By Eric Vandenbroeck and
co-workers
From Ottoman Empire To Turkish
Nationality
National identity
emerges within a historical context In Turkey, the origins of modem identity
debates can be traced back to the last one hundred years of the Ottoman Empire.
Unlike the corresponding years in Japan (at which we look next), these were
years of decline and collapse of the Ottoman power.
In a famous article,
the Ottoman nationalist intellectual Yusuf Akyura
formulated three responses to the fall of the Ottomans as three ways of
politics: Ottomanism, Islamism (per Oct. 2007 the
leading party), and Turkism. It is difficult to identify these discourses as
contradictory or as being direct challengers of each other, as one can find a
great area of convergence among them. Islam continued to be the infonnants of other discourses. For instance, Ottomanism or the idea of Ottoman patriotism was expressed
in Islamic terminology, and Turkism even in its most secular expressions was
never formulated in contradiction to Islam. Ottomanism
or ''the unity of elements" (ittihad-l Anaslr) found its expression in the writings of Young
Ottomans such as Namik Kemal. This ideology stressed
that it was possible to keep all parts of the empire within a universal concept
of (Ottoman) citizenship. The Tanzimat refonnation (1839-1876) aimed to solidify this aim by
developing the idea of equal citizenship to all subjects of the empire.
Islamism or the unity of Muslims (ittihad-l islam) emerged as a reaction to the failure to convince.
Ottoman non-Muslim communities to remain loyal to the empire. When this did not
work, many turned their attention to Islamism as a way to find a common ground
at least among the Muslim subjects of the empire. Turkish nationalism, in turn,
was a reaction to the failure ofIslamic ideal of
unity. There were two streams of Turkish nationalism: an ethnic nationalism,
which was defended.by Akyura, .and a cultural
nationalism, which was fotmulated by Ziya Gokalp among others. Turkish
nationalism based on the idea of common culture, which boils down to cominon religion, finally became the founding ideology of
the Republic of Turkey. These ideological reactions emerged as responses
to the question of modernity in the political and sociocultural context
in the nineteenth century or ''the longest century of the empire."l
The Ottoman reforms
carried out during its last century is a classic example of what has come be
called "defensive modernization" or "defensive
developmentalism."2 Facing the prospect of gradual dismemberment, the
Ottoman state set about adapting itself to the political and military power
possessed by its most imminent source of threat. 3 As Ukru
Hanioglu notes, ''the only purpose of Westernization
became the attainment of superiority over the West through the adoption of
western technology."4 This ambition is best expressed in the words of Ziya Gokalp: "We were
defeated because we were so backWard! To take
revenge, we shall adopt the enemy's science! We shall learn his skills, steal
his methods! On progress we set our heart.“5 However, the reforms carried. out
with this motivation slowly changed the identity of the nation, particularly
with the rise of a new generation of elites trained both in Europe and in the
newly opened Western schools in the Empire. In the mind of these elites, the
West represented the only form of modernization; hence it was impossible to
prevent the collapse of the empire unless serious military and administrative
reforms were initiated along Western lines. Furthermore, the survival of the
empire depended more on the unwillingness of the West to cope with the
implications of its decline than its attempt to reform itself.6
The Ottomans had
searched for ways to modernize their administrative and military system
starting most earnestly during the era of Selim In (1789-1807)7 and Mahmud n
(1808-1839).8 These two sultans were particularly worried about the
sluggishness, incompetence, and trouble-making attitudes of the Janissary
corps, which had fonned the most reliable part of the
Ottoman military until the seventeenth century, and decided to replace them
with a new modem anny. When Selim came to the throne,
the Ottoman Empire had lost most of the lands north of the Danube to Austria in
the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) almost a century
before. In 1774, the Treaty of Kuytik Kaynarca had brought the Russians to the Black Sea and put
them into a position where they could take Crimea and intervene in the
Principalities. With this treaty, Russia had become protector of the Orthodox
Christians of the Ottoman Empire, gaining a vast sphere of influence over the
Balkans and special rights in Wallachia and Moldavia.Furthermore,
Russia had gained the right of free passage through the Straits for its
commercial fleet. In 1805, Russia gained the right of passage through the
Straits for its navy and obliged the Ottoman Empire to block access to the
Black Sea by war ships of other countries. Unsatisfied with the tenns of the Treaty of KUyilk Kaynarca, however, the Russian empress Catherine IT set out
to break up the Ottoman Empire and establish an independent Greek state, which
led to the 1787-92 war between the Ottoman Empire and the alliance of Russia
and Austria. In 1783, Russians annexed Crimean Khanate, which was declared
independent by the Treaty of KUyilk Kaynarca. The allies captured Belgrade, Serbia, and Bosnia,
which were in danger of occupation by the Austrians. Nothing remained to save
the rest of the empire in Europe, including Istanbul itself, except the
European balance of power itself. Major European powers, Great Britain, France,
and Prussia, were not prepared to let the Russians divide up the Ottoman
Empire, leading to the volatile Eastern Question or the question of how to
manage the collapse of the Ottomans while keeping Russia at bay. AuStria left the alliance in 1791 at the interference of
Prussia, and. the Ottomans were now forced to sign an agreement with Russia,
the Treaty of Jassy, in 1792, without major territorial losses. Although the
Russian threat was over for a while, Sultan Selim understood that long periods
of neglect had let! the empire far inferior to Western European powers and
Russia. The internal and external security threats forced him to conclude that
a comprehensive defensive modernization was urgently needed. In 1799, Napoleon
Bonaparte invaded Egypt and Syria.
