Ottoman/Turkish “Official Nationalism”

Soleimani, Kamal

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-59940-7_4

Kamal Soleimani³

Part of the book series: The Modern Muslim World ((MMUS))

428 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter, the author questions the idea of “the latency of Turkish nationalism,” based on which the Turks were the last Muslim community, in the Ottoman Empire, to gravitate toward nationalistic ideals. Such claims clearly ignore the Ottoman state’s practice of Turkification of the language and bureaucracy and its official nationalism.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 69.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 89.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 119.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
For more on the concept of official nationalism see: Benedict R. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 83–111.
2.
Cf. Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876–1909 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998). Şerif Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas, 1st Syracuse University Press ed., Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000). Erik Jan. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 3rd ed. (London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004).
3.
Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 85.
4.
Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 3.
5.
Michael E. Meeker, A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), xiii.
6.
Guha, History at The Limit of World-history, 35.
7.
See Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey.
8.
Meeker, A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman legacy of Turkish modernity, xiii.
9.
For a profound philosophical critique of this type of historiography, see Guha, History at The Limit of World-history.
10.
Ibid., 36.
11.
Taner Akçam, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide (New York: Zed Books, 2004), 52.
12.
Ibid.
13.
Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, 13.
14.
Taner Akçam, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide (New York: Zed Books, 2004), 62.
15.
See Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 83–111.
16.
Akçam, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide, 63.
17.
Billig’s statement is not specifically made about the Ottoman context. See, Billig, Banal Nationalism, 5.
18.
See Karpat (2005). Also, for more on religious management in the Ottoman Empire, especially from 1876 to the 1880s see, Zürcher (2010).
19.
See Chaps. 6 and 7.
20.
Cf. Celîlê Celîl, Kürt Halk Tarihinden 13 İlginç Yaprak/Thirteen Interesting Pages from Kurdish People’s History, trans. Hasan Kaya (Istanbul: Evrensel Basım Yayın, 2007), 33–56.
21.
Cf. Takin Alp, Türkleştirme/Turkification (Istanbul: Resmli Ay, 1928), 3.
22.
Akçam, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide, 65.
23.
Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 86.
24.
Ibid.
25.
Kumar, The Making of English National Identity, x-xi & 20.
26.
Ibid., 30.
27.
Cf. Şerif Mardin, Religion, Society, and Modernity in Turkey, 1st ed. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2006).
28.
Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State, 11–12.
29.
Selim Deringil, “They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery,” 312–13.
30.
Murat Ergin, “Chromatic Turkishness: Race, Modernity, and Western Scholars in the Construction of the Turkish National Identity “(Unpublished PhD dissertation, The University of Minnesota 2005), 138.
31.
Fuat Dündar, Modern Türkiye’nin Şifresi: İttihat ve Terakki’nin Etnisite Mühendisliği, 1913–1918/the Code of Modern Turkey, Arastrma-Inceleme Dizisi (Cagaloglu, Istanbul: Iletisim, 2008), 89.
32.
Ibid.
33.
Wolf’s explanation of state centralization policies in France, quoted in Kumar, The Making of English National Identity, 32.
34.
Murat Belge, “Genç Kalemler and Turkish Nationalism,” in Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity: Conflict and Change in the Twentieth Century, ed. Kerem Öktem, Celia Kerslake, and Philip Robins (Basingstoke England; New York; Oxford: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 28.
35.
Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 85.
36.
Belge, “Genç Kalemler and Turkish Nationalism,” 28.
37.
Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State, 14.
38.
Cf. Ergin, “Chromatic Turkishness: Race, Modernity, and Western Scholars in the Construction of Turkish National Identity”.
39.
Guha, History at The Limit of World-history, 15.
40.
Shissler, Between Two Empires: Ahmet Agaoglu and the New Turkey.
41.
Ergin, “Chromatic Turkishness: Race, Modernity, and Western Scholars in the Construction of Turkish National Identity,” 90.
42.
Shissler, Between Two Empires: Ahmet Agaoglu and the New Turkey, 24.
43.
Cf. Alp, Türkleştirme.
44.
Ibid.
45.
Ibid., 20.
46.
Ibid., 20.
47.
Ibid., 20.
48.
Makdisi, “Ottoman Orientalism,” 779.
49.
Alp, Türkleştirme, 34.
50.
See Chap.2 in Dündar, Modern Türkiye’nin Şifresi.
51.
Cf. Makdisi, “Ottoman Orientalism,” 781–88.
52.
It was Mahmud II (1789–1839) who—in order to turn it into an actual state apparatus—incorporated the office of Shaikh al-Islam, the highest clerical position in Sunni Islam, into the state bureaucracy.
53.
Makdisi, “Ottoman Orientalism,” 769.
54.
Alp, Türkleştirme, 18.
55.
Ibid., 31.
56.
Ibid., 32.
57.
Ibid.
58.
