Modern Turkish History Research Articles

Midhat Cemal Kuntay – a man of many parts

Midhat Cemal Kuntay (1885 – 1956) was born in Istanbul and spent most of his life there working as a lawyer and Notary Public. He was also a prolific writer whose life-span was almost equally divided between the late Ottoman and early Republican periods of modern Turkish history. With his background in Arabic, Persian and Turkish in addition to French, he left no area of Turkish literature untouched or unadorned. He wrote poems – mainly with a patriotic viewpoint, two plays, essays, made translations from the French, and even published an outstanding novel called Üç ?stanbul [Three Istanbuls]. He was the author of three major published biographies: those of the important 19th century poet, playwright and novelist Nam?k Kemal, the journalist, writer and activist Ali Suavi, and the national poet Mehmed ‘Âkif. Especially in later life, Midhat Cemal Kuntay was also a regular contributor of articles and columns to daily newspapers.

Reading the Middle East through the Lens of Women’s Press in Turkey

The Progressive Women’s Association (PWA), founded in 1975 under the auspices of the Turkish Communist Party (TCP) when second-wave feminism was on the rise in Europe, emerged as the largest and most significant women’s organization in Turkey’s recent history. However, the organization did not position itself within the feminist paradigm. Instead, it worked for women’s causes without a feminist lineage. Thus, one of the principal questions of this study is how and to what extent the women’s movement in Europe, particularly second-wave feminism, was reflected by the women who founded the PWA and mobilized thousands of women during its five-year existence before it was shut down following the military coup in 1980. By relying on the journal Kadınların Sesi (Women’s Voice) published by the PWA, this study attempts to analyze how and to what extent women of the PWA followed and interpreted Middle East politics and specifically the condition of women in the Middle East. Previous studies on the PWA and its role in the history of the Turkish women’s movement have focused on locating the PWA within the socio-political context of modern Turkish history in general, and Turkish women’s history in particular. This study departs from the existing literature and unpacks how these women reflected upon the world in which they lived by focusing on what they wrote about the Middle East and women in the region.

Turkey’s Response to International Terrorism Eastern

The article analyzes the interconnection between the direction of Turkey's struggle against terrorism with modern Islamist and nationalist ideas of Turkey. A majority of Turkish citizens following the Hanafi school of Islam, have historically opposed the purist religious doctrine of the Salafists. The author emphasizes that neither Turkey’s secular tradition nor its predominant, moderate Islamic theology has made Turkish citizens immune to radicalization. Modern Turkish history has produced several violent Islamist organizations advocating Salafi views in line with the Islamic State’s ideology. Turkish jihadists have been found among the ranks of foreign fighters in several recent conflict zones abroad. The article proves that when the uprisings began in Syria in 2011, Turkey threw its full support behind the opposition – harboring and mobilizing dissidents, arming rebels, and allowing free passage along the Syrian-Turkish border. Jihadists began to exploit the security vacuum, including ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra (now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda. The article also addresses the problems of Ankara’s indifference at the first stage towards the ISIL’s activities within and across Turkish territory. While the crossings between Turkey and ISIL territory officially were closed in 2014, smuggling through the frontier continued apace and Ankara only later started to engage ISIL militarily. The author concludes that the period of active struggle against al-Qaeda in Turkey (2003-2011) gave way after 2012 to a reduction in counterterrorism operations and now supporters of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham thank Turkey for protecting them against Syrian government forces, Russia and Iran.

A past to be forgotten? Writing Ottoman history in early republican Turkey

ABSTRACT Scholars of modern Turkish history have long asserted that Ottoman history and historiography were effectively silenced by the Kemalist elite in the early republican period. According to the existing scholarship, the Kemalist nation-builders regarded the new republic as the exact opposite of the ‘cosmopolitan’ Ottoman Empire, discrediting it as an illegitimate ancien régime. As a result of this break with the Ottoman past, which entailed the destruction or silencing of everything recalling it, the study of Ottoman history was discouraged and Ottoman historians were pushed to the margins of academic and intellectual life by the single-party regime. This article problematizes this widely accepted and oft-repeated argument that not only derives from but also reproduces the stereotyped perspectives on modern Turkish history. Focusing on the historical literature produced in the 1920s and 1930s, exploring the relationship between the single-party regime and Ottoman historians, and examining the temper and content of contemporary works on Ottoman history, this article aims to present a more nuanced picture of early republican Turkish history and historical writing, and argues that Ottoman historiography, which had already received a nationalized vocabulary and agenda before the republican era, continued to flourish in its own realm throughout all this period.

