The Treaty of Versailles and Turkey: the Thorny Path to the Nation-State

Abstract

In this article the context of institutional and discursive changes associated with the collapse of the Imperial structure and the formation of the nation state is analyzed. The article describes the contradictory processes of transition from the Imperial identity to the national Turkish identity. Many researchers of this process turned primarily to its domestic political aspects. They considered the rise of nationalism and the recognition of the principle of national self-determination as the main reason for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Given the undoubted importance of these approaches, a transnational perspective can lead us to a better understanding of the processes that have led to the fall of multinational empires. It is an interstate rivalry and a geopolitical competition in the conditions of radical transformation of the global world order that have become the determining factors of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The dynamics of the global interstate rivalry influenced regional agendas, undoubtedly contributing to the formation of new political identities. The policies of the victorious powers and the decisions of the Paris Peace Conference had global consequences and mobilized waves of hidden or open protest from various groups of the Turkish population. Turkey, with arms in its hands, was the only one of the Central Powers able to achieve a revision of the peace treaties imposed on it by the victorious countries. The protest potential was so great that it allowed M. Kemal and his supporters to make the transition from a loose Empire to an internally consolidated national state.