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mSToruOGRAPHY AND NATIONALISM:
A STIIDY REGARDING THE PROCEEDINGS OF
THE FIRST TURKlSH mSTORY CONGRESS
MURAT CEM MENGUC
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofMasters of Arts
Institute ofIslamic Stuœes McGill University, Montreal September 2002
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Canada Abstract
This thesis attempts to establish the First Turkish History Congress (JuJ-y
2=11, 1932) as an exemplary moment that can help us understand the relationship between. natiomilism and historiography. The thesis fust examines the roots of natiomilist bistoriography in the West and in Ottoman Empire, and then paraphrases the proœedings of the oongress in detail. It arrives at the view that during the formation of a nation state in alignment with European standards,
Turkish natiomilists within the Ottoman Empire often found it necessary to review the methodology and the content of history books. The break with Ottoman historiography was a result of the unllorm Western approach to the pasto promoted by Western schools of thought. Thus. to become a nationalist meant to re-write history in Western fashion.
Awilable sources on the First Turkish History Congress and the role of religion and language for the Turkish natiomilist endeavors are referred throughout the thesis. In its conclusion, tbis study mises questions about the close relationship between natiomilism and bistooography. and the influence of nationalism on our view ofhistory today. Acknowledgments
A famous Tmkish poet Îlhan Berk once wrote, "1 don't know about other people but for me writing is hen." During the preparation of this thesis 1 disrovered tbm MY set of writing is hen for those around me. Therefore the fust ackoowledgement goes 1:0 my partner Megan Cuœia, who managed to live and transfurm that hell wo a heaven. 1 thank Professor Ûner A. Turgay, who encournged and supervised this thesis fur over NO years. He trusted my work and snpported my academic career more than anyone e1se. 1 was lucky to have perhaps the best library a student can wish for. Wayne St. Thomas and Steve Miller' s assistance of my work exceeded the limits of common libmriansbip, snch as the Peel Pub lunches and soooker ga.mes. Together with them 1 must thank Salwa Ferahian who arranged the valuable mterlibrary loms. There were a few books needed and hbrary simply purchased them upon myasJ.dn& for that 1 thank to the Institute and Adam Gacek. Steve Miller also edited tbis thesis. It was further oorrected by Professer Ûner A. Turgay and Megan Cuccia, thus 1 thank them once again for their help. Heather Empey did the French translation. 1 also thank her very much. AlI praise for the presentation of the material goes to them and, of course, blame of aU shortoomings fiill on me. Nothing oornes out of the Institute without the blissful touch of ADn Yaxley and Dawn Richard. 1 should never forget their patience towards me. Finally, MY mother and brother, who still believe that one day 1 will be a fumons scholar, also need to be mentioned. W1Shfu1 thinking! 1 dedicate tbis thesis to my grandfather ~ükrü Mengüç, who was bom in Pristina in today's Kosovo. He believed he was Turkish and moved to the Turkish Republic at the age of 25. He beca.me a citizen before he learned how to speak Turkish. At the age of 99, he was oot ooootOO as a Turkish citizen for he 00 longer remembered bis last name. Cette thèse vise établir le Premier Congrès d'Histoire Turque (2-11 juillet,
1932) comme moment exemplaire qui puisse aider la compréhension du rapport entre le nationalisme et l'historiographie. Premièrement, la thèse examine les origines de l'historiographie nationaliste en Occident ainsi que dans l'Empire
Otto~ et ensuite donne un compte rendu détaillé du Congrès. Il sera démontré que pendant rétablissement de l'état national en accord avec les standards européens, les nationalistes turcs dans l'Empire Ottoman ont souvent été obligés de devenir historiens, et ont dû réviser la méthodologie et le contenu de leurs
œuvres. La rupture avec l'historiographie ottomane résultait de l'approche systématique occidentale vis-à-vis r étude du passé, difiùsé par les écoles de pensés occidentales. Par conséquent, devenir nationaliste signifiait récrire
1l'histoire à la mode occidentale.
Les sources dispom1>les sur le Premier Congrès d'Histoire Turque et le rôle de la religion et du langage dans les buts nationalistes seront abordés au long de œtte dissertation. Finalement. on sondera la question du rapport étroit entre le nationalisme et l'historiographie, ainsi que cene de l'influence du nationalisme sur la conception contemporaine de l'histoire. Contents
Introduction...... page l
Historiography...... page 5
NatioœlisB:n ...... page 17
OttoIIIJaID. Historiography...... page 25
'The Beginning Stage ...... page 26
'The DeveJopIOOnt Period ...... page 29
The ReformPeriod ...... page 33
Turkish Nationa.1iSIn ...... page 42
Turkish Historiography ...... page 64-
The Fim Turkish History Congress ...... page 73
Conclusion ...... page 108 Introduction
The following study was deve10ped from a valuable document witbin the
collection of the Librnry of the Institute of Islamic Studies at Mc Gill University.
Titled as Birinci Türle Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münaka§alar [First Turkish
History Congress: Conferences and Discussions], this document includes aboost
an of the proceedings of the nine days of meetings during July 2-11, 1932. It is
published in same year by the Turkish Historical Society and oonstitutes over six
hundred pages. A brief examination of the material proves it to he a valuable
document regarding mtionalist historiography, early twentieth century
perspectives on anthropology, sociology, linguÏstics and etymology. and early
Turldsh Republic's official position towards history. Moreover, the Congress
emerges as the venue in which the Turkish History Thesis was launched. This
history tbesis suggests a mtionalist interpretation of the past and tries to establish
Turkish people as the most important race in human pasto
One of the problems of having the First Turkish History Congress as
subject is the scarcity of secondary sources. There is 00 shortage of studies on the relationship of religion, or language, to Turkish mtionalism. But, aside from the writings of Hugh Poulton, Bü~ra Ersanh and Etienne Copeaux, there seems to have been abnost no research done on the Turkish History Thesis in its
1 developm.ent period, and most referenœs to the Congress itself are made in a few
Pouhon's work, entitled Top Hat, Grey Wolf. and Crescent: Turkish
Nationalism and the Turkish Republic (1997) is a good but limited source tbat addresses the development of the thesis in the space of about a dozen of pages. It is an introduction to the subject a! most. Ersanh's work, named Ïktidar ve Tarih:
Tiirkiyede "Resmi Tarih" Tezinin Ol~umu (1929-1937) [Govem:in.g and History:
Development of "Official History" in Turkey (1929-1937)] consists of over two hundred pages completely dediœted to the development of the Turkish History
Tbesis and its aftennath. Umortunately, it is an extremely confusing work. It is a grimd source of infonnation tbm lacks structure and clarity. Yet, in a reœnt collection of essays on historiogmphy, edited by Fikret Adrum and Surruya
Faroqhi, a portion of Ersruili's work seems to have been translated and re-edited as an outstanding essay, named The Ottoman Empire in the Historiography of the
Kemalist Era: a Theory of Fatal Decline. l As is clea:r from the title, Ersanl!'s essay does not address what this research is trying to focus on, namely the
Congress, and historiography and nationalism in relation to each other.
This conœm brings us to the work of Etienne Copeaux, and bis 1994 doctoral dissertation "De l'Adriatique à la mer de Chine: les représentattions turques du monde turc d'après le manuels scolaires d'histoire (1931-1993)".2
Copeaux focuses primarily on the implementation of the Turkish History Thesis
1 Fikret Admur and Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottomans and The Balkans, A Discussion of Historiography (Leiden: Drill, 20(2), 115-154. 2 This doctoral dissertation is published in Il revised version as Tarin Ders Kitaplarmda (1931- 1993), Turk Tarih Tezinden Türk Islam Sentezine (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfm Yaymlan, 19(8).
2 and add.resses the development of the thesis orny in the introduction of bis work.
However, this introduction, which runs to about fifty pages. is extremely
important for an evalua1ion of historiography, the medium in wmch the Turkish
œtionalism \WS mainly oonstructed.
Copeaux argues that the major somce of Tmkish natiomilist
b.istoriogrnphy is Western orientalism. French and German in particular. Although
this may sound a little off the mark at first, it is very dose to the conclusions of
fuis research, wmch shows that Tmkish nationalism was narrated and buili
through the medium of historiography and that the somces of the type of
b.istoriogmphy adopted during the construction of Turkish nationalism were
. German and French. Copeaux goes further and inquires about the infiltration of
German and French orientalist ideas into the Turkish History Thesis. A carefuJ
reading of the proœedings of the First Turkish History Congress proves him
completely rlght, especiaDy regarding the influence of French orientalists such as
Lee Cahun and Eugene Pittard. If need he, one only bas to refer to Dr. Re~it
Galip's presentation dming the second day of the Congress to extra.ct dozens of
other orientalist sources, induding German ones.
Meanwbil.e, the difference hetween tms research and Copeaux'
dissertation is in soope and focus. While Copeaux mainly focuses on the post-
1931 era and the after effects of the Turkish History Thesis, tbis research focuses
on the pre-1932 period, i.e., on the evolution of hlstoriography and nationalism
leading to the Thesis. Also, it decidedly presents the Western context regarding
the development of modem historiography and links it to the development of
3 popuJar and state œtionalisms. Presentation of the Western context becomes necessmy œcause bath œtionalism and modem histonography are, in their essence Western ideas, adapted to the construction of a Turkish nationalism and the Turldsh History Thesis.
4 Historiogrn.phy
P.resenting a short oudine of the development of Western hlstoriogmphy and its comection with œtiomilism will he useful when we !ater m'luire mto the relationship, between Ottoman mstoriography and Turkish œtionalism. For althougb the mafu influences on Ottoman historiogrn.phy came from the Persiml and Is1amic traditions. œtiormlism was essentially a Western phenomeoon, and must t.herefure he analyzed against a Western framework. Moreover. a dear re!ationship between œtionalism and historiography is only apparent after the nineteenth œntury, a time when Ottoman historiography appears to have emerged as an mdependent tradition m its own.
In the case of the West. it is possible to identify specifie reasons why history hegan to he stlldied m a new manner after the eightœnth œntury. Later it will beoo:m.e clear that these specifie reasons are also relevant to any mquiry mo the relationship ofbistoriogrn.phy and œtiomilism. Prior to the eighteenth century, there were thrœ general wealmesses in historical studies that hecame obvious and which a new generation of historians strived to reform.3 First. undl the eighteenth
3 Mentiooed here are three weaknesses defined by Arthur Marwick in The Nature of History, in 1910. Harry Elmer &mes in A History ofHistorieal Writing also presented a similar classification earlier in 1937. He counts four handicaps and writes that he oorrows them trom George Peabody Gooch, another prominent scholar of historiography who wrote History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century in 1913.1 take Marwick's triplet because it is more concise. Arthur Marwick, The Nature of History (London: Macmillan, 1970), 33. Harry Elmer Bames, A History of
5 œnWry3 historical studies .lacked a general notion of 'human development and change.' Second, scholarly examination of historiœl documents and facts, and an interpretative study of the past were somewœt separnte approaches, resulting in poor scholarship.4 Third. history was oot an independent scholarly field taught in educational institutions: it had yet to he developed as an academic discipline.5
History only hecame a pro:minent component of the western curriculum. and a rona fide academic discipline. once these weaknesses were overcome.
The recognition of the principle of change and development as an essential part of the human pœnomenon by historians had dramatic consequences. "Mer the great revolutionmy upheavals at the end of the eighteenth century it was 00 longer possible to believe in the unchanging character of human nature, or in the immutable nature of social institutions. .,6 This caused sorne historians to pay more attention to the works of their colleagues who emphasized change and development. Among those who henefited the most from this were the two
Historical Writing (Norman: University ofOidaboma Press, 1938),238. George Peabody Gooch, His!ory and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959). 4 "'Woo to details', exclaimed Voltaire, with some reason: 'they are Il sort ofvermin thaï destroys big works: Yet in their contempt for basic scholarsbip and research the eigbteenth century historians sometimes showed an unjustifiable carelessness ... One problem, certainly, was that many important archives were simply kept dosed to scholars. History at its highest must be interpretation, not fact grubbing. But witbout a continued sponsorsbip of detaHed research, conducted with the widest available collection of mechal'lical and cOl'lceptual aids, and more important, li constant intercourse between interpretative history and primary research, history must quickly wither." Marwick, 33. 5 "'True, the Camden chair had been established at Oxford in tbe Elizabethan perim!; but Carndel'l professors confined themselves to Roman history. III. 1720s George 1 instituted Regius Chairs of Modem History at Oxford and Cambridge, but tbis was essentiaUy a politicai raiher than an educational move, designed to bring Whig nominees into centers of Torysm ... From 1157 history was taught on a more serious basis at the University of Gottingen in Germany; and in 1769 a Chair ofHistory and Morais was established at the Collège de France. But tm history was admitted to ail main centers ofleaming, it COl.dd not hope to develop as a true intellecrual discipline." Ibid, 34. 6 Ibid.
6 outstanding histomms of the eighteenth centmy: Gimnbatista Vioo (1668-1744) and Jobmm Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803).
In 1725 Vico had denied, in bis New Science, that œtural science could explain human pheoomena. Vico '3 work "gave historians not new methods but a full-fledged theory of history, induding proper methods of truth finding.'" His theory of history suggested three developmental stages for human civilization: the
Age of Gods, the Age of Heroes, and the Age of Men. Il Meanwhile, an oider contemporary of Vico, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was defending that "the world developed oonstantly with an mm tOWaMS completeness and beauty."9 Vico's goal offormmg a new science and bis general theory ofhistory, coupled with Leibniz's ideas of constant change towards completeness, appealed to the historians at the University of Gottingen -- at that time the only institution of higher learning where history as a field brui a scholarly chair devoted to n. though only a sub category in the law department. The Gôttmgen §chom aIso embrnced Leibniz's view that no single cause generated one single effeet.·ünœ they accepted the filet tmt development and progress were a given, and that the nature of development was complicated, they began to S'tudy history in a new light. They no longer accepted the notion that history followed general laws; therefore, its study had to focus on accurate and critical evaluation of its sources -
7 Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983),203. 8 Ibid, 212. 9 Ibid, 204.
7 - events and individuals -- mther than trying to suggest and apply vague and geneml principles. 10
Aoother figure in the eritical study of the hlstorical sources was Barthold
Georg Niebubr (l776-1831). Niebuhr had, in 1810, become the head of the
University of Berlin, an institution described as "a product of the Prussian reform movem.ent with which Niebuhr was closely associated."n His lectures were published in 1811-12 under the tule A His/ory of Rome. This pafticular work was
"a reconstruction of the hlstorical origins of the Roman state, employing the most advanced methods of philology and textual criticism.,,12 His methods also appealed to other scholars, one of whom, Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886), emerged as an influential hlstorian of the Western world in bis own right
Ranke adopted bis teaeher's attitude towards sources, listing these as
''memoirs, dimies, letters, diplomatie reports, and original narratives of eye- witnesses; other writings were used orny if they were immediately derived trom the above mentioned or seemed to equal them because of sorne original information.,,13 Moreover, Ranke became an essential figure in developing hlstory into an academic discipline. He taught a course at the University of Berlin on research techniques. Although at the time there had been sorne experiments with seminar classes al the University of Gottingen, it was Ranke who made bis
10 My attempt here is to underline what makes a new era of historiography to begin. The unified and systematic: understanding of history from Christian perspective dissolved over three hundred years prior to eighteenth century. The works ofVioo and Leibniz were attempts to fill the absence ofthis perspective among many others. II Marwick. 36. 12 Ibid.. 13 Ibid. seminars the 'center' of leaming for new hlstorums. 14 The Department of History
at the University of Berlin soon hecame recognized as authoritative in tbis new field. 15
Having taken shape at the bands of German scholars. the discipline of hlstory spread to the remainder of Europe, such that "by the second half of the
nineteenth century hlstory was beginning to establish itself throughout the
Western world as an autonomous academic discipline, with much of the
paraphernalia which is today associated with that elevated status... 16 In the works
of Ranke ("the prince ofall historians,,17) and ofhis predecessors' thoughts stood
a phllosophy ofhistory that determined the direction of Western historiography.
The nineteenth century is often called the Golden Age of histooography
and especially its second half is considered by many to he the most historically minded period in Western civilization until then. 18 This was one outcome of the
developments that shaped late eighteenth century philosophy. "At the end of the eighteenth century, hlstory had beoome more philosophical, and phllosophy had
almost hecome history.,,19 The most influential philosopher of the era Immanuel
Kant (1724-1804) posited that everything was in a continuous movement. a flux;
14 Breisach. 233. IS As mentioned before, the university was founded in connection to the Prussian reform movement It was a political institution and it brought together historians who were politicaHy active with the students. One such historian was Heinrich von Sybel "who confessed that he was four-sevenths Il professor and three-sevenths a historian". Another name was Theodor Mommsen . .. After the faHure of the revolutions of ] 848, the young Mommsen published Il multivolume Roman HiSlory and then enten'ld Prussian politics, indirectly by way of the Prussian Yearbooks and, in 1861, directly as a founder of the Progressive party". Ibid, 237. 16 Marwick, 31. 17 Pardon E. TiHinhast, The Specious Post: Historians and Others (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley PubHshing Company, 1971),20. 18 Paul K. Conkin and Roland N. Stromberg, The Heritage And Challenge of History (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, Ine., 1971),60. 19 Ibid, 57.
9 the old scbobrs misunderstood the world; they ignored the World's dyœmic nature. The cha.llenge was then how '10 make truth a matter of development, of movement.,,2()"In wbat became known as the post-Kantian e~ philosophers such as Johmm Fichte, Friedrich Schelling, Adam Mueller, and others discussed dialectics of becoming. Among them Fichte especially "came to believe that basic reality is Idea or Spirit, aIl of which is contained in a cosmic Ego of which our minds are a part:,21 Fichte's followers focused on this oosmic Ego and med to
undersUmd how the interaction of subjective and objective engagement in it worked. Ove~ the challenge was to understand the dialectics; how one thing,
abstmct or tangible, embraced something it had· opposed previously, and formed something DeW.
It was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) who oombined aIl these questions into a philosophical model tbat he presented in bis Philosophy of
History. Hegel concluded !hat, as a universal process, history developed in order to create, or acbieve its absolute spirit, its immutable essence. He believed.
It [history] reveals a dialectical pattern; behind the somewhat chaotic reoord of extemal events ... we can perceive in each epoch a grand Idea, which is its contribution to the stupendous whole and which constitutes nothing less than the logic by which God realizes in time the purposes of the world. History is l~ic, and logic is history; the real is rational, and the rational is reru.
In the 'age of revolution', these ideas were more appealing then ever. Whereas
Voltaire was expected to account for the thoologicru and philosophicru reasons
20 Ibid, S8. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid.
10 hehind the Lisoon earthquake (1755), followers of Hegel brui to identifY what was the driving force behlnd political and industrial revolutions, hehind the endless poverty ofmasses.
Although in theory German hlstorians were ahead of their colleagues elsewhere, ecooomic and political developments in England and France during the fust half of the golden age ofbistoriography, or the age ofrevolution, required new explmmtions regarding the present and past.23 During fuis era, G'the tendency of Left and Right alike was to make of hlstory not merely a source of examples and a roOO to wisdom but a purposive force pregnant with the destiny ofman.,.24
In a sense, the industrial and political revolutions tmnsfonning their societies needed to he explained as developmentsin a continuous process. English and
French hlstorians embraced the works of German bistorians on at least two principles: first, social change brui a direction that can be explained; and second, given its scientific character, hlstory as an acOOemic discipline can provide such an explanation.
This respect for scientmc method was not unique to bistorians of the period. It was predominantly the age of Newton and Darwin who changed the prevailing views of the human phenomenon in its totality. It was also a time of rapid industrial development, wbich allying itself with science, gave the latter a much greater public profile. In the realm of hlstory. however, it was said '1hat historians were inferior to scientists because no Kepler or Newton had arisen to
23 Ibid, 60. 24 Ibid, 57.
11 Buckle (1821-1862), who, writing in the 1850's and 186O's, expected no less from history than from research wo the mtural scienœs.26 In France, August
Comte (1189.. 1851) spoke of the main inteUectual development of bis em as '1he transition to an age of positivism., to the cult of fact. Or, otherwise put, the age of
scienœ.~1 In fuct bath Buckle and Comte were only part of a much Jarger alllimce of inteUectuals who . pushed hlstoriogmphy towards developing a
scientmc :methodology.
Comte, in particular, helieved that the mental development of humanity had arrived at hs final stage. such !hat
[i]n it would come the perfeet realization of all potentialities of the human mind and hence a radically different society, politics. and culture. In !hat age the sciences would organize human life according to the laws goveming phenomena, laws that had been established, in the positivist vein, through genernlizing from sensory experienœ. Even the investigation of social pheno:mem would now he entrusterl to a positivist social science. sociology. wbose insights in tum would help to safeguard social hmmony and stability .28
Buckle also agreed with Comte on positivism's strength. He trierl to explain why the scientmc age had dawned in Europe mther than elsewhere.
25 Ibid, 66. 26 Ibid, 61. 27 Ibid,~. 28 Breisach. 212. In !fA sense Comte was right. During the following one and a half century most of the potemials of the buman mind were ful:tilloo; While iiberal ideals became guiding principles for the majority of political discoune, the not so liberal ideais helped many to discover ecOl1om ie and social-scienti:tic pril1ciples by which the !wo world wars were justi:tioo.
