S. ERDEM SÖNMEZ MEHMED FUAD KÖPRÜLÜ AND THE RISE OF MODERN HISTORIOGRAPHY IN TURKEY THE RISE OF MODERN HISTORIOGRAPHY IN TURKEY MEHMED FUAD KÖPRÜLÜ AND A Ph.D. Dissertation by S. ERDEM SÖNMEZ Bilk ent Uni ent Department of History İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University v Ankara ersity 2018 ersity May 2018 MEHMED FUAD KÖPRÜLÜ AND THE RISE OF MODERN HISTORIOGRAPHY IN TURKEY The Graduate School of Economics and Social Sciences of İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University by S. ERDEM SÖNMEZ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY İHSAN DOĞRAMACI BİLKENT UNIVERSITY ANKARA May 2018 ABSTRACT MEHMED FUAD KÖPRÜLÜ AND THE RISE OF MODERN HISTORIOGRAPHY IN TURKEY Sönmez, S. Erdem Ph.D., Department of History Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Oktay Özel May 2018 This dissertation focuses on the intellectual and historical work of a historian who played a crucial role in the emergence and institutionalization of history as an academic discipline in Turkey: Mehmed Fuad Köprülü (1890 -1966). Situating his scholarly work and activity within its historico-political context, this study thus aims to pres ent an extensive and historicizing analysis of Köprülü’s historiography and his substantial contribution to the professionalization of Ottoman-Turkish historical writing. It, moreover, treats Köprülü as one of the most important agents of the Turkish nation-building process in the late Ottoman and early republican era, and reveals how his programmatic historiographical production contributed greatly to the nationalist project by providing it with a scholarly valid historical master narrative regarding Turkish history and national past. Keywords: Historiography, Mehmed Fuad Köprülü, Nation-Building, Ottoman/Turkish Historiography, Turkish Nationalism. iii ÖZET MEHMED FUAD KÖPRÜLÜ VE TÜRKİYE’DE MODERN TARİHÇİLİĞİN DOĞUŞU Sönmez, S. Erdem Doktora, Tarih Bölümü Tez Danışmanı: Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Oktay Özel Mayıs 2018 Bu tez, Türkiye’de tarihçiliğin, akademik bir disiplin olarak ortaya çıkışı ve kurumsallaşması sürecinde çok önemli rol oynamış bir tarihçi olan Mehme d Fuad Köprülü’nün entelektüel mesaisine ve tarihsel çalışmalarına odaklanır. Söz konusu entelektüel mesaiyi ve akademik üretimi tarihsel -politik bağlamına yerleştirmek suretiyle, bu tez, Köprülü’nün , hem kendi tarihçiliğinin ve hem de Osmanlı -Türk tarihya zımının profesyonelleşmesine yaptığı katkının kapsamlı ve tarihselleştirici bir analizini sunmayı amaçlar. Bu çalışma, ayrıca, Köprülü’yü geç Osmanlı -erken Cumhuriyet dönemi ulus -inşası sürecinin en önemli aktörlerinden biri olarak ele alır ve Köprülü’nün, Türk tarihine ilişkin akademik geçerliliği haiz büyük bir tarihsel anlatı oluşturmaya adanmış prog ramatik tarihyazımsal üretiminin , milliyetçi projeye katkısını serimler. Anahtar Kelimeler: Mehmed Fuad Köprülü, Osmanlı/Türkiye Tarih çiliği , Tarihyazımı, Türk Milliyetçiliği, Ulus- İnşası iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of many people. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Oktay Özel for his guidance , patience, and attentive help. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to the core committee members Ferdan Ergut and Evgeniy Radushev for their inspiring comments and constructive suggestions on the early drafts of this work. Many thanks as well to İlker Aytürk and Suavi Aydın, who agreed to join the defense committee and gave me excellent advice and criticism during the defense itself. I should also express my most sincere gratitude to Kudret Emiroğlu, Özer Ergenç and Mehmed Ö. Alkan, who contributed greatly to my formation as a historian. It is always difficult to express how much one owes to friends and colleagues for their help, support and intellectual companionship. I feel the greatest gratitude, for everything, toward Ah met Nezihi Turan, Resul Ay, Muzaffer Doğan, Ahmet Özcan, Fırat Korkmaz, Gözde Orhan, Selim Tezcan, Ayşegül Avcı, Abdürrahim Özer, Sena Hatip Dinçyürek, Özgür Çataltepe, Cengiz Yönezer, Ebru Sönmez, Doğuş Özdemir, Erkan Bedirhanoğlu, Polat Safi, and Ozan Gü rlek. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my parents and Ceyda Karamürsel for their understanding, support and encouragement during my work on this dissertation. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ iii ........................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ vi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER II: THREE WAYS OF POLICY HISTORIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................. 