View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Sabanci University Research Database THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND “THE REST OF THE WORLD”: LATE OTTOMAN FIRST PERSON NARRATIVES REGARDING THE OTTOMAN PERCEPTIONS ON THE NON EUROPEAN WORLD AND THE OTTOMAN PERIPHERY by CAN VEYSELGİL Submitted to the Institute of Social Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Sabancı University August 2011 THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND “THE REST OF THE WORLD”: LATE OTTOMAN FIRST PERSON NARRATIVES REGARDING THE OTTOMAN PERCEPTIONS ON THE NON EUROPEAN WORLD AND THE OTTOMAN PERIPHERY APPROVED BY: Asst. Prof. Dr. Y. Hakan Erdem …………………………. (Thesis Supervisor) Asst. Prof. Dr. Selçuk Akşin Somel …………………………. Asst. Prof. Dr. Nedim Nomer …………………………. DATE OF APPROVAL: …………………………. © Can Veyselgil 2011 All Rights Reserved THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND “THE REST OF THE WORLD”: LATE OTTOMAN FIRST PERSON NARRATIVES REGARDING THE OTTOMAN PERCEPTIONS ON THE NON EUROPEAN WORLD AND THE OTTOMAN PERIPHERY Can Veyselgil History, MA, 2011 Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Y. Hakan Erdem August 2011, xi + 289 pages ABSTRACT This thesis is a study of the late Ottoman modes of perceptions and conceptions of the non-European world and their own Arab provinces. It is based on a systematic comparison of the Ottoman perceptions and conceptions with the European colonial discourses and its rhetorical modalities. The main argument of this study is that the Ottoman response to the Western discourses in the context of the non European world and the Ottoman Arab periphery were dualistic in nature. It was the internalization of the fundamental aspects of the European colonial discourses while resisting many aspects of it. The sources used in this study are the late Ottoman travelogues and memoirs. In the course of this study the main characteristics of the orientalist discourse as a fundamental part of the colonial discourses and the rhetorical tools of the colonial discourses are discussed in order to render a systematic comparison with the European discourses possible. Then, it was respectively followed by a systematic comparison between the Ottoman perceptions of the non-European world and the European visions on the non-Europe and between the Ottoman perceptions of the Arab periphery and the European visions on the Orient. This study claims that there were both convergences and divergences between the Ottoman and European perceptions and conceptions of the world around them; it investigates various factors that had contributed to these convergences and divergences. Keywords: Colonial discourse, Orientalism, Ottoman orientalism, Ottoman periphery, Ottoman travelers iv OSMANLI İMPARATORLUĞU ve “GERİ KALAN DÜNYA”: OSMANLILARIN AVRUPA DIŞI DÜNYAYI VE OSMANLI ÇEVRESİNİ ALGILAMALARI ÜZERİNE GEÇ DÖNEM BİRİNCİ KİŞİ ANLATILARI Can Veyselgil Tarih, Y. Lisans, 2011 Tez Danışmanı: Yar. Doç. Dr. Y. Hakan Erdem Ağustos 2011, xi + 289 sayfa ÖZET Bu çalışma geç dönem Osmanlıların Avrupa dışı dünyayı ve kendi Arap eyaletlerini algılama ve kavramsallaştırma biçimlerini incelemektedir. Bu inceleme Osmanlı algılamaları ve kavramsallaştırmaları ile Avrupa kolonyal söylemleri ve onun retorik unsurları arasındaki sistematik bir karşılaştırmaya dayanmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın temel argümanı Osmanlının Batılı söylemlere Avrupa dışı dünya ve Arab eyaletleri bağlamında verdiği yanıtın ikili bir doğaya sahip olduğudur. Bu yanıt Avrupa kolonyal söyleminin en temel veçhelerini içselleştirirken pek çoğuna da direnmiştir. Bu çalışmada kullanılan kaynaklar geç dönem Osmanlı seyahatnameleri ve anılarıdır. Bu çalışmada kolonyal söylemin temel parçalarından biri olan şarkiyatçı söylemin temel karakteristikleri ve kolonyal söylemin retorik araçları Avrupa söylemleri ile sistematik bir karşılatırmayı mümkün kılmak için tartışılmıştır. Bu tartışma sırasıyla Osmanlının Avrupa dışı dünyayı algılaması ile Avrupa dışına Avrupalı bakışlar ve Osmanlının kendi Arap çevresini algılaması ile Avrupa’nın doğu imgelemi arasındaki sistematik karşılaştırmalarca takip edilmiştir. Bu çalışma Osmanlı ve Avrupa algılamaları ve kavramsallaştırmaları arasında hem yakınlaşmalar hem uzaklaşmalar olduğunu iddia ettikten sonra bu yakınlaşmalar ve uzaklaşmalara katkıda bulunmuş unsurları incelemektedir. Anahtar Sözcükler: Kolonyal söylem, Şarkiyatçılık, Osmanlı Şarkiyatçılığı, Osmanlı çevresi, Osmanlı seyyahları v To my holy trinity: mother, father, and wife vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Michel de Certeau describes history as an operation which consists of the relations among the social place, the analytical procedures and the construction of text. These analytical procedures and social place are directly related to the institutions in which you are engaged while thinking, learning, teaching, acting and writing. I would like to express my gratitude to my graduate university Sabanci and undergraduate university Bilgi. These two universities have contributed to my analytical skills and critical reflexes to a great degree. I am appreciative of Sabanci since it enabled me to work as a teaching assistant. I learned a lot from this job. I am grateful to all my professors and friends in these institutions. A special thanks to Aslı Odman who was the supervisor of my senior project in my undergraduate education. She helped me to learn how to cope with a mass of sources and finds the ways of organizing them. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis advisor Hakan Erdem for all his suggestions, comments, corrections and patience. He has also been very influential in my choice of this subject thanks to his sources and methodology course on the 19th century Ottoman Empire. I am also grateful to jury members Akşin Somel and Nedim Nomer for their valuable comments and suggestions. All these three people were very patience with regard to my delays, lateness, and troubles. I am also indebted to the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) that financially supported me with its domestic scholarship program for graduate students. Beyond this institutional and professional context, the construction of a text for many times is a painful and disappointing process. I have needed people who show me that the world and history contain more than our words can reveal to us and the world and history outruns any categories we might seek to use to capture them. Love is something whose functions are to show these realities since it performs beyond the limits of representation and interpretation. Therefore, people who remind you the limits of representation and interpretation with their love are valuable for the process of writing. I owe this thesis to these people: my parents Emine and Tayfun Veyselgil and my beloved Duygu. I wish for Duygu a happy marriage with me, for my mother a peace of mind after the compeletion of this thesis, and for my father to keep his enthusiasm for the late Ottoman first person narratives. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................1 1. The European Colonial Discourses ..............................................................................3 1.1. New Imperialism ....................................................................................................3 1.2. Eurocentricism and the Diciplinization of the European Social Sciences .............6 1.3. Edward Said’s Orientalism and Post-orientalist Literature ....................................8 2. The Ottoman Responses to the West ..........................................................................10 2.1. The Late Ottoman Empire in a World History Context .......................................10 2.2. Occidentalism and Anti-colonial Nationalism .....................................................13 2.3. The Ottoman Visitors of Europe ..........................................................................16 2.4. Ottoman Image Management ...............................................................................22 3. The Ottoman Perceptions of the Non-European World .............................................24 3.1. Orientalism alla Turca .........................................................................................24 3.2. Sources on the Ottoman Perceptions of the Non-European World: Late Ottoman travelogues and memoirs .......................................................................................29 4. The Ottoman Perceptions of the Arab and African Provinces ...................................30 4.1. The Notions of “Ottoman Orientalism” and the “Borrowed Colonialism” ..........30 4.2. Premodern vs. Modern Ottoman Administrative Practices: The Role of Islam ...32 4.3. Coercion or Mediation? ........................................................................................34 4.4. Sources on Ottoman the Perception of Arab and African Provinces: Late Ottoman memoirs and travelogues .......................................................................................39 CHAPTER 1: THE COLONIAL DISCOURSES .................................................42 1. Said’s Orientalism ......................................................................................................42 2. Problematizations and Critiques of Orientalism ........................................................47 2.1. Questions of Reality vs. Representation ............................................................47 2.2. Question of Causality and Motivations ...............................................................52