12 The reason was Emope's peculiar cfunate, soil, and configmation. Once the Emopean mind was able to devise laws for œtmaI occm:rences. that mind could also use them to master human destiny, and progress became assured. Historians must now fall in step with progress and become positivist in outloo14 !hat is abandon the historiography of description and moral lessons for one pattemed ailer the successful mtmaI sciences.29
This new effort by the Westem historians to present history as a science implied that, while physics, math and anthropology, for example, were acbieving greater scientmc status; history was losing its credibility.30 During earlier ages, history had been the preserve of theologians. who were considered the supreme scÏentÏsts oftheir day:
By the late 19th centmy. emphasis on scientism and positivism was growing and a clearly scÏentific basis for bistory had to he either assumed or proved. Since it was not easy to assume such a basis, in view of the obvious differences between the analytic methods of historians and those of œturaI scientists, sorne sort of proof was plainly called for. 31
In the post-Hegelian em, the most influentw name in the field of philosophy and history was Karl Marx (1818-83). Sorne argue !hat Marx and bis chief colleague
Friedrich Engels (1825-95) helieved they were the Dmwins ofhistory.32 However,
Marx's work later hecame one of the main sources for social scÏentÏsts in their struggle against the nmeteenth centmy trend towards historicru Dmwinism.33
29 Ibid, 215. 30 Tillinghast. 24. 31 Ibid. 32 Conkin, 69. 33 R. Joo McGee and Richard L Warms, Anthropological Theory; an lntroductory History (Mountain View; Mayfield Publishing Company, 2(00), 281.
13 time. His influence, meanwhile. was a resuh of the oontext in whlch he wrote.
Marx -w:rote after the boom of industrial revolution, a time in whlch society was clearly being divided no segments, based on status and inoome. In very general
~ he pJaœd the confficts between different classes at the center of bis argument. To hlm, it seemed possible to interpret history in terms of these oon:flicts. Such. a view presented eoonomics and technology as a de:finitive oomponent of hlstorical development in general, and explained the state of a:ffairs
Broadly speaking. the only other school or CUITent of thought aiming at the reconstruction of hlstory whlch was influential in the mneteenth century was positivism... Hs major contribution to history was the introduction of concepts, methods and modem from the mtmaI sciences no social investigation and the application to history of such disooveries in the mtuml sciences as seemed suitabIe.34
AlthoUgh Marxist thought. did help hlstory in developing itself into a social science, its major contnoution "in the pas! bas been the critique of positivism, that is of the attempts to assimilate the study of social sciences to that of the natura! ones, or the human to the non-human.... 35 What is really important to understand here is that the development of hlstory into a science aIong the mes of the naturaI sciences had its valid critics like Marx, who assumed a different approach to the scientmc endeavors ofhlstoriography.
34 Eric Hobsbawm, On History (London: Abacus, 1998), 189·90. 35 Ibid, %.
14 But, wbat did the mstorian of the late :mneteenth centmy really mtend when they set out to he "scientific"? Surely they didn't mean one thing ruone.
When we examine the innumerable 1lÎneteenth == and twentieth - œntmy assertions by bistorians that they were heing or trying to he scientific, we find that in actuality they meant mther different things. Quite often they meant merely heing critical or systematic. Frequently they meant no more than that they were getting at the original sources, whlch as we know, was an intoxicating discovery of earlier nmeteenth century. But, sometimes they claimed to he finding geœmllaws like those of the physicru sciences or that they were m some other way unoovering the rea1 pattern of the pasto Comte and Marx and Herbert Spencer aIl thought they had found a plan rwming througb history, a succession of stages or a progression which, having heen decoded, reverued not orny where :mankind had bren but where it was hea.ded.36
It can also he said that when they used the word scientific, bistorians also meant heing "secular." Overall the aim was to gain the credibility lost after bistory and theology had hecome detachoo.
During the late mœteenth century, when Europe was pre-occupied with the rise of œtionalism and its transformation from its popular phase mto state
œtioœJism, European historians recognized tbis ideology as a phenomeoon m development. In its half scientific and ha1f romantic mode, historiogmphy in the late nÏneteenth centmy became perœps the hest discipline for studying
œtioruilism. The œtionalism of the late nmeteenth century required a scientmc narrative to justify its tendencies, while historiogmphy needed a œw historical phenomeoon to study in order to prove that it could account for developments scientifically. A new breed of historians, the natioœlist-historians emergoo. They
36 Conkin, 66.
15 "took it for grnnted tbm the story of humanity could 00 oost srudied in natioœl ooits rnther than provincial, rodal, or cultmal ones. ,,37 As it was obvious to
Marx,. sc it was to lare nineteenth œntury nationalist historians that metaphysical concepts Hke cosmic ego, idea or spirit were too abstmct to explain the accumulation of pasto Nationalism, on the other band. was already a social
phenomenon.
As TiUmghast points om: "History in the nineteenth œntmy had usually
supported œtionalism, which until about 1870 often stressed the need for reform and change."38 .During the early twentieth œntury, however, governments in
America and Western Europe gained great control oftheir peoples and temtories, which motivated œtionalist historians increasingly to mvor stability, rather than change. "Appreciating fuis tendency, governments cherlshed historians and rometimes even supported them. The historians, in tum, inculcated loyalty to their futherlands and stressed the duties of dtizens to their nation. ,,39 In creating nations, historians became essential players. Some were already historians who
eventually became nationalist, while oibers were nationalists first and then
OOcame hlstorians. Overall. they were the writers of the becoming and the
OOgetting of nations, in their half sdentific, half fictitious prose and poetry.
37 TiHingbut, 28. 38 Ibid, 29. 39 http://www.sbef.ac.ukl-surclpoliticslHistOl.Y_oCNationalism.htmL
16 Natioruilism
Although the origins of nationalism can he traced back to the 17008, for the longest time, until the late mneteenth century in fuet, it remained an idea. This was its so-called theoretical phase. Later, nationalism became more of an ideological concept, such that by 1880, what is called popular nationalism hegan to accompany theoretical nationalism. 40 At the end of the 1800's nationalism had heoome one of the most important popular political pheoomenon ever. The various state apparatuses came at tbis time to recognize its appeal, and adopt it for the purpose of state nationalism. In the fonowing pages, tbis thrt!e-fold development will he presented.
In the heginning nationalism was a revolutionary ideal. Essentially French in origin, it was promoted heyond France as a result orthe Napoleoruc wars and other European revolutionary movements, drca 1792-1875.41 The French invasion of German and Italian temtories spread the idea of nationalism as a unifying and popular concept, transforming it from a French intenectual endeavor
40 In Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, Eric Hobsbawm offers the presented timeline for the development ofnationalism. He suggests three stages in the evolution ofnationalism: theoretical, popular and state nationaHsms. The last stage, as il win become clear at the end of this chapter, coïncides with Benedict Anderson 's concept of "official nationalism"'. Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 20(0) and Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983). 41 Ibid.
17 into a pm-Europem phenomenen. 42 Throughout the mneteenth centmy, as the cencept of nationalism was reœived, translat?d and applied to different oonstituenci~ its components had te he identmed more clearly. Thus. moving from one centext to aoother, natienalism acquired new meanings as weil as perpetuating older ODeS; it evelved doser te its medem definition. 43
Sometime after 1880, nationalism started te shew a DeW proffie, making it possible ID affirm tbat it had new entered its popular phase. Eric Hebsbawm identifies three distinct characteristics in the develepment of late mneteenth centmy nationalism, Le., popwar nationalism. First, after 1880, the so-caUed
'threshold prlnciple' was abandened. leaving it epen te any size lOf people who considered themselves te he a natien te seek an independent sovereign starus.44
Second, "etlmiclty and language hecame the central, increasingly the decisive or even only criteria of potential nationhood.,,45 Third, ceming frem established states, rather than ambitious non-mate nationalisms., "a sharp shift to the political right of nation and tlag," was emphasized in erder te oonstruct the nationalisms
42 Ibid. 43 ln particular the study of 'nationaHsm' mos! clearly documented in the field of concept history. ln the introduction. of a collection of essays, edited by Iain Hampsher-Monk, Karin Tilamns and Frank van Vree 00 concept his/ory, we read, "the growing recognition of the importance of language in understanding reality has dramatically changed both the focus and methods of humanities and social sciences. A major feature of this has been the development of histories of concepts, ofpoliticallanguages and discourses." Hampsher-Monk, Iain, Karin Tilamns and Frank Van Vree. Hislory of Concepts: Comperative Perspectives (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1998), L Also, Hans~Jürgen Lüsebrink, in same collection writes that to borrow a concept or to become influem:ed Dy a concept brings with it the dynamics of translation and transformation.. The concept of 'nationalism' acquires its full definition by proving adaptable into different cootens and Dy proving flexible enough io mean a wide range of definitions. In other words, ru. present definitions are a result of its different applications in different contens. Hans Jürgen Lüsebrink. "Conceptual History and Conceprual Trnnsfer: the Case of 'Nation' in Revolutionary France and Germany" His/ory of Concepts: Comperative Perspectives (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1998), 115=128. 44 Hobsbawm, 102. 45 Ibid.
18 :ooeded for the existing states.46 Thus, natioœli.sm was no longer only thooretical;
it now confmmed to a group's self-identification, regardless ofits size in term.s of
ethnicity and hmguage~ and furnished ft with symbols of sovereignty and
independence. Among these new criteria. ethnicity and language emerged as the
most tangible ones for the purposes of popular natiomilism. Language was used to
identitY and categorize different people for a long time afterwards, indeed, and
during the second halfofthe nineteenth centmy,
ethnie nationalism received enormons reinforcements. in pmctiee :from increasingly massive geogmpmcal migrations of pooples. and in thoory by the transformation of that central concept of nineteenth-century social science, 'race'. On the one band the old established division of mankind into a few 'races' distinguished by skin colom was now elaborated into a set of 'racial' distinctions separating peoples of approximately the same pale skin, such as 'Aryans' and 'Semites', or among the 'Aryans', Nordics, Alpines and Mediterranean. On the other band Darwinian evolutionism, supplemented 131er by what came to he known as genetics, provided racism with what looked like a powerful set of 'scientific' reasons for keeping out or even, as it tumed out, expelling and murdering strangers.47
So, it became popular for nationalism to search for its definition in terms of race
and language.
A particular challenge to nationalism, even as it strived to form a popular
ftamework :from its theoretical basis. was the challenge of socialism. Unlike
socialism, nationalism maintained an overall sympathy towards the existing
economic order, for, since it lacked statehood. it also laeked an economic vision.
Therefore, while socialism challenged the existing eoonomic order, nationalism
46 Ibid. 47 Ibid, 101.8.
19 this em that conservative and reaetionary politicians stmted to favor the idea of natiomilism. Conservatives saw nationalism as an alternative to chaos and socialism. while reactioœries used, mttionalism to mobilize and direct the masses
Those who suffered the worst consequences of the spread of popular nationalism towards the end of the nineteenth centmy were the autocratie and heterogenoous empires. and mainly their Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian manifestations. Yet. popular nationalism was not confined to Europe and the
Middle East. For example, as early as the 1830's the idea of independence for a
'nation' was embraced. in South America, where Simon Bolivar. "the liberntor," led revolutions in New Gmnada (today Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador). and also in Peru and Bolivia. 50
Political and ecooomic factors contributed to the appeal of popular natioœlism to the masses and the spread of the phenomenon was dramatic. In the
United Kingdom, for instance, "the number of newspapers describing themselves as 'national' and 'nationalist' rose from 1 in 1871 to 13 in 1881 to 33 in 1891.,,51
Obviously,
The growing signfficance of 'the national question' in the forty years preœding 1914 is oot measured simply by its intensification within the oid multinational empires of Austro-Hungary and
48 http://www.shef.ac.ukl-surc/politicslHistory_oCNatiol1alism.html. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. SI Hobsbawm, 104.
20 Turkey. It was now a significant issue in the domestic politics of virtually aU European states. 52
Popular œtionalism spread further in the wake of imperialist expansion. The oolonies were the scene where western powers promoted their early œtionalist mate polides. By the end of the mneteenth century. with most of the world under
European control, popular na1:ionalism led "to a mood of international suspicion and rivaky that eventually led to World War One in 1914.,,53 A new phase. thatof
Acoording to Benedict Anderson. in a given context. there were three crucial modes of development in the emergence of the offic~ or mate
œtionalism. First, state œtionalism became possible only after popular
œtionalism had acmeved a sort of maturity, because "[s]uch official œtiomilisms were conservative, not say reactionmy, policies, adapted from the model of the largely spontaneous popular œtionalisms that preceded them.',54 Therefore, mate nationalism emerged as an organized state policy. seeking popular validity for the eXÏ5ting mate institutions threatened by socialist and popular nationalist movements. Second, state nationalism was ''not confined to Europe and the
Levant. In the name of imperialism, very similar polides were pursued by the same sorts of groups in the vast Asian and African temtories subjected in the course of mneteenth century.',55 This further contributed to the spread of state nationalism. Last but not least, "refracted into non-European cultures and
52 Ibid, 105. 53 Ibid. S4 Anderson, 110. 5S Ibid.
21 histories", these policies were "picked up and imitated by indigeoous and ruling groups in toose few zones (among fuem Japan and Siam), which eseaped direct subjection...,56
State natiomilism was used, in aJmost every case. to oonceal the differences between dynastic and national realms.57 Hs roots were in the old empires whenœ new nations begin to ernerge. and it was the dynastie adaptation of the popular natiomilism. Similarly. a variety of Ottomanisms were promoted among the heterogeneous population of the Ottoman. Empire, jus! as an attempt to
Magyarize the Slovaks was made within Habsburg territory.
With the end of the First World War, ..the proœss of nation building in
Central and Eastern Europe" also came to an end. 58 At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, there was a new spirit that Woodrow Wilson described as 'national self determination. ,59 The German and Austro-Hungarian empires were tnmsformed into new states. sorne of them œmed Finland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Pobmd and Yugoslavia. The old Ottoman. territories promised more staie nationalisms to fonow.
56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 bttp:J!www.sbef.ac.uk/-surc/poHtics/History_oCNationalism.btml. S9 Ibid. President Wilsoll Ilot ooly observed but aiso helped to create this nationalist spirit. As early as 191" wben he had rea1ized tl1at tbe United States was about to enter the war. he made it clear that one of the main princip les for any possible peace agreement had to he tbe Însurance of self~ determination for aU nations, large or small. In 1919, during the Paris Peace Conference, it was him who argue€! "that sm aller nations he responsible for the former colonies under a league~f~ Nations mandate." Walter LaFeher, The AmericanAge: V.S. Foreign PolicyAt Home andAbroad, 1750 to Present (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994),320. Later, in the U.S. Senllte, his aim was ta promate a .... progressive internationaHst coalition"-a group of Uberals who helieve€! in seif determmation, anti~imperialism, and even democratic socialism." Ibid, 32ft International and domestic opposition against his views were manifeste€! when he lost the next election at home and when Il second world war broke as a result ofhostiHty towards internationalist coalition.
22 At the aftermath of the war, popular and smte œtioœlisms were further mobilized as a result of the economic and political frustration. The struggling
'national' eoooomies of the post-war period were further challenged with the
Great Depression. 'National interest' became the common phrase for justifYing rndical state policies. In Europe,
On the whole there were only four countnes before 1930 that Md authontarian regimes: namely Italy after 1922, under Benito Mussolini; Spain between 1926 and 1930, under Miguel Primero de Rivera; Pobmd under Pilsudski; and Hungary, under Admiral Nicholas Horthy... 60
Soon ailer the Great Depression, the list grew to inc1ude Germany, Turkey.
Greece, Yugoslavia, and outside Europe, Russia and Japan. Of the countries mentioned aoove, the ultra-œtionalist tendencies of the Italian, German and
Japanese regimes are regarded as the major causes of the Second Wodd War.
The relationship of œtioœlism with Western hlstonography likewise bas its fOots in the pre-Second World War ern. Western hlstoriography embraced
œtionalism as a phenomenon and trierl to study its development. By the end of the First World War, nationalism was an iridisputable ideology benefiting from the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, etymology, archoology, llierature, folklore and Western hlstorlography. Yet none of these fields was able to contribute to the construction of nations as much as hlstoriography.
Histonography, as a newly developing pseudo-scientific narrative genre, was able to provide the foundation needed better thm an other disciplines. How it was able
60 Heinrich Friedlander and Jacob Oser, Economie His/ory ofModern Europe (New Yorle: Prentice -Han Inc. 1(53),363.
23 to do this will he presented in the second chapter, wbich is devoted to the development of Turkish natiomilism. The role of historiogrnphy in the construction of official Turkish nationalism. is remarkable. But mst. we will consider the transformation of Ottoman into Turkish bistoriography, a dramatÏc change that presaged.
24 Ottoman Historiography
Turkish historiography bas its mots in the old established tradition of
Ottoman. historiography. !ts emergence furthennore coincided with the
development of Turkish nationalism. In the following chapter we will trace the development of Ottoman hlstoriography mst, and then consider the development of Turkish bistoriography. Finally the development of Turkish nationalism will he outlined and the parallels hetween Turkish hlstoriography and Turkish nationalism highlighted.
Ottoman hlstoriography can he said to feature three distinct periods of
61 evolution, here referred to as the beginning. development and refonn periodS •
During the beginning period, the major influences on the Ottoman hlstoriography were the Persian and Islamic traditions of hlstory writing. In the development period, Le., from the seventeenth century on, Islamic influences became more central. During the refonn period, on the other band, which stretched fonn the eighteenth century on, European influences started to undermine the Islamic and regional characterlstics of the Ottoman hlstoriography. In fact, throughout tbis same period, and with the aœeleration of European influences, a Turkish
61 This classification is taken from Il recent essay written by Mehmet tp~irli. Mehmet ip§irli, "The Ottoman Historiography" The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 2000), 369.
25 historiogmphy began to emerge. The contradictions in terms of methodology and soope betwœn Turkish and Ottoman historiography became dear after the end of nineteemh century, ai which time a new approach to the pas! began to be promoted, under the pretext of nationalism.
The Begmnmg Stage
Dming its begitming stage, Ottoman hlstoriography's limited sources included two specific genres of writmg whlch focused on what was essential to the llCtivities of the Ottoman. principalities (beylik). The Ottoman principalities developed themselves through holy raids (ghaza) conducted by holy warriors of faith (dervi~ ghans) and holy raiders (akmel beyler).62 These activities were recorded in works caUed gazavatnames, i.e., stories of the heroism and successes of a great com.n:wnder told in verse.63 Meanwhlle, the activities of the leaders in the administrative domain were recorded in works known as menalabnames, i.e., stories of the good deeds and good qualities of leaders, also toid in verse.64
Written in Turkish, gazavatnames and menalabnames, whlch today are valuable origiœl sources, were a common feature of fifteenth century historical writing; one menalabname, written somewhere between 1389 and 1402, i.e., Y~i Fakih's
62 Ibid. 63 Ferit DeveHiotlu, Osmanbca-Türkçe Ansiklopedik Lûgat (Ankara: Aydm Kitabevi Press, 1993), 283. 64 Ibid, 613.
26 Menalabname, is understood to he the effective starting point of Ottoman bistoriography.55
Mer 1402, the year in whlch the Ottoman state suffered a serious defeat by Timur's forees and began its period of restoration under Sultan Mehmed
(1413-21) and later under Sultan Murad II (1421-44), bistoricalliteratu:re becmne richer in terms of genre and content,66 The works of the new era came to include theological treatises, epic histories, translations of important Islamic histories, and tar/hi takvimler (historical calendars). Works on the latter type were briei; chronologica.lly aœurate lists of the events that were kept by the imperial bureaucmcy and they became one of the main sources fur aIl Ottoman bistorians who followed. 67
Starting with the reign ofMehmed II (1444-46/51-81), and especially after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the pas! hegan to he observed from the point ofview of astate with the pretensions of a world power. It was a time "to write about the bistory of tbis great mate and its victories. .,68 This was refl.ected in the bistorical works produced in tbis period, such as Behcetü 't Tevârih, written (in
Persian) by ~ükruIlah (d.1488), Düsturnâme, written (in Turkish) by Enveri (d.
1794), and the Tarih ofKarn.mani Mehmed Pasha (d.1481), written in Arabic.59
Later, with the reign of BeyaZld II (1481-1512), son ofMehmed H, there began a new era in bistoriography. This period was descn"hed as the hegmnmg of
65 Ham lnalcik, "The Rise of Ottoman Historiography" Ed. Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt, Historions a/the Middle East (London: Oxford University Press, 19(2), 155. 66 tp~irli, Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid.