In 1804, Serbs had
revolted and war with Russia had broken out again. Egypt became virtually
independent under Albanian Muhammad Ali Pasha, so was Albania under Ali Pasha.
Muhammad Ali Pasha had been sent to Egypt in order to fight against the
invading French troops, but he soon assumed control of it. Later in 1830, he
occupied Syria and advanced into Anatolia as far as Ktltahya,
a development that forced the Ottomans to seek help from Russia, their major
enemy, by offering them significant territorial concessions with the Treaty of Htlnkar Iskelesi (1833).Sultan
Selim embarked upon a process of military reforms (Nizam Cedid),
including acceptance of new weapons and tactics from Europe, but he faced the
opposition of the Janissaries.9 They eventually staged a coup and overthrew
him, but a loyal army managed to end the coup and installed his reformist
cousin, Mahmud IT as the new sultan. The abolishment of the Janissary system in
1826 at the hands of Sultan Mahmud, in what has come to be known as the
Auspicious Event (vakay-i hayriye),
was a significant development in large part because the antireformist
circles were deprived of their principal military weapon.10 Gradually expanding
the scope of his reforms into the administrative system, Mahinud
IT prepared the ground for further modernization and secularization during the Tanimat era. Yet the new modem military system established
did not spell the end of military interventions in politics, but rather led to
the emergence of a new generation of modernist military officers who would playa significant role in the modernization period of both
the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.The
public declaration of the Hatt-z Hijmaytn
of Gtllhane, which set out the principles of the Tanzimat (literally, reorganization or "setting in
order"), came five months after Abdulmecid
(1830-1861) succeeded his reformist father Mahmud II.
Tanzimat reforms was a turning point in Ottoman history. It
was the first official declaration of the need to modernize the entire state
system. It was a reaction to the Ottoman decline in order to slow down and
prevent the process of collapse through centralization and bureaucratization.
It redefined the Ottoman citizenship and aimed "to establish the basis for
the. eventual creation of an Ottoman nation in which subjects would benefit
from identical civil rights, automatically conferred with citizenship and not
dependent on religious affiliation."11 It should be noted that until the Tanzimat era there was an Ottoman nation was unheard. Under
the millet (literally, nation or religious community) system, the Ottoman
empire until the nineteenth century consisted of autonomous confessional
communities, each one with its own cultural and religious autonomy and
occasionally administrative autonomy. There were four major recognized millets
within the empire: the Greek orthodox, the Armenian, the Jewish and the Muslim.The Ottoman government made the highest-ranking
clergy among non-Muslim millets responsible for tax collection, intracommunal
judicial matters, and other secular duties. Thus, nation and religion were
synonymous. For centuries this system provided stability and relative peace.
However, with the rise of nationalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, the system became obsolete as ethnic identities within Greek prthodox and Muslim millets began to challenge the
domination of one single religious identity and aspire for their political
independence. Tanzimat's attempt to create an Ottoman
nation was a direct response to this challenge. It should be emphasized,
however, that millet system was not an obstacle for the creation of ethnic
nationalism. It assisted the emergence of ethnic nationalism by providing a
very strong link between national and religious identity,12 This is also true
for the later development of Turkish nationalism which emerged out of
perception of belonging to the Muslim millet. Tanzimat
promised "to all Ottoman citizens of perfect security of life, honor and
fortune," and stressed "equality of all people in the empire
regardless of their religious beliefs." This was an official declaration
for the end of Muslim superiority.. From the perspective of the Tanzimat elites, the recipe for saving the empire from
collapse involved the comprehensive modernization of the Ottoman state system
and the institution of universal Ottoman citizenship. Reflecting their
educational background and their openness to the influence of Western political
ideas, Tanzimat elites sought to carry out a
transformation of state ideology on the basis of secularization based on the
idea of universal Ottoman citizenship. However, it should also be noted that Tanzimat's recognition of equality of all people under the
empire was far ahead of the imperial West at that time. The equality of
citizens regardless of race and religion was hardly applied in Europe or in its
colonial possessions.13
In 1856, Islahat Fermam or the Edict of
Reforms was issued to reaffinn and expand the
provisions of the Tanzimat, which had been delayed in
the implementation stage, and sought to expand its scope. The Edictcoincided with the Treaty of Paris at the end of the
Crimean War (1854-1856), in which the Ottoman Empire was admitted into the
European "community of nations" and became subject to the provisions
of international law as applied to "civilized nations.“14 This was the
beginning of a long enduring Turkish strategy of containing the Russian threat
through alliances with the West, particularly Britain, which was the rising
star in the European balance of power system, ''the Concert of Europe,"
established by the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815. Thus the foundations of the
pro-Western and anti-Russian Turkish grand strategy, which would provide a
long-lasting foreign policy orientation until the end of the twentieth century,
were laid down during this formative period. AI; the Ottoman Empire was not
invited to the Congress of Vienna and thus excluded from the Concert of Europe
because of the Russian pressure, the Treaty of Paris was seen as a
correction of this from the perspective of the Western .European powers. In the
context of the increasing Russian influence over the Ottoman Empire, the four
major Western European powers, namely, Austria, Britain, France, and Prussia,
agreed to contain Russia by giving support to the Ottoman Empire.15 The urge of
modernization was motivated by the desire to avoid or at least slow down the
disintegration of the empire. The Tanzimat leaders
responded to the challenges of Western superiority by attempting to reform the
Ottoman citizenship and administrative system, a solution that they perceived
as the only way to counter external and domestic threats to its survival. This
sense of insecurity was hardened in the context of the growing ethnic
nationalism and aspirations of independence among the Balkan populations
following the Serbian Revolt of 1804. The challenge was how to maintain the
integrity of a highly multicultural and multireligious empire and to ensure the
loyalty of non-Muslim citizens who then comprised nearly 40 percent of the