A Study on Representation and Significance of Turkish Culinary Culture Shown in the Novel A Strangeness in My Mind

Orhan Pamuk, the writer hailing from Istanbul, chose his birthplace as the spatial background for the novel A Strangeness in My Mind. While his previous novels focused on the middle and upper classes of Istanbul, this work stands out by centering on the poor people dealing with urbanization and modernization. The main structure of the novel follows the story of Mevlut, who was born in a poor town in Anatolia, in the central region of Turkey. Through his eventful life, we look at the changes in Turkey and Istanbul along with the social aspects such as political and cultural conflicts by using “boza”, a traditional fermented beverage, as a pivot. The culinary culture has deep relations with society’s history and culture, which makes it a significant subject in the cultural study analyzing political, economic, social, and religious implications. A Strangeness in My Mind uses “boza” to present the tale of colorful Turkish cuisine together with modern Turkish history stained with social chaos such as military coups and conflicts with Kurds. The novel makes associations between food and the characters, the events, and the dishes, to describe their unique traits, and employs culinary metaphors to express people’s thoughts and intentions. Boza, in particular, serves as metaphor for several themes: the disputes between Islam and secularism, nostalgia for fading traditions, and for Mevlut, a confrontation with himself and introspection.

The transformation of the political position of the Armenian community in Istanbul vis-à-vis the declaration of the Republic of Turkey

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes the transformation of the political position of the Ottoman Armenian community by focusing on the community’s reactions vis-à-vis a major turning point in modern Turkish history: the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey. The article demonstrates how and why the Ottoman Armenian community reacted as it did when the status of the state as a Republic was proclaimed by the Grand National Assembly in October 1923. The major argument the article puts forward is that following the results of the Turkish-Armenian War in the Caucasus, the Greco-Turkish War in Western Anatolia, and the retreat of the French from the Cilicia region, the majority of the Ottoman Armenian community which remained within the borders of ‘New Turkey’ shifted its political position to accommodate the policies of the ruling power in order to protect their physical and cultural existence during this period of political turmoil. Benefiting from primary sources, including Ottoman Armenian and Ottoman Turkish newspapers, archival documents, and parliamentary minutes, this article focuses on the position of Ottoman Armenians following the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey, and thus contributes to the historiography on the Armistice period.

AKP’s Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy theories have historically thrived in Turkey, but in recent years the AKP government have escalated their use and redirected their targets. Now, based on a foundation of imagined ‘hereditary victimhood’ that sees critique of the AKP elite as a Western conspiracy to destroy Islam, these conspiracies are driving an increasingly-polarising narrative that starkly divides both the Turkish populace and Turkey’s global relationships. The AKP government’s radicalization has already influenced its domestic constituency, which has grown more anti-Western than at any other time in modern Turkish history, and whose support for sharia rule in Turkey has risen dramatically. Given the extensive reach of the AKP government’s rhetoric in Turkish diaspora communities in the West, we can reasonably expect a similar but certainly mediated influence there as well.

LIVING AT THE MARGINS: WOMEN AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN PAINS OF AUTUMN

One of the most catastrophic events in modern Turkish history occurred on September 6-7, 1955. Fuelled by Turkish nationalism, riots targeting non-Muslim minorities aimed to homogenize the demographics and economy of the Turkish Republic. Political and social problems between Turkey and Greece had been threatening the lives of minorities for some time. In 1955, with the Cyprus issue accelerating tensions between Greece and Turkey, thousands of homes and shops were plundered in Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara, with Greeks, Jews, and Armenians suffering material and spiritual harm. This sensitive issue is presented in Yılmaz Karakoyunlu’s Pains of Autumn [Güz Sancısı], a novel in which the author portrays the lives of Muslim Turks and non-Muslim minorities of Turkey during the September 1955 events. This article analyzes the role of women as symbols (and makers) of nations, specifically in Pains of Autumn . It becomes evident that Karakoyunlu reveals his nationalist mindset in his treatment of the female characters and illustrates the close relationship between gender and nationalism in the book.

