• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Taglia, Stefano (2012) The Intellectual's Dilemma: The Writings of Ahmet Riza and Mehmet Sabahettin on Reform and the Future of the Ottoman Empire. PhD Thesis. SOAS, University of London http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/14573 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. The intellectual‘s dilemma: the writings of Ahmet Rıza and Mehmet Sabahettin on reform and the future of the Ottoman Empire. Stefano Taglia Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in History 2012 Department of History School of Oriental and African Studies University of London Declaration for PhD thesis I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the School of Oriental and African Studies concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination. Signed: ____________________________ Date: _________________ THESIS ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the intellectual development of two leading members of the Young Turk organisation during its early phase – that is, the period before the organisation turned into the militarist nationalist group that carried out the 1908 Revolution and ruled Turkey until the end of WW1. The thesis argues that the two intellectual activists, Ahmet Rıza and Mehmet Sabahettin, have been central figures in the theoretical emergence of an Ottoman synthesis, which responded to the geopolitics of the empire and aspired to provide an intellectual bridge between the Empire and Europe. My main object of analysis are Young Turk journals published mainly in France between 1890s and 1907, of which Rıza and Sabahettin were editors or contributors, as well as the thematic volumes they authored. I contend that an understanding of the arguments put forward by these activists is crucial in constructing a more accurate picture of the historical continuum between nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ottoman/Turkish politics. This new picture enriches the narrative of a Kemalist debate on modernity as rupture with the Empire‘s past and confronts nationalist frames of looking at the Ottoman past that have been very prevalent in modern Turkish historiography. Throughout this research, I present a fresh reading of an intensely-studied period. I claim that the periodisation of Young Turk history is, besides few exceptions, misrepresented and that the early phase of the organisation has not been given the attention and analytical depth it deserves. I suggest that a comparative interrogation of the varied visions of Ottoman opposition groups, which has not been done before, sheds light on the much-debated transition from Empire to Republic and acknowledges an ideological bridge between the political and social ideas of pre- and post- Republican period. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My sincere thanks go to Professor Benjamin C. Fortna, my supervisor, for his intellectual and moral support throughout this thesis. Our conversations and his comments have been invaluable to my thinking and his own work provided a model of scholarship to aspire to. I am also indebted to Dr. Nelida Fuccaro, whose feedback was instrumental at the start of my research and whose generosity has made me a better scholar and teacher. I am grateful to Professor Palmira Brummett for commenting on one of my chapters. The SOAS History Department and Faculty of Languages and Cultures have provided financial support for spending two terms at Princeton University. There, I benefited from the University‘s archives, language courses, and discussions with Professor Şükrü Hanioğlu and Professor Elizabeth Frierson. The Royal Historical Society has kindly helped me participate in various conferences, which have greatly enriched my PhD experience. This thesis would have not been possible without the constant support and help of my partner, Charis Boutieri, and our intellectual exchanges. Finally, I would like to thank warmly my mother, Valeria Mosini, for her continuous encouragement, my father, Vittorio Taglia, and my first history professor, Brian Williams. NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION Names and titles in Ottoman Turkish are rendered in accordance to modern Turkish usage. Arabic and Persian names are transliterated according to a simplified system based on that of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (IJMES), unless taken from a source that uses a different method (Encyclopaedia of Islam). Names in languages that use a non-Latin script have been rendered in Latin script. TABLE OF CONTENTS Aknowledgements Note on Transliteration Chapter One – Introduction 7 Chapter Two – Ideas, Media and Networks of the Young Turk Movement in exile 37 Chapter Three – Ahmet Rıza and the Mechveret Group 90 Chapter Four – Prince Mehmet Sabahettin and La Science sociale 159 Chapter Five – The End of an Idea: the 1902 Congress of Ottoman Liberals in Paris 216 Chapter Six – Conclusion 264 Bibliography 276 6 CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION The object of enquiry On the 23rd September 1912, while fighting against the Italians in North Africa, Enver,1 a young Ottoman officer en route to become one of the most influential statesmen of the Ottoman Empire, wrote to a friend in Europe: C‘est un poison votre civilisation, mais c‘est un poison qui éveille et on ne veut, on ne peut plus dormir. On sent que si on refermait les yeux, ce serait pour mourir. Et la grande différence c‘est que vous autres avec tout votre ‗Erkenntnis‘ [knowledge] vous prenez la vie légèrement tandisque [sic] nous, quand nous avons la ‗Erkenntnis‘ nous nous rendons la vie plus difficile qu‘elle ne l‘est en vérité, surtout si nous changeons les principes que nous sommes habitués.2 How did Ottoman statesmen and intellectuals in the late nineteenth century translate their visions of the future into practical strategies for reform? This is what the next few hundred pages will attempt to unravel. The dilemma articulated by Enver Pasha represents what Ottoman reformers had been asking themselves for a very long period, at least since the reign of Sultan Süleyman in the mid sixteenth century.3 Since then, the pressing question ‗How can the state be saved?‘ had been tackled in 1 Enver (1881-1922) was a Young Turk soldier who went on to become one of the most important statesmen of the Unionist period. He was sent to Berlin as military attaché and became very close to the German government. In 1911, he took command of the Ottoman forces fighting the Italians in Lybia but returned to Istanbul the following year, when the Italians took control of area. He was nonetheless promoted in rank for his efforts in North Africa. At the 1912 Congress of the Committee of Union and Progress he ensured the appointment of his friend Talat. Following the defeat of the Ottoman military during the Balkan Wars in 1912 and the subsequent weakened Ottoman government, in 1913 he took the position of War Minister. During the Second Balkan Wars, he achieved important victories, and, once back in Istanbul, managed to acquire enough power to establish a triumvirate with his two closest associates, Talat (as Minister of Inetrior Affairs) and Cemal (as Minister of the Navy). By 1914, he had become commander-in-chief and was the mastermind, together with his two associates, behind the Ottoman entry into World War One on the side of Germany. However, his choice and military skills proved insufficient and the Ottoman army in Northeastern Anatolia suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Russians, leading Justin McCarthy to state the following: ―Enver was convinced he was a strategic genius, but really he was a cowboy.‖ Justin McCarthy, The Ottoman Turks: an introductory history to 1923 (London: Longman, 1997), 359. With the defeat in sight and following clashes with Armenians, on 2nd November 1918, Enver, Talat and Cemal boarded a German vessel and fled the Empire. Enver was killed in battle in August 1922, while Talat was killed in Gemrany in 1921 by an Armenian activist. Cemal was killed in Tbilisi, in the same year, by another Armenian activist. 2 Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Paşa, edited by Şükrü Hanioğlu (Istanbul: Der Yayınları, 1989), 188. 3 Bernard Lewis, ―Ottoman Observers of Ottoman Decline,‖ Islamic Studies 1, no. 1 (1962): 71-87. 7 different ways, but never so drastically as during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. When Enver wrote these lines, it was ten years since the first Congress of Ottoman Liberals held in Paris in 1902 and four years after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 that had reinstated the constitution. However, the way to close one‘s eyes and absorb the influence of Western European civilisation, as Enver framed it, without dying in the process – death here takes the form of cultural annihilation, loss of traditional aspects of society or the collapse of the Empire as political entity – had not yet been decisively defined. Reform in the Ottoman Empire had started with the first attempts to modernise the military in the late eighteenth century – under Selim III – yet these attempts were neither unitary nor consistent.

Load more

  290

Copy Link