entire population of the empire. As a matter offact;
much of the debate among political thinkers and statesmen in the second half of
the nineteenth century was centered on the question of survival.16 As Fuad
Pasha, one of the leading ideologues and implementers of Ottoman modernization
stated, "we can avoid destruction only if we have as much as money as
England, as much enlightened knowledge as France and as many soldiers as
Russia.“17
Administrative and
political reforms were accompanied by the rise of a new Westernized generation
as a result of the Ottoman educational reforms in addition to European and
American colleges in Turkey.18 The core of the modern education was constituted
by three academies: Tlbbiyye, Harbiyye,
and Miilkiyye. in addition to reformation of the
military, Mahmud II set out to reform the educational system, with a strong
emphasis on military and medical education. In 1834, Mekteb-i
Harbiyye (Military Academy) started education to
train military officers that did not have ties with the Janissaries and many
military students went to Europe for education. In 1827, he established Tlbhdne-i Amire(State Medical
School) and in 1828 Cerrahhane (the School of
Surgery. In 1838, medical schools were reorganized under the title of Dar-ul Ulum-i Hikemiye
ve Mekteb-i Tlbbiye-i $dhdne (the Imperial
School of Physical and Medical sciences), which later became a training center
of positivist intellectuals, who initiated the Young Turk revolution. As it was
also the case in many other places, in the history of Ottoman modernization,
military and medical schools played a crucial role as it was in these fields
that the superiority of the West against their own country was the most visible
to the eyes of young students in these fields. Harbiye
(Military Academy) was opened in 1846 to train modem army officers, and in
1859, Mekteb-i Mii/klyye-i $ahdne Miilkiye (the Civil Service Academy) was opened to train
civil servants to carry out the modernization process in state bureaucracy. In
1936, Mulkiye was moved to Ankara and continued to be
the major school to produce a new generation of civil servants in the
Republican era Under the auspices of Ankara University .19 In 1888, Mekteb-i Sultfuli or Lycee de Galatasaray was established in Istanbul to provide
education for both Muslim and non-Muslim students. It was a government school
established with close coordination of the French Ministry of Education.
Adopting the same cirriculum of the French lycee system with additional courses such as religion and
Ottoman history, Galatasaray became higiy demanded by
the aristocrats of all religious denominations.20 In addition to missionary,
European and American schools to be opened during the same era, Mekteb-I Sultfuli, contributed to
the Westernization of a new generation of Turkish intellectuals. As noted by
Bernard Lewis: the influence of the Galatasaray school on the rise of modem
Turkey has been enormous. As the need for administrators, diplomats, and others
with a Western education and a capacity to handle Western administrative
apparatus became more and more pressing, the grad~tes
of Galatasaray came to playa preponderant role in the politics and
administration of the Ottoman empire and, after it, of the Turkish republic.
The imperial Ottoman Lycee had no playing~fields
but not a few of the victories in modern Turkey were won in its classrooms.21 .
While these foreign
schools contributed to overall educational quality in the empire, they also
contributed to the fragmentation of Turkish national identity, by producing
"many Francophile intellectuals whose alienation from their own cu1ture
and disdain of their own society was no different :trom
the attitudes of colonial intelligentsia toward their own societies.“22 By
1914, there were 675 American, 500 French Catholic,and
178 British missionary schools, with more than 100,000 students studying in
them.23 After a while, the Ottoman government lost control of the missionary
schools. Despite a requirement to obtain state permission to open a school as
set in the Education Regulation of 1869, a register of Protestant and American
schools drawn up in 1893 reveals that only 51 of 392 schools had obtained
official pennission to open.24 Tanzimat
reforms opened the doors of Ottoman cultural space to the influences of Western
ideas by means of new institutions oflearning, which
produced a new generation of intellectuals who found themselves more at home
with European languages than the Ottoman Turkish. In the eyes of Tanzi mat political and intellectual elites,
"civilization" was an omnipotent power, a magic formula. All Tanzimat writers emphasized this magic word and established
a link between civilization and development.25 Their views of civilization
differed tremendously. Positivists such as Abdullah Cevdet
accepted the notion of singular civilization, which meanth
the Western civilization. The only way to reach civilization then was through
Westernization. They did not attempt to reconcile Islam and civilization. Yet
they did not consider civilization as a property of the West, and it just
happened that civilization was currently in the West. In their view, Islam did
not contradict with modernity. If interpreted correctly, Islam would agree with
the terms of modernity. As Fuad stated, "if lslam
is universal truth and expression of knowledge, then every useful invention, a
new source of knowledge, belongs to Islam, no matter where it is invented,
either in polytheist or Muslim world, Medina or Paris.“26
The Young Ottoman
movement emerged in the context of Tanzimat reforms
both in support and in reaction to its policies. Their social base was the
state hierarchy of the Tanzimat period and high
society oflstanbul.27 The Young Ottoman ideology was most prominently
represented in the writings of Ibrahiminasi, Ziya Pasha, and Nanuk Kemal who
were the first Muslims attempting to develop a broad theoretical justification
and an ideology for the emerging centralized modern institutions by reference
to Islamic political traditions.28 They differed ftom
their Muslim reformist contemporaries in that, as bureaucrat-trained
intellectuals, they were practically interested in reforming the stateinstitutions while Muslim reformists such as
Jamaluddin Afghani and Muhammad Abduh aimed to materialize a theological
reform.29 Their major concern was the lack of representative institutions in
the Ottoman system, and they emphasized adoptability of democratic prlnciplesbased on Islamic concepts such as
consultation. In a way, they brought European political ideas to a Muslim
context, by finding parallel vocabulary in Islamic political thought to express
European ideas of individual freedom, consultative administration, and feelings
of patriotism. In their view, reforming the Ottoman administrative system did
not have to lead to a change of life-styles. They were very much critical of a dictamous understanding of modernity and culture and
"the use of state power to impose an alien cultural system upon
society.“3o For instance, in a letter to Menemenli Rtfat Bey, Nannk Kemal opposed