Bernard Lewis and the Writing of Real History

ABSTRACTRecent appraisals of Bernard Lewis’s career and scholarship have tended to neglect somewhat the research he carried out at London University’s School of Oriental African Studies (SOAS) before his move to Princeton in 1974. This early work resulted in important publications on Isma‘ilism, the Ottoman archives and modern Turkish history, but he also published highly influential books dealing with pre-modern Islamic history and culture. A survey of his early publications reveals certain recurring topics and preoccupations, including Isma‘ilism considered as a political and cultural revolution manqué, the potential dangers of a clash of civilizations, and Muslim responses to the challenges of modernization and Westernization. Lewis’s style and lucidity have contributed greatly to his influence as a historian.

Palimpsests of Violence: Urban Dispossession and Political Theatre in Istanbul

Palimpsests of Violence:Urban Dispossession and Political Theatre in Istanbul Emine Fişek (bio) What is the relationship between theatre and politics in contemporary Turkey? The answer to this question is linked to the proliferation of so-called alternative theatres in Istanbul in the twenty-first century. Designating theatre ventures that exist outside the publicly funded state and municipal theatre circuits, the phrase "alternative theater" is one way in which artists, critics, and audiences have referenced the proliferation of theatrical activity that has characterized the new millennium. Of course, a broader historical lens reminds us that experimental theatre companies had already emerged in Turkish metropoles in the 1960s; but the sheer political, aesthetic, and institutional variety of twenty-first-century alternative theatre is better traced to the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Istanbul-based ventures like Bilsak Tiyatro, Kumpanya, 5. Sokak Oyuncuları, and Şahika Tekand's Stüdyo Oyuncuları sought to create autonomous spaces for theatrical expression, research, and pedagogy. This search has only accelerated in the twenty-first century, with new spaces like GalataPerform, Kumbaracı50, DOT, Moda Sahnesi, İkinciKat, MekanArtı, and Şermola Performans (among many others) vying for public visibility. Alternative theatre is not a monolithic whole, yet one trend that has characterized the domain's emergent work is a concern with the politics of both collective and individual memory as well as the complexities of national identity in twentieth-century Turkey. If Turkish theatre has witnessed a shifting terrain in the new millennium, however, so has Turkish politics. The ascendancy and rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has challenged the Kemalist [End Page 349] state project that had previously defined Republican history, with its emphasis on Turkish nation-statehood and secular modernization. Campaigning on a neoliberal brand of Islamic social conservatism, part of what the AKP has introduced into Turkish political life is a historiographic tendency in which an array of past political grievances are brought together to rewrite Kemalist memory politics. While drawing attention to the "multiplicity of alternative memories" that have emerged in the wake of this shift, Onur Bakıner nonetheless signals the arrival of "a new state-sanctioned historiography," where conservative-nationalist readings of the past have resulted in selective reckonings as well as further silencings.1 Two trends in particular are important to note: first, the emergence of a depoliticized memory of the country's successive military coups that obscures the history of human rights violations, and second, a discourse of neo-Ottomanism that both imagines a Muslim-Turkish imperial past and engages in facile celebrations of Ottoman multiculturalism. How did alternative theatre respond to this shifting terrain? How did playwrights and theatre artists negotiate the possibilities as well as the limitations of conducting political theatre in the new millennium? In this essay, I focus on Ahmet Sami Özbudak's play İz (The Stain), which was directed by Yeşim Özsoy at the alternative theatre venue GalataPerform in Istanbul in 2013, to formulate some preliminary answers to these questions. İz was created by Özbudak in 2010, in the context of the Yeni Metin, Yeni Tiyatro (New Text, New Theatre) writing workshops that Özsoy had been organizing at GalataPerform since 2006. Since then, the play has had a smooth run, and the company celebrated their hundredth performance in June 2016. Meanwhile, Özbudak has published a novelized version of the narrative that also includes the playtext, and negotiations are in process for a film adaptation. The play, in other words, has grown beyond its seemingly medium-specific identity, despite a tight dramaturgical structure and pronounced use of theatrical space and media. What is the play's enduring appeal? İz tells three concurrent stories, each of which is anchored around a specific moment in modern Turkish history. The first story is set in 1955 and centers on Rum (Anatolian Greek) sisters Eleni and Markiz, who are tending to their mother, an elderly woman who has not exited her bedroom in a number of months. As they [End Page 350] discuss their mother's condition, the political tension that underlies their everyday existence culminates in the events of September 6–7, during which Istanbul's Greek community was systematically attacked by Turkish mobs...

