Turkish Scholars Research Articles

Türk Din Musikisi Tarihine Bir Bakış

Turkish Religious Music that has a history more than thousand years, afteradapting Islam. There wasn’t any classify in Turkish music life as religious and non-religiousbefore Islam. So, this process can double or three fold that was thought. In this article, we‘llexamine Turkish people’s practice on music after Islam. In Turkish music the classifying asreligious music has appeared afterwards. Turkish music consists of Turkish art music, Turkishpeople music, Turkish mystic music and Janissary music that all of these are coming into existencefrom the same sources and origins. All these music types have common peculiarities from thecultural perspectives. But, afterwards, a classify came out because of increasing different formsand shapes in Turkish music, for demarcating some of them from the others. In this article also, itwill be adverted the life of Turkish music briefly. In addition to this, it’s important to touch onwhat Turkish scholars did on this art and how were their personalities. Furthermore, to reflectcharacteristics of art and understanding of science of the periods with historical process, we’ll alsomention some men of letters, poets, historians, penmen, and some personalities that lived in thepast, if they weren’t musicians. Because, we believe that to present understanding of art andscience that is part of the past is only possible by looking into various perspectives

The journalTürk Derneğıand Hungarian studies of Turcology in the pre-World War I period

Upon the restoration of the Constitution in the Ottoman State, on 23 July 1908, which guaranteed the freedoms of thought and associations, many non-governmental organisations were established. One of these was the Turk Dernegi (Turkish Association). Founded to promote research into the language, literature, history and culture of the Turks and related fields, the Society also published a periodical under the same name. In addition to works of Turkish scholars, some of the best achievements of Hungarian Turcology were translated into Turkish and published in this journal. By doing so, both the Society and the journal considerably contributed to the emergence and flourishing of scientific and cultural co-operation between the two countries in the pre-World War I period.

Turkish Women in Academia: Problems of Legitimacy in Trans/National Perspective

Turkish Women in Academia:Problems of Legitimacy in Trans/National Perspective Arzu Öztürkmen (bio) The study of women and history stands at the crossroad of a variety of directions. Writing the "history of women" in a particular country vis-à-vis their relation to state and society is one genre. Constructing the history of how women's studies emerged is another. There may also be feminist attempts to rewrite national historiographies in order to incorporate gender into them. Following that framework, one can state that there is substantial work on the first genre, where Ottoman and Turkish women's history has been analyzed.1 Turkish scholars have also broadly covered the history of the feminist movement within the last two decades.2 What is lacking in Turkish studies now is a feminist critique of national historiography, as was tried in Creating a Nation, where an accepted Australian national historiography was challenged through a reconsideration of colonialism and gender relations.3 Having stated these directions, this essay will focus on a different dimension of women's studies in Turkey—that of the multisited positions contemporary Turkish women academicians face in their encounters with national and international academic circles. It will try to highlight two main positions vis-à-vis Turkish women scholars: first, the discrepancy between national academics trained abroad and in national universities, and second, the problems of legitimacy in international context. Leaving aside the sporadic curiosities and nationalist publications about women's emancipation,4 scholarly interest in rethinking women's history in Turkey emerged in full force during the 1980s with the newly rising women's movement.5 This movement created its own academic programs, a women's library, social help shelters and centers, and political organizations to support women in politics. With this wave came an amount of research, which gradually led scholars toward a critique of women's status in national historiography. The Republican concept of women's emancipation apparently was not as progressive as Turkish women had so far been indoctrinated to believe; instead, this concept of emancipation was a regression from the demands and thematic richness expressed by Ottoman feminists. That such nineteenth-century Ottoman publications were in Arabic script, illegible to the Republican generation, had long postponed a thorough analysis of the Ottoman women's movement. This movement was fully aware of the rise of Western feminism and had already begun negotiating their roles and status in domestic space.6 Ottoman women debated their rights in education and political spheres, and adopted a more [End Page 173] assertive discourse than their successive Republican generations. With all its conservatism, Turkish women cherished more access to education and professional life under the Republic. Many studied abroad in different fields to return to teach in Republican universities.7 They acquired high-status jobs as the first generation of women teachers, doctors, judges, and pilots, accepting to a great extent their role as emancipated women in the public sphere. The Republican regime had also granted Turkish women their voting rights in 1934, before many European countries, a matter which had long been part of a proud national discourse. The state-controlled women's emancipation model survived until the 1970s, a period when Marxism dominated the public sphere, generating clashes between left- and right-wing groups. A group of women who questioned their position and status within the leftist movement broadened their critique towards a more gendered analysis: the wind of a general critique to the political order also brought a critique of gender.8 The women's movement accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s, with the growth of many women's nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the establishment of a Directorate General on the Status and the Problems of Women in 1990, and various campaigns on a variety of issues ranging from violence to citizenship rights. The movement created its own publications with more impact on general public debates. With the opening of thirteen research centers for women's issues and four women's studies departments since 1989, many young students also took part in research and writing, contributing to the development of an academic community. With the emergence of new power domains and relations, there soon appeared a tension between...

Knowledge, ideology and power. Deconstructing Kurdish Studies

The idea for this issue arose out of a seminar we organised, together with Jean-Francois Perouse, in 2005-2006 at the Institut Francais d’Etudes Anatoliennes (IFEA) in Istanbul on the ‘Conditions of emergence of the Kurdish question within the Turkish academic field’. We noticed that since the 1990s there had been a growing interest among Turkish scholar on the topic of Kurds and Kurdish questions. Until this very recent period, speaking about Kurds was a genuine taboo in Turkish universities...

İran ve Türkiye’nin Dünya Bilgibilim Literatürüne Katkıları: Karşılaştırmalı Bir Çalışma

Bu makalede İran ve Türkiye’nin dünya bilgibilim literatürüne katkıları araştırılmaktadır. Bu amaçla, çalışmamızda Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) kapsamında yer alan dergilerde yayımlanmış İran ve Türkiye adresli yayınlar incelenmektedir. İki ülkenin bilgibilim dergilerinde toplam 140 yayını bulunmaktadır. Söz konusu yayınların 85’i Türkiye’ye, 55’i ise İran’a aittir. Periyodik olarak bakıldığında, İran adresli yayınların zaman içinde artış ve azalışlar gösterdiği, buna karşılık Türkiye adresli yayınların sayısının her geçen yıl arttığı görülmektedir. İranlı araştırmacıların en çok yayın yaptığı bil­gibilim dergisi International Information & Library Review iken, Türkiye adresli yayınlar en sık Scientometrics adlı dergide yer almıştır. Türkiye adresli yayınların İran adresli yayınlara oranla daha sık bir şekilde birden çok yazarın katkısı ile oluştuğu görülmektedir. İran adresli yayınların yazarlarının çoğunluk­la kütüphanecilik kökenli olduğu gözlenirken, Türkiye adresli yayınların yazarları arasında istatistik, endüstri mühendisliği ve fizik gibi farklı alanlardaki araştırmacıların bulunduğu görülmektedir. Üretilen yayın sayısının ülkelerin potansiyelini tam