Ottoman to Turk

Abstract

We consider the European Union a community of values, not a Christian club-Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of Turkey1That the modern Republic of Turkey is situated in one of the most dangerous geopolitical corners of the world has become an oft-repeated cliche of journalists and historians alike. Recent events in the Middle East have brought this more forcibly to the attention of residents of North America, but it is a reality for Turks themselves, who celebrated the Sand anniversary of the declaration of the Turkish republic in 2005. Celebrated then and now as the model of the successful modern state, the transformation is often represented as a phoenix raised from the ashes by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938), nationhood triumphant against all odds, and all enemies. The earliest official histories of the republic generally ignored the 600 year span of the Ottoman empire, and reached back into a central Asian, Turkic past for a genealogy and ethnography to underwrite the new republic. Empires have a habit of writing back, however. New generations of historians, Turkish and non-Turkish, have begun to question the myopia of a selfimposed amnesia, and to trace the lineages of the current state in the chaos of the last days of the Ottomans.I have been asked to review this historiography of the late Ottoman, early republican period by way of an introduction to articles on contemporary Turkey and the European Union. I do not pretend to be an expert on the republican period, as my own research lies in the 1750-1850 era, but I will endeavour to draw some linkages from the military and political reforms of the 19th century to the foundations of the republic, leaving further explanation of the contemporary functioning of state institutions, and the implications for Turkey of acceptance by the European Union (EU) to the authors of other articles in this issue. To reach that point, this essay first briefly reviews stages of the actual history, then discusses several versions of the empire-tonation-state story, and finally examines three areas of overlap between the imperial and the republican: westernization, or the march to the liberaldemocratic state; Islamism, or the role of religion in state affairs; and finally, militarism, or the role of the military as guardians of the legacy of Atatiirk. LIn 1931, the Republican People's Party of the newly minted Turkish republic presented a platform of principles, which was conceptualized as six arrows: republicanism, populism, revolutionism, nationalism, etatism (statecontrolled capitalism and industrial development), and secularism. The latter three and their associated institutions have been particularly contested of late in Turkey, especially in the debates around the role of Islam. This package of ideas is often referred as Kemalism, in direct reference to the vision and contribution of Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk. The set of ideas was incorporated into the constitution of 1937. For many Turks, the golden arrows continue to function as the bedrock ideology of the modern state, as carved in stone as the statues of Atatiirk in every town square of the country. The Islamist challenge of the last two decades, however, has resulted in the fraying of the allegiances to that bedrock, a disturbing trend for many, both at home and abroad, but likely the preface to a revised definition of what it is to be a Turk.THE HISTORY OF REFORM IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXTModernization, or westernization, of the Ottoman empire as a truly radical enterprise began with the destruction of the imperial army, the Janissaries, in 1826. Sultan Mahmut II (1808-39), referred to often as the infidel sultan, embarked upon a ruthless reform program that eliminated regional rivalries, curbed the power of the religious classes, introduced the French regimental system to an outmoded military, and established military training schools. The sultan made five separate trips into the countryside in his final decade of rule in an effort to call his subjects to arms and convince them of the imperative of the modernization program he had underway, unheard of in a sultan since the late iyth century when he normally led his army to the battlefront. …