Fighting the spectres of the past: Dilemmas of Ottoman legacy in the balkans and the Middle East

Middle Eastern Studies

Volumn 44, Issue 5, 2008, Pages 677-693

  Yilmaz, Suhnaz ^a   Yosmaoglu, Ipek K ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COLONIAL LEGACY; DOCUMENTARY SOURCE; OTTOMAN EMPIRE;

ASIA; BALKANS; EURASIA; MIDDLE EAST;

EID: 52149107539     PISSN: 00263206     EISSN: 17437881     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00263200802285369     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. H. Inalcik, 'The Meaning of Legacy: The Ottoman Case', in L.C. Brown (ed.), Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East (New York: University of California Press, 1996), pp.17-29.
2. R.A. Abou-El-Haj, 'The Social Uses of the Past: Recent Arab Historiography of Ottoman Rule', International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.14 (1982), pp.185-201.
3. See for instance, Z.N. Zeine, The Emergence of Arab Nationalism (Beirut: Khayats, 1966).
4. Abou-El-Haj, 'The Social Uses of the Past', p.186.
5. H. Kayali, Arabs and Young Turks, Ottomanism, Arabism, Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997)
6. U.W. Haarman, 'Ideology and History, Identity and Alterity: The Arab Image of the Turk from the Abbasids to Modern Egypt', International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.20 (1988), pp.175-96
7. D. Jung, 'Turkey and the Arab World: Historical Narratives and New Political Realities', Mediterranean Politics, Vol.10, No.1 (March 2005), pp.1-17.
8. M.E. Yapp, The Near East since the First World War (New York: Longman Inc., 1991), p.3.
9. Afaq 'Arabiyya (Arab Horizons) starting publication in Baghdad in 1975, al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi (The Arab Future) starting publication in Beirut in 1978, and al-Thaqafa al-Arabiyya (Arab Culture) starting publication in Libya in 1973 could be considered as signi.cant representatives of this scholarly trend emphasizing the unity of Arab historical identity; Abou-el-Haj, 'The Social Uses of the Past', p.190.
10. There are also other scholars such as Albert Hourani, who present a much more balanced account of the impact of the Ottoman legacy, in his landmark works Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962)
11. The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981)
12. A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1991)
13. vas well as P.S. Khoury in the Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus 1860-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
14. For an eloquent critique concerning the Balkans see M. Mazower, The Balkans, a Short History (New York: Modern Library Chronicles, 2000)
15. M. Todorova, 'Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans', Imperial Legacy, pp.45-78.
16. H. Inalcik, The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire (Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Program, 1993).
17. M. Palairet, The Balkan Economies, c. 1800-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
18. Y. Nakash, The Shi'is of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp.3-55.
19. For a detailed discussion of the Ottoman administrative legacy and the bureaucratic apparatus legacy, see C.V. Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789-1922 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980)
20. C.V. Findley, Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).
21. It would, of course, be naïve to suggest that there is such a thing as 'objective' history, and nor is this our purpose. Having stated that, perhaps we should place the emphasis on a 'critical' rather than an 'objective' approach to sources and secondary literature.
22. D. Fromkin, 'A World Still Haunted by Ottoman Ghosts', New York Times 9 March 2003, pp.4, 14.
23. For a detailed critique, see S. Hanioǧlu, Osmanl'dan Cumhuriyete, Zihniyet, Siyaset ve Tarih (Istanbul: Baǧlam Yayincilik, 2006), pp.227-30.
24. B. Braude and B. Lewis (eds.) Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, the Functioning of a Plural Society: Volume I: The Central Lands; Volume II: The Arabic-Speaking Lands (New York/London: Holmes & Meier, 1982).
25. It is commonly repeated that before the nineteenth century the term millet referred to Muslims within the Empire and Christians outside of it - see, for instance, D. Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)
26. but archival record indicates that this was not necessarily the case - see 'Millet', Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol.VII, pp.61-4). Technicalities aside, it is safe to say that one can only speak of a systematized organizing of the subjects of the Ottoman Empire according to confessional lines as the product of the age of reforms.
27. See H. Inalcik, 'Ottoman Methods of Conquest', Studia Islamica, Vol.3 (1954), pp.103-29.
28. Ferik Mehmed Ali Paℬea'dan,. 20 Tesrin-I Evvel sene, 13 Za. 1292 (11 Aralik 1875), BOA, Hariciye Siyasi Evraki, No.250/1, belge sira no, 221