Islamism and Turkey’s foreign policy during the Arab Spring

ABSTRACTThe Arab Spring truly caught Turkey by surprise. In interpreting what was happening in the region, Turkey’s foreign policy-makers relied on a particular view, which helped steer Turkey’s foreign policy in the ensuing regional earthquake. This article seeks to dissect that view and deconstructs its main components mainly through the speeches of Ahmet Davutoğlu, who served as Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs during the heyday of the Arab Spring. The paper also illustrates how Davutoğlu’s interpretation heavily borrows from the Islamist interpretive frame of modern Turkish history. That frame, this article claims, originated in the late Ottoman period and has since evolved in contestation with alternative readings, both official and non-official. The article suggests that Davutoğlu’s view of the Arab Spring helps explain why Turkey welcomed the Arab Spring and advised Arab regimes to implement political reforms.

Turkey: How the Coup Failed

On 15 July 2016, Turkey was shaken by an attempted coup. For the first time in modern Turkish history—a history littered with attempted coups—the elected government thwarted the putsch. We suggest that the success of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in defeating the coup attempt is part and parcel of its competitive authoritarian regime. On the one hand, AKP’s extensive access to public and private resources, as well as its control over conventional and social media, bolstered its capacity to mobilize during the time of crisis. On the other hand, the regime’s electoral features have armored the AKP with political (not to mention popular) legitimacy, and have incentivized opposition parties to remain committed to the regime, rather than opt for an uncertain future under military rule. We conclude that the failure of the coup attempt not only indicates the resilience of competitive authoritarianism in Turkey, it may also pave the way for a more stable authoritarian regime under the AKP’s rule.

Beyond ‘Black Turks’ and ‘White Turks’ – The Turkish Elites’ Ongoing Mission to Civilize a Colourful Society

AbstractThis article undertakes a conceptual enquiry into the history of the Ottoman/Turkish concept of civilization. It shows how the concept of civilization became one of the key elements of political and intellectual thought in the late Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. Beginning with the adaption of the idea of civilization in the nineteenth century, the desire to be recognized as civilized has moulded the thinking of Ottoman and Turkish elites regardless of their political orientation. From the early Ottoman modernizers to the present-day AKP government the pursuit ofmedeniyet(Turkish for ‘civilization’) has united radical reformers and religious conservatives. The article analyses how these succeeding imperial and republican elites understood the concept of civilization, how they transformed it into a specific Ottoman and Turkish civilizing mission, and how they approached those groups of the population who were regarded as ‘backward’ and ‘uncivilized’. Therebymedeniyethas maintained its dominance until today, making ‘civilization’ the most influential ideological concept of modern Turkish history besides the idea of the nation.

Turkish cinema in the 2000s: an interview with turkish director Emin Alper

Emin Alper was born in Konya on 13 August 1974. Alper studied at Ankara Science High School and then Economics at Bog azici University. After graduating from Bog azici University, he completed his postgraduate studies and obtained his doctorate in Modern Turkish History at the Ataturk Institute for Modern Turkish History of the same university (Donmez-Colin, 2014).

Remembering the Gallipoli campaign: Turkish official military historiography, war memorials and contested ground

The Gallipoli campaign occupies an important place in modern Turkish history, a position reinforced by the release of new publications and the construction of additional monuments to mark the centenary of the conflict. However, these are comparatively recent developments as, just decades ago, the Gallipoli campaign was not regarded as significant to the foundation of the Turkish Republic nor as a powerful source of national identity. While popular Turkish remembrance and commemoration of the campaign began with the wartime propaganda and myth-making of the period, the Turkish War of Independence proved more significant to the national consciousness, inspiring its own particular myths and legends. Yet, with the passage of time, official military histories, personal war narratives, the construction of the Dardanelles Martyrs’ Memorial in the early 1950s and the official campaign of the 1980s to create a more articulated Gallipoli history proved instrumental in establishing Gallipoli as crucial to the foundation narrative. Alongside this, recent political and sociocultural developments have also seen the creation of an alternative Islamic myth (with the controversy that accompanies it) while reinforcing the omnipresence of Gallipoli in Turkish history and national consciousness.