the idea of changing the alphabet, claiming that it was impossible to change
the Arabic alphabet, without changing Islam. He argued that illiteracy was
caused by lack of education rather than by difficulty of the Arabic script. Yet
even if there was a need to change it, "we would not accept Latin script,
because it was not appropriate to express sounds of our language." The
following lines were representative of his overall ideas: Once, in Ibret [Young Ottoman publication], it was stated that we
would accept all the progress of Europe, but we swear God that we would never
become Firenk. Islam's insistence on the idea of not
becoming Firenk is hundred times stronger now than
before. If we show Latin scripts to our people, we Will suffer from much
stronger opposition than that once shown to people wearing pants. .. .Even
Greeks and Armenians in our homeland will not accept writing in Latin, as their
letters are thousand times superior to it. The question here was whether it is
necessary to change the script. If it is agreed to be necessary, then we should
accept the Greek or Armenian scripts, rather than Latin alphabet with
"eight and a halfletters.“31
Another Young Ottoman
publication noted, "in order to advance our civilization we shall try to
obtain scientific and industrial progress from Europe. We do not want their
street dance, amorality, and satanic afflictions, such as callousness toward
people who are starving to death, or to view fairness and tenderness of heart
as outlandish notions.“32 Although the Young Ottoman ideology was expressed in
Islamic vocabulary, the emphasis on Ottoman patriotism replaced loyalty to ammet or the imagined global Muslim nation with loyalty to vatan or a common Ottoman fatherland for both Muslim and
non-Muslim Ottoman citizens.33 All Ottomans as equal citizens of the empire
ought to share feelings of devotion and solidarity to a common Ottoman
Fatherland.34 Hence the Young Ottomans had two challenges: first, they needed
to convince the non-Muslim ethnic groups within the empire to share such a
common sense of belonging and one way was to restructure the Ottoman political
system in line with the Western examples of parliamentary democracy. The second
challenge, however, was to convince the Muslim core of the empire that such a
secular foundation of nation-building was perfectly in line with Islamic principles.Young Ottoman intellectuals employed Islamic
notions in their writings to lay the foundations of patriotism in order to recoricile Western political concepts to Islamic
traditions.35 This could hardly appeal to the Christians of the Balkans, who
were clamoring for their ethnic independence. On the other hand, they had to
express the Western political vocabulary such as parliamentary system through
Islamic terminology in order to convince that political reforms were not
anti-Islamic. They believed that Islam and parliamentary democracy was not
contradictory, as the Islamic system of governance demanded rulers to consult
people and seek their consent on matters of importance on the basis of the
principle of consultation (me~veret) and consensus (icma). However, this meant that the basis of legitimacy was
shifting from the state whose main duty was understood as the protection of
religion and state (din u devlet) to ordinary people
and thus represented a challenge to the established system at a critical time
when the Empire was rapidly dissolving. At the end, as $erif
Mardin states, the Young Ottomans were not able to
create a harmony between these two conflicting, producing contradictory ideas
and their legacy therefore has meant different things to different people.36
Panislamism: Unity Under the Banner of Islam
The idea of the unity
of all Muslims (ittihad-l Islam) gained strength
among Ottoman Muslim intellectuals as a reaction to Napolion's
occupation of Egypt in 1798 and the British occupation of India in 1852. It was
also an intellectual reaction to the Westernization policies that were being
implemented since the beginning of Tanzimat era.The commercial treaties with England (1838 and 1861),
the Treaty of Paris (1856), and the Islahat Fermam (1856) helped increase European economic sway over
the Ottoman territory and facilitated the social and economic ascendancy of the
Ottoman non-Muslim middle class. A commercial treaty signed in 1838 with
England removed a series of restrictions, and subsequently, the cheaper goods
of Europe, produced with the advantages of machinery and colonialism, swept the
Ottoman state and in a matter of years wiped out the Muslim Ottoman middle
class which consisted of craftsmen and small shopkeepers. In their place, a new
Greek and Annenian middle class rose to power,
because they acted as distributors, proteges, and agents of European
companies.37In this context, for the first time the idea of Muslim unity (ittihad-Ilslam) entered into the history of Ottoman theught through their discussions. 38 Pan-Islamist Ottoman
intellectuals, particularly Said Nursi, Elnuihh Hamdi
Efendi, and Mehmet Akif, sought to find an Islamic answer to the problem of
imperialism and decline of the Muslim power. They, in addition to other Muslim
intellectuals, particularly Jamal aI-Din al-Afghani
and Muhammad Abduh, defended the idea that the solution to Muslim decline was
to be found in Islam.39 As noted by Ali Bulay,
Ottoman Islamists highlighted the following issues: (1) The Muslim world was in
a process of military, economic, social, and technological decline in the
background of which lay a comprehensive moral and intellectual basis; (2) the real
cause of this decline was not the religion of Islam but traditions, established
institutions, and external factors; and finally, (3) the institution of
monarchy was among the most significant reasons of the decline.40 The
traditional ulema supported the existing system rather than attempting to
change it; politicians, the exploiting economic elites, and the feudal chiefs
all benefited from this situation. In order to escape from these
miserable conditions, Islamists then offered the following solutions:(1)
returning to basic sources oflslam, namely, Quran and
the sunnah in order to provide an authentic Islamic revival devoid of external
influences, superstitions, and unlawful innovations; (2) opening the gate of itihad (interpretation) in order to seek Islamic olutions for the modem problems; (3) rekindling the sprit of cihad in order to fight
colonialism and create unity among Muslims.41
Islamists agreed with
other modernists about the need for modernization through Western technology
but insisted strongly that its moral values had to be rejected. In this, they
were close to Young Ottomans except that they emphasized ummet
instead of vatan. Islamism was an ideology of
modernization and reformation; in this, it suffered from internal paradoxes as
regard the West and Islam. As discussed by Ismail Kara, in order to protect
themselves from the West (colonialist, nonbelieving, immoral West), they sought
to reach the West (as the center of knowledge). Similarly, the Islamist quest
for genuine Islam required, in their view, escaping from the traditional Islam.