Ibid. One should remember that this type of nationalism has been lauded by scholars such as Berkes (1965), Lewis (1961) and Landau as a civic, non-racial, and non-ethnic nationalism.
59.
Alp, Türkleştirme, 32.
60.
See the following sections.
61.
Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism: 85.
62.
Yusuf Akçuraoğlu, Üç Tarz-i Siyaset/Three Types of Politics (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Kadir, 1327/1911), 3–7.
63.
“Ittihadi ‘Enasur Meselesi/the Question of the Ethnic Elements’ Unification “Sirat-i Mustaqim/The Straight Path, (5, no. 121, 1910), 280–83.
64.
Ibid.
65.
See, Akçuraoğlu, Üç Tarz-i Siyaset.
66.
Ibid., 5–6.
67.
Irk is generally translated as race. However, in this context ethnicity seems to be a better rendition.
68.
Ibid., 5.
69.
Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas, 19.
70.
Makdisi, “Ottoman Orientalism,” 770.
71.
Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State: 4.
72.
Kumar, The Making of English National Identity, 30.
73.
Ibid.
74.
Akçuraoğlu, Üç Tarz-i Siyaset, 16–28.
75.
For a very interesting discussion on figures like Yusuf Akçuraoğlu, see Shissler’s introduction in: Shissler, Between Two Empires: Ahmet Agaoglu and the New Turkey.
76.
Akçuraoğlu, Üç Tarz-i Siyaset, 16–28.
77.
Karpat, Studies on Turkish Politics and Society: Selected Articles and Essays, 206–07.
78.
There is no doubt that Gökalp was very critical of previous Turkish generations. Yet, at the same time, his reading of the Ottoman past was much more complex than that of the later republican ideologues. Like his contemporaries, Gökalp’s soul searching meant that his nationalism was shaped by his opposition to the recent Ottoman past. Therefore, his rereading of the past was overly paradoxical. Gökalp criticized the pro-Tanzimat officials for their secretive assimilatory policies and lack of public emphasis on Turkishness, for relegating the economic arena to the non-Turks and for their overreliance on bureaucrats (idareciler) instead of the common people. The latter, according to him was detrimental to Turkishness. For instance, he claims that
the Turks’ abstention from the ideal of nationality was both harmful for the state and troublesome for the ethnic groups and was fatal to the existence of Turkishness. Because they considered nationality as a living nation [of which] the state [was an embodiment], the Turks did not know that their social and economic existence was degenerating. While economic and social domination was shifting to other elements [unsurlar: ethnic groups], the Turks were unable to see that they were losing something; because from their perspective those [elements] were nothing more than the classes of which the Ottoman nation was made up. (Ziya Gökalp, Türkleşmek, İslamlaşmak, Muasırlaşmak/Turkification, Islamization, Modernization (Ankara: Akçağ Basım, 1960), 13.)
79.
Uriel Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp (London: Luzac, 1950), 73.
80.
Gökalp, Türkleşmek, İslamlaşmak, Muasırlaşmak, 38.
81.
Gerçekten bu. Osmanlılaştırmak Siyaseti Türkleştirmek için Gizli bir Vasıtadan İbaretti.
82.
Gökalp, Türkleşmek, İslamlaşmak, Muasırlaşmak, 38.
83.
Türkçülüğün Esasları/the Principles of Turkism (Ankara: Yeni Metbaa, 1950), 38.
84.
Ibid.
85.
Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 71.
86.
Gökalp, Türkçülüğün Esasları, 57.
87.
Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp, 72.
88.
Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State, 9.
89.
Ergin, “Chromatic Turkishness: Race, Modernity, and Western Scholars in the Construction of Turkish National Identity,” 152.
90.
As a policy, if it refers to something other than the politics of language, al-istitrak could mean the will to become a Turk or self-Turkification, since it contains the element of volition as opposed to al-tatrik, which is forcible and means to forcefully turn a non-Turk into a Turk.
91.
Abu Khaldun Stai’ Al-Husri, Muhadarat Fi Nushu’ Al-Fikrah Al-Qawmiyah/Lectures on the Idea of Nationalism (Al-Qahirah: Matba’ah al-Risalah, 1951), 126–27.
92.
Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas: 283.
93.
Makdisi, “Ottoman Orientalism,” 771.
94.
Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas: 283.
95.
Nader Sohrabi, Revolution and Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire and Iran, 1902–1910 (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 41. See also Devereux, The First Ottoman Constitutional Period: A Study of the Midhat Constitution and Parliament.
96.
Karpat, Studies on Turkish Politics and Society: Selected Articles and Essays, 201.
97.
See ibid. Also, Erik-Jan. Zürcher, “The Importance of Being Secular: Islam in the Service of the National and Pre-National State,” in Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity: Conflict and Change in the Twentieth Century, ed. Celia Kerslake Kerem Öktem, Philip Robins (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

New York, New York, USA
Kamal Soleimani

Authors

Kamal Soleimani
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Soleimani, K. (2016). Ottoman/Turkish “Official Nationalism”. In: Islam and Competing Nationalisms in the Middle East, 1876-1926. The Modern Muslim World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59940-7_4

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59940-7_4
Published: 26 May 2016
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-60129-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59940-7
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics