Bulgarian Atrocities Agitation of 1876

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Bulgarian Atrocities Agitation of 1876 Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire: British Discourses on the ‘Ottomans’, 1860-1878 N.C. Cicektakan A thesis submitted for the degree of PhD. Department of History University of Essex 10/14 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Rainer Schulze, to whom no word could sufficiently express my gratitude. His influence has convinced me to start this thesis, his support and guidance made me continue and his persistence made it possible to complete it. The influence of his guidance exceeds beyond the boundaries of a PhD journey. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Jason Glynos and Dr. Fiona Venn for their friendly comments, challenging questions and their continuous support to make this thesis better. I would also like to thank Dr. Ephraim Nimni and Dr. Andrew Priest for their helpful suggestions and for making my examination a pleasant experience. I would like to dedicate my thesis to my family whose enormous sacrifice and support enabled me to fulfil my dreams. I had the immense luck of having an amazing couple as parents, who worked tirelessly to give me a better life. I would also like to dedicate this work to my wife Dilek Ulu. Meeting with her was the best part of my PhD experience. She brought joy and love to my life and she taught me more than any course could have done. Finally, I wish to express my gratefulness to the University of Essex community for making my years in Colchester pleasant. I have made lifelong friendships in the long years I’ve spent as a researcher in Essex. It’s impossible to list them all here, but I would like to express special thanks to my dear friend, Dr. Erdem Damar for both his companionship and his patience in reading all drafts of this thesis. ABSTRACT This dissertation explores British perceptions of and discourses on the ‘Ottomans’ in the mid-nineteenth century, which have been largely overlooked in the existing literature. It approaches the question through three case studies analysing the construction of the perceptions through a discourse-analytic framework. This thesis is divided into two main parts, with the first part providing essential background information for the three case studies which make up the second part. Chapter 1 sets out the research question and the methodology. Chapter 2 looks at the development of Anglo-Ottoman relations from the beginning until the nineteenth century, identifying important stages in these relations which in turn impacted upon British perceptions. These early British perceptions are traced in Chapter 3, identifying a range of perceptions none of which achieve a dominant position in the British public discourse on the Ottoman Empire and the Ottomans. Part 2 constitutes the core of the dissertation. Chapter 4 focuses on Britain and the Ottoman Empire in the 1860s and 1870s, analysing the wider setting which forms the background to the case studies. Chapter 5 examines the Lebanon Crisis of 1860 tracing the formation of two discourses on the Ottomans in Britain: the sick-man discourse and the integrity discourse, which competed for dominance in the public debate. Chapter 6 examines the Cretan Crisis of 1866, which showed the continued use of these two discourses, with the sick- man discourse finding more support but not yet dominating the debate. This changes during the Bulgarian Atrocities Campaign of 1876, which is explored in Chapter 7. During this crisis, the sick-man discourse undergoes both a radicalisation and popularisation following the graphic coverage in the British press of the atrocities committed in the Balkans which is picked up by politicians who feel the need to respond to pressure from the streets. The Conclusion sums up the main findings of the dissertation and discusses how far the nineteenth-century constructions of the Ottomans as the ‘other’ in Britain remain relevant in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, when the Muslims take the place of the Ottomans as the ‘other’. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................... 1 ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. 2 Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 3 1.) The Research Question ....................................................................................................... 5 2.) Research Strategy ............................................................................................................. 11 3.) Discourse Theory .............................................................................................................. 15 3.1) Main Arguments of the Poststucturalist Discourse Theory (PDT) ................................. 16 3.2) Key Analytical Concepts ................................................................................................ 18 3.3) Discourse Analysis and the Sources ............................................................................... 20 4.) Organisation of the Thesis ................................................................................................ 21 5.) A word on terms used in this Thesis ................................................................................. 24 Chapter 2: A Short Overview of the Anglo-Ottoman Relations up to the Mid- Nineteenth Century .................................................................................................................. 27 1.) Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 29 2.) The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries ........................................................................ 30 2.1) The Levant Trade Company and Anglo-Ottoman Commerce ....................................... 30 2.2) The Political Situation in Britain and the Ottoman Empire at the Start of their Relations .................................................................................................................................. 32 2.3) The Eighteenth Century ................................................................................................. 33 3.) The Eastern Question and its Impact ................................................................................ 34 3.1) The Emergence of the Eastern Question ........................................................................ 34 3.2) The British Foreign Policy in 19th Century ................................................................... 37 3.3) The Greek Revolt as a case in Eastern Question ............................................................ 40 3.4) Emergence of Russophobia and Turkophilism in Britain .............................................. 43 4.) Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 44 Chapter 3: Images of the Ottomans in Britain up to 1860 ....................................................... 47 1.) Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 49 2.) British Perceptions of the Ottoman Empire before 1860 ................................................. 50 2.1) Early Modern Perceptions .............................................................................................. 50 2.1.1) The Eighteenth Century 56 2.2) The image of the Ottomans in the 19th century .............................................................. 61 2.3) Images of the ‘Turk’ in the 19th century ......................................................................... 63 2.4) Impact of Russophobia on the Image of the ‘Turk’ ....................................................... 67 2.5) The Perceptions of Islam in the 19th century .................................................................. 70 3.) Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 72 Chapter 4: Britain and the Ottoman Empire in the 1860s ....................................................... 75 1.) Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 77 1.1) British Politics in mid-Victorian Age ............................................................................. 77 1.2) Weltanschauung of the Mid-Victorian Age: Darwinism, Racism and Religion ............. 82 1.3) Economy and rise of the City in Anglo-Ottoman Relations .......................................... 89 1.4) The Rise of the Press ...................................................................................................... 90 2.) Ottoman Empire in the Middle of the 19th Century .......................................................... 94 2.1) Tanzimat and the Ottoman Reforms ............................................................................... 94 3.) Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 99 Chapter 5: The Lebanese Civil War of 1860 ......................................................................... 101 1.) The Lebanon Crisis of 1860 ........................................................................................... 103 1.1) Historical Background.................................................................................................
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