42 Politically the reform-minded sultans who were on the throne before and
during the Tanzimat reforms did not wish to evoke or
utilize this ideology, as their aim was to save a multireligious empire from
decline. However, when this goal did not seem to be achievable in the context
of ethnic turmoils within the empire, the Ottoman
official policies start to emphasize pan-Islamic ideals. The title was used by Abdulaziz, but the period of Abdulhamid
II (1876-1909) was a turning point. Abdulhamid came
to the throne as a result of a military coup staged by the newly emerging Young
Turk movement. Abdulhamid found himself at the midst
of domestic and international turmoil. Domestically he was under the intense pressure
of the Young Turks who demanded constitutional order. In December 1876, he
finally announced the constitution of the Ottoman Empire, Kanun-i Esasi. However, Abdulhamid initiated a cleansing of bureaucrats, including
the Grand Vizier Mithat Pasha, who curtailed the power of Sultans before him.
Internationally, Abdulhamid's period coincided with
the escalation of imperial decline. The 1875 insurrection iri
Bosnia, the war with Serbia and Montenegro, and the feelings aroused in Europe
because or-the suppression of the Bulgarian rebellion
prepared an environment which convinced him that the state of affairs needed
extreme security measures rather than reforms. The most damaging of all, the
1877-78 Russo Ottoman War resulted in the further collapse of the empire and
gave Abdulhamid justification to dissolve the
parliamentary system and solidify his authoritarian control. In this he faced
the opposition from all circles, including the Islamist intellectuals.
The Ottoman defeat in
the 1877-78 Russian war led to devastating consequences.Under
the terms agreed at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Bulgaria gained its
independence, Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed by Austria-Hungary, and an
expanded Montenegro and Serbia were given independence. Hence Ottomans lost
much of their control in the Balkans. Furthermore, the Ottoman government had
to deal with the increasingly restive Armenian population in Anatolia who were
mobilized by the help of Russians. The Ottoman government suppressed the
Armenian rebellion with the aid of the local Kurdish tribes who were
organized as militia units, the Hamidiye regiments,
that were formed by Abdulhamid from Kurdish tribes to
counter Russian offensives. By the end of the nineteenth century, it was
already clear that the Ottomanist ideal to create a
universal Ottoman citizenship that transcended the bonds of religion had come
to a natural failure, as the composition of the remaining Ottoman territories
became predominantly Muslim. At the hands of the Russian intervention, the non-Muslim
parts of the Empire were completely lost. Under these circumstances, an idea of
a Muslim solidarity began to gain foot. Abdulhamid II
emphasized his status as caliph of Muslims, a status that Ottoman sultans had
largely ignored since the days of Sultan Selim I who had transferred caliphate ftomthe Mamluks after conquering Egypt in 1517. Observing
that Tanzimat's attempt to base the state legitimacy
on a secular Ottoman identity had failed, Abdulhamid
was convinced that a new base of legitimacy had to be built on Islam as the
common bond among the Turkish and non-Turkish Muslim subjects of the empire.43
The answer which appealed to many including the young sultan Abdulhamid was Panislamism (ittihad- jslam).44 As Bilici discusses, Abdulhamid's
goal was tocreate a nation based on commonality of
religion. This goal was taken up by his opponents, the Young Turks and later
Kemalists. The policies that were implemented by the Young Turks and the
Republican regime also worked to solidify the Muslim character of the new
imagined nation and to boast the process of "nationalization of
Muslimness.'.45
Abdulhamid was concerned with the fate of Muslims under Western
occupation ideologically and as a tool to utilize against the Western and
Russian encroachments on the ottoman territory. He stated, "Millions of
Muslims under European rule pray to God for liberation and rest their hope on
the successor of the Prophet, the Caliph.'.46 However, he was aware that he had
little tool to materalize an Islam-based foreign policy.
As Carl Brown asserts, "no Muslim ruler, including the strongest-Sultan Abdulhamid-had adequate power to intervene in support of
Muslims elsewhere. Rulers of several European states did have the power in
support of Christians, and they continued to do so.',47 Hence, cognizant of his
power, Abdulhamid did not pursue an ideological
foreign policy but instead sought to build relations with rising and promising
non-Muslim powers, most particularly Germany and Japan. It should be noted that
Abdulhamid's emphasis on his role as Caliph was less
designed to provoke the European powers who colonized parts of the Muslim world
than to create a common bond among Muslims within the empire to prevent further
dismemberred.Abdulhamid pursued close relations with
Germany and sough to gain from these relations in his aggressive modernization atteinpts particularly in the field of education. However,
he changed the focus of these relations from Britain to Germany. The Tanzimat era Ottoman foreign policy relied on the European
and particularly British support against Russia. Yet Abdulhamid
understood that the British were slowly abandoning their policy of maintaining
Ottoman territorial integrity to deny Russia territorial gains and instead
beginning. to seek their own share in the crumbling empire. The British
occupation of Egypt in 1882 was an indication of this shift. British
territorial designs in the Middle East also included exclusive treaties signed
with Arab sheikhdoms, including Bahrain (1880), Muscat (1891), and Kuwait
(1899). France on the other hand was busy colonizing North Africa with the
invasion of Algeria (1830), Tunisia (1881), and later Morocco (1912).
