WELL-PRESERVED BOUNDARIES: FAITH AND CO-EXISTENCE IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY GÜLEN GÖKTÜRK IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION SEPTEMBER 2015 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Meliha Altunışık Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Prof. Dr. Ayşe Ayata Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Prof. Dr. Onur Yıldırım Supervisor Examining Committee Members Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kürşad Ertuğrul (METU, ADM) Prof. Dr. Onur Yıldırım (METU, ECON) Assoc. Prof. Dr. E.Attila Aytekin (METU, ADM) Prof. Dr. Esra Danacıoğlu Tamur (YTU, PSIR) Assist. Prof. Dr. Aslı Iğsız (NYU, MEIS) I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name: Gülen Göktürk Signature: iii ABSTRACT WELL-PRESERVED BOUNDARIES: FAITH AND CO- EXISTENCE IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE Göktürk, Gülen Ph.D., Department of Political Science and Public Administration Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Onur Yıldırım September 2015, 294 pages The purpose of this dissertation is twofold; firstly, it focuses on the transformation of the social identity of Orthodox Christians from religious to national in the region of Cappadocia in the late Ottoman Empire through an analysis of the relationship between co-existence practices of religious communities and their ultimate nationalization. Secondly, it opens a debate about the romanticist view of the Ottoman Empire, which portrays it as “a land of tolerance” and Ottoman plurality as “a historical example of multiculturalism”. In pursuit of these goals, this dissertation is based heavily on the Oral Tradition Archive and the library of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies. The region of Cappadocia was chosen as the setting for this dissertation due to the fact that it was devoid of any visible hostility between religious communities even during the age of nationalism; hence, if one is to talk about “peaceful cohabitation,” no other part of the Empire but Cappadocia would be better qualified to buttress the prevailing romanticism. However, even there, iv people maintained their community borders and established their social identities on the basis of religious differences and, when the Ottoman rule was challenged during and after the Balkan Wars, people found themselves more intensely engaged on the path of nationalization. Based on an analysis of plurality in Cappadocia, this dissertation offers a normalizing perspective against the existing romanticism with a special emphasis on the role of pre-existing social relations in national identity formation. Key words: Ottoman tolerance, antagonistic tolerance, religious nationalism, Anatolian Orthodox, Greek Protestants. v ÖZ İYİ KORUNMUŞ SINIRLAR: GEÇ DÖNEM OSMANLI İMPARATORLUĞU’NDA İNANÇ VE BİR ARADA YAŞAMA Göktürk, Gülen Doktora, Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Prof. Dr. Onur Yıldırım Eylül 2015, 294 sayfa Bu tezin iki amacı bulunmaktadır. İlk olarak, dini cemaatlerin ortak yaşam pratikleri ve onların nihai milletleşmeleri arasındaki ilişkinin analizi üzerinden geç dönem Osmanlı İmparatoluğu’nda Kapadokya Bölgesi’nde Ortodoks Hıristiyanların sosyal kimliklerinin diniden milliye dönüşümüne odaklanmaktadır. İkinci olarak, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nu “bir hoşgörü toprağı” ve Osmanlı çoğulluğunu “çokkültürlülüğün tarihi bir örneği” olarak gösteren romantik bakış açısını tartışmaya açmaktadır. Amaçlarının takibi için bu tez ağırlıkla Küçük Asya Araştırmaları Merkezi’nin Sözlü Gelenek Arşivi’ne ve kütüphanesine dayanmaktadır. Kapadokya bölgesinin bu tez için seçilmiş olmasının sebebi milliyetçilik çağında bile cemaatler arasında görülür bir çatışmadan yoksun olmasıdır. Eğer biri “barışçıl beraber yaşamadan” bahsedecek ise, imparatorluğun başka yeri değil ama Kapadokya var olan romatizmi desteklemenin hakkını en iyi verir. Ancak, orada bile insanlar cemaat sınırlarını korumuş ve sosyal kimliklerini dini farklılıkları üzerine kurmuşlardır ve Osmanlı yönetimine Balkan Savaşları sırasında ve vi sonrasında meydan okunduğu zaman, insanlar kendilerini daha yoğun bir biçimde milliyetçilik yoluna bağlanmış bulmuşlardır. Kapadokya’daki çoğulluğun analizine dayanarak, bu tez önceden var olan sosyal ilişkilerin milli kimlik inşasındaki rolüne özel bir vurgu yaparak mevcut romantizme karşı normalleştiren bir bakış açısı sunar. Anahtar kelimeler: Osmanlı müsamahası, antagonistik müsamaha, dini milliyetçilik, Anadolu Ortodoksları, Rum