27 the golden age of Otteman histeriegraphy and great advm:lœS were made regmding hmguage, fmm. and ccntent.70 Develcpments tcwarœ 'systematic- hlstory writing' started during thls time.71 One cf the essential works cf the pe:ricd was Tev(Uih-i Al-i Osmani by A:J1k~de (d. after 1489). A:J1kp~e used y~ Faldh's Meruilabname as a source fcr bis account of early developments, but also included some eyewitness accounts ofmter events, whlle the era ofMumt
II and Fatih [Mehmed II] were based on bis perscml cbservations and en bis friend's accmmts. The wcrk was written in plain language, divided intc chapters and presented in the fcrm cf questicns and answers.72 Also written in thls pericd was the Kitab-l Ciharmame cfNe~.73 The bock analyzed A:J1kp~zade's wcrks, and gained. added significance as a result cf its critical approach tc the sources cf its rime. Later histcrians used Ne~'s work widely.74
Dming the begirming stage, Ottcman histcrians paid mcre attentiQn 110 the militmy and po1itical achievements, and nQt IOn cultural deveIQpments.'S Overnll the focus was on the lives lOf the rulers and the military successes lOf the empire.
V. L. Ménage, hQwever. nQtes that the "real mQtives whlch prQmpted the histQrians lOf the fifteenth century tQ wcite are less Qpemy expressed but perhaps more sincerely felt.",6 These he identifies as piety and an hcnest desire tQ
70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid, 310. 73 Ne§ri's definitive dates are unknown. He had Hved during the fifteenth century. 74 Ibid. 75 Bn~ra Ersanh, Iktidar ve Tarin: Türkiyede Resmi Tarrh Tezinin Olu~mu (Istanbul: Afa Press, 1992), 42. Aiso. Ercüment Kuran, "Ottoman IDstoriographyof the Tanzimat Period" Ed. Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt, Historians of the Middle East (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 428. 76 V. L. Ménage, "Tbe Beginnings of Ottoman Historiography" Ed. Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt, Historians ofthe Middle East (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 177,
28 entertain. The rootive of piety made them insist !hat the Ottomans wue devout
Muslims, and a just and good people~ "who had the peculiar ment of ceaselessly carrying on the jihad."'ï/ Meanwhile, the desire to entertam is implied in the fuet that "one redact:ion of the Anonymous Chronides is mmounced in the introduction as containing 'the mmals of the Ottoman house, and aJso wonde:rful tales of what happened in the past.,,,78 In mter periods, Ottoman bistoriogmphy made sUides towards beooming a true discipline, leaving behind these courtly intentions.
The Development Period
Dming the development period of Ottoman historiogmphy, identified by
Mebmed tp~idi as the sooeenth and the seventeenth centuries. the empire became interested in historiography. specmcally under Sultan Beyazld II (1481-1512).
Beyand was patron to a group of historians and he believed the existing works did not reflect the greatness of the Ottoman state.79 There were two works of special importance written under bis orders. The :first was by Ïdris-i Bitlisi
(d.1512), called He~t Behi~t. In tbis work Bitlisi followed the example ofPersian hlstonans such as al-Juvayni and Vassâf, so much 50 !hat it ''received a great admiration and made an effect, perœps more than it deserved, both during its rime and in the following ages ... But because its obscure and bard writing style
17 Ibid, 118. 78 Ibid. 79 ip~irli, 310.
29 made its understanding difficult. it had sorne criticism. "so The other work was m
plain Tmkish, written by Kemalp~e (d. 1534), and it bore the same tide as
~~zade's earlier wor~ œmely, Tevarih-i Al-i Osman. The book seems to
bave been oontimred under the reigns of the next two sultans, until probably just
hefore Kemalp~e's death. The writer. by virtue of bis gifts of expression,
"showed mat Tmkish language was as useful as Persian. This work is, indeed, the
hem of an achieved until tbat time from the perspective of bistoriography."Sl The
works of Idrisi Biilisi and Kemalpru;azade set the standards for the bistorians who
foBowed them. Kemalp~e's Tevarih-i Al-i Osman, although based on a
fifteenth century mode!, set the popular format of bistory writmg. There were
seveml others who wrote their own versions; some of them were hlstorians and
sorne ofthem ordinary people, who had access to the somces.82
Beyam:l fi was foBowed by Selim 1 (1512-20), and after him came
Süleyman 1 (the Magnificent) (1520-66). Under Selim and Süleyman, the writing
of history ga.ined increased momentum and new works as weB as new genres
were introduced. A distinct genre that developed dmmg tbis perioo was the
$ehnâme, wmch took after the original Persian tradition.83 In its Tmkish version,
tbis genre developed mto an official method of recording Ottomanhistory, "m tbat, royal events and the activities of the sovereigns and bis relatives were storied
80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid, 311. 83 ft wu famoos Persian poet Firdawsi who somewhere between 1020-26 wrote the original Shah nome (Tbe Book of KiIllgs) that contaiIlloo court histories and heroic tales. Ira Lapidus, A History oflslamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 155.
30 m a sornewhat exaggerated manner, with reJatively lite:rate and praising style.,,84
This tradition contmued weil mto the seventeenth century.
Aootoor genre that developed during this period was biography, and its ea:rly examples were drawn :from Arabic literature. As a style of writing. biography already had an important place within Islamic historiography.1l5 For it may he said of the Ottoman historian, that "[w]hereas the royal historiography and ~ehnâmecilik were under the Iranian influence, it can he seen tbat the biographie style were under the Arab-Islamie influence. Perhaps due to tbis fuet, the fust product of this style was written m Arabie."s6 UnJ.ilœ sorne other genres, subjects of biographies were not funited to the sultans and their lives alone. From the sixteenth century on "short biographies of prime ministers (vüzera), scholars
(ulema), sheikhs (me§ayih) and poets (§uara) ... were also written.,,117
The Ottoman chancery (kalemiye) wrote the most distinctive works on
Ottoman history produced m this period. Interestingly, almost aU of these works were critical of the corruption besetting the state administration and its institutions, one of the emerging problems of the empire. Some authors even began the tradition ofusing foreign sources for their histories. It seems also that a new tradition, a critical approach to history was emergmg at this time. For example, a historian of the chancery, Katip Çelebi (d. 1675), "perfectly used those
S4 tp~irli, 311. 85 Sorne ortbe early biograpbies in Arabie literature, aside ITom that of the Prophet, included al Kitàb al-Yamini, by Abü"l-Na~r Muhammad al-'Uthï (cU 036) regarding the life ofYamln al Dawlah Mahmüd ofGaznah, and several royal biographies regarding the reign of$alih ai-DIo Yüsufal-Ayyiibi (d. 1193). M.J.L. Young, Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 177. 36 ip~irli, 372. 87 Ibid.
31 works written before ~ and by systematically analyzing and criticizing the sources he stalted a method in history."SIl He was the mst Ottoman historian of the clw1œry and showed interest in western sources as well.89 His main foreign sources were Byzantine.
Meanwhile, another histmiau of the em, Hazerfim Hüseyin Efendi (d.
1691), who knew both Greek and Latin, also used information that he received from western travelers.90 "His nine part work titled Tenkihu't-tevarih i.s a world history whose information about Asia and America in particular were totally based on European sources. ,,91 Thus, after the examples of Katip Çelebi and
Hazerfim Hüseyin Efendi befOTe them, more Ottoman historians began to quote foreign tmvelers, Byzantine and Roman sources, and information received :from the embassy staff based in other countnes in order to generate a wodd context in their wom. These new approaches to historiography were also the early signs of changes and reform in the empire.
starting in the early eighteenth œntury, the Ottoman state established its first official history bureau. As a part of the efforts to re-centralize the state, an annaJist (vakaniivis) became a part of the Ottoman state apparatus. The first bistorlan hired by the state to serve in tbis post was named Mustafa Naima (1655- sa Ibid. 313. 39 Ibid. 90 "His worles are intrinsicatly of secondary importance, but Hazërfenn [Hazerfan] nimself is of sorne interest in that for his History... he used Greek and Latin sources ... he nad no knowledge of tbe languages. but persuaded !wo dargornans of the Porte to translate for hirn ... Furthermore he was known to various European diplomatists and orientalists resident in Istanbul: the French arnbassador de Nointel and Antoine Galland (1646-1715), the translator of the'"Arabian Nights" ... COllot Marsigli (1658-1130)...... The Encyclopedia ofislam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971), 623. 91 Regarding titis information, tp~irH refers us to Milcteba Ïlgürel, "Hüseyin Efendi, Hazerfan'" DiA., IS, pp. 544-545. See ip§irli. 373.
32 1716) and he is considered a direct heil" of Katip Çelebi and Hazerfan Hûseyin 92 Efendi, as wen as deeply influenced by Ibn Khaldun. Like others wbo later became involved with the armaJist bureau, Naima suffered from certain prejudices in bis approach. For one thing they evaluated past events in isolation, ''without placing them within the larger framework of European history, and 1acking cause and effect relationshlp.,,93 However. Naima's work became important when bis concerns over the future of the empire made it more appealing to the reformists.94
In 1726, bis work became the fust bistory book published in the first Muslim
9 publishing bouse. .5 Naima is somehow accepted as representative of the transition from the development to the reform period of Ottoman bistoriography. The shortcomings of bis work, however, and tbose of the other annalist hlstorians, happened to initiate the next phase.
The Reform Period
Ottoman bistoriography began to feel the reforms undertaken by the state ailer the middle of the nineteenth century. Until then, the historians who had been
92 Betill Ba~aran Alpunga suggests that Naima is one of the historians, among the likes ofKatip Çelebi, who "contributed to the deveiopment of history-writing by taking steps in the way of a more pragmatic and critical approach." Meanwhile Bü~ra Ersanh is the source where Naima is identified as the fint vakamivis hired by the Ottoman state. BeUil Ba~aran Alpunga, "On Ottoman History Textbooks and Reform, (1839-1911)" The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation (Ankara: Yeni Tiirkiye, 20(0), 379. Ersanh, 46. 93 Alpunga, 379. 94 Ersanh, 46. 95 Ibid.
33 appomted by the empire set the tone and style in which the history was written, which fonowed the lines of existing tradition. This changed towards the end of the eighteenth century.
The eighteenth century had ended with an important development for
Ottoman historians. Until 1793, whereas foreign states operated embassies in various cities of the empire, the Ottoman Empire had no permanent embassies in other cmmtries. Between 1793 and 1798 the embassies were opeœd in Paris,
London and Vienna and they became an important source of information for historians.% "[I]t was asked from the diplomats who were charge
European history, organizations, societies and the govemments of the states.,,97
The establishment of these embassies was implemented within the framework of the centralization and reassertion of the state's authority. Also during tbis time the mate ministries were established and thé working conditions of the state staff improved dramatically. Steps were a1so taken for the establishment of secular 98 education. The new era requ:ired a new approach to bistorical inquiry.
Perhaps the utmost challenge to a11 traditional Ottoman historians came in
1832 with the publication of the fum Ottoman newspaper and official gazette,
Takvim-i Vahlyi. Henceforth, "the events, appointments and dismissals which were to bedisclosed by the historians to the public were now made public daily
96 Kemal H. Karpat, "The Transformation of the Ottoman State, 1789· 1908" International Journal ~{Middle Eastern Studies, 3, (1972), 252. 9 l~irli, 374. 98 Ersanh, 41.
34 before the historians. ,,99 Furthermoœ, the newspaper œflected the fact that "the contemporn.ry understanding of history was still limited to the narration of bistorical evems in a cbronological mmmer.~'IO() Analyses of events in the
œwspaper made the bistorians' works appear dry.
Meanwbile, the empire was :fuœd with new political developments.
Because of the defeats suffered by the Ottomans at the bands of European armies. and due to continuous dissolution of the empire, the scientific superiority of the
West was becoming more obvious to the Ïntellectuals and state elites. This extended into "the scholarly field as well, and a œlatively universal understanding ofbistmy hegan to evolve.,,101 It will he seen laier how the new direction in wruch historiography hegan to evolve reflected what Ercüment Kuran caUs the 'double nature' of the era.102 The division between those who embraced Western views and those who did nt became increasingly clear as time went on.
Soon, in 1851, the foundation of the Academy of Knowledge (Encfimen-i
D~) (1851) and the Bureau of Translation (Tercüme Odwn) began to heJp
Ottoman intellectuals review their situation. Growing numbers of translations
"enabled the Ottoman elite, for the fust time, to leam about the historical and intellectual development of the West, and about enlightenment tbinkers such as
Bacon, Locke and Montesquieu. ,,11>3
99 tp§irii. 314. 100 Aipugan, 380. 101 Ibid, 380. 102 Kuran, 422. 103 Alpunga, p. 380.
35 It bas been suggested tbat "the Academy [of Koowledge] was compromised by the political instability of the perim!, and tbat it failed to realize the high oopes of its founde:r~" but it definitely clarified the need to reoognize the global context to whieh Ottoman history helonged. 104 Afterwards. historians
"increasingly induded political developments in Europe into their histories, to the extent they helieved to he necessary:,105 Among those most representative ofthis trend were ~anizade Ataullah Efend~ Ahmet Vefik Pasha and Hayrullah Efendi.
~anizade (1771-1826) heeame known as the mst Muslim historian ever to have worked with sources in European languages, for aside from Arabie and
Persian he is reported to have known Italian, French, Latin and Greek.106 He seemed to know Ancient Greek and Latin history "as weB as European hlstory, writing about not only the sequence of events but also political and socio- eoooomic aspects such as the parlimnents, cities, insurance and quarantine systems of EurOpe.',107 Meanwhlle Ahmet Vefik Pasha (1823-91) became fmoous as the mst lecture:r in the empire on the phllosophy of history at the university level, starting from 1863. "In bis lectures Ahmet Vefik defined hlstory as the knowledge of witnessed events and pas! days, and phllosophy of MOry as science which Îs the outcome of the mental perfonnances caused by the functionmg of the human mind:,108 He paid particular attention to the cause and effect relationship and evolutionary development of human nature, which was an
104 Ibid. lOS Ibid. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid, 380.
36 altemate view of history if oompared with such older historums, as Naima.
"Although they were not totally free from legendmy and supermitious
information, bis notes suggem that Ahmet Vefik intended to base bis teacmng on
Western methods."l09 Fimlly, Hayrullah Efendi (d.1866) distinguished hlmselfby
including political outlines of Africa, Asm and Europe in bis study of the
foundation period of the Ottoman Empire, trying to analyze their relationships. HO
A dramatic feature of the reform period of Ottoman historiography was
oœasional state censorshlp. The fuet that the intellectuals and the elite were
hecoming more interested in hlstory tended to politidze historiography. As
Alpunga writes. "An increasing tendency to attach an ideological nature to
hlstory-writing and teaching can he observed from the Tanzimat period
onwards."m Two of the mom important mate reforms affecting hlstoriography were directed at the press and education.
The Regulations on Printing Presses (Matbaa Nizamnamesi) issued in 15
Februmy 1857, stipuJated that '~ printing of any book or pamphlet could orny
take place in due process of examination prescrihed in the Regulation. It was
essential that the Council of Education (Meclis-i Maarif) examined the books for
109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. il! Ibid, 3tH. Perhaps the terni Tanzimat should be explained a UUle further. Since the beginning orthe seventeenth century the OUoman Empire graduaHy feH behind the emel'ging West; it started to reform itselfat the.beginning of the nineteenth century. The l'eforms were intensified artel' 1839, with the proclamation of the HaU-I $erif of Gülhane (The Resel'ipt of the Rose Cham ber). The period of Tanzimat (Reformation) is generaHy aecepted to have started artel' the HaU-l $erif, although l'eforms in the empire had begun much earlier. Another document, the HaU-l Hümayun (The Imperial Edict) of 1856 reasserted the reform spirit. Evidently, the reforms generated political and cultural contlicts for they chaUenged the existing state of affairs. Secular, ethnie and nationalist ideals began to mobilize Ottoman subjects.
37 passages bmmful to the dominion and the mate ... 112 And in 1869, the Regulations on Public Education (Maarif-i Umumiye Nizamnamesi) "institutionalized the teaching of history at various levels by induding it into the official curriculum wmch was to he unifonn1y implemented thmughout the Empire. ,,113 This latter development a1so enoouraged the writing of new history textbooks "in order to implement the new structure of education. ,,1]4 Sorne of the first bistory textbooks in fact hegan to appear dming tbis time. 115 Among them was Ahmed Vefik
Pasha's FezleJœ-i Tarih-i Osmani, (1867). The book is described as the first successful attempt of the genre. As ErcümeTIt Kuran writes.
The writer, son of a Turkish diplomat. had studied for sorne years in a Paris lyceum, a circumstance which enabled him to prepare· a mannal on French lines: Ottoman bistory is divided into six chapters, each chapter corresponding to a particular phase in the Empire's history, through the periods of expansion, greatness. and decline, from the origin of the Empire until the author's own time. The writers who followed Ahmed Vefik Pasha in pmducing 1 schoolbooks adopted bis classification. 16
The Hamidian Period of Ottoman MOry, which corresponded to the reign of the Sultan AbduIhamid II (1876-1908), was famous for its centralized state policies, policing and censorship. Dming Abdulhamid's reign, history writing was closely watched by the state "and considerable attention was devoted to the
112 Ibid. m Ibid. 114 Ibid. liS Kuran, 424-5. 116 Ibid.
38 oommissio~ controlling, inspectio~ and sometimes, bmming of a varlet)' of textbooks."u1 There were examples of hlstorians heing disgrac~ of books withdmvm. :from circulation and altered in content, and of teachers heing charged with misusing class time by lecturing on alternative views of history. A1so during the latter part of the Hamidian period" the teaching of general history was banned and only Ottoman hlstory was allowed to he taught.us "\Vhen Abdulhamid's reign ended in 1908, there begin the Young Turk era, whlch lasted until1918.
From its beginning, the Young Turk era was clearly sepamted from previous Ottoman history by virtue of hs mtioruilist and Western ideals and its
European outlook. However, thls does oot mean that the traditional Ottoman view on mate and hlstory died out and western ideals prevailed once and for all. The transformation was much more compliœted than this.
AœordIDg to Bܧrn Ersanh, Ottoman. intellectuals of the Young Turk era chose to focus on historiography and consciously adopted European views. such as French positivis~ in order to rescue the empire from dissolution. While
European historiography (as we saw in the previous chapter) developed into a scientific inquiry along the liœs of other scientific endeavors of the time,
Ottoman. historiography modemized for more pragmatic reasons.119 As a consequence of this, two separate approaches to the pas! - western and traditional
- evolved in parn.llel during the nineteenth centmy.
117 Alpugan. 381. 118 Ibid. lI9 Ersanb, 54-5.
39 What was characteristically different dming tbis em was the spread of translations of, and growth of interest in western philosophy of history.120 Thus, authentic Ottoman works becmœ less appealing and scarœ. However, as
ErcÜIDent Kuran bas written,
Traditional bistoriography had behind it a noble past. It may have undergone Arab and Persian influence, but it had achieved an originality of its own, and the work of Turkish historians in the sooeenth and seventeenth centuries bears witness to the high level attained in thls branch of study. The decline of the Empire in the following centmy was oot without effect upon Ottoman historiography; yet the traditional genre survived. I21
For example, Ahmed Cevdet Pasha's (1822-95) Tarih-i Devlet-i 'Aliyye became the most important historical work published during the mneteenth century and it represented the strength of the tradition. Cevdet Pasba had heen educated in religious schools but was open-minded enough that he used Western sources translated into Turkish. He was regarded as one of the last disciples of the great
Ibn Khaldun. And,
As shown by the introduction to bis chronide, which ultimately formed a whole volume of the last edition (1890), bis notions of bistory and of human society rest essentially upon the ideas of that great Muslim historian-philosopher. ft was he, indeed, who translated the sooh and last part ofIbn Khaldun's Prolegomena 122
120 Ibid. 121 Kuran, 422. 122 Ibid, 423.
40 Meanwhile the historiogrnphy that was being mfluenœ by Western approaches followed a somewhat separate path. With the introduction of translations and institutions such as permanent embassies in wodd capitals and the Bureau of Translation, new information was being commumcated to the leamed classes for the first time. Soon the methodology by which the information was cormmmicated, established, and promoted a.lso became relevant. And firuilly. the idoologies promoted through these sources caught on.
41 Tmkish Natiomilism
From the begirming of the seventeenth-century on. the Ottoman Empire gradwilly feU behlnd the emerging West. Mer losing much of its social estates in the eighteenth century, the empire set out to reform itself. It was dear to the ruling Ottoman elite that the empire had to change its state structures. As a modern historian, Hugh Poulton expresses it: "Successive military defeats at the bands of the Russian Empire rmmned the point home. In response, the empire attempted to replace old institutions with new and modem ones.,,123 At the beginning of the mneteenth century these reforms were intensified and after 1839, with the proclamation of the Hatt-z Serif of Gü1hane (The Rescript of the Rose
Chamber). the period of Tanzimat (Reformation) began.
Hatt-z Serif recognized equal rights for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It aJso promised security of life and guaranteed administrative, educational and economic reforms. Other legislation accelerated the trend as Poulton notes: "In
May 1840, the new penal code emphasised the equality of aU Ottoman subjects...
In May 1855 the poU-tax for non-Musfuns was abolished and henceforth aU could bear arms.,,124 Later, the Hatt-l Hümayun (The Imperial Bruct) of 1856 reasserted the equal rights of non-Musfuns and Muslim Ottoman subjects. This edict also
123 Hugh PouJton, Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish nationalism and the Turkish Republic (New Yorle New York University Press, 1991),50. 124 Ibid, 51.
42 triggered sorne negative response on the part of Muslims: one example was the so-called KuleU Vaktm (K.uleli Incident) in 1859, whlch resulted when a religious leader 100 a riot to whlch young offiœrs and cImes also gave sUpport. I2S
Evidently, the Tanzimat geœrated political and cultural conflicts due to the changes it brought in the millet structures. 126
Mer the reforms. Christians and Jews were admitted to govemment schools and administrative positions on an equal basis with Muslims, for "the millet had become more of a purely religious organization, rather than one dealing with an aspects of the relations hetween the individual and the state.,,127 When in
1856, the state proposed to give fixed salaries to the clergy of Christian millets. it further elimiœted the authority of the hlgher clergy by limiting the firumcial privileges they enjoyed over the lower clergy. The hlgher clergy opposed the decision. Meanwhlle, lay elements wanted a bigger say in the aflàirs of the commumties and most of the pressure to reform the millet system came from them. 'fbe Ottoman state continued to ask the hlgher clergy to reorgmrize the s'tate administration "1:0 he more in tune with the new system. After a short resistance by the upper echelons of the Istanbul Patriachate, a new constitution for the Greek
(as it wa.s now called) Orthodox millet was passed in 1862 whlch saw power within the millet pass from the previous all-powerful metropolitans to the lay constituency of the developing urban groups. ,,128 It seems that the decentralization
12S Lewis, 148. 126 Millet in very generaI terms means a group of people. it is used here to refer to the social divisions among the subjects of the empire, regarding their religious, linguistic and communal affiliations with the authonty tha! represented them in the Ottoman state. 127 Foulton. 52. \23 Ibid.
43 of the Christian dergy's authority in order to be:nefit the authority of the Ottoman state also initiated the dissolution of larger communities into sJ.Daller ones.
Historically, "[n]ew millets were created, mostly through outside pressure
:from the Great Powers, for Catholics and Protestants.,,129 Meanwhile, the authority of the Greek Patriarchate had been diminishing ever smce the creation of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1557. Mer the reforms were initiated, the dissolution was accelemted with the founding of the Bulgarian Exarchate Church in 1870, and the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1885.130 Large commumties became sepamted into sJ.Daller ones. There were rune recognized millets in 1875, but by 1914 the number had increased to seventeen.l3l
Among the Turlcish-speaking population, the fust effective reaction to the dissolution of the millet structures and re-centralization of the state came :from a group of intellectuals who found themselves at odds with the ruling authorities.
They became known as the Young Ottomans and they represented the fust sound
Muslim intellectual response to the Tanzimat. As Poulton indicated: "They were the fus! organized opposition group from the Ottoman intelligentsia to use the ideas of the enlightenment and attempt to synthesize modernization with
Islam."i32 They were particularly influential between 1867 and 1879.133
The Young Ottoman movement was initiated by ibrahim $inasi (1824-
1871), a young bureaucrat who was aIso a protégé of Mustafa Re~it p~ director
129 Ibid. 130 Ibid. 131 Poulton refers this information to Kemal H. Karpat, An lnquiry into the Social Foundation of Nationalism in the Ottoman States: from Social Esta/es to Classes, from Millets to Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973),88-9. Ibid. 132 Poulton, 55. 133 Ibid.
44 of the .Anny Arseœl (Tophane.)134 ~IDasi rose within the bureaucrncy, and he was sent to Europe for further education. In Paris, he attended literary soirees held by
Ernest Renan and Lamartine. As a result of internaI conflicts, however, he was never allowed to hold a significant position. Âli p~ the Grand Ymer, especially disliked him. After 1860, ~IDasi became involved in litemture and started bis own pape!' (1861-1810) Tasvir-i Efoar (Description of Ideas), whlch laier becmne the organ of the Young Ottomans. In 1864, mer Ali P~ refused him a government post; he went into exile in Paris, leaving the editorshlp of Tasvir-i Efoar to Nmmk
Kemal (1840-1888), a member ofbis circle.135
Most of the intellectuals associated with ~IDasi' s paper were critics of the govemment.136 They accused Ali and Fuat Pasha of using reforms to establish the autocmtie rule of elite bureaucrats, of undermining Islam and Ottoman culture and of not defending the empire against the influences of the Western powers. In
1865. six of them formed a secret alliance to criticize and act against the Grand
Ymer. They were former employees of the Translation Bureau of the Porte, exposed to international developments, and they shared a common knowledge of
European civilization. Their main concern was the escalating dissolution of the empire. Theil' names were Mehmet Bey, Nuri Bey, Re~t Bey, Natmk Kemal,
Ayetullah Bey and Refik Bey. 137
134 Stanford Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. II: Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 130. Ils Ibid. 130-31. 136 Ibid, 131. 137 Mardin, 12-13.
45 As the alliance grew, tbree intellectuals emerged iis leading figures:
Nmmk Kemal. Ziya p. (1825-1880) and Ali Suavi (1825-1880). Unœr Kemal's editorshlp, the Young Ottomans used Tasvir-i Efkar to oommumcate their ideas.
Eventually, their views were censored and in 1867 Kemal and Ziya bad to escape to EurOpe.138 Nevertbeless they continued to commumcate tbeir ideas tbrough
foreign post offiœs tbat were, tbrough capitulations, outside the control of official
Ottoman censorshlp and fonned an opposition movement based in London and
Paris. An Ottoman-Egyptian prince, Mustafu Fazd, who tried to use the movement to pressure the Ottoman govemment for bis own ends, sponsored them. Mustafa Fazù Md in fact helped Ibrahim ~inasi, earlier with the establishment of Tasvir-i Ejkar.
Later, Ali Suavi also joined them in Europe. Suavi represented the more
Islamic reaction to the reforms and it was essentially mer bis a.rrival tbat the
Young Ottomans became aware of tbeir differences. What Kemal and Ziya understood by parliament and democracy had little resemb1ance to Suavi's conception of these institutions. Later, there were confficting views between Ziya and Kemal as weil. Their newspaper, called Hürriyet (Freedom), was closed due to these conffictS. 139
Despite their essentially liberal views, the Young Ottomans were often conservative in their criticism of Tanzimat leaders like Ali p •. They believed the reforms tbreatened Musllm and Ottoman identity. For whlle they admired
European nations and parliamentary systems, they argued !hat the Ottoman
138 Lewis, BS. m Ibid.
46 Empire was IlOt the same as Western Europe. The Young Ottomans recognized that the subjects of the empire varied in race, religion and language, but for them the proper reconciliation of such a society was through implementing a
constitution, a parliament, and Ottomanism as mate ideology. A parliament for instance would provide a polliical platform where groups could debate and
develop govemment policies. Participation in such a system would genemte a feeling of belonging and emphasize the concept of vatan (fatherland). In fuet, as
Stanford Shaw writes,
Some Ottoman lihemls went further !ban thls, saying tbat troe Ottommism could he acmeved on1.y by abolishing the millets altogether as legal entities, ending ail the distinctions among !hem and their members, and providing in their place a single Ottoman œtionality where ail the sultan's subjects would have the same rights and obligations regardless of differenœs in race, religion and language. 140
Such feelings of pamotism were evidenœ to the development of early nationalist ideas among the Young Ottomans, although they remained far from being nationOOsts in its modem sense. Meanwhile, Ali Pasha and bis colleagues were
likew:ise modemizers; however, they believed tOOt a strong state was essential to carrying the neœssary reforms. Ali Pasha thought that a represent~tive govemment would delay modemization, and at the same time undermine the power ofthe state.
140 Shaw, 132.
47 In additio~ there were deep differences regarding their philooopby and actions among the membe:rs of the Y mmg Ottoman movement. As ~erif Mardin writes,
within a few years of Ottoman polliical development were compressed the typically eighteenth-century attitude of ~inasi, convinced of the eventual triumpb of reaso~ and the typica1ly modem reaction of Kemal [and more so of SuaVll, introducing a militancy and a cult of natioœ1 values tbat was to become the hal1mark of twentieth-century nationalism. 141
And if oompared. close comempornries like Kemal and Suavi still represent the two poles in the early debates witbin the movement. As :fur as Kemal was ooncemed,
The ideological vacuum resulting from the pusbing back of religion from tbe public to private spbere was one of the main weaknesses of the Tanzimat. He attempted to produce a synthesis between modernisation and Islam and looked for Islamic references for parllaments and representative government. He was opposed to the Tanzimat secularisation of law and looked to the Seriat as the basis oflaW.142
In bis view, whenever the Seriai, the religious law of Muslim people, was not observed, the empire had declined, with the result !hat the state became a tyranny.143
Kemal moreover was responsible for popularizing the term vatan
(fatherland) and was the mst to use the word hürriyet (freedom) in ms writings
141 Mardin, Il1. 142 Poulton, 55-6. 143 Ibid, 56.
48 and speeches. For hlm, ''vatan was an ernotional bond containing memories of ancestors, recollections of one's own youth and earliest experiences."l44 Yet he never expJained how different groups were to pay loyalty to the same vatan, unable as he was to separate the Ottoman and Musllm identities in bis mind:
A good example of fuis is a famous leading article. on patriotism, which he published in 1868 in Hü"iyet, ... In an eloquent appeal to the patriodc pride of bis readers, he reminds them that their country had produced such great sovereigns as Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent and the Caliph Umar, snch men of learning as Farabi, Avicenm, Ghazali, and Zanmkhskari: and he saw nothing incongrous in induding medieval Arab and Persian Muslims. and an ancieD.t Arabian Caliph, in bis appeal to 'Ottoman' pride. The tàthedand of Nrumk Kemal's loyahies included the Caliphs of Medina as weB as the Sultans of Constantinople among its former ru1ers. 145
Despite this confusion, Kemal was able to comront the oider ootion of separate groups of people living together with a new notion "of a union of the population, i.e. change from 'equal but separate status' to becoming fully integrated Ottoman citizens.,,146 Later, "with the tise of pan-Slavism and the Ottoman retreat in the
Balkans, he gave up the idea of an Ottoman nation of different nationalities and religious groupS.,,147 He remained attached to Islam and focused on the possibility of an Ottoman-led unification of an Muslims.
His last writings show a prooounced emphasis on the Turkish language as a means of uniting Muslims of the empire. Essentially. bis attempted synthesis of Islam and modem Western institutions
144 Ibid. 145 Lewis, 330. 146 Poullon, 56. 147 Ibid.
49 fui1ed. and he came to realise tOOt bis concept of an Ottoman nation embrn.cing aU the Ottoman pooples regardless of religion was dramaticaUy at odds with bis own emphasis on Islam. 148
Aoother intenectual among the Young Ottomans who was as influential as Kemal was Ali Suavi, whose version of nation.alism embraced Islam to an even greater degree. "He was an advocate of 'direct Is1amic democracy' with no real trace of the mecbanisms of representation, parlia.mentarianism or popuJar sovereignty, tbat is an Is1amic state where aU had equal access to the ruler. and aU were ruled by the Seriat ruone.,,149 He also emphasized the importance of Turkish and was known for his frequent use of the term 'Turk.·
Although these two ideologists do not represent the entire Young Ottoman thought, one thmg obvious from their views is tbat there were two obstacles to overcome hefore establishing a nationalism of European caliher among the
Turkish-speaking subjects of the empire. First, the role of religion, i.e., Islam, had to he defined clearly. And second, Ottoman identity, which towards the end ofthe nmetœnth œntury especially was too intangible for the purposes of a solid nationallsm, OOd to he made more concrete, or abandoned. In the following periods, these two issues continued to govem the debates regarding the Turkish identity politics.
In part, it was the Young Ottomans who inspired the civilian and military officiais to dethrone Sultan Abdillaziz in 1876. In the sarne year, the first constitution and the fust parliament were introduced to the Ottoman Empire under
Sultan Abdülhamid II. The mst constitution of the empire emphasized
148 Ibid, 57. 149 Ibid.
50 Ottomanism as its ideological basis and "promised ail those rights and bberties of
whlch they bad leamed from then- European teachers, and did 50 in the name of the Sulta.n-Calip~ the Guardian of the Holy Law. ,,150 But the rW.e of the Sultan
was hostile to western ideas and quicldy became oppressive. The Young
Ottomans &.ded slowly. most of them accepting govemment positions under the
new Sultan. A radical, Suavi was the last of them to retum. from exile, and he
500n fuund himself ai odds with the Sultan. On 20 August 1878, he 100 a group of
500 men to the palace. Some 100 men, induding Suavi, were able to force their way in and tried to release the Sultan Murad V. who was deposed by Sultan
Abdulbamid in 1876, and install him on the throne. A police raid killed some 20 1S1 of the riot~ including Suavi.
Meanwhile, Nmmk Kemal proved to he the 100st influential of the Young
Ottomans. Later generations. and especially the Young Turks who emergOO after
1889, embraced bis image and bis fervent patriotisme His ideology was reflected
in bis work. In Ewak-l Peri§an (Documents of Ruin) the first part of wmch was
published in 1871, he offered an account of the "lives ofMuslim heroes.,,}S2 Here he desmbed distinct figures of Ottoman and Muslim history from a nationalist
perspective. "In bis view, Mehmed II was the founder of a Muslim state on a truly natioruilistic basis, a mate reinforced when Selim 1 seized the Caliphate.,,)53
Obviously Kemal's main interest was constructing a nationalist argument. His
"interpretation of history was thus in line with the feeling of bis times. He
ISO Lewis, 110. iSI Ibid. IS2 Kursn, 426. 153 Ibid, 421.
51 endowed heroes with political and social intentions moonœivable before the time at which he was writing.,,154 Kemal's views were devdoped under the influence ofWestem ideas regarding history and. the state.155
AIoo, there was a correlation between works published on bistory during the illneteenth century and the growing natioruilist ideals. Especially after the invasion of Centrnl Asia by Russia beginning in the 1860's, the attention of
Turkish intellecturus was drawn towards the population of tbis area.
These peoples were Muslim, and moreover shared the sam.e ethnie origin as the dominant dement in the Empire. The study of the history of these Turks revealed to the Ottoman intellectuals a glorious past which had been buried by the tradition of Islam. Gradually there arose a national consciousness, steeped in Turkish history and. culture, and distinct from the Ottoman ideology.156
In the past, Ottoman historians were interested in the military and political history of the ancient Turkish people, and paid no attention to their culture and civilization. During the second half of the nineteenth œntury, it was mostly the non-traditional history oriented intellectuals with nationalist tendencies who paid the greatest attention to the Turkish identity. They were the ones who laid the foundations ofTurkish nationalism and among them was Nannk Kemal.
Lilœ Ali Suavi, on bis return from exile Nmmk Kemal also faced the
Sultan's wrath. At first he was confined as a common criminal, and then exiled
154 Ibid. 155 Kemal was flOt alone in his historical views. Ali Suavi also wrote an essay cane
52 again, this time to Chlos, for !wo yea:rs. He later received small govemment posts on mous Aegean islands~ where he lived the rest of bis lire. He died on
Deœmber 2, 1888, the night after he was infmmed by an Imperial order that he was forbidden 1:0 continue or publish the Ottoman hlstory tOOt he was worldng on.
The Hamidian view on hlstoriography was clear. 157
During Abdullimnid n'51 reign, two ideological Vlews dominated the nationalistic discourse delivered 1:0 the Turkish speaking community. The one embraced and propagated by the state was pan-Islamism. The other came during the later part of Abdulbamid's rule and it took into acoount developments in science, Ottoman deroographics and territorial retreat. It was pan-Turkism.
Although hostile to Western influences, Abdulbamid II was not against reforms that rontnl>uted towards the centralization of the Ottoman state. He used pan-Islamism in order to establish himself as an authority figure. Originally, pan-
Islamism began during the Tanzimat period. "mostly in reaction to the manner in which millions of Muslims were being treated by the Russians as well as the newly independent Balkan states.,,158 The Young Ottoman movement anticipated
AbduJbamid in criticmng the assaults against Muslims, and Kemal in particular reacted to Ernest Rerum's view tOOt Islam was hostile to science and philosophy.159
Soon these feelings were translated into a movement to establish contacts with an the oppressed Muslims of the world, including those in British India, and Egypt, Russian Central Asia, and French
151 Ibid. !ss Shaw, 259. 159 Ibid.
53 Algeria and Tumsia" with the mm of forming a union of Muslims to help defend them and their ways against the imoads of the Wem. l60
Abdulhamid also saw pan-IsJamism as means of positioning himself against
domestic and foreign enemies. The state treasury and the sultan' s own fi.mds were
used to build sehooIs that would eœble young Ottoman Muslims to compete with
their non-Muslim counterparts. Among other measures, "[P]ensions. salaries, and
other revenues paid to the ulema were increased. Mosques and other religious
monuments were repaired and restored. Islamic holidays were emphasi.zed once
again, and their public celebration was officially encouraged.,,16i Abdulliamid's
pan-IsJamism also added lessons in Islam and Arabic to the curricula of the
secular seMOis. He even sought to increase the use of Arabie to the point of
equality with that of Ottoman Turkish. His goal was to "establish" h.imself as the
caliph of all Muslims. "Influential Muslim leaders from all over the world were
brought to Istanbul for extended visits to establish contacts that later could he and
were used to extend the sultan-caliph's infiuence.,,162 He advised the foreign
powers about the dangers of mistreating the Muslim populations, waming them that such hehavior could ignite a general Muslim upheaval against the West. As
Shaw points out, "Islamism thus became an ideological weapon wielded by the
sultan to counter the imperialism of the Western powers as weIl as the minority
nationalist movements that tmeatened bis empire.,·163 In a sense pan-Islamism
160 Ibid. 161 Ibid. 162 Ibid. 163 Ibid.
54 won a state splnsorship ftom Abdulliamid because it also served its patron's interests and affirmed bis authority.
Later, pan-Turkism started to grow as an offshoot of pan-Islamism. ft was stimuJated by the same factors, namely, the mistreatment of Mnslim mioorities and the appeal of nineteenth-century European nationalism to varions groups in the Empire:
Though Ottommism promoted the idea of motherland, with an subjects, regardless of religion and race, equal befme the law and loyal to the same Ottoman dynasty, the refusaI of the minority natiomlist to a.ccept that equality. the success of national unity movements in Germany and Italy, and nationalist aspirations of oon-Turkish Mnslim groups in the empire led to an increased awareness of the Turkish identity and almost forced the germination ofTurkish nationalism. l64
From the beginning, pan-Turkism followed the path of the Western nationalisms.
It was fust understood as theoretical nationalism. Later, it evolved mto a popular ideal, and finally it was embraced by the state and transformed itself mto astate nationalism. Pan-Turkism was the root out ofwhich Turkism and the framework ofTurkish nationalism emerged.
In terms of its theoretical aspects, one may suggest that the mots of
Turkish nationalism can he found in the mst half of the nineteenth-century. Its rationale was drawn from European philosophers and Orientalists. Indeed, at the time, "[a] number of European Turkologists hegan to discover the Turkish past, their great Central Asian civilizations, and the real mie of their language and
164 Ibid, 260. Ta II.Iarne a few, Arabs, Albanians and Bosnians were sorne these non~ Turkish Muslirn groups who aspired nationalisrn.
55 culture in bistOry."l6S Their views interested the Turkish-speaking Ottoman elite.
Essentially. two books had li definitive influence on the development of
Turoology.
The first ofthese was Arthur Lumley David's The Grammer ofthe Turkish
Language, published in 1832 and supplemented by a long historical introduction
regarding Turkish people. l66 The book was translated into French in 1836 and
won attfacted the attention of young Ottoman intellectuals. In 1851, Fuad p.
and Cevded P~ published their Kavaid-i Osmaniye (the fust modem Turkish
grammar published in the Ottoman Smte) in which they used the grammar
portions ofDavid's work.167 Later, in 1869, Ali Suavi used the introduction from
David's work in bis defense ofMuslim and Ottoman nationalist ideals in an essay titled TiJrk. which was published in paris. 168 It should he ooted that during the
same year. Mustafa Celaleddin P~ a oonvert to Islam of Polish origin, also
published bis work called Les Turcs anciens et modernes in Istanbul, in which he
"emphasized the unique racial qualities of the Turks, whom he said were part of
the "Touro-Aryan" race rather than the Mongol, and stressed their contnbutions to world civilization.,,169 His work generated an argument against European
prejudice towards Turks and racially cmmected Turks WÎth Europe.
The second most influential work on Turkism helonged to Leo Cahun
(1841-1900), who had contact WÎth the Young Ottomans in exile in Paris during the 18605. ln bis Introduction a l'histoire de l'Asie, published in 1896, Cahun
165 Ibid, 261. 166 Lewis, 340. 167 Ibid. 163 Ibid. 169 Shaw, 261.
56 classffied Tmks among the Turanian people md "stressed their role in transmitting elements of Chlœse culture into tbat of Persian md into Europe as weB."110 Necib As1m, 'Who became known as the first Turcologist in Turkey, mmslated Ca.hun's work into Turkish in 1899.171
During the same period, a resident scholar in TW'key, Arminius Vambery
(1832.. 1913). m influential Hungarian mthmpologist md a close friend and adviser to Abdulhamid, became popular among the eady nationalists. Vambery
'încluded the Turks, Hungmians, Finns, and Estomans in the Tmanian linguistic and racial group, publishing widely in Europe (with translations into Ottoman) about the language, culture, and civilization of the Turks."l72 His views were intluential weB inio the 1930's.