Furthermore, Britain and France sought to gain influence over ethnic and
religious minorities, particularly in Lebanon, by acting as protectors of rival
ethnic and religious groups.48 These powers were clearly prep~g
for their eventual final strike at the heart of the Ottoman empire.The
unified Germany, however, was a new power seeking to establish its own sphere
of influence in competition with other European powers. Hence Sultan set out to
establish a close alliance with Germany in order to balance against other
European powers as well as Russia. He contracted Gennany
to modernize the Ottoman military and infrastructure. One of the key projects
was the construction of the Baghdad railroad and its extension, the Hijaz
railroad, with the credit obtained through the Deutsche Bank as well as
donations from Muslim individuals because of its positive impact on the conduct
ofHajj.49 These railroads enabled faster mobilization of troops within the
Empire. From the Gennan perspective, this railroad
was part of the great project of Berlin-Baghdad railway allowing Gennany access to the resources in the Persian Gulf and its
colonies in Africa. Not surprisingly the railroad was the chief target of the
British-organized attacks during the First World War.
On the other hand, Abdulhamid sought to introduce an Eastern dimension in
Ottoman foreign policy by establishing close relations with a rising non-Muslim
Asian power, namely Japan. The Ottoman interests were close to those of Japan
over the issue of Russia. On the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, Abdulhamid
professed that "the victory of Japan will make us happy, because their
victory means our victory. Such a victory will also help us by enforcing the
Russian government to send their troops to the Far East and reduce its forces
in the Black Sea."so However, Japan was an ally
of Britain who although supporting the Ottoman territorial integrity against
Russia had also eye on the Ottoman territories. Even though an anti-Russian
alliance between the Ottoman Empire and Japan would not disturb the British,
they were. worried to see Ottomans with their Caliphate title turning their
face toward the East, particularly British India.51 Tobalance
this, Abdulhamid turned his face to Gennany. In this context, an alliance betWeen
Japan and the Ottoman empire could not be materialized because of the rapid
decline of the Ottoman power and their alliance with opposite European powers.
In 1889, Abdulhamid II secretly sent to Japan an old
navy ship, Ertugrul, with a crew of 609 men with the
objective of paying a goodwill visit to the emperor of Japan in return for a
previous visit by Japanese Prince Komatsu, the brother of Emperor Meiji, to
Istanbul in 1887. On its way to Japan, Ertugrul
stopped in British-controlled India. The commander of the ship Osman Pa§a was empowered to represent the Sultan. Ertugrul arrived in June 1890 in Japan where Osman Pasha presented
Emperor Meiji a letter from Sultan Abdulhamid II and
the imperial medallion. 52 However, on its way back to Istanbul in September
the ship sank off the coast ofWakayama in southwest
Japan due to a severe typhoon. The few survivors were brought back to
Istanbul with two Japanese warships that brought diplomatic emissaries who
would establish the Japanese diplomatic mission in Istanbul. 53
Even though he did
not pursue an active policy of provoking anticolonial resistance movements in
the Muslim world, the sheer image of Abdulhamid II as
Caliph fueled anticolonial sentiments in distant Muslim territories such as the
Dutch East Indies, Russian Central Asia, or the British India, "as the.
very existence of a strong Muslim state headed by the sultan-ca1iph served as a
reminder that there were alternatives to infidel rule.“54 Their counter policy,
particularly that of Russia, was provoking unrest among non-Turkish subjects,
both Muslim and non-Muslim, within the empire. For this reason, Abdulhamid's pan-Islamic policies were sharply criticized
by Turkish nationalists as futile and backfiring. As Halide Edib
(1885-1964), a prominent feminist and nationalist intellectual of the. late
Ottoman and the Republican periods, comments: Though a political pan-Islamism
is obviously impossible because of the geographical position of the different
Moslem nations, it was nonetheless a strong card, and Abdul Hamid'played
it well. The dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire would be difficult as long as
the Moslem elements were kept together and objected to Western rule, and while
Abdul Hamid lived it was almost certain that his Moslem subjects would be on
the side of the Ottoman Empire. But the security which the Sultan thus achieved
for himself was fraught with greater danger to the empire than he himself,
perhaps, imagined. England, France and Russia had Moslem subjects. An
independent Moslem Power, such as the Ottoman State, with a ruler who emphasised the Caliphate, could become very obnoxious. Even
ifPan-Islamism and the Caliphate could not form the
basis of any practical policy for the Moslem subjects of the said Powers, still
it was to their interest to destroy even the most shadowy emblem of Moslem
unity. Therefore the partition of Turkey became a psychological necessity of
the Western Powers. 55
Yet the European
intervention in the domestic affairs of Ottomans in the form of supporting
non-Muslim uprisings started much earlier. In the lost territories of the
empire, Muslims faced difficult conditions. In 1856, 1862, and 1878 thousands
of Muslims were forced to leave their lands in the Crimea, Caucasus, and the
Balkans to settle in Anatolia.56 These waves of migration coupled with
migration of Christians to independent Balkan territories slowly changed the
population balance in the rest of the empire heavily in favor of Muslims,
consequently fueling pan-Islamic sentiments. On the domestic political scene,
Sultan Abdulhamid continued to implement the Tanzimat reforms despite assuming a tight control of the
regime in his hands. As Deringil notes, he "did
not turn his back on Tanzimat reforms, but rather
attempted to mold them to his advantage."57 Despite giving an appearance
of a liberal sultan, he took steps to curtail freedom of ideas and persecuted
his opponents of all ideological affiliations by means of a unique system of
domestic intelligence. Yet Abdulhamid' s particularly
authoritarian control should be considered within the context of Abdulaziz's dethroning by the Young Ottomans in 1876 and
the context the rapid disintegration of the empire. His strong
leadership restored the power of the sultan which had been lost to bureaucrats
since Mahmud. During the reign of his father Abdulmecid
and uncle Abdulaziz.