29. Bosna Vilayeti'nden mevrud tahriratin sureti, 15 S. 1293 (13 Mart 1876) BOA, Hariciye Siyasi Evraki, No.250/1, belge sira no, 184
30. Bosna Vilayeti valisinden mevrud telgrafname sureti, 19 S. 1293 (16 Mart 1876) BOA, Hariciye Siyasi Evraki, No.250/1, belge sira no, 152.
31. Bosna Merkez Mutasarrifligi'ndan makam-i Sadaret'e gelen telgrafnamenin sureti, 13 Za. 1292 (11 Aralik 1875), BOA, Hariciye Siyasi Evraki, No.250/1, belge sira no, 221
32. Bosna Vilayet-i Celilesi'nden mevrud telgrafnamenin sureti, 1 R. 1293 (26 Nisan 1892), BOA, Hariciye Siyasi Evraki, No.250/1, belge sira no, 96.
33. See, for instance, E. Barker, Macedonia, Its Place in Balkan Power Politics (London and New York: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1950).
34. T.A. Meininger, Ignatiev and the Establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate, 1864-1872 (Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1970).
35. See, for instance, France, Ministère des Affairs Etrangères, no. 150, Rapport du Major Foulon, Serres, 21 Jan. 1908
36. Constantinople, Serie E/Macédoine, No.144, f.179 A, Colonel Vérand to the French Ambassador in Istanbul, Serres, 19 February 1907.
37. E. Reclus, 'The Earth and Its Inhabitants', in E.G. Ravenstein (ed.), Greece, Turkey in Europe, Rumania, Servia, Montenegro, Italy, Spain and Portugal, Vol.1 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1882), p.89.
38. G.F. Abbot, The Tale of a Tour in Macedonia (London: Edward Arnold, 1903), p.81.
39. H.N. Brailsford, Macedonia, Its Races and Their Future (London: Methuen & Co., 1906), p.7.
40. G. Fawcett and H.A. Fawcett, Macedonia: A Plea for the Primitive (London: John Lane the Bodley Head; New York: John Lane Company, 1921), p.8.
41. J. Reed, The War in Eastern Europe (1916), quoted in P.H. Liotta and C.R. Jebb, Mapping Macedonia: Idea and Identity (Westport and London: Praeger, 2004), p.1.
42. See, for instance, Brailsford, Macedonia, p.72. The papers of the Rumeli Umum Müfettişligi, or the General Inspectorate of Rumeli, which was a special administrative body directly under the Sublime Porte, contain many examples that refer to the practice of church-sharing; for instance, TFR.I. SL 67/6606, April 1904.
43. See, for instance, the reports of the British vice consul Bosanquet in Serres to Consul Graves in Salonika, Foreign Office, 195/2263, 28 May 1907 and 7 June 1907.
44. I.K. Yosmaoglu, 'Counting Bodies, Shaping Souls: The 1903 Census and National Identity in Ottoman Macedonia', International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.38 (2006), pp.55-77.
45. While less signi.cant in numbers, the myriad of other Christian Lebanese sects included, but were not limited to Protestants, the Syrian Jacobites, Catholic Malchites, the adherents of the Armenian church, the Armenian Catholics, the Syrian Catholics, the Assyrians (Nestorians), and the Catholic Chaldeans.
46. For a comprehensive account, see P.K. Hitti, Lebanon in History: From the Earliest Times to the Present, 3rd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1967)
47. W. Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980)
48. K.S. Salibi, A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered (London: I.B. Tauris, 1988).
49. Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, p.105.
50. U. Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History and Violence in Nineteenth Century Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p.2.
51. C. Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p.xi.
52. W. Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000 (London: Frank Cass, 2000), p.7.
53. For a detailed analysis of the critical players and processes shaping Turkish Foreign Policy, see P. Robins, Turkish Foreign Policy Since the Cold War: Suits and Uniforms (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003), pp.52-89.
54. Ş. Kut, 'Turkey in the Post-Communist Balkans: Between Activism and Self-Restraint', Turkish Review of Balkan Studies, Annual 1996-97 (3).
55. For a more detailed discussion of the relevant arguments of Syrians and Iraqis, see Ş. Yilmaz, 'Bridge over Troubled Waters: Hydropolitics of Tigris and Euphrates Rivers' (MA Thesis, Princeton University, 1995).
56. The findings of Dietrich Jung's field research based on a series of interviews with academics, journalists and officials in Amman, Beirut, Cairo and Damascus supports this argument. Jung, 'Turkey and the Arab World', p.3.
57. For a detailed assessment, see Z. Onis and S. Yilmaz, 'Greek - Turkish Rapprochement: Rhetoric or Reality?', Political Science Quarterly, Vol.123, No.1 (Spring 2008), pp.123-50.
58. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. R. Warner (London and New York: Penguin Classics, 1972), p.156
59. cited in K. Babir, 'Memory, Heritage, History: The Ottoman Legacy in the Arab World', Imperial Legacy, p.100.
60. On the shortcomings of the current approaches also, see I. Ortayli, Osmanli'yi Yeniden Keşfetmek (Istanbul: Timas Yayinlari, 2006), pp.184-9
61. I. Ortaili, Son Imparatorluk Osmanli (Istanbul: Timas Yayinlari, 2006), pp.21-41.
62. Brown, Imperial Legacy, p.305.