The "Turmian linguistic and racial group" mentionOO above was used by
Hungarian scholars :from 1839 on, for whom it represented
an ancrent Inmian name for the country to the oorth-east of Persia, to descn'be the Turkish lands of Central and South East Asia, and [they} applied the term Turanian to a group of peoples and lmguages comprising Turkish md Mongol as weD as Finnish, Hungarlan and otbers.173
One cm argue that Turcology was mainly developed in Hungmy, where it received support :from the theory of a common origin shared by Magyars and
Turks. It also benefited "from the Hungmian desire for Turkish support against
170 Ibid. 171 Lewis, 342. 172 Shaw, 261. 173 Lewis. 34 L
57 the common danger ofpan-Slavism,,,n4 Later, the Ottoman Muslims who escaped the atrocities &at followed the Crimea.n War addOO a new breath to the development ofTurkish nationalism.
The Crimean War, fought between 1854 and 1856, had erupted as a resuh of the Russian desire to gain authority over the entire Ottoman Christian population and achieve influence in Jerusalem. It 100 British, French and Ottoman forces to enter the Black Sea and take Sebastopol in 1855. The war ended in 1856, and in signing the Treaty of Paris in 29 March 1856, "An sides agreed to evacuate territory taken during the war. The Russians left eastern Anatolia and the allies surrendered the Crimea and areas of the Black' Sea coast ... The straights were to remain closed to the warships of foreign powers and the Black Sea was to be neutm1ized, open orny to merchant ShipS."175 Later a new treaty reinforced the peace settlement in 15 April 1856, in which Austria, Britain and France guaranteed Ottoman independence against Russia. 176
The instability in the Crimea generated hostilities among its mixed populations. At the same time there was "considerable Turkish intellectual activity in the Russian Empire, centerOO mainly in the Crimea and Kazan. which was influenced by Western tiberaI thought as well as the writings of the Ymmg
Ottomans and Young Turks,,,l77 The Turkish speaking cornmunity who remained under Russian rule had become more attached to their ethnic identity and startoo to strengthen their connections with the empire. They sent their children to
174 Ibid. 175 Shaw, 140, 116 Ibid, 177 Ibid, 261.
58 Istanbul for education and their intellectuals ttaveled and stayed in Istanbul to teach their culture.l78 Among !hem Yusuf Akçura (1876-1939) and Ahmed
Agaoglu (1869-1939) became influential Turkish nationalists, who later gave their
support to the Turkish Histmy Thesis. But for the time being, their views were often ignored or refuted.
The legacy of the Hamidian em was not limited to pan-Islamism and pan-
Turkism. It was under bis oppressive rule !hat the mûs! influential opposition
group fonned itself and later dethroned him. They became known as the Young
Turks. They embodied the nationalist tendencies developing among the Ottoman
elite. The existing ideological views among their supporters lacked a concrete
:framework and still embraced what Feroz Ahmad calls "an Ottomanism strongly tinged with Islam," rather than Turkism.179 However. the Young Turks became responsible for the developments that led to the establishment of a Turkish nation
state. Dming the last ten years of the Ottoman Empire (1908 to 1918) they were the ones who govemed.
When in February 1878 Sultan Abdillhamid II dissolved parliament and
embarked on absolute rule, an opposition slowly began to fOrIn underground. In
1889 a group of students from the imperial Medical School fonned an alliance
called the Association for the Union of Ottomans. By 1895 they had changed their
name to the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP). The CUP was mostly
l7S Ibid. 179 Feroz Abmed. "Young Turks'" The Oxford Ancyclopedia of the Modern lslamic World, vot 3 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995),357-58.
59 active in Europe and Egypt. Us members came from diverse backgrounds, etlmically and professiomilly.18o
Due to Abdülbamid's autocratie rule, many educated Turks, Greeks,
Kurds, Arabs, Albanians and Armenians came to support the idea of Ottomanism.
In 1902 the First Congress of Ottoman Liberals was held in Paris, wbere tbe opposition to tbe sultan came into the open. In 1906 sorne military offiœrs and govemmént officiais formed another group called the Ottoman Freedom Society, in SaIonika. They joined the CUP in 1907 and became tbe ruling faction. In tbe very same year, between December 27 and 29, the Second Congress of Ottoman
Liberais met in Paris and resolved to take Abdiilbamid II from power.
By the spring of 1908 those CUP members wbo bad served in the Ottoman
Army in Macedonia began to act more operny. They reacted to Abdillhamid's efforts to discipline tbem and spy on their activities by assassinating mspectors and others loyal to the sultan. In July, Adjunct Major Abmed Niyazi Bey, and later Enver Bey, reoounced their responsibilities to the sultan and took tbeir troops into the mountams to undertake guerilla activity. Later, a CUP member assassinated the special m.ilitary commander sent to take control of tbe
Macedonian arroy. The CUP further pressured the sultan with a series of telegrams tbreatenmg to occupy the capital if the constitution was IlOt reinstated.
In July 1908 Abdillbamid felt obliged to re-mstitute the 1876 constitution, inaugurating the second constitutional, also knOWIl as the Young Turk, era. 18]
Every ethnic group tbat stood to acquire greater security celebrated the event. Yet,
1110 Shaw, 255-56. J8i Lewis, 203-4.
60 wOOn parliament resumed, the division mnong the Young Turks' supporters
Two major fuctions emerged: the uniomsts (CUP) and the bœrals. The
unionists fuvored a strong centralized mate m order to acbieve modernization and
progress, whereas the liberals wanted a decentralized and autonomous polity
benefiting oon-Muslim and non-Turkish groups as well. The multi-religious and
multi-œtional population of the empire eventually forced the Young Turks to
follow a middle way, i.e., Ottomanism. Meanwhile, Turkist and Islamist thinkers
were still mvolved in the govemment, under the CUP banner.
In April 1909 an insurrection led by an Islamist organization made it clear
that Muslim. infhrenœs were strong among the uniomsts; But, m 1912, a military
coup fuvoring the liberals brought the latter mto power. Meanwhlle the
demographics of the empire were contmumg to change. The Ottoman army had
suffered repeated defeats m the Ba1kans. As Ferez Ahmad writes, "The 10ss of
virtually aU territories in the Ba1kans followed by the expulsions of much of their
Muslim population left the empire with predominantly Muslimffurkish Anatolia
and the hab provinces. .,llt2 The umonists took advantage of the political turmoil
and in January 1913 took over the govemment once and for aU. By June, they Md
eliminated the liberal opposition.IR3
Throughout World War l, with the systematic deportation and massacre of
Armemam and the arrivai of Turkish people from the Balkans and Caucasus, the
empire became more and more Muslim-Turkish and Arab. While m the prewar
182 Ahmed, 351. 133 Ahmed, 351-58. Aise see by Ferez Ahmed, The Young Turks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 105-7.
61 period both the Turkish and the Arnb mtiomilists had been ambitious to build a solid framework, with the war official and popu.lar sentiment stmted to embmce
Tmkish mtioœlism. The Tmkish Homeland Society (Türk Yurdu Cemiyeti) was supplanted by the Turkish Hearth (Tfu'k OCagl) in 22 March 1912. The Turkish
Hearth was a branch organization of the CUP whose duty was to "combat
Islamism and Ottomanism and to convince the Turkish people of the empire that they oowd survive only if theY accepted the ideals of Tmkish nationalism as developed mainly by Gokalp.,,184 The Turkish Hemth was also responsible for propagating the use of Turkish instead of other languages. Under CUP pressure, government officiais were increasing the use of Turkish in administration and as the religious schools and courts came under mate control, Turkish started to predominate. The immigrating Caucasian and Eastern European Turks pmtook in these developments, and a project to unite all the Turks or all the Tumnian people began to get underway.
After 1914~ the notion of Arnb independence arose, along with the possibility of the empire' s fall and the inevitability of subsequent foreign hegemony. Many such ideas were CUITent in Beirut, Damascus and Basra, where the independence movements in the Balkans had already been noted and the
Young Turks had been active. Triggered by an alliance between Sharif Husayn and the British, in 1916, the Arab RevoIt stmted the separation of Arab lands from the Ottoman Empire.
During the World War, the Ottoman Empire proved incapable of fighting on a scale equal to the European forces. The end of the war in 1918 also signaled
184 Shaw, 309.
62 the end of the Young Turk em. Mer the emuing war for independenœ, the new
Tmldsh republic was formed. though it owed much of its infrastructure to the
Young Turks. The majQr intellectual innovation of the Young Turk era. was
Tmkish œtionaliS!D, and the new republic embrnced it as its seculm ideology under the definitive rule of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Atatürk, although a former member of the party, had strong conflicts with the CUP and isolated himself and bis followers from the Young Turks clemly. In bis nationalism there was little room for Islamism and non-for Ottomanism. Furthermore, bis preferences and interests defined what was to he included in the state nationalism of the new
Turkish Republic.
63 Turkish Historiography
Beginning with the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, Ottoman hlstoriography entered into a new phase. In 1910, at the initiatives of the CUP, the
Ottoman Historical Society was founded. According to Lewis, "The professed aims of the society were to :illl gaps in the existing histories of the Ottoman
Empire, to report on and publish documents, and to prepare a new Ottoman history on the grand scale.,,185 The journal of the society, wmch was published only until the late 1920's, maintained a high scholarly standard, but its scope was limi.ted to Ottoman hlstory and it functioned under the close control of a regime still subsîantially devoted to Ottomanism. Moreover, the mooographs that were published included only a few studies on pre-Ottoman Turkish Anatolia. In the end, however, increasingly popular Turkism found expression through independent joumals ofhlstory and politics.
Even as non~ Turkish subjects of the empire grew conscious of their national identities and remained reluctant to respond to the pan-Ottomanist propaganda, the Turkish-speaking literate elite stmted to search for a Turkish nationalist self-expression 186 In independent publications, they showed a different approach to history and identity politics. A notable example of tbis trend was the
18S Ibid. 186 Ibid.
64 political journal Türk Yurdu, in whlch Yusuf Akçum, Ziya Gôkalp "and others elaoornted the Turkish political thesis and continued the separation of Turkish ftom Ottoman loyalty."U!7 Gôkalp also 'Wfote for aoother magazine called Milli
Tetebbüler, wbich was edited by Mehmet Foot Kôprülü.
Published in only five issues, Milli Tetebbüler represented a tuming point in Ottoman historiography. It offered a new Turkish history in terms of its scope and focused on a people and a country, not a religion and a dynasty.188 It expanded its focus to the pre-Islamic Turkish spealdng peoples and their origins.
Meanwhile, Gôkalp, Kôprülü and Akçura stood out among the most influential historians and political thinkers of the new generation for having introduced sociological methods into the study ofhistory, popula.rized the pre-Ottoman Turks of Anatolia and examined the Turkish people of Central Asia. To understand tbis new generation, we will examine the works of these furee men more closely, although they were only the most fumous ones among many others.
In many ways, Gokalp represents the transition of the Ottoman into the
Turkish bistorian. Akçura, on the other hand, stands out as the prototypical ethnie
Turkish bistorian who came from the periphery to the center, through Crimea to
Istanbul, and engaged in the debate on national identity. He belonged to what
Hugh Poulton calls the "Russian connection.,,11l9 Both Akçura and Gôkalp were, moreover, exact contemporanes. Kôprülü on the other band was a generation younger tban the other two. A student of Gôkalp, he became one of the new
11l7lliid. 188lliid,224. 189 POUltOIl, 7 L
65 scienti:fic Turkish bistomms who analyzed the past in a completely
Ziya Gôkalp (1876-1924), who became oost lrnovm as a sociologist and philosopher, wu of KurdishITurkish ongin. He was bom in DiyarOOkir during the reign of Abdülbamid II and· was educated in both secular and religious institutions. It was bis teacher Abdullah Cevdet who introduced him to the French sociologists like Emile Durkheim, and Gôkalp is lrnown to have shown interest in questions of :race and nationalism very carly in bis studies.l90 He studied in
Istanbul where he OOcame involved in the Young Turk rnovement. He was oompelled to abandon bis formaI coursework however after bis arrest and internaI deportation to DiyarOOkir. Wben Abdülhamid's reign ended in 1908, he started lecturing at the loœl CUP branch. Shaw relates:
Gôkalp's rise to the national stage came suddenly, in the :fall of 1909, wben he represented Diyarbekir at the first CUP congress in Salomca His writings and speeches apparently impressed the leaders, since he was a member of the party's executive council, a position he retained until it was dissolved in 1918.191
He stayed in Salonica, where he becmne the fust scholar to teach sociology in the empire, until the headquarters of the CUP was transferred to Istanbul. There he set precedent by OOcoming the fust professer of sociology at the University of
Istanbul He likewise joined Tart Ocagz (Turkish Hearth) and assisted Yusuf
Akçum in publishing Tart Yurdu (Turkish Homeland) - the journal of the latter
190 Shaw, 301. 19i Thiel
66 association. Most of bis students, including Mehmet Foo KoprUlû, hecame
leading intellectuals of the Republican em that followed the demise of the CUP.192
Gokalp wanted the CUP to sponsor -major reforms in education. According
to Shaw, "The mpid succession of reforms that followed, from 1913 through the
first decade of the Republic, was reinforced, and in -many ways -made possible, by
the ideological basis and support Gokalp's writings pmvided.~,193 Although he
startoo to write when Is1amism and Ottomanism were the common trends, he
advocated a specifie nationalism based on the social sciences. Since he helieved
that an societies develop from tnDal into the religious communities, hefore heing
transfmmed into nations, he rejected racism. He helieved that civilization was an
international phenomenon whereas culture was a national one. 194
As fur as Islam was concemed, Gokalp accepted it as a source of ethics,
but one had to sepamte Islam and Turkish identÏty in order to rescue them both,
making possible the retention of Islam's fundamental values and principles side by side with a modem and Turkish national culture... The religious schools and courts had to he abolished to end the longstanding dualism between secular and religious deDients that existed in Ottoman society... Women should he given the same education as men; they had to he allowed to eam their living in the same way as men; they could no longer he subject to the degradation that was inherent in polygamy, which was allowed by traditional Islam. .. Islam would re~ therefore, but oruy as a national religion, supplementing the national culture... Islam would he Turkified.195
192 Ibid. 193 Ibid, 302. 194 Ibid. 195 Ibid, 303-4.
67 GOkaJp's main impact was the introduction of the sociological method to
. the lecture-hall. Bernard Lewis in fact sees the application of sociological
methods to the study of history as one of!wo distinct features of Young Turk
historiography,l96 the other being the tendency by scholars of fuis new era to
broaden the scope of Turkish history: "Their field of study included not only pre-
Ottoman Turkish Anatolia, but also the history of Turkish states and peoples far
from Turkey, in Central Asia and India.,,197 This latter aspect was no doubt
attn"butable to figures like Yusuf Akçura, of Central Asian ancestory. They tried
to expand the definition of the Turkish race to embrace near-Asia.
Yusuf Akçura (1876-1933) was rom in Simbirsk in the Volga region. He
came to Istanbul in 1883. After he graduated from the War Academy in 1897, he
got mto trouble with the Hamidian authorities and was exiled to Libya. From
there he escaped to France, and then retumed to Russia in 1902. In the articles he
mailed to Istanbul journals, he critic:ized the Young Turk efforts to forro an
Ottoman nation and proclaimed Turkish nationalism as the solution. In 1904 he
publlshed bis work Üç Tarz-z Siyaset (Three Kinds of Politics), which became an
essential manifesto of Turkish nationalism. The article was a landmark in the
separation of religious, royal and ethnic aspects of Ottoman identity. He
distinguished Osmanllcllzk (Ottomanism), jslamclilk (Islamism) and Türkçülük
(Turkism) as three different political docmnes.198
Akçura believed that Ottomanism sought to preserve a nation based on
diverse racial and religious groups. This was Îts weakness. It was obvious that
196 Lewis, 224. 197 Ibid. 198 Poulton 12.
68 German superiority over the United States and France was a result of the inclusion of race as a major component of that country's nationalism.199 Thus, nationa'lism based on race was preferable to multi-etbnic œtionalism In fuet, in the beginning, even French nationalism was race-oriented. Meanwhile, Islamism was a great but impossible ideru. For Akçura "the negative points of this poHcy included the problems of different laws and likelihood of an increase in enmity between Ottoman citizens, especially after the eqwility measures of the
Tanzimat.,,200 The third and last politicru doctrine was Turkism Akçura aœepted this as the superior choice of the three, espedally for the purposes of the Ottoman
Empire. He was in mvor of an ethnie nationalism where Turkish people united to fonn a large nation.
When Akçum had fust published Üç Tarz-l Siyaset in 1904 ms ideas were regarded as extreme. In time though he developed bis teachings. During the
Young Turk revolution, the CUP govemment repeatedly experimented with
Ottomanism and Islamism, but in vein. Akçura's views started to appeal more and more. The Ottoman Empire everyday became more Turkish speaking and Turkic oriented, due to the continuons loss of non-Anatolian soil and mass immigrations.
During all this time Akçura was working with Gokalp in publishing Tar! Yurdu.
A new breed of historians were emerging who believed in a much wider definition ofTurkism that focused on Central Asia and beyond.
Among such scholars was Mehmet Fuat Koprülü (1890-1966), who became a hlstorian of Turkish literature. He was bom in Istanbul, where he
199 Ibid, 13. 200 Ibid.
69 reccivoo a seeuJar education. He gave up the study of law in 1909 and instead decided to pursue literature and history. He joinoo the nationalist literary movement around 1910, and by the age of 23 he beca.me a professor of Turkish litemture at Istanbul University. In 1915 he began to publish Milli Tetebbüler.
This journal beeame known as one of the earlies! defenders of a high standard of historiography focusing on the pre-Ottoman Anatolian and Turkish peoples and on the Central Asian origins of speakers ofTurkish.201
Koprülü believed that the history of literature often explamed and tracoo the ideologieal and emotional developments that a culture went through.202 As a social product, literature was therefore connected to the social institutions in the midst of which it was produced. For Koprülü, the historian of literature was the person who decoded these relationsmps and searched for a true understanding of the period in which a literary work was produced. This being the idea1, Koprülü tried to establish an objective history of Turkish literature. He also believed that the history being written by Turks was written with a foeus on events, and individuals, whereas the real hlstorian had to describe a people, a specifie geography, a physical race, a social-political entity, before focusing on 203 speeifies. The historian's job was to explain the sdentifie, legal, and economic relationships of one people with another.
Koprülü's attitude towards the past distinguished hlm mnong other hlstorians and he beeame recognized very early. Although publishoo in only five issues, Milli Tetebbüler is recognized as a landmark. As Lewis relates, "the
201 TürkAnsiklopedisi (Ankara: Mini Egitim Basl.mevi, 1975),289. 202 Ibid. 203 Ibid.
70 studies and articles published in tbis journaL. by Ziya Gôlœlp and KoprüJii, and their oollaborators present a new conception of the scope of Turkish history.,,z04
His engagement in the development of the Turkish History Thesis was. however. llinited and .he distanced himself from other historians. He addressed the impommce of scientific methodology but abstained from getting involved in the discussions regarding the natiornilist himory thesis. His quiet but skeptical approach in a way represents the common attitude of the serions scholar fucing
Kemalist himoriography in hs heyday. Yusuf Akçura, on the other band, œcame one of the leading memœrs of the Turkish History Association when it was under
Mustafa Kemal's (Atatürk) direct influence. During the congress in whlch the
Turkish History Thesis was first announce~ Akçura was the president of the an meetings, exœpt the mst day. He also delivered the last presentation of the oongress in wbich he addressed the issue ofhistoriography.
Under Mustafu Kemal Atatürk's directives and bis close surveillance,
Kemalist historiography came to the fore. A few years after the Firm World War ended and the Turkish Republic was founded in 1923, the Ottoman Historical
Society was renamed as the Turkish Historical Society. This change of name expressed the overwhehning Turkish nationalist political ideology of the time. At fum the members of the society and the nature of hs publications remained the same.20S However, things were about to change. To begin with, in 1927, the mm outllne of Kemalist hlstoriography was presented in a three-and-a-half-day long
2tl4 Lewis, 224. 20S Ibid.
71 speech given by Atatürk in October 1927, later published as Nutuk.206 This was
Atatfu'k's version of the events that had led to the development of the republic. Us focus was on the late Ottoman Empire, the development of the resistance against fureign occupation, the independence war and the formation of a secuIar nation- mate from the debris of a fallen empire. ft also addressed the prevailing religious and dynastic issues :from Atatürk's view.
The following year, under Atatürk's orders, the Turkish Historical Society in Istanbul was abolished and re-founded in Ankara with new members. This newly fonned society aimed at transformmg Kemalist historiography mto a general theory ofhistory. According to Poulton,
It was at this time that Kemal Atatürk took the history of Turkey in band. His aim was to destroy what remained of the Ottoman and Islamic feeling of identity, and to replace it by one that was purely Turkish. The Turkish Historical Society became the instrument of mate policy for the imposition of certain historical theories.207
Although the specifics of the Turkish History Thesis were developed throughout the 1930'5, its essential points were already outlined for public educational purposes by the time the First Turkish History Congress was held in 2-11 July
1932.