Sadrazams were more influential; Abdulhamid
II wanted to make sure that he remained the supreme power in decision making.
However, he was under similar pressures from reform-minded young elites,
specifically the increasingly powerful members of the Committee of Union and
Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti-CUP), who forced
him to declare the second constitutional period in 1908. Abdulhamid's
three decades on throne continues to be the source of disagreement in Turkey
between two extreme views about him; the Republican school textbooks long
presented him as a "red Sultan," a title which was ironically given
to him by the Armenians because of his persecution of Armenians, while he was
honored as a highly esteemed Islamic leader particularly among the Islamists.
These two extreme views aside,the Hamidianperiod
was perhaps the most significant era in the late Ottoman history for both
domestic and external political developments, continued reforms and
institutionalization, and the various ideological battles with all their
implications for modern Turkey. Abdulhamid continued
the process of defensive modernization,particularly
through his determined modetnization and expansion of
the Ottoman educational system,58 but the process itself produced and
strengthened the very elements of opposition for his regime. These elements of
opposition, organizing themselves under the CUP, trained in the modernized
schools with a positivist outlook and a zealous nationalist ideology eventually
took control of politics.
When the
project of establishing a common bond for all Ottoman subjects regardless of
religion failed, there was a search for alternative bonds. Ottomanism
and Islamism failed to attract an increasingly nationalistic younger generation
of Westernized and positivist intellectuals. They became increasingly
alienated from the Young Ottoman project and turned towards Turkish
nationalism, which gained currency among the Turkish expatriate students in
Europe. The idea of Turkish unity emerged as a reaction to failures of both Ottomanism and Panislamism,
particularly in the context of the nationalist movements in the Balkans.
Particularly disappointing was the Albanian revolt of 1910 which was followed
later by the Arab revolt of 1916. The ideological roots of Turkish nationalism
can be found within the larger modernization process in the nineteenth century,
but two prominent intellectuals influenced the ideology of Turkish nationalism:
Yusuf Akyura (1876-1939) and Ziya
Gokalp (1876-1924). They articulated quite different
versions of nationalism, one based on common language and the other based on
common culture. Theirs was confrontation of nationalism as espoused by two
different groups of intellectuals. On the one hand, there were a group of
intellectuals .Ismail Gasprinsky, Hilseynizade
Ali Bey and Ahmet Agaoglu, and Yusuf Akyura, who were native of the Russian-occupied Turkish
territories, and for them nationalism meant unity of ethnic Turks. Native
Ottoman nationalists, such as Ziya Gokalp were more concerned about the Ottoman unity through
a common identity. It should be remembered that many members of this second
group originated from lost Balkan territories, and they were Turks, not
necessarily in ethnic terms but rather in terms of their common identity as
Muslims. Turkish nationalism as interpreted by Gokalp
was secularization of the .Ottoman Muslim common identity. Akyura
expressed his views on nationalism in a famous essay " Tarz-I
Siyaset" that appeared in 1904 in a ethnic nationalist magazine, Turk, published in Cairo.59
In this essay, he
described the three possible forms of unity or three solutions offered as
a solution to rescue the empire, namely, Ottomanism,
Panislamism, and Turkism. He totally discredited the
viability of the first option and was somewhat skeptical about the second. Yet
he finnly defended that Turkish nationalism would be
the only way to succeed in the final count: By such a policy all Turks living
in the Ottoman Empire would be perfectly united by both ethnic and religious
bonds and the other non-Turkish Muslim groups who have been already Turkified
to a certain extent would.be further assimilated. Those who have never been
assimilated but at the same time have no national feelings would be entirely
assimilated under such a program.But the main service
of such a policy would be to unify all the Turks who, being spread over a great
portion of Asia and over the Eastern parts of Europe, belong to the same
language groups, the same ethnicity and mostly the same religion. Thus there
would be created a greater national political unity among the other great
nations. In this greater national unity the Ottoman state as the most powerful,
the most progressive and civilized of all Turkish societies, would naturally
play an important role. There would be a Turkish world in between the world of
the Caucasian and the East Asian ethnicities. Recent events suggest that such a
division of the world into two great blocs is imminent. In between these two
blocks the Ottoman state could playa role similar to
that which is played by Japan among the East Asian ethnicities. We must
remember, however, that a great majority of the present-day Turks who seem to
be amenable to unification, are of Muslim religion. For that reason, Islam may
be an important factor in the realization of a Turkish unity. Religion is
admitted as an important element in various definitions of nationality. Islam,
however, to play such a role in the realization of the Turkish nationality has
to face a change so that it can admit the existence of the nationalities within
itself -a recognition achieved recently in Christianity. And such a transformati()n is almost inevitable. 60
Akyura
believed that Panturkism, as opposed to Panislamism, would not provoke world powers and therefore
as an external policy it had better chances than Panislamism
at being provocative to the colonial powers. The only power that would be
disturbed by such an ideology would be Russia. Hence, Panturkish
ideology, he hoped, might even enjoy the support of others as a form of policy
to weaken Russia. Reflecting his background as a diaspora Turk, his idea
of Pan turk ism was a form of universal nationalism,
involving all those ofTurkic background. In the
article, he appeared to be disturbed to see that the concept of Turk was being
employed by many as almost synonymous with Ottoman Muslims and considered this
as limitating of the scope of Turkism: When I saw the
name of your paper Turk, an uncommon name to be used [by the Ottomans], I hoped
to find in your columns an answer to this question which used to occupy me
continuously and I hoped that this answer would be in favor of the policy ofTurkism. But, I see that the "Turk" whose
rights you are defending, the' "Turk" whom you are trying to
enlighten and move is hot anyone of that great ethnicity who live in the lands
of Asia, Africa, and Europe, extending from' Central Asia to Montenegro, from
Timor Peninsula to the Karalar TIi[?],
but he is just one of the Western Turks who is a subject of the Ottoman state.
