Embedded Turkification: Nation Building and Violence within the Framework of the League of Nations 1919–1937

Carolin Liebisch-Gümüş

doi:10.1017/s0020743819000904

Abstract

AbstractThis article traces intersections between Turkey's relations with the League of Nations and violent homogenization in Anatolia in the two decades following World War I. It advances the argument that the strife for creating a homogenous population—a core element of Turkish nation building—was embedded in the international order. This is explained on two levels. First, the article stresses the role of international asymmetries on the mental horizon of the Turkish nation builders. The League's involvement in the allied plans to partition Turkey had the organization wrapped up in a mélange of humanitarian concerns, civilizing doctrine, and imperialist interests. Turkish nationalists wanted to avoid those imperialist pitfalls and overcome international minority protection by means of Turkification. They saw international humanitarianism as an obstacle to their nationalist line. Second, the article highlights the ways in which the League itself supported the Kemalists’ drive for Turkification, either directly, especially in the case of the “population transfer” between Greece and Turkey, or indirectly through prioritizing Turkey's sovereignty over minority concerns.

Highlights

In a meeting with the director of the League of Nations Minority Section in November 1930, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Tevfik Rustu (Aras) declared that all minority issues in his country had been solved.1 He explained that bilateral agreements with Greece had settled the situation of the remaining Orthodox population in Istanbul
The genocide of Armenians and Syriacs organized by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) during the war as well as their resettlement programs in Eastern Anatolia bear witness to this
Considering this proactive mindset, Karl Marius Widding, neutral member of the Mixed Commission, noted, “the Turks appear to be by far the best prepar[ed] from a theoretical point of view and they appear to be desirous of carrying out the Convention to the full.”78 These cited examples illustrate that the political leadership in Turkey welcomed the internationally coordinated “population transfer” as a positive contribution to nation building

Summary

Introduction

In a meeting with the director of the League of Nations Minority Section in November 1930, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Tevfik Rustu (Aras) declared that all minority issues in his country had been solved.1 He explained that bilateral agreements with Greece had settled the situation of the remaining Orthodox population in Istanbul.

Results

Conclusion