to use the new, imposed ly shared the region. This power balance was place names. In fact, the use of the old (pre- reflected in a series of diplomatic treaties that 1974) ones constitutes a part of their identity, offered Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey an incom- something that differentiates them from the plete “national purity”. Anatolian newcomers. Georgios Agelopoulos inscribes the ethno- Caesar Mavratsas, for his part, describes logical studies of Konstantinos Karavidas Greek Cypriot national identity as an effect of and Dinos Malouchos, as well as the ethnol- divergence between history and geography. ogy school of the planned University of Smyr- He asserts that affiliation with Greek irredent- na, in the context of the necessity to integrate ism led Greek Cypriots to conceive themselves the Muslims of Asia Minor in the Hellenic state as a part of a wider Greek national community of the Sevres treaty. In this perspective, it was and, thus, to develop a nationalism that defied crucial to assess cultural differences between geography, i.e. the presence of a strong Turk- various Muslim groups in Asia Minor, in an ish Cypriot element and the proximity of Cy- attempt to detract from a monolithic Turk- prus to Turkey. This had tragic consequences ish identity and to reduce its appeal among for both communities on the island. them. The vision of the “civilising mission”

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of the Greek state in Asia Minor stems from Last but not least, this discourse has margin- the perception of Hellenism as a westernisa- alised Ankara and counteracted the mono- tion agent in the “Orient”, a strong component phonic versions of history proposed by Turk- of the Megali Idea. Karavidas’ and Malouchos’ ish nationalism. In this respect it constitutes, I studies could then be regarded as a part of the would add, an aspect of a new emerging Turk- social engineering entailed in this vision. ish identity.

Reşat Kasaba describes the traditionally multi- So, though modernist geographies constitute cultural environment of Antakya. Attributed to an integral part of nation building in the Greek the city’s geographical position and its loose and Turkish cases – and not only – they al- Ottoman administration, this multiethnic char- ways had to deal with the imperial past. Be- acter, along with commercial prosperity, led to sides, they are made from the raw material a specific sense of belonging among Antakya’s offered by imperial spatial representations. inhabitants. Its multiethnic status, though chal- This is what emerges throughout the volume, lenged by national rivalries in the closing years which is for this a valuable tool for the of Ottoman rule, was maintained until the inte- study of Greek and Turkish nationalisms. gration of Hatay sanjak into Turkey (1939). But Alevis and Arab Christians continued to consti- NOTES tute a considerable part of its population. 1 Faruk Birtek and Thalia Dragonas (eds), Citi- In her brilliant text, Ayşe Öncü sketches the zenship and the Nation-State in Greece and multiple procedures through which Istanbul Turkey, /New York: Routledge, 2005 emerges not only as a national centre but also [in Greek: Ελλάδα και Τουρκία: Πολίτης και έθνος-κράτος, Athens: Alexandria, 2006]; as an international metropolis by virtue of the Caglar Kayder and Anna Frangoudaki (eds), Ottoman heritage it represents. The commer- Ways to Modernity in Greece and Turkey: En- cialisation of culture and history in the new lib- counters with Europe, 1850–1950, London/ eral era has resulted in a change of collective New York: Tauris, 2007 [in Greek: Ελλάδα attitudes towards the Ottoman past. The Turk- και Τουρκία. Πορείες εκσυγχρονισμού: Οι ish state, tycoons, municipal authorities and αμφίσημες σχέσεις τους με την Ευρώπη, tourism industry present Turkey as an heir to a 1850–1950, Athens: Alexandria, 2008]. multicultural Ottoman legacy. Istanbul has ob- tained a privileged position in this endeavour. It has emerged as a locus where an idyllic image of the Ottoman past is projected – an image of tolerance and harmonic coexistence of various ethnoreligious groups. This narrative has also been inserted in the strategy of political parties such as the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) or the AKP to create a distinct civic identity (Istanbul- luluk) and a new Islamic sense of belonging. It goes in tandem with the interventions by the state or market forces that have dramatically modified the city’s landscape – something that has provoked new inclusions and exclusions.

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