Protestanlar. vii For Eleni viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful to my advisor Onur Yıldırım for his support and encouragement not only during the writing process but also at every other step in my academic life thus far. I still remember the very first time I knocked his door in 2005 as a sophomore who wanted to become an academician. From that moment on he shared his knowledge and experience with me. Through times when I felt discouraged by unlucky experiences he never let me give up. I owe so much to him. I wholeheartedly thank the members of my thesis committee, Kürşad Ertuğrul, E. Attila Aytekin, Aslı Iğsız and Esra Danacıoğlu Tamur for their time, valuable critiques and supportive attitude not only during the defense but also before and after. I particularly thank Aslı Iğsız for exchange of ideas in our first meeting in New York, for inviting me to one of her lectures and for unhesitatingly sharing with me her unpublished article. I should like to thank the Turkish Scientific Council (TÜBITAK) for supporting me within “graduate student research program 2214-A” at Wellesley College in 2014 and to Anastasia Karakasidou for inviting me to the U.S. to work with her for my dissertation. I would like to express my special thanks to Stavros T. Anestidis, the director of Centre for Asia Minor Studies, for facilitating my research process and to Dimitris Kamouzis for his valuable advice during my time at the centre. I would also like to thank Sia Anagnostopoulou for being my advisor when I was an Erasmus exchange student at Panteion University in 2013 and for her valuable advice during our short meetings. I owe thanks to Prodromos B. Spirakos for unhesitatingly giving me precious photos of his refugee origin grandparents. My thanks also go to John Tzevas, the director of Greek Historical Evangelical Archive, for sharing with me documents and information about the Greek Protestants, and to Anastasia Papazoglou for hosting me many times in her village, Neokaisaria, and inviting me to an annual gathering of Cappadocians in Greece. Lastly, it was a precious opportunity to meet Cemal Kafadar and to exchange ideas for my thesis. I thank him for inspiring me as a great scholar and as a modest person. ix I wish to thank my high school friends for always making me feel their presence especially when I am abroad. I have never felt lonely during thesis writing process. A special thanks is reserved for Mine Toker for helping me in formatting and for Aytek Soner Alpan for our exchange of ideas and sources and his assistance during my first days in Athens. I have spent and shared the long Ph. D. process with Esin Kıvrak. I thank her for her support and friendship. I also thank Margarita Pavlou, Rudina Billa, Haris Mexa and Sofia Siasou for being great friends and a great family to me during my visits to Greece. My greatest debt is always to my parents. Without their support and patience, I would have given up long ago. They have always encouraged me with their unconditional love and never ending effort. My history lover and story-teller father inspired me so much to become an academician. He enjoyed my dissertation topic as much as I did and took me to several Cappadocian settlements to track the traces of Anatolian Orthodox together. Finally, I would like to thank Eleni Patoucha for hosting me for months; for making her apartment home to me, for patiently teaching me Greek, for helping me in my translations, and more than that for being an elder sister to me. I have learned so much from her. This dissertation is dedicated to her. x LIST OF TABLES Tables Table 1 ................................................................................................................................55 xi LIST OF FIGURES Figures Figure 1. The Exchange Memorial at Neokaisaria. ........................................................ 2 Figure 2. Flyer of the fifteenth pan-Greek Gavoustima of Cappadocians ..................... 4 Figure 3. The Hasatani family in their local costumes in Sille, Konya. ....................... 14 Figure 4. Map of Cappadocia.. .................................................................................... 15 Figure 5. Kayabaşı: An Orthodox Christian neigborhood in the nineteenth century Niğde. ........................................................................................................... 102 Figure 6. Anatolian Christians from Nevşehir. .......................................................... 111 Figure 7. An inscribed stone panel of a house