Anticipatory historical geographies of violence: Imagining, mapping, and integrating Dersim into the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish state, 1866–1939

Abstract

Any understanding of the transformation from indirect imperial to centralized nation-state rule must consider the complex interplay between knowledge production, sovereignty, and power, as well as the historical geographies that shape them. As such, this article focuses on Middle Eastern modern-state formation through the case of Dersim, a region in contemporary Turkey's Eastern Anatolia, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It delves deeply into Dersim's intricate dynamics to examine the changing relationship between state and territory through the perspective of government authorities, Western travelers, and local inhabitants. The article argues that the Turkish state's violent transformation of nonstate Dersim in 1937–38 marked a peak in the process of creating a flattened, homogeneous territory where sovereignty would be implemented effectively and, ideally, equally. This process began in Dersim, and the larger region around it, with the implementation of the Ottoman Tanzimat Reforms in the early nineteenth century, gained momentum with the 1877–78 Russo-Turkish War, and reached its culmination with genocidal operations in Dersim in the late 1930s. The state elites' instrumentalization of modern cartography, among other technological advancements, for military purposes allowed them to envision, define, and reshape Dersim as an integral part of their imagined national homeland.