The Spirit of Gezi: The Recomposition of Political Subjectivities in Turkey

There is a peculiar affinity between the global uprisings of the last few years--from Tahrir Square, to Syntagma, Zuccotti Park and the Indignados. Not only do these uprisings seem to share similar forms of political protest, they also appear to represent a cycle in which elements are passed over or imitated. In this chain of struggles, every event is also singular, shaped by the respective specificities of its spatio-temporal context. However, those differences, should not be read in an essentialist manner, as if Cairo and New York were incomparable and thus incompatible cases. Instead, we take those differences as different expressions of a common case--an understanding of democracy that challenges the established boundaries between the spheres of the economic, the political and the social. Within this context, the Gezi Uprising, during the summer of 2013 in Turkey--in all its singularity--has something to say about the general patterns of revolts in contemporary capitalism. In this article we aim to provide a theoretically informed account of the Gezi Uprising, which started with a small initiative to prevent the demolition of Gezi Park in the heart of Istanbul, next to Taksim Square, during May 2013 and grew into a nationwide uprising on 31 May 2014. It was an unexpected event, emerging at a point when oppositional forces began to lose hope in the face of the rising authoritarianism of the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi --Justice and Development Party) government. (i) It was 'sudden and puzzling', 'abrupt and spontaneous' for all. (1) According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, two and a half million people took part in the uprising in seventy-nine cities of Turkey. It was undoubtedly the most significant spontaneous uprising in modern Turkish history. Our account gives a glimpse of the immediacy of the uprising based on the participatory observation of the authors (which was limited to its centre, Gezi Park in Istanbul) and also provides a discussion on its background conditions, inner dynamics and transformative nature as well as on the novel and emergent forms of collective political action, affects, language and subjectivity. We do acknowledge the limits of Gezi Uprising's novelties and that the forms we aim to reveal and discuss have not induced social change on a broader scale. They were rather emergent forms, which appeared to sprout during the uprising and weaken afterwards. However, we still think that those emergent forms were important as they signify new potentialities of collective political action and new understandings of democracy that are not bound by the hegemonic forms of politics and representation. One of the common features of the global uprisings was the heterogeneity of the participants. The protests did not only represent the concerns of a particular social group, but typically resonated with the desires of the 'multitude'. (ii) Indeed, resonance and heterogeneity were two important features of the Gezi Uprising as observed by the authors of this article, among many others. (iii) The heterogeneous composition of these events though, is often seen as a sign of their lack of a common ground. Following this argument, a common narrative on the new cycle of uprisings claims that due to the very diversity of their composition, they cannot result in an enduring movement, let alone a political party. We aim to contribute to the broader discussion on the global chain of uprisings through developing an alternative line of argument in the context of the Gezi case. We conceive these elements of heterogeneity and resonance as the conceptual infrastructures of a new virtual political subjectivity, which we analyse with the concept of recomposition. By using the concept of recomposition, we shift the emphasis 'from identity to becoming'. (2) Our analysis does not see the heterogeneity of the protestors as a weakness; on the contrary, we see it as a window of opportunity in the sense that Lefebvre defined the revolutionary moment as 'the spontaneous coming together in a moment of 'irruption; when disparate heterotopic groups suddenly see, if only for a fleeting moment, the possibilities of collective action to create something radically different'. …

Reading Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on the Armenian genocide of 1915

