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Domesticating Kemalism: Conflicting Muslim Narratives About Turkey in Interwar Yugoslavia

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Nostalgia, Loss and Creativity in South-East Europe

Part of the book series: Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe ((MOMEIDSEE))

Abstract

This chapter explores Yugoslav Muslims’ view of Turkey in the interwar period. More precisely, the chapter shows how imagining Turkey was a truly transnational venture—that is to say, conflicting discourses on Turkey and its inhabitants were fashioned through interactions among people, goods, and ideas happening largely across, and beyond, state borders. Trans/international and local at the same time, the act of imagining Turkey thus became a practice of reflection on several thorny issues affecting Muslim individual and collective trajectories, and of expressing anxieties and expectations concerning the place of Muslims in a post-Ottoman world.

Research for this chapter has been made possible thanks to the support of Transfaire—Matières à transfaire. Espaces-temps d’une globalisation (post-)ottomane, a research program financed by the French National Research Agency (ANR-12-GLOB-003).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Chetnik movement was a Serbian anti-Axis and anti-Communist movement led by Draža Mihailović that was active in the Yugoslav space during the Second World War. They engaged in resistance activities for limited periods and, in order to contrast with Communist partisans, in tactical or selective collaboration with the occupying forces for almost all of the war.

  2. 2.

    On the Muslim intellectual debates in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Yugoslavia, see, in particular, Karčić 1990, 1999; Karić 2004.

  3. 3.

    These words complete the title of the same chapter. See Mulalić 1936, 431.

  4. 4.

    On the fortunes of Kemalism in the Muslim world, see the seminal work of François Georgeon, “Kémalisme et monde musulman: quelques points de repère” (Georgeon 1987, 1–39). As shown by recent scholarship, the interest towards Kemalist Turkey transcended the borders of the Muslim world. For an overview of the German fascination for the Turkish model in the Thirties, see Ihrig 2014.

  5. 5.

    The article does not take account of any sources that might exist written in the Turkish and Albanian languages by the Muslims of Yugoslavia.

  6. 6.

    On different theories about the Islamization of South-Eastern Europe since the nineteenth century, see Clayer and Bougarel 2013.

  7. 7.

    On the first ten years of activities of the JMO, see Purivatra 1977. On the activities of JMO leadership in the Thirties and during the Second World War, see Hasanbegović 2012.

  8. 8.

    On the association Gajret, see in particular Kemura 1986.

  9. 9.

    For an overview of Bosnian Muslim political life, see Filandra 1998. On Bosnian Muslims and the national issue, see Bougarel 2003, 100–114.

  10. 10.

    Anđelko Vlašić, “The perception of Turkey in Croatian press, 1923–1945”, https://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/711296.The_perception_of_Turkey_in_Croatian_press_1923–1945.doc. (Consulted in May 2016).

  11. 11.

    “Ripercussione delle vittorie kemaliste nei paesi di lingua araba”, Oriente Moderno, II (1922–23), 290–291.

  12. 12.

    V. P. “Nacionalna selekcija”, Budućnost, 5 (1919), 57–8.

  13. 13.

    For the first episode of the series, see “Srpska epopeja”, Gajret 9 (1924), 151–9.

  14. 14.

    The feuilleton is probably taken from Georges A. Ghentchitch, L’Epopée serbe. Héros et martyrs (Ghentchitch 1915, 12–13).

  15. 15.

    For a biography of Hasan Rebac, see Kemura 1986, 160–161.

  16. 16.

    The same ideas were also expressed a few years later in Rebac 1925.

  17. 17.

    Vlašić, “The perception of Turkey”.

  18. 18.

    However, the delusion for the abolition of this institution did not inspire Muslim notables to involve themselves in the 1924 convention in Mecca for the restoration of the Caliphate, launched four months after the abolition. Bosnian Muslim religious and political leaders attended two of the five most significant Pan-Islamic conventions held during the period between the two World Wars, in Jerusalem in 1931 and in Geneva in 1935. They had wanted to attend the congress in Cairo in 1926 but were prevented by Yugoslav authorities. On this topic see Karičić 2007, 114–21.

  19. 19.

    Privremeni ekzekutivni odbor “Reforme”, “Naša prva riječ”, Reforma 1 (1928), 1.

  20. 20.

    On the interest of Yugoslav journals in the personal link between Mustafa Kemal and King Alexander, see Teodosijević 1998, 17.

  21. 21.

    Arhiv Jugoslavije, 66/451/710—Minister of Education to Minister of Foreign Affairs (10 June 1939).

  22. 22.

    Harold Courtney Armstrong, Kemal paša, Sivi vuk (Belgrade: Narodna kultura, n.d.).

  23. 23.

    Vlašić, “The perception of Turkey in Croatian Press”.

  24. 24.

    Historijski Arhiv Sarajevo, 96/1939, Narodna Uzdanica’s Central Committee to Edhem Bulbulović (6 March 1939).

  25. 25.

    “Važne izjave Reis-ul-uleme”, Jugoslavenski list, 10 December 1927.

  26. 26.

    On the experience of Hikjmet, see Jahić 2004. On the role of Hikjmet in the life of the Bosnian/Yugoslav Islamic community, see Jahić 2010.

  27. 27.

    Chameran 1348 [1929b], 143

  28. 28.

    Chameran 1348 [1929a], 116–119

  29. 29.

    On the same topic, see also Arslan 1351 [1933b], 312–314.

  30. 30.

    Chameran 1351 [1933], 285–288

  31. 31.

    Chameran 1352 [1934b], 191

  32. 32.

    Chameran 1352 [1934b], 192

  33. 33.

    Chameran 1352 [1934a], 127

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  1. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre d’Études Turques, Ottomanes, Balkaniques et Centrasiatiques (CETOBaC), Paris, France

    Fabio Giomi

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  1. Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Catharina Raudvere

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Giomi, F. (2018). Domesticating Kemalism: Conflicting Muslim Narratives About Turkey in Interwar Yugoslavia. In: Raudvere, C. (eds) Nostalgia, Loss and Creativity in South-East Europe. Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71252-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71252-9_7

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