206 Poulton, 81. 207 Lewis, 224.
12 The First Turkish History Congress
The congress was held in Ankara Halkevi (Ankara People's House) and it was originally planned as an educational seminar for teachers. to introduce the new MOry textbooks. A Kemalist historian. Fahri Çoker, argues that Atatfu'k's interest in generating a platfonn for the university and lyceum teachers to excbange opinions convinced the Turkish History Society to caU the event a oongress.2011 However. the congress hecame a platfonn from which the official dogma ofTurkish nationalism was defended.209
The nine days' proceedings can he loosely divided into three categories.
During the fust three days, fundamental points of the thesis were laid out, while the following three days were devoted to specifies regarding the race, religion and anthropology of the Turkish nation. The final three days of the congress focused on textbooks, historiography and other specifie details (like establishing Islam as the main cause for the faU of the Ottoman Empire). A total of sixteen presentations were given, and fourteen of them were transcribed in full. The names and lecturers of the recorded presentations were as follows:
203 Fahri Çoker, Türt Tarih Kurumu (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1983),3. 209 Mahmut G6loglu, Tek Partili Cumhuriyet (Istanbul: Kalite Yaymlafl, 1974),69. '
73 Tarihten Evvel ve Tarih Fecrinde [Pre-history and the Beginning of
History]. by Met tnan
Türkçe ve Diger Lisanlar Arasmda Ïrtibat [Relationshlps between Turkish and Other Languages], by Smnih Rllat
Türk Irk ve Medeniyet Tarihine Genel Bir Balœ? [A General Examination ofTurldsh Race and Civilization], by Re~it Galip
Ege Medeniyetinin M~ine Genel Bir Balœ? [A General Examination of the Aegean Civilization], by Hasan Cemil Çambel
MIsa Din ve ilahlannm Türklülde Alâkasl [Relations of Egyptian
Religion and Go [A Comparison of the Family Laws between the Primitive Indo-European and Turkish People], by Ahmet Agaoglu Türklenn Antropolojisi [Anthropology of Turkish Race], by ~evket Aziz Kansu islam Medeniyetinde Türklerin Yen [The Place of Turkish People in Islamic Civilization], by ~emsettin Günaltay Türk Edebiyatma Umumi Bir Balœ? [A General Examination of Turkish Litemture]. by Mehmet Fuat Koprülü Tarihin Âmilleri [The Necessities of History] , by Sadri Maksudi Arsal Hint Akraba Kavimleri Arasmda [Among the Hindu Relative Tribes], by ZaytiFenc Orta Kurun Tarihlne Umumi Bir B~ [A General Examination of the HistOly of the Middle Ages], by Afet tnan 74 Sarkta Ïnhltat Sebepleri [The Reasons of Regression ID the East], by Yusuf Hikmet Baym. Müzeler [Museums], by HaID Ethem Eldem Tarih Yaimak ve Tarih Okutmak Usulleœe Dair [About Writmg and Teaching History]. by Yusuf Akçu:ra From the titles of the presentations it was obvious that the congress was designed to establish a defirûtion of the Turkish mtion and ns culture in relation to historic and pre-historic times. It may even he said that it was an attempt to reclaim the word Turk. According to Kemalist historiography, Met lnan. (1908-1981), who was the adopted daughter of Atatürk, had heen disturhed by the negative connotations attached to the word Turk during her studies in Europe and informed Atatürk of n. Western history books accepted the word to mean a bandit, an unruly nomad. while western literary texts used it to domte a cruel and barbaric figure. It was this tradition that motivated her to use the new association to set the record straight. In her opening presentation entnled Pre-History and the Begirming of History, inan. mst explains that history is divided into two distinct periods. pre-historic and historic, by the introduction of writing. As fur as pre- history is concemed, inan. believes human-like creatures, whether deve10ped from one origin or not, are considered humanoids according to the shape of their skulls. She asserts that "those who deserve to he caIled real human heings. those who possess a large skull, are aIl originated from Central Asia.,,210 This statement 210 tnan. Afet, "Pre-history and the Beginning of History" Birinci Türk Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münaka$alar (Istanbul: Matbaacdlk ve N~riyat Türk Anonim ~irketi, 1932), 24. 75 beca.me one of the fOlmdations of the Turldsh History Thesis hecause it establishes Central Asia as the source ofhumanoids. Imm also introduces the nmne of Eugine Pittard. a Swedish anthropologist who had enormous influence on Turldsh œtiomilists as a result of bis work entitled The Races in History (1924). Unknown to today's scholars, in 1930 Pittard was a major defender of the theory that large skull humanoids appeared in the West at the heginning of the Neolithic age, and that they were responsible for the beginning of civilization in Europe.2u inan uses Pittard's work to link Central Asia and Europe, declaring that the 100ts of European civilization lay in Central Asia.212 In fact, according to irnm "those who wish to establish themselves as a great nation always t:ry to link their ancestors to Central Asia.,,213 However, as she points out, this link already exists for the Turkish people, descendants of Central Asian Turks. Therefore. the Turkish race belongs to "a hlgh category and deserves to he recognized as a hlgher race.,,214 In a lecture that admittedly marshals poor scientific evidence, irnm goes further and announces that the Central Asian people ail belong to one race and that ibis race is the Turkish race. "The 100t people of Central Asia are Turks. To t:ry to create another race in its place, to nmne it "Indo= European" is to stand against œture.,,215 inan tries to unite aIl Central Asian people under one race and nmnes this race Turk, with a1most no real proof, relying mostly on Pittard's work. Whatever its merits, her speech estabIishes two 211 Pittard's work figures crucial for the Turkish History Thesis to the degree that he is the guest of honor during the Second Turkish History Congress, heM in 1931. He represents the existence ofa link between Central Asis. and Europe in pre-historie ages. 2121nan, 29. 213 Ibid, 24. 214 Ibid. 2iS Ibid, 41. 76 of the fundamental pillars of the Tmk:ish History Thesis: fust, that the somce of aU human civilization, but especially that of Emope is Central AsUi, and second (and more importandy), that Tmkish is the original race of aU Central Asian people. In the discussion that follows înan's contribution, Mehmet Fua! KopriUü delivers a few words on historical methodology. The significant element in this speech is Koprülü's concem over objectivity regarding the construction of the bistory of a Turldsh nation. He emphasizes that under the directives of Atatürk, scholars h.ad begun eonstructing a Tmkish. history. He acœpts that anthropologieal and linguistic facts can be incorporated mto an explanation of historic or pre-historie civilizations. But, he adds "[t]hings that worm us about the bistorical events are objective things. Yet the style of understanding and analysis of the historical evidences may take different shapes. Meaning, [if we] give the same materials regarding a historieal event to two people with different ideas, the results tbat the !wo will arrive may be totally differenC,216 Thus, it is neeessary to gather aIl available data before eonstrueting a valid history. KopriUü's views are taken as a serious critieism by inan. She adroits that she will mter give a more detailed explanation of her general statements, but she also insists that her views are based on two unshakable facts as presented before, i.e., the Central Asian people's origin is Tmkish, and the language of the se people is Turkish.217 216 fuat Koprüla, Birinci Türle Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar. MÜ1'la/t;(;qalar {Istanbul: Matbaacddc ve Ne~riyat Türk Anonim ~irketi. 1932),41. 217 Afet hum, Birinei Tür! Tarill Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münaka~alar (Istanbul: Matbaacthk ve N~riyat Türle Anonim Sirketi, 1932), 49. tnan is ooncerned that acoording 10 KôprtHü it is 77 fuan's views on Turkish language are in fuet echoed and embmced by the following oontributor, Samfu Rrlàt (1874-1932).:m His paper is entitled The Relationships between Turkish and Other Languages, and in it he sets out to establish 1inguistics as a definitive component of the Turkish History Thesis. Rrlàt asserts, "dwing the pre-historie and historie ages the Indo-Eumpean languages were under the influence of Tuskish.,.219 He helieves that byexamining the mots of the words in different language familles, one can pmve this. In such a study, words need to he deoonstructed into smaller components. He points out that in Turkish, "in sorne cases, even a .single letter can express a meaning, a concept. ,.220 However, because fuis feature is not present in other languages, Mat thinks tbis is a crucial clue that aIl languages of the civilized world are rooted in the same Central Asian origin. 221 He asserts that a linguistic study of the basic elements of Indo-European words will show that Turkish pmvided the building blocks in the forro of single letters and syllables.222 Like 1rum.'s, however, Rrlàt's lecture is also devoid of valid scientific proofs and appears to he mixture of confusing linguistic arguments, restating the dangerous to mix anthropology and linguistics without much study. He acknowledges the theories ofTurkish being a language originating trom ft Central Asian language famiJy. Chinese views on Turks are still unknown to the scholars at the moment and we know that there are people who sometimes forget Il language and adopt another, he inserts. These idea.s challenge Inan's convictions. She refuses that the Turkish language may he effected or originated trom another language. m Sarnih Rdiat was a self-educated man who knew French, Persian and Arabie. He served in various govemment posts under the Hamidian, CUP and RepubHcan states. During 1922 -3 he was the Minister of Education. In 1930 he became one of the founding members of the Turkish Historical Research Association. He died exacdy five months aiter this speech. Çoker, Ibid. 308. 219 RJfat, Sarnih, "The Relationships hetween Turkish and Other Languages" Biri1'lci Türk Tarin Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münakafalar (Istanbul: Matbaacillk ve Ne~riyat TOde Anonim ~irketi, 1932),59. 220 Ibid, 63 221 Ibid, 6S. ID Thid, 69. 78 views of the Association. It bas an enthusiastic tOlle and relies on charged maternents such as "A linguistics school that denies the linguistic features of Turkish language as the source of an western languages must he a school that is trappe In the discussions that follows Rlfat's lecture, Hasan Cemil Çamhel takes the stand and critidzes Koprülü for treating Înan unfaidy. He says that the opinion belongs to the Association as a whole and they are trying to represent it through the available data. Koprülü explains bis position by adding that he does not have any problem with the data, only the data's limited application.224 Mer this brief discussion, Ahmet Caferoglu (1899-1975) presents bis criticism of the new hlstory textbooks.225 He suggests sorne minor corrections regarding the roots of certain words and also explains some of the new information he bas gathered. He challenges sorne of the evidence presented by the Assodation regarding the relationshlp between Turkish and other languages.226 His views attract harsh criticism frorn Rlfat, who in the discussion dismisses Caferoglu as an unreliable scholar who is interested in challenging the books for bis persona! reasons. But Rlfat Boon adds that Caferoglu is still young, and that 223 Ibid. 224 Birinci Tiirk Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münaka:jalar (Istanbul: Matbaaclhk ve N~riyat Türk Anonim ~irketi, 1932), 79-83. 225 Ahmet Caferoglu was bom in Azerbaijan. He finished Kiev School of Bussiness. After the Russian Revolution he retumed to Azerbaijan. He became a student aï the Turkology department of Kufa University. After Russian takeover of the area in 1920 he moved to Istanbul where he studied ai the Literature Department onstanhul University, in 1924. He tben studied at Berlin and Breslau Universities in Germany. He retumed to Turkey in 1929 and became an assistant professer aï the literature Department onstanbul University and in 1935 became a professor. He later beœme the head of tbe Institute of Turkish Studies. Meydan-Larousses, vol. 2, (Istanbul: Meydan Publishers, 1974),728. 226 EiriT/ci Tüde Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münaka§alar (Istanbul: Matbaacllik ve Ne~riyat Türk Anonim ~irketi, 1932), 83-86. 79 the Association will support bis work, for he lS a scholar who shows great . 221 prormse. The second day of the congress focused on anthropology, and it opened with Re~it Galip (1893-1934) giving the fust presentation?2S Entitled A General Examination ofTurkish Race and His/ory, the paper (whose delivery oœupied the entire moming session of three hours dumtion) quotes over one hundred scientists' names, stridently defending the scientific work done by the Turkish Historical Research Association and presenting the anthropological views of the Turldsh lflStory Thesis. Acoordmg to Galip's lecture, the Turkish. people left Central Asia as a result of a series of consecutive droughts in the region. Through. severa! migrations, Turkish people spread their language and knowledge to places like the Middle East, ~ Russia and Europe.229 The hypothesis of consecutive droughts in Central Asia priOT to the beginning of the Neolithic age is in fact the main stay of GaIip's argument. The Turkish History Thesis, as it will become dear later, heavily relies on tbis explanation. However, th.is assumption also generated the fust scientific debate of the congress. :m Ibid. 86-93. 228 Re§it Galip was !:>om in Rhodes and educated in Izmir and Istanbul. ln 1917 he graduated from Istanbul Medical School and became a doctor. In 1919 he moved to Anatolia to work as a doctor in the villages where he helped to organize resistance against occupation. During the formation of the Republic he was assigned different positions. He was one of the members of the Independence TribunaJs dealing with the infamous uprising led by the Kurdish tribal leader Seyh Said in 1925. In 1930 he became one ortbe founding members orthe Turkish Historical Research Association. About !WO months after tbe history congress, Galip became the Minister of Education. He was laier released from this post by Atatürk, after eleven months of service. He spent the rest ofbis life working for the History Association and the Turkisn Language Association. Çoker, 296-7. 229 Re§it Galip. "'A General Examination of Turkish Race and History'" Birinci Tür! Tarin Kongresi: Kon/eranslar, Münalca~alar (Istanbul: Matbaaclhk ve N~riyat Türk Anonim ~irketi, 1932), 160. 80 An independent schom, Zeki Velidi Togan (1890-1910), states bis opposition to this theory in the evenmg discussions.230 He says that the Association had asked him bis opinions regarding the new textbooks and he infmmed them that such consecutive droughts could have happened only during the pre-historie ages.231 He gives the names of several cities that were inhabited throughout the historic ages. He maintains that the real reason for the migration of Turkic peoples during the historic era was over-population and clan disputes.232 Velidi's views, if true. eliminate the link between the Turks and eertain early civilizations, and challenge the assumption that Turkish might have been the original language of an civilization. More importantly, it leaves the Ancient Egyptian, Hittite, and Sumerian peoples outside the influence of migrating Turkish people, even though, according to Galip, Hittites were the descendants of Tunmian people.233 In a sense Velidi proposes a Central Asian source for Turkish identity, whereas the Association was more mterested in generating a link between Turks and ancient Anatolian civilizations. Galip dismisses Velidi's views as obscure and unreliable. Velidi in reply says that he will present bis views later dwing the congress.234 230Zeki Velidi Togan was a historian who was bom in Bashkirdia. He taught Turkish history and Arabie literature in Kazan University 0914-15). He became a member of the Moscow parHarnent as a representative of the Muslim population in Ufa. He later served as the minister of defense for Baskirdia and in 1920 he became its president. After bis problems with the Russian officiaIs, he joined the independence movement, which faHed. He came to Turkey in 1925 and was assigned Il post as a Turkish history teacber. He later received a degree in philosophy from Vienna University, but witb the beginning of the Second World War he femmed to Istanbul where he served as the professor of history at Istanbul University. Meydan-Laro'Usse, vol. l, (Istanbul: Meydan Publisbers, 1974), 189. 231 Birinci Tûrk Tarib Kongresi: Konferanslar. Münakasalar (Istanbul: Matbaacddc ve Ne§riyat Türk Anonim ~irketi, 1932), HiS. 232 Ibid, 170. 233 Ibid, 155. 234 Ibid, 193. 81 The third day of the congress began with a lecture by Hasan Cemil Çambe} (1819-1967) entitled A General Examination of the Aegean Civilizations.235 Hasan Cemil addresses the origin of the Aegean people and roncludes that an koown Aegean civilizations. furthermore Hittites, Sumerians and Egyptians. an descend from the Altaic Turkish people.236 He also introduces the concept of chain reaction (Ieselsal). "History is nothing but a chain of development that slips through an times," he saYS.237 He dearly makes a case for historical evolutionism and acknowledges that the accumulated work of Kepler, Galileo, Descartes and Leibniz in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Md motivated Herder to introduce the idea of evolution to mstorical studies. Applying tbis view to the evolution of the Turkish race, he forges ambitious links between the Central Asian and Aegean peoples. And te further prove the Central Asian influence on the Western civilization, he cites a finding in the Real-Lexicon, an encyclopedia of antmopology: Socrates' skull was a penect match with the original Central Asian Turkic type.238 Mer Çambe!, Fazù Nazmi presents bis views on the new textbooks.239 Nazmi suggests that both Greek and Turkish place-names be used in order to eliminate confusion. As he sees it, it would he proper to accompany the new 235 Hasan Cemil Çambel was bom in Istanbul and received a military education. In 1913, he became the Turkish Military Attaché in Berlin. After tbe independence war, he retired as a colonel and entered poUties. Atatürk assigned him in 1935 as the head of the Turkish Historical Research Association, which then became caHed the Turkish Historical Society. Çambel received an honorary membership from the German Archeological Institute in 1939 for his work. Çoker, 254. 236' Hasan Cemil Çambel. "A General Examination of the Aegean CiviHzations" Birinci Türk Tal"ih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münaka§alar (Istanbul: Matbaaclhk ve Ne§riyat Türk Anonim Sirketi. 1932),201. . 237 Ibid, 207. m Ibid, 212. This source and the information could not be verified. It is included solely for the reason that it describes the mimf-set ofÇambel and the Association. 239 Full Nazmi was a teacher at the Literature Department oHstanbul University. 82 Tmkish versions of these names with the older Greek ones, sinœ rnost of these names were Greek in origin.240 Samili Rûat however dismisse:s Nazrni's concems in hl:s rebu~ insisting tlmt Nazmi can not prove tOOt the Greek language is a language in its own and challenging the usefulness of induding names tlmt are distorted versions of older ones. Much of tb.is rebuttal is, of course, infmmed by the official doctrine tOOt the origina11anguage of humanity is Turkish, and by a wish not to confuse matters.241 He also adds, Fazd Nazmi thinks tOOt the writers of the history taught in our sehools are people who give in to simple judgments. Possibly sorne others will or are aJready of the same opinion, and therefore we must correct such a view... Can we say tb.at hefore the present Greeks, or hefore history, the natives of these mess spoke today's Greeki42 At the end of the third day,243 Samih Rûat and Re~it Galip ernerged as fervent supporters of the Turkish History Thesis, comronting any criticism of the Turkish History Association's work. General points regarding the thesis introduced during the fust three days are aIso clear. They can he categorized as: 1) the origin of aIl civilization, including the present European one, is Central Asia; 2) the original race of aIl human races is Central Asian, and therefore Turkish; 3) the Turkish republic bas ancient ties to Anatolia dating from before 240 Birinci Tilr" Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Milnaka§alar (Istanbul: Matbaaclhk ve Ne~riyat Türk Anooim Sirketi, 1932), 220. 241 Ibid, 231. 242 Ibid, 231. 243 It seems tbat there was another lecture given during tbe fourtb day that was not recorded. At the end orthe fifth day Re~it Galip refers to titis presentation, made by Mehmet Ali Bey, regarding tbe skull types found in an Anatolian site, in Ano. In his reference ta if, Re~it GaHp con fronts AWs insertion tbat tbese were of anather type tben Brachycephal. Galip, 279. 83 the bistorical age, and 4) these theses hold true both antbropologically and linguistiœlly. From the fourth OOy on, the oongress started to hem' specific issues regarding the thesis. Yusuf Ziya Ozer's (1870-1947) presentation, which opened the fourth OOy of proceedings, is entided The Relations between the Egyptian Religion and Gods, and Turcology.244 Ozer's short presentation simply tries to oonvince the audience that linguistic evidence collected by him suggests that the origins ofEgyptian civilization can he traced back to Central Asm. However. bis data is limited and bis presentation seems out of focus. Perhaps bis main point is expressed when he states An .Aryan and Semitic races departed from the Turnnian valley during the beginning of the Neolithic age. Theil primitive language was Turkish. ... Although wherever they traveled they formed language groups that took several shapes as a result of the climate and life style, the fOots of the original language were conserved... the origin of ail the Semitic and Aryan ail languages is Turkish.245 This paper provides a good example of how the Association was able to apply its strength to generate a scientific legitimacy, and employs even premature research like Ozer's. 244 Yusuf Zira Our was Il graduate of Istanbul University Law School, who later taught history and law in the same department. Between 1931 and 1946 he was a member of the parliament. He became known for bis work on identifying many Ancient Greek words in Turkisb and for bis thesis that Turks originaUy fOl.lnded civHization in Anatolia. Çoker, 321. 245 Yusuf Ziya Ozer. "The Relations between the Egyptian Religion and Goos, and Turcology" Birinci Tfirlc Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Mfinakagalar (Istanbul: MatœacJhk ve Nqriyat Türk Anonim ~irketi, 1932), 246. 