10 2. 1 Construction of an Identity, Foundation of a History ......................... 15 2. 2 A Watershed in the Policy, A Shift in the Historiography ................. 33 2. 3 Beyond the Dominant Ideology: The Emergence of Turkism ........... 56 2. 4 In Lieu of a Conclusion ...................................................................... 79 CHAPTER III: THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF HISTORY, THE FORMATION OF THE HISTORIAN ...................................................................... 81 ........................................... 88 3. 2 A Young Man Searching for Himself in a Turbulent Era ................ 121 ars: A Traumatic Transformation in the Twilight of the Empire ....................................................................... 139 3. 4 In Lieu of a Conclusion .................................................................... 172 CHAPTER IV: THE HISTORIAN IN THE FIELD: LAYING THE SCHOLARLY FOUNDATIONS OF THE NATION ...................................................................... 175 4. 1 The Rise of Nationalist Historiography in the Ottoman Empire ...... 179 Methodology ............................................................................................ 193 4. 3 Deploying the Nation in the Course of the War: Milli Tetebbular (The Journal of National Studies) .......................................... 208 4. 4 In Lieu of a Conclusion .................................................................... 228 CHAPTER V: FUAD: FROM CENTRAL ASIA TO ANATOLIA, FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MODERN ERA ....................................................................................................... 231 5. 1 A Mythical Past in Ancient Central Asia ......................................... 259 vi Connection, Strengthening the Continuity .............................................. 270 5. 3 The Turkification and Islamization of Anatolia ............................... 283 5. 4 The Evolution of Anatolian Turkish Literature: From its Beginnings to the Nineteenth Century ............................................................................ 297 The Magic Touch of a Strong Hand ....... 304 CHAPTER VI: ........ 306 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................... 321 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ‘la pratique historique est tout enti ère relative à la structure de la société ’1 Today, Mehmed Fuad Köprülü (1890 -1966) —or, Köprülüzâde Mehmed Fuad until the enactment of the 1934 Surname Law —is considered to be the founder of modern Turkish historiography by almost all scholars of Ottoman/Turkish history. Even a brief look at his scholarly life and work corroborates this consideration and demonstrates that he indeed played a pivotal role in the emergence and institutionalization of history as an academic discipline in Turkey. During his approximately thirty- year career as a professional historian, Köprülü spearheaded the establishment of major historical associations, published and managed many academic history journals, held the deanship of the Faculty of Literature at Istanbul University for one and a half decade, and, thus, contributed greatly to the construction of an appropriate institutional structure for scholarly historiographical practice in the country. Moreover, he also made a genuine effort to introduce and consolidate the contemporary methodological principles of European historiography 1 ‘The p ractice of history is entirely relative to the structure of society’. Michel de Certeau, ‘L’opération Historiographique ,’ in L’Écriture de l’histoire (2 nd ed.), (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), 75 –76. 1 in Ottoman/Turkish historical writing. He, in other words, strove to establish the disciplinary standards of modern historical scholarship as the norms of Turkish historiography by publishing numerous articles on methodology, reviewing almost all newly issued works of Turkish historians and Western orientalists, pointing out the methodological problems of these studies, and harshly criticizing traditional forms of history writing. Additionally, he trained many young historians, supervised the first doctoral dissertations written in the field of history in Turkey, and left a deep imprint on the subsequent development of Turkish historiography. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he constructed the first —and at least for a long time the unique —scholarly valid historical master narrative regarding w hat he called ‘Turkish national history’. Tracing the historical evolution