ABSTRACT The debate on where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey and universally known as the ‘Father of the Turks’, stood in regard to the colossal violence committed against Armenians during the First World War has become a fiercely contested part of the Turkish-Armenian reconciliation process, especially within the past few years. Ulgen aims to clear away the clouds of dust surrounding Kemal by delving into his texts and examining his role in the reification of Turkish denial of the destruction of Ottoman Armenians. Based on a textual analysis of his entire corpus, including Nutuk—the Great Speech of 1927 and the master-narrative of modern Turkish history and national identity—her article examines and documents how his charismatic leadership helped to consolidate both the myth of ‘murderous Armenians’ and that of the Turks as an ‘oppressed nation’ (mazlum millet), monumentalizing both in official Turkish historiography. Ulgen argues that Kemal's portrayal of Armenians and the Armenian Question was generally consistent across the years and in various political documents, as well as being consistent with contemporary Turkish representations of the events of 1915. What really tips the balance towards Turkish innocence in Kemal's representation of the conflict is not his framing of the issue per se but the stark difference in the rhetoric he deploys in depicting Armenian and Turkish atrocities and, hence, Armenians and Turks. The undeniable authority of this discursive regime is central to the resilience of Turkish denial today.

Religion, Society, and Modernity in Turkey * BY SERIF MARDIN

This book brings together Serif Mardin's seminal essays over the last forty years on the history of the late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkish Republic. Touching upon the social, political and religious aspects of the last two centuries, the essays have one underlying theme: understanding Turkish social and political history outside the dominant paradigms of ‘Marxisant’, positivistic and secular–modernistic constructions of Turkish culture and society (p. xiii). Like his other pioneering works, Mardin's essays in the present collection provide penetrating analyses of the transformation of the classical Ottoman civilization into the modern Turkish Republic and its far-reaching consequences for contemporary Turkish society, and the relationship between tradition and modernity. Instead of interpreting modern Turkish history as the decline of Islam and the triumph of secularism (p. 260), Mardin provides an alternative narrative of Turkish modernization, one in which the parallel histories of modernization and counter-modernization and the centre–periphery relations shape...

The Mosque as a Divisive Symbol in the Turkish Political Landscape

This study explores the impact of two controversial mosque projects. The first project was intended for Göztepe Park and the second for Taksim Square in Istanbul. These projects are considered in the broader context of a general Islamist bid over the last few decades to re‐conquer the Turkish political landscape and public opinion. These attempts on the part of Islamist movements reflect their desire for legitimacy, power, prestige, and elite status that were monopolized by the republican elite throughout modern Turkish history. However, these projects elicit a very negative response among secularist circles, both at the state and civil society levels. Both sides see themselves as in a continuous tug‐of‐war for control over the public sphere. It seems that in the long run, this struggle may moderate both political Islam and puritan secularism in Turkey, creating more spaces for their coexistence as well as dialogue and mutual respect—if not consensus—between them. However, the potential for further polarization between the two sides is also not completely out of the realm of possibility.

Mass-Casualty Terrorist Bombings In Istanbul, Turkey, November 2003: Report of the Events and the Prehospital Emergency Response

This paper describes the two mass-casualty, terrorist attacks that occurred in Istanbul, Turkey in November 2003, and the resulting pre-hospital emergency response. A complex, retrospective, descriptive study was performed, using open source reports, interviews, direct measurements of street distances, and hospital records from the American Hospital (AH) and Taksim Education and Research State Hospital (TERSH) in Istanbul. On 15 November, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in trucks were detonated outside the Neve Shalom and Beth Israel Synagogues, killing 30 persons and injuring an estimated additional 300. Victims were maldistributed to 16 medical facilities. For example, AH, a private hospital located six km from both synagogues, received 69 injured survivors, of which 86% had secondary blast injuries and 13% were admitted to the hospital. The TERSH, a government hospital located 1 km from both synagogues, received 48 injured survivors. On 20 November, IEDs in trucks were detonated outside the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) headquarters and the British Consulate (BC), killing 33 and injuring an estimated additional 450. Victims were maldistributed to 16 medical facilities. For example, TERSH, located 18 km from the HSBC site and 2 km from the the BC received 184 injured survivors, of which 93% had secondary blast injuries and 15% were hospitalized. The AH, located 9 km from the HSBC site and 6 km from the BC, received 16 victims. The twin suicide truck bombings on 15 and 20 November 2003 were the two largest terrorist attacks in modern Turkish history, collectively killing 63 persons and injuring an estimated 750 others. The vast majority of victims had secondary blast injuries, which did not require hospitalization. Factors associated with the maldistribution of casualties to medical facilities appeared to include the distance from each bombing site, the type of medical facility, and the personal preference of injured survivors.