84 The next presentation was that of Ahmet Agaoglu (1869-1939).246 His paper. entitled A Comparison of the Family Laws among the Primitive lndo- European and Turkish People, addresses the similmities hetween Western and Turkish family laws, pointing to a few fuets that allow Agaoglu to argue that the relationship of Turkish and European civilizations can he expanded to the field of fumily customs and laws. He truly exhausts the concept of historical evolutiomsm in bis conclusion. According to him. there are two types of marriage in all non- Turkish societies (ancient Greek, Hindu, Roman and Germanic societies) consisting in either buying the bride, or stealing the bride. Sinœ Turks have the same traditions, the cultures must have borrowed from each other.247 Needless to say, the origin of tbis tradition points towards Central Asia But Agaoglu leaves this possibility open and orny emphasizes the apparent similarity or relationshlp. The final lecture of that day was entitled The Anthropology of Turks. presented by ~evket Aziz Kansu (1903-1983).248 Kansu's work is concerned with the physical anthropology of the Turkish race, and in it he adopts what was in bis 246 Ahmet Agaoglu was hem in Azerbaijan. He received a secular education. He was accepted to St. Petersburg University to study Political Science, but failed to do so for medical reliSons. Later he moved to Paris where he foHowed nistory and law classes. After the Young Tude revolution, Agaoglu moved to Istanbul, where he worked together with Ziya Gôkalp and Yusuf Akçura, publishing Turkish Hearth. In 1915,with sorne other CUP members, he was arrested bythe British and exiled to Malta. In 1920 he came back to Ankara and worked for the new state and as an independent joumalist. He became a member ortbe parHament witbin the tirst govemment of the RepubJican Peoplc's Party. He later Ieft the party and joined the Republican Independent Party. After the roUng party ahered the election resuhs and RIP lost the election, Agaoglu decided to remain outside the parliament, and became a professar ofhistory oflaw. Çoker, 365-7. 247 Ahmet Agaoglu, UA Compatison of Family Laws in Primitive mdo-European and Turkish People" Birinci Türk Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münaka$alar (Istanbul: Matbaacdik ve N~riyat TUrk Anonim ~irketi, 1932),265. 248 $evket Aziz Kansu was oom in Edime. He graduated from Istanbul Medical School in 1923. He wen! to Paris to stndY anthropology and worked in Sorbonne University's Broca Anthropology 'abs during 1927-9. He became an assistant professor of Anthropology in 1929. Atatürk selecte 85 clay one of the mest oommon sdentmc methods - that of comparing the measurements of skulls. Turkish skuns, he concludes, most resemble the Aryan and French racial type. He also uses measurements ofheight, ofboth the male and female, of each race and concludes that the Western and Turkish races must he directly related: an that remams to he shown is whlch one is the ancestor of the other. Aziz says he bas no doubt that the Europeans came from the Turks, and not the other way around.249 At that point in bis presentation he brought an actual Turkish family on stage. While showmg them to the attending teachers and hlstorians he expla.ined: 1 am introducing to you Apdullah, bis woman and bis little child, whom 1 have found a little north of Ankara, in the village of Baglum. Here, the thin and long nosed brachycephal and what the anthropology books descrihe as the mountam man, the Alpine man, the Tmkish man, (Applause). Apdullah basn't clark eyes; he is lighter man the color ofwheat, with brunette mustache and white skin. But, here is their child: bis haïr is color of gold, also helongs to the Turkish race (Applause).250 Aziz's lecture was followed by Re§it Galip's short criticism of a conference given on the afternoon of third clay, whlch was not recorded. The conference was addressing the latest excavations in the city of Ano and involved a discussion of Anatolian skull types. Galip refutes Mehmet Ali's view that some the skuns found may not he brachycephal?5i This criticism ends the fomth clay. 249 Sevket Aziz Kansu. "The Anthropology of Turks" Birinci Türk Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münaluqalar (Istanbul: Matbaacthk ve Ne~riyat Türk Anonim ~irketi, 1932),277. 250 Ibid, 278. 251 Birinci Türk Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münakasalar (Istanbul: Matbaaclhk ve Ne§riyat Türle Anonim Sirketi, 1932), 279-82. 86 Duri:ng the :fifth clay of the congress speakers further moved on to more details of Tudcish history and the contnoutiom of Tmkish people to the world civilization. The first presentation was entitled The Place of Turkish People in IsJamic Civilization, and it was given by $emscttin Güœltay (1883-1961).252 He states bis belief that Tmks were in charge of the major developments regarding the Islamic history, from as earlyas 750. Turks, for instance, initiated and establishOO the Abbasid dynasty. The commander of the revoit that caused the Abbasid accession was a Turk, Bennekooglu (Barmakid) Halil. The major hero of the accompanying revoIt was also a Tmk, Eba, frOID Horasan. Güœltay says that the essential influences on the Abbasid state were Iranian and Tmkish in origin. Baghdad was personally planned and founded by Bennekeoglu HaID as the capital of a new dynasty, while he and bis son Yahya served the dynasty for many years. Furtherrnore, the well-known school of thought developed under the Abbasid caliphate, i.e., Islamic Rationalism, was 100 by scholar Amr ibn 'Ubayd (d.762-3). Ibn 'Ubayd was also of Tmkish origin; he was from Basr~ a city populatOO mostly by Tmks.253 Günaltay also identifies Abü Hudhayl, another Tmk from Basra, as one of the scholars at Bermekeoglu Halil's court. Abü Hudhayl was the fust Muslim scholar to postulate the idea of atomism, which changed Islamic philosophy zn Semsettin Gilnàltay was barn in Erzincan, Turkey. He received his higher education in Lal.lssanne University, in biology. After serving as a head teacber ai different higb schools, he became li Turkish and Islamic history teacber at Istanbul University in 1914. Later he was the head oftbe Divinity School orthe same institution. In Istanbul, he was involved in the independence movement In 1923 he became a member of the padiament, and continued to he 30 until1954. In 1959 he became the prime minimer of Turkish Republic, a position he lost der the elections of 1960. Meydan-Larousse, vol. 1, (Istanbul: Meydan PubIishers, 1974),433. 253 Semsettin GÜnaltay. The Place of Turkish People in lslamic Civilization, Birinci Türk Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar. MUnaka$llar (Istanbul: Matbaaclhk ve N~riyat Tark Anonim Sirketi, 1932),294-5. 87 forever. Acoording to Günaltay, Abü HanIfa and Anas Ibn Malik were both of Tmkish ori~ too. Thus, he adds, one can say that most of the founding fathers of the IsJamic jurisprudence were Tmkish.254 Gümltay's ambitious list of Tmks who contnbuted to Islamic dvilization include other well-koown figures, like Ibn Sim, Al-Fàrlibi, Ibrahim Merze~ Abü al- W~ as weB as Al-Ma'miin, the Abbasid Caliph under whose patronage the zenith of the translation movement was reached and a grand accumulation of scientific scholarship took p1ace.25S Mehmet Foot Kopriilü gave the second lecture of the day, entitled A General Review of Turkish Literature. Koprülü acknowledges that Tmkish literature cm oot he traced any earlier than the e1eventh century, but that it must have existed hefore. at least in oral fashlon. An epic called Kutadgubilik, written in 1069-10 under Persian influence, and a dictionary of Tmkish called Divan-l Lugat AI-Turk from same era, are the earliest identifiable Tmkish works.256 Koprülü distinguishes between the Tmkish, Hakaniyah, Western Oghuz and Azeri dialects of Tmkish, and presents some data regarding their charactersitics. He concludes, however, that from the thirteenth century onward there exists a large body oftexts that can he studied under the title ofClassical Tmkish Literatme?57 Kopriilü's main concem in tbis paper is to introduce a framework for the study of classical Turkish literatme. Unlike sorne others, he does not engage in nationalistic remarks, and distances himself admirably from the agenda of the 2S4 Ibid, 291. 2S5 Ibid. 298. 256 Mehmet Fuat Kôprfilü, "A Generai Review ofTurkish Literarure" Birinci Türk Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar. Mûnakafalar (Istanbul: MatbaaClhk ve Ne~riyat Türk AnonÎm ~irketi. 1932), 311. 257 Ibid, 320. 88 Association. The same, however, cannot he said of the latter of the two short speeches that followed bis paper. in whlch Hall Nimerullah took the oPPOrtunity to praises the content and methodology of the work doue by the Association. He notes that, as foreseen by Auguste Comte, history was emerging as one of the major disciplines of human knowledge. Unfortunately, it is often a science that is open to personal and national interpretation devoid of objectivity. Bu~ the work presented by the Association is remarkable since it teaches how to write history and what history really is. Ailer suggesting a few details to 00 looked at. he thanks the Association for its great work.2S11 Perhaps this speech is one of the oost examples of MW even criticism of the Association's work OOgan to appear apologetic and deoorated with pmises. During the afterooon sessions of the congress. !WO more lectures are given which are not recorded. The fust one is called The Importance of Seleucids in World History. and presented by Osman Selçuk. The other one is called Aydmogullan, delivered by Halit Bey. The sixth day of the congress marked the OOginning of a shift of focus itom details to historiography. The day OOgan with Sadri Maksudi Arsal's lecture called The Causes of History.259 Arsal presents in bis paper nille specific causes m Birinci Türk Tarin Kongresi: Konferanslar, Miinaka§alar (Istanbul: Matbaaclhk ve N~riyat Tiirk Anonim ~irketi, 1932),327-30. 259 Sadri Maksudi Arsal was bom in Tashlœnt. He stlldied in Islamic Law Schools and in the Rllssian Teachers CoUege. In 1906 he went to Paris and there received degrees both Hom Paris Law Schooland Hom Sorbonne School of Literatllre and Sociology. In 1917 he became the head ofthe parliament in the newly formed Turkish State of Kazan and servoo as the President ofIdil~ Ural State. After the region went under Boishevik control, Arsal traveled to Paris and became an academician who spoke for the independence of Turkish minorities. With the foundation of the Turkish Republic, he was invited to Istanbul and there he became a professor at Ankara Law School in 1925. ln 1930 be became Il member ofthe parHament. He was aIse one the founding members of the Turkish Historical Research Association in 1930. He served as a professor in 89 for historie events: physical and geogmphical causes; psychological causes; great ideas; :rnce; warn of rise and full; evolution; economy; people (sociology); and great personalities.260 Arsal, as was pointed out before, was the one of the two most fervent defenders of the Turkish History Thesis. According to Arsal, much of history takes place under the influence of physical and geographical causes, and it is important to establish the mcts regarding this aspect of events in order io present a valid interpretation. 261 Perhaps tbis indirectly accounts for concem shown by the Association to establish the Ce:ntnd As:ian drought scenario as a comerstone of the Turkish History Thesis. Psychological causes were another subject of debate, and Arsal introduces two different views regarding them. The mst is that of Gabriel Tarde, who defends in bis book Les lois de l'imitation that the imitation by individuals of one another is the essential cause of historic deve1opment. The second and opposite view comes from Emile Durkheim, who rejects the importance of individual imitation as such and proposes that history is a result of social formations within which imitation and invention are performed by societies. Arsal howeverdisregards Durkheim and says individual imitations and inventions are one of the major causes of This directly relates to the Association's attitude towards the historical data they analyze. The Turkish History Thesis relied on Tarde's view, which was Ankara and Istanbul until1950, when he again became a member ofthe parliament and remained 50 until bis death. çoker, 302-3. 260 Sadir Maksudi Arsal, "The Causes of History" Birinci Türle Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, MfJnaka~lar (Istanbul: MatbaacJhk ve Ne~rjyat TOrle Anonim Sirketi, 1932), 344. 261 Ibid. 262 Ibid, 345. 90 a reflection on historical evolutionism. The defenders of tbis view refused the possibility that cultures might develop towards similar ends without being in oontact. Ideas like monotheism and œtiomlism, or IDeans like writing and machinery, must re:!mlt from imitation. Durkheim, on the other band, along with Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Marcel Mauss and Max Weber. was one of the influential names fur the critics of historical evolutionism. who come to the fore in the 1920's. mainly around the anthropologist Franz Boas. This school of anthropology, named historical particularism, was deeplyat odds with European œtionalist scholars. who almost exclusively supported historical evolutimusm.263 After asserting the Association's position on this debate by cbampioning Tarde over Durkheim, Arsal moves on to the great ideas as causes of history. Here, he cites the names of lmmanuel Kant and Friedrich Hegel, and accepts them as true idealists who also understood the phenomenon of human thinking.264 According to Arsal, Hegel's work suggests that history happens as a reswt of Weltgeis! (the spirit of the universe), acting through the agency ofhuman beings. For German natioœlists - and no less so for Turkish natioœlists - tbis term provided a philosophicru and divine purpose for a nation's fOIe in hlstory. Arsal believes that the efIects of Weltgeist can be readily observed in human society. He uses the concept of political freedom as an example, saying that i~ was once a 263 This Îs an interpretation of the anthropologiesl theory during the last halfoftbe 1800·s. Ifthe included works of Marx, Durkheim, Mauss, Weber and Boas in Anlhropological Theory edited by R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms, are read respeetively, development of an anti-sociaJ Darwinist, anti-historieal evolutionist sehool beeomes evident. Namely, the historical particularism develops as Il criticism of the common trend ofhistorical evolutionism. McGee, 83- 156. 264 Arsal, 347. 91 dream but is now a realliy, attributmg its progress to an almost divine inspiration. 265 Assessing the :fuctor of race as a cause of bistory. Arsa1 separates people mto capable and less capable races, statmg how necessary n is for Turkish people to take a position regarding fuis issue. However. the Association was not interested in establisbing who is better. As Arsal puts n, "We say that among the humans, the race that hest served the development of civilization was the race that developed in. Central Asia, who were the origin. of the Turks today; and a particWar feature of fuis race was its heing Brachycephal... 266 Regarding wars of cise and :fall as causes of history, Arsal speaks of important conflicts as tuming pomts for specific civilizations. This leads him to speak of evolution, which he identifies with Charles Darwin. and Herbert Spencer. As he sees it, the Turkish History Thesis accepts tOOt history is developmg in a certain. direction, and he cites both these illustrious names in. support, but adds that the directiQn of the develQpment needs tQ he identified. Yet bis use lOf Darwin and Spencer m fuis CQntext is problematic. Fust, Darwin.'s theQry of evolution does rot in.clude bistory, and so any reference to him pomtless. Meanwhile, Spencer only refers to an unspecified direction of historical development. and he falls short of endorsing a theory of progreSSe In fact, Spencer only helieves tOOt aIl societies sea:rch for similar ideals, like democracy, mdustrialism, 50 on, and he 26S Ibid, 348. 266 Ibid, 350. 92 refuses the possibility of a divine or spiritual intervention helping to determine its Economies as a cause ofhistory constitutes the largest segment of Arsal's presen.tation. It immediately tmns, oowever, into a eriticism of Karl Marx and communism. The popularity of Marx's thought does not justny its scientmc value, Arsal says. Those who c1uster around Marx's teachings resemble the early French revolutionists who changed nothing yd brought much choos.268 Here he echoes the classic popular nationalist argument that nationalism stands for order while communism brings only chaos in its wake.269 As for the remaining causes, Arsal affirms that people are the troe makers of each historie moment and that history belongs to them,270 while great personalities constitute a c1ear example ofthis, such as in the case of Napoleon, or Luther; he ends bis lecture on tbis theme by pointing to Atatürk as one of the prime creators ofTurkish History.271 261 McGee, 21. 268 Arsal, 354. 269 ArsaTs criticism ofMarxist economics seems to resuh from the historical context. The Turkish History Association is Il cultural institution under the direct influence of Atatürk, the President who is involved mostly with cultural affairs. Meanwhile ismet inônU, the Prime Minister is tbe one who is in charge of the state affairs. Wbile Atatürk is a liberal capitalist, witb a limited understanding of eoonomics, înonü is a sociaiist nationalist, influenced by Russian progress at the moment. In 1931, only months before the Turkis~ History Congress, Ataw"k's and Înônü's views clash regarding the economics of the new republic. When Turkey decides to build a paper factory, înonü's minister of eoonomics, Mustafa $eref Ozkan, blocks h Bankasl, a semi-private bank, from founding it. Atatürk, who was one of the founders of the bank, intervenes but Înônü oonvinces him that ihis is an important issue that cannot be left to the private sector. Atatürk agrees, yet to meUow down the socialist policies of the state replaced Ozkan with Celai Bayar, who at the moment of conflict was the head of î~ Bankasl. In retum înônü al50 receives what he wants: Statism becomes one of the pillars of the KemaHst nationaHst agenda. Even today, in Turkish politics, the left is associated with the Iegacy of lnooii. Such association with Atatürk does not exist or manufactured by the inônü-ist for political purposes. See Dilek Bartas. Etatism and Diplomacy in Turkey (Leiden: Brm, 1998), 66-13. Aiso Mahmut Gôloglu, Tek Partili Cumhuriyet (Istanbul: K.alite Press, 1974),44-41. 270 ArsaI, 358. 271 Ibid, 36 L 93 During the aftemoon of the sixth day, a heated debate took place hetween Zeki Velidi Togan and Re~it Galip. First. Togan offered new proofs and critidsm for the Central Asian drought theoxy. and challenged its logic. He pointed to the contmuous existence of certain large chies from where the supposed migrations originated. None of these cities could he sho'Wn to have suffered such drastic draughts. he adds, claiming that the reason for migrations must have heen over- population and clan disputes.272 Maintaining that an the chies supposedly emptied due to water shortages today have identifiable ruins remaining dose to existing city ceniers, he casts serious doubt ontothe degree to wmch they were a factor in the Turkish History Thesis.273 He adds that Turkestan and Kazakstan cannot he shown to have suffered from drought during the historie ages.274 Re§it Galip spoke after T ogan and presented sorne figures regarding the water level of Aral Sea in order to prove that the drought theory holds true. In our record of the debate he daims !hat, heginning in 1880, the water level descended continuously for twenty~five consecutive years. followed by orny two years of stability. In 1908 the water level rose for two years orny to fan again for about four years.275 Hence the area had heen subject to droughts for most of the modem era und1 then. It seems that Galip helieves tms to he sufficient proof that there were serious water shortages throughout historic times as well. Mer Galip, Sadri Maksudi .Arsal offered bis views. Arsal speaks of the dties Zeki Velidi Togan mentioned, saying, "Velidi accepts that an of these dties 272 Birinci Tarie Tarin Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münaka~alar (Istanbul: Matbaaclhk ve Ne§riyat Tl.lrk Anooim ~irketi, 1932), 315. 273 Thiel. 274 Ibid, 316. m Ibid, 388. 94 cm he stilllocated. He suggest sources for aU bis statements but in these sources to wmch he refers) there are no pmofs of what he says. ,,276 In fuct, he adds, it was Togan's attitude of saying one thing here and mother thing there that made the Association uncomfortable aoout using bis work.277 In the end, according to .Arsal, it :is impossible to confum the location of my of the cities of wmch he """"",'Ir", 278 s~. Finally, ~emsettin Günaltay voices his opinion on Togm's work. In bis eyes Togm:is collecting proofs for anti-Turkish scholars; he :is a separatist who divides the Turkish people and jeopardizes thek unity. As before, Günaltay accuses Togan.279 At tbis point the audience started tO shout 'shame on you' at Togan. This unpleasant incident ends the sixth day of th~ presentations. The seventh day of the congress begm with a new lecture by Met inan. entitled A General &amination of the History of the Middle Ages. lnan's presentation is a review of the history textoooks printed by the Association. The first important feature of the textoooks that she addresses is their depiction of the Hunan Invasion of Europe and Attila Khan's reign as the earliest reference to a Turkish national identity.280 According to inan, Europe was aJready inhabited by different nations during the beginning of the invasion, but the superiority of the 216 Ibid, 391. 277 Ibid, 390. 278 During his presentation, Velidi says that he had traveled to mos! ofthese cities, identified their mins and talked to oiher experts conceming their locations. Ibid, 373. 279 Ibid, 400. 280 Afet fuan, "A General Examination of History of the Middle Ages" Birinci Türle Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Mfinalca§aJar (Istanbul: Matbaaclhk ve Ne§riyat Türk Anonim ~irketi, 1932),420. 95 Turldsh people won became evident after the invasions and challenged the existing order.281 :lnan next addresses the content of the textoooks regarding· the history of Islam. She defends the notion that Islam is secondary to the Turkish identity. To prove tbis view, she focuses on the Abbasid and Egyptian dynasties. As Günaltay mentioned earlier, the Tmkish people initiated the Abbasid revoIt and ruled the early empire in the perron of the Bermekeoglu, who controlled the Abbasid rea1m through their advisory and military posts. In fact, Ïnan adds, it was the execution of Hanm Al-Rashid's vizier Carer Bermekooglu that began the slow decline of Abbasid Empire.282 After tbis, the Tmkish and Persian peoples no longer respected the caliph, which in tum brought the empire into dissolution. Ïrum.'s second focus regarding the relationship of Islam and the Turkish people is the minor Egyptian dynasty founded by BaYIk Bey in 868. Started as an uprising against the local rulers and Abbasids, BaYIk Bey, a Tmkish military leader, decided to act as an independent mler. He was loyal to the caliphate, but independent from the Abbasid Empire. He brought great wealth to Egypt. By 877 he had conquered most of Syria, and after bis death, bis children govemed until 900.283 According to Ïnan these events prove the existence of a Tmkish identity, influential on the margins of Islam and not subject to it. She speaks about other events like the invasion of Anatolia in 1071 by Turks and the victories of Timm, as great moments of Tmkish history. "We can say" she continues, "that until the 2S1 Ibid. m Ibid, 42ft 283 Ibid, 43 L 96 sixteenth œntmy, Turks were ahead of Europeans, as regards the :ïnstitutional, intellectual and economic aspects of lire . .,284 It was not until late in the seventeenth œntmy that Europe became more advanced, long after the Turkish conquest of Istanbul m 1453. Now, she explains, a new nation is coming mto being, building on a new foundation set in place by the independence war, and it is going to he a "monument that will always rise from tbis very same sourœ (Anatolia).,,285 In a sense Ïrum's presentation inaugurates a new and even more important historical argument: tbat Islam is only a secondary element in Turldsh national identity. It was a view talœn up by Yusuf Hikmet Bayur on the eighth day of meetings, confuming the position of the Turldsh History Thesis in regards to Islam. But before that, a heated debate took place followmg Ïnan's lecture on the seventh day. During the aftemoon session, Avram Galanti Bodrumlu (1874-1961), an 2 independent historian, presented bis criticism of the new textbooks. !!6 Bodrumlu states that a prominent schoIm, Grafton Elliot Smith, had spoken of the EgyptÏan and Sumerian dvilizations as being very oId, whose origins cannot he traced as far as archeology and history are conœmed.287 In fact, he points out, the only schoIm willing to acœpt the possibility of a link hetween Central Asia and the 284 Ibid, 443. 