Your paper Turk knows and sees tJiis "Turk"
only as a Turk living from the fourteenth century and whose history is known
only through the eyes of the French historians. You are trying to defend the
rights of only the "Turk" against the pressures of the foreign
nations and the nonMuslim and Muslim peoples who are
subjects of the same [Ottoman] state but who belong to a different
[non-Turkish] ethnicity. For your paper Turk, the military, political and civil
history of the Turks is nothing but the history of Murat the First, Mehmet the
Conqueror, Selim the First, Ibn Kemal, Neri, Baki, Evliya Celebi
and Namik Kemal. It does not and cannot be extended
to the names ofOghuz, Chinggis, Timur, Ulugh Bey, Farabi, Ibn Sina, Taftazani and NavaL Sometimes
your opinions seems somewhat close to the policy of Pan-Islam and the Caliphate
leaving the impression that you are supporting the policies of Panislamism and Turkism at the same time. You implicitly
seem to believe that both groups being Muslims have common interests on vital
questions. But you do not even insist upon this view. The territorially limited
and ethnically comprehensive version of Turkish nationalism that Akyura criticized here co~stituted
the basis of the Kemalist project of homogenous nation-building. This
alternative version of Turkish nationalism was articulated by Ziya Gokalp, the chief ideologue
of the Republican Turkish nationalism. Like Akyura, Gokalp dealt with the question of reconciling three
identities of the empire.Interestingly Ottomanism was not included because by the time he wrote
this book, it was already a discarded option. Unlike Akyura
who did not believe a reconciliation was possible, Gtikalp
attempted to unify these three options and in doing so, he tried to devise a
national identity for the future of Turkey. It was this version of Turkish
nationalism that influenced the Kemalism as the
foundational ideology of the Turkish Republic. According to Berkes,
"[Gokalp] laid the only plausible cognitive map
for Turkey's passage from a six-hundred year empire to a new nation.“61
Gokalp
initially subscribed to a Panturkish notion, as
expressed in his poem "Turan" published in
1911. He extended the boundaries of Turkish nationalism to an elusive geography
of Turan: "The country of the Turks is not
Turkey, nor yet Turkestan,! their country is a broad and everlasting land - Turan.“62
In later stages of the development of his ideas, he began to advocate a notion
of nationalism based on common culture rather than common blood. In many
regards, Gtikalp was also the architech
of a civilizational identity shift in Turkey and in this sense he played a
similar role to that of Fukuzawa Yukichi
in Japan.63 Like Fukuzawa, Gtikalp
also thought that Westernization and acceptance of the Western civilization
were necessary in order to maintain independence of the country: We have to
accept the civilization of the West, because, if we do not we shall be enslaved
by the powers of the West. To master the civilization of the West, or to be
mastered by the powers of the West: between these alternatives we must
choose.64 Yet in Gtikalp's view Western civilization
should not be taken at the expense of Turkish culture. A separation of culture
(hars) and civilization (medeniyet)
is essential in his concept. While civilization was universal, it was culture
that was at the core of a national identity. Civilization for Glikalp meant being materially updated or contemporary with
the level of the technologically most advanced nations of the world that
happened to be located in Europe: "For us today, being contemporary with
modern civilization means to make and use battleships, cars, and airplanes that
the Europeans are making and using. When we see ourselves no longer in need of
importing manufactured goods and buying knowledge from Europe, theri we can speak of being contemporary with it.“65 On the
other hand, "culture" meant common national ideals and aspirations.For Gokalp, "a
nation is not a racial or ethnic or geographic.or
political or volitional group but one composed of individuals who share a
common language, religion, morality or aesthetics, that is to say, who have
received the same education.“66 Accordingly, he believed that Turkish
nationalism had to be based on three principles: Turkification, Islamization,
and modernization, which were by no means contradictory: As there is no
contradiction between the ideals of Turkism and Islamism, there is none between
these and the ideal of modernism. The idea of modernity necessitates only the
acceptance of the theoretical and practical sciences and techniques from
Europe. There are certain moral needs which will be sought in religion and
nationality, as there were in Europe, but these cannot be imported from the
West as if they were machines and techniques.It
seems, therefore, that we should accept the three ideals at the same time by
determining the respective fields of operation of each. To put in a. better
way, we have to create 'an up-to-date Muslim Turkism', realizing that each of
the three ideals is an aspect of the same need taken from a different angle.67
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