Late-Ottoman ‘Rogues’ and their Paths to Power: A Prosopographic Study

Abstract

This contribution addresses the relationship between individuals and the centers of power in the late Ottoman Empire through a prosopographic study of Unionist komitacıs. Choosing a selection of activist officers who identified themselves as fedais, or self-sacrificing agents, the chapter examines their early career paths to disentangle the ways in which affective affinity, personal allegiance, opportunism, serendipity and structural change in the empire’s military combined to shape their formation. Taking as its focus a core group of middle-ranking officers from different ethnic and geographical backgrounds who came together to serve in key battles from the 1910s to the 1920s, the study analyzes their education, early careers, and patronage links to ascertain patterns and divergences. This select group features men who rose to certain degrees of prominence due to their service for and loyalty to those at the upper echelons of the military establishment, including most prominently Enver Pasha. The paper assesses the tensions between the network of personal and patronage-based connections linking the late-Ottoman komitacıs and the broader but increasingly volatile structural dynamics of the period that brought these men to the fore, with dramatic consequences for the empire, its fragile demographic and social patterns, and the individuals’ post-imperial histories.