285 Ibid,444. 286 Avram Galanti Bodrumlu was barn in Bodrum. He worlœd as a professor at Istanbul University. He was known to be very weil educated on history and language and knew severa) languages, including ancient ones. Most of his works were written in French. Meydan-Larousse, vol. 2, (Istanbul: Meydan Publishers, 1974). 287 BirinCÎ Türk Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Miinaka§alar (Istanbul: Matœaclhk ve Ne§riyat Türk Anonim Sirketi, 1932),446. 97 Egyptians and Sumeriam is W. M. T. Petrie, and even Petrie believes tbat such a lIDk is still oot proven. 288 Bodrumlu's comribution provoked a long criticism by Samih Rnat. Accorrung to Rnat, European historians are not in agreement with Turkish schoJars because they consider the Turkish interpretation of history invalid.289 However, they are slowly learnmg from their Turkish colleagues iliat there is linguistic and archeological evidence to back up the Turkish History Thesis.290 Rlfut ooumers, by cÏting the work of Frits Hommel, a German Turkologist, who wrote several volumes on the possibility of bath Sumenan and Egyptian cultures sharmg a oommon source in Central Asia. While askmg Bodrumlu to examine Hommel's work, he dismisses Smith's starements as coIlfused.291 Rrlàt also critidzes Bodrumlu for vaguely implying tbat the absence of Turkish words from the Hebrew Bible may confirm the existence of other strong lmguistic traditions. He dismisses tbis view, arguing tbat the Hebrew Bible constitutes a very new source in comparison to the Central Asian Turkish culture.292 This statement highlights a common weakness in the Turkish History Thesis. The Association tried constantly to posit a single source for an lmown languages, refemng to pre-historie times (befme writing) for proof. It is, however. impossible to pinpoint an original language ai such a period, because of the absence of written records. But tbis flaw also served as an advantage to the 233 Ibid. 289 Ibid, 452. 290 Ibid. 291 Ibid, 4S6. 292 Ibid. 478. 98 history thesis. Its assumptions could oot he proven wrong simply because of tbe lack ofproof. The new thesis rested quite comfortably on this polemic. On the eigbth day of tbe congress. Yusuf Hikmet Bayur (1891 0 1980) delivered bis lecture entitled The Reasons of Regression in the East.293 This lecture marked the declaration of an official dogma on wbicb the Ttu'kisb Republic relies, even today. Bayur identifies Islam as the major cause of regression in thé East. He separates TurkÏ5h bistory mto three periods: pre- historie, historie up to the eleventh œntury, and from the eleventh century onwards. He foenses mainly on the later em, bowever, and identifies the cause of decline moong the Iranian, Arab and Turkisb peoples as their anti-secularism. 294 Acoording to Bayur, the tbird and most reœnt period of Turkisb history hegan with the invasion of Anatolia, ailer the victory over the Byzantines in 1071. He points out thaï "Turks established their political hegemony over Anatolia, the land that was their original land, and both the old and new Turks who inhabited tbis area were able to integrate immediately.,,295 From the heginning, political control of the area was a crucial issue. Of all sciences, however, politics was the one Turks mastered hest. Even the essential figures of Islamic civilization like Al Farabi, Ibn Sina or Al-Biruni who were great political thinkers, were Turks.296 293 Yusuf Hikmet Bayur graduated from Istanbul Galatasaray Lyceum. He went to Paris University. When he retumed, he started to teach at the Lyceum. Around 1919, he joined the independence movement and in 1920 he became the General Director orthe Ministery ofExterior. In 1923 he started to work at tbe London Emhassy orthe new republic. Later he served as the semi-Embassador of Turkey in Belgrade (1925). In 1921, he became the head secretary orthe Presidential Offices. He became the Minister of Education in 1933-34. Meydan-Larousse, vol. 2, (Istanbul: Meydan Publsihers, 1914). 294 Yusuf Hikmet Bayur, "Tbe Reasons of Regression in the East" Birinci Türt Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Münakafjalar (Istanbul: Matœaclhk ve Ne~riyat Tiirk Anonim Sirketi, 1932),491. 295 Ibid, 492. 296 Ibid, 491. 99 But. as an immignmt popuJation, they came to live under the Abbasid and Arab rulers~ within the confines of Persian and Muslim culture. This posed a great threat to the Turks "because, precious children of the Turlcish wodd who went to China, India, Persm, Egypt and Europe as soldiers, were often loosing their original identities.,,297 Furthermore, after loosing their own identity, most of these Turks began helping to defend their new patrons against the new waves of Turldsh migration, and in the end found themselves fighting against each other.298 Mer the establishment of Anatolia as a Turkish land, this changed. According to Bayur, :from 1071 on, Anatolia entered into a five hundred years- long period of integration. By the fifteenth century, Crimeau Turks were oollecting taxes with their well-known "Golden Anny." Timur's impressive Turkish mate was standing to the east of Crimea as the dominating power. Bahur, a Turk by lineage. was controlling an empire of physical and cultural supremacy in India. In the Near East, the Ottoman Empire was finally the true power. Only in Persia, Hikmet adds, was the situation unstable, for though its rulers were also Turkisb. they were engaged in senseless arguments regarding Sunni and Shilie poSItiOns.• • 299 Mer a few remarks on the importance of Turkish people during the sixteenth century, Bayur moves on to discuss the mter years of the Ottoman Empire, to ils decline and fall. Bayur insists that tbis decline period "was unlike others in prior centuries ... because in tbis time aU Turkish states have declined and 297 Ibid. 298 Ibid, 492. 299 Ibid, 493. 100 come to the point of disappearnnce ...300 According to Bayur, there were three categories under which the reasons for decline could he classified: social, historical and spiritual reliSOns; geographical and economic reasons; and fiœlly 6'reasons that after a certain period cause the decline of astate which does not confinn to national sovereignty.,,301 The fact that the Turkish people had a strong national identity helped the Ottoman Empire survive from the fifteenth century on, ahh.ough the mst two categories of reasOilS were already present, Bayur adds. Islam, although it was capable of forming great states in the hegmnmg, traditionally depends on ancient methods that grow more stagnant with time. And '~e state's narrow area of govemmg and influence in time grows even more narrow.,,302 As science and culture advance, religions like Islam create barriers standing in the way of the application of modem ideas. This further complicates the issues facing a govemment.303 In fact, Bayur believes that Turkish national identity cOMonts Islamic identity. that Turks become assimilated mto Islam. They give up their true culture for religious doctrines and even when Turkish leaders hecome rulers, they find it necessary to establish an Islamic authority in order to he able to rule over Muslim oommunities.304 This prompts him to ask, "Why do Turks accept an alien culture, and why do they accept Islam?,,305 300 Ibid, 496. 301 Ibid. 302 Ibid, 501. 303 Ibid, 503. 304 Ibid, 504. 305 Ibid, 505. 101 According to Bayur, Turks faver Islam over other religions because it is the mast logical religion mown to people. It does not suifer from the contradictions that other religions do regarding spiritual issues like the afterlife and the nature of God. Islam is logical also m regard to temporal issues, like governing a state, and the politicallife of a community.306 \ Bayur also reviews European politiœl affairs during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and underlines two reasons for the progress of the region. First, Europe bas evolved towards secularism m a commuous fushion, separating' smte and religion further and further every day. Second, European thinkers propagate and adopt a new forro of state in which the national identity is fully embraced.307 What oonstitutes tbis feeling of Dationality? Bayur aœwers: These are the things we see in the roots of this feeling: mm, it is the feeling !hat binds people who spea.k the same language and read the sa.me books and newspapers. begin to think in similar fushion, are intluenœd by the same issues, are proud of the same history. are holding similar hopes for the future. Beyond this. it is the solidarity of those who acmowledge the needs and benefits of each other quickly by the help ofbooks and newspapers.308 This was the only definition of "nation" given durmg the congress, and it pays much attention to the prmted media and language, which confirms tmt Turldsh nationalists were aware of the role played by the latter in spreading national identity. Bayur's definition al.so admowledges the necessity of thinking in the same fushion. In this respect he anticipates the notion of the centraJization 306 Ibid, 506. 307 Ibid, 509. J08 Ibid. 511. 102 of cognition, one of the essential features of nation-building. T 0 organize an educationaI system by which people can he educated to think. in a similar fashion for the henefit of the nation-state is the ultimate challenge of every such state. In fact, the congress major aim was to organize a thesis of history for educational purposes and prmoote its new textbooks for tbis end. We have also seen tbat the orny explicit de:finition of nation given during the congress came in the contexl: of a harsh criticism of Islam, and an open declaration of preference for secularism. Nation was to he a spiritual substitute for the central component of the old solidarity, previously oœupied by the religion ofIslam. Bayur's is the most elaoorate presentation for it c1early identifies the mission of the oongress, the Association and of the thesis as a whole. He oovers the issues of history. religion and nationalism, while aIso bringing the history up to date. After addressing the decliœ of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of European powers, he moves into the Turkish war of hberation and ends by praising Atatürk as the one who taught the Turkish people how to stand together as a nation. 309 The eighth day of the congress c10sed after a short presentation by Halil Ethem, who spoke about the importance of museums.310 The following day, the last day of the oongress, had orny one lecture scheduled. Entitled Writing and Teaching History, it was delivered by Yusuf Akçura. According to Akçura the Ottoman historiography hefore and during the Hamidian era was limited in its methodology. During the Hamidian era especially, history was feared and its 309 Ibid, 529. 310 Ham Ethem, "Museums'" Birinci Tûrk Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Mûnalul§alar (Istanbul: Matbaacilak 'Ile N~riyat Türk Anonim ~irketi, 1932), 532-566. 103 teacbing probibited; books were even collected and bumed. Mer the Young Turk Revolutio~ things cbanged, says Akçura. It was then that be became a hlstory teacber and tried to teacb methodology througb limited sources. He introduces sorne of the publications and translations available to teach the methodology of hlstoriogmpbyand suggests that the teachers ofhls day inquire into them.3il Akçura states that the subject of aU hlstory is events. Events that can he explained and subject to present logic are open to study, whereas events that have been exaggemted and can not he proven are not, because !bey are myths. Sinee the late nineteenth centW"y, many ideas have heen revised, Akçura adds. For the purposes of such revis ion many techniques were applied. The events that history studies are to he found in sources such as manuscripts. Most of these sources present a mixture offact and fiction that is bard to distinguish.312 It is nonetheless necessmy to examine the available material and understand the content. It is importantto he objective during such exa.m:ination, althougb even in "European historlans who work only to find the truth are not many. Oft~ the historian camot avoid trying to prove an earlier point, a previous goal, for one or the other reason".. 3l3 Also, in many of the European histories that supposedly follow objective criteria, European civilization, Christianity and the Aryan race are presented as inherently hlgher orders.314 Therefore, Akçura continues, there are 311 Yusuf Akçunt, "Writing and Teaching History" Birinci Türk Tarih Kongresi: Konferanslar, Mün(J~(Jlar (Istanbul: Matbaacllllc ve N~riyat Türoc Anonim Sirketi, 1932), S77-IB. m Ibid, 585. m Ibid, 581. 314 Ibid, 581-1. 104 serious differenœs hetween Marxist and. other historians and conflicts between 3lS French, I~ English and German historians as wen. Mer making these points, Akçura moves on to the historiography of the Turkisb RepubHc. In the past, Ottoman bistorians were aligned with Islmnic histonography, he says.:H6 Until the Tanzimat. an histories written cm he said to have fit wo a similar pattem.311 After Tanzimat, however, their approach started to change, and they showerl a growing awareness of European issues.318 But the Turkish people's search for a history oftheir own started with nationalist feelings. He identifies the Tarih-i Alem of Süleyman Pasha, written in 1876, as the fust history book focusing on Turks and using European standards.319 He gives other examples of Ottoman and European mtellectua1s who merl to establish a Turkish Dationalism and therefore studied history.320 In the final days of the Ottoman Empire, history was monopolized by the Hmnidian regime. But after the coming of the Young Turks, history was popularized. Dwing tbis period historiography had deep French influences.321 He believes this caused early Turkish bistoriography to he topological but not essentialist, naturalist but not spirit~ genernting a negative influence on Turkish 3IS Ibief. 316 Ibid, 589. 317 Ibid, 59 L m Ibid, 592. 319 Ibid, 593. 320 Akçura observes no conflict in the partnership ofhistoriography and nationalisme As far as he is concemed. to become Il nationalist means to study history and interpret it according ta nationalism. Today, we see the construction of li nation through historiography as awkward, yet for the nationalist of the eady twentieth century. this was precisely the fashion in which a nation was built. 321 Ibid,595. 105 nationalism.3n Akçura says Atatürk was the fust person that wanted to solve th.is problem.323 In the end the Turkish Historical Research Association was able to develop a new thesis that stood up against the old one, and against ones influenced by European and Aryan favoritism.324 Akçura higbligbts sorne aspects of the new thesis, and cornes to the conclusion that "History is not an abstract science. History is for life, for retaining of the nation's and tn'hes' lives, its past, for developing its power".325 The European· powers often used history to justify their domination of the so-called lower races, trying to prove their superiority. But, We absolutely do not accept tbis view that does oot fit withjustice and the truth. For a week now, my mends who spoke before you have proved that the issue of race, which the Europeans put forwaro for the pmposes of domination, bas no scientific value. We are not to look at the people of colonized nations from the viewpoint of the colonizing nations; we recognize an the people who live in this world as people who are subjects of the same law as the European people, not as people who are herded. as if they were a flock of animals, in order to feed and fatten the Europeans.326 These were the final words spoken at the congress, and they were met with resounding applause. The aims of the state and the Association were realized in nine days, for the congress was a sound victory on behalf of the nationalist minded scÏentists and hlstorians. The alliances between hlstorians and statesrnen 322 Ibid. 596. Akçura believes tllat ignoring the metaphysical aspects ofnationalism is detrimental for natiOllalist ideology. Any nationalism without spirit is weak, and the historiography of any nation bas te go beyond material facts.lt must address the nation's emotions and sout 323 Ibid, 591. 324 Ibid. 599. 325 Ibid,605. 326 Ibid, 607. 106 were cleared and the new ideology of the mate was put forward. The MOry textbooks discussed during the congress becmne a part of the education system. Moreover, the proceedings of the Turkish History Thesis were announced tbrough newspapers, like Cumhuriyet. whlch published the important speeches on the following day. 107 Conclusion Turkish nationalism deve10ped alongside a variety of other nationalisms in the multi-ethnic Ottoman society of the late nineteenth century. Indood, the Ottoman Empire was far from heing alone, in that different nationalisms were emerging throughout the Europe and elsewhere in the same era. Thus, Eric Hobsbawm's assertion that there existed an m'Tay of popular nationalism holds troe. However, the uniqueness of the Turkish nationalism and others also nood to he addressed. In thls respect, a recent study by Fatma Müge Goçek, entitled The Social Construction of Nationalism in the Middle East, offers a comparative perspective on the deve10pment of nationalism among the subjects of the Ottoman Emprre, and draws on the similarities and differenœs in the œtionalist projects among Ottoman subjects. Goçek's work is not aIone in expressing uniqueness of the T urkish nationalist project. The same view emerges from an essay written by Ernest Gellner, entitled the Turkish Option in Comparative Perspective.327 A oommon feature of the two works mentioned above is their recognition of the role of religion in œtionalist projects in the Ottoman constituency. Religion seems to have offered a stable source of identity, not only for the Turkish but a1so for the Armenian, Greek and Arab nationalisms. There seems to have heen only one other criterion that came dose to religion in tbis respect: language. Both Goçek and Gellner reflect on language too. Furthermore, the use of language and 327 Ernest Gellner. Turkish Option in Comparative Perspective, 00. Sibel Bozdogan and Rc§at Kasaba, Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). 108 religion for œtiomilist purposes for the Turldsh apologists is addressed by many otber scho1ars, including Bernard Lewis, Hugh Poulton and Stanford Shaw, to nameafew. In this study, the status of religion and language as two of the major elements in the construction of Turkish nationalism is admowledged. They are, indeed the prime components out of wmch Turkish national identity is constructed. But, what this research sought to discover was the medium by wmch Turldsh nationalism was built, and in the end the primary medium bas been shown to be histonography; the Turkish History Thesis was the manifestation of the Turkish national identity, presented in its most public expression in the context .of nine-day-long congress attended by historians. history teachers, educators, scientists and politicians. As fi was :mentioned in the introduction, one. of the problems ofhaving the Congress as subjects was the scarcity of secondary sources. Aside from the works of Hugh Poulton, B~ra Ersanh and Etienne Copeaux, there are very few works addressing the Congress in detail. In general, tbis research was also an attempt to suggest a proper context in wmch the Congress could be examined and to present the Congress proceedings in detail. The idea was to focus on the pre-1932 period, i.e., on the period of critical thinking that lead to the Thesis. Regarding the modem histonography, tms research presented the Western context, linked the important developments to the development of popular and state nationalisms. Presentation of the Western context was necessary because both nationalism and 109 modem bistoriography are, in their essence Western ideas, adapted to the construction of a Turkish nationalism and the Turkish History Thesis. There is one more point that tbis study med to make, but it was a subtIe one, and perhaps speculative as well. One may observe (on the basis of information presented in the second chapter) that Ottoman historiography underwent a transformation hefore Turkish nationalism developed into a serious force. Methodological inquiry into the past and the inclusion of a universal context: for Ottoman history appear to have been major concerns for bistorians as early as Katip Çelebi (d.167 5) and Naima (d.1716). Furthermore, with the heginning of the reform era, we zee a concerted attempt to transform the discipline. Thus, as early as 1863, lectures on the philosophy of history were offered at university level Ottoman historiography, although already in a reformist mode, hecam.e subject to Turkish nationalism towards the end of the nmeteenth century, and was forced to abandon its roots in order to adapt to the new nationalist context. This was a result of; at first, the official approach of the CUP and, later, the Turkish Republic's outlook on history writing. The Congress proceedings of 1932 clearly indicate the divide that existed by then between those who supported the official view of history and those who opposed it. The camps were defined as those willing to help build the nation and those who were unwilling to he co-opted. ls it not it safe to ask then, and tbis is the speculative aspect mentioned above, whether historiography offers the most suitable medium in which to construct a nation? HO Mer an, Mwe1se cm a .chlld he persuaded that he or she helongs to a certain natio~ when that nation did not exist until a decade hefore? In bis work entitled Nations and Nationalism. Ernest Gellner draws our attention to the faet that an industrial society depends on cognitive and economic growth. 328 The education policies of most counmes target the cognitive growth of their societies. hecause education is an extremely efficient tool in the centralization of cognition, in generating a uniform identity among the subjeets of a mate. This accounts perfectly for the Turkish History Thesis. launched at a congress originally designed as a teacher' s conference on new MOry textbooks. The congress was a pseudo-scientific declaration of the undisputable Turkishness of the citizens of the republic, to he taught to the future generations. Finally, one aIso wonders, if hlstoriography is so effective a tool in building a nation, to what does it owe thls strength? A possible explanation may lie in its !wo major Ingredients: in the fust place it is scientific, and in the second, it is a narrative. We saw it in the first chapter of tbis study how the scientific aspirations of hlstorians were aimed at acquiring that scientific standing. In terms of narrative, hlstoriography is capable of following a homogeneous line, isolated from the l'est of the surrounding events while re-constructing the past.329 Much like a nove~ it can follow a predetermined course, for a predetermined effect. For nation builders, tbis combination is sublime. Not orny can hlstoriography follow an isolated and uniquely Turkish storyline, but it also does tbis while scientifically attesting to the existence of a Turkish nation. 328 Gellner, 110. 329 Anderson. 1(iS. 111 Re-consider the opemng paragrnph of Arnold J. Toynbee's A Study of His!ory from this perspective, which was completed in 1946, in the aftermath of World War Two: Historians generally illustrate ratller tban correct the ideas of the commW1Ïties within which they live and work, and the development in the last few centuries, and more particularly in the Iast fuw generations, of the would-be self-sufficient national sovereign state bas led historians to choose nations as the normal fields of bistorical study. But no single nation or national state of Europe can show a history which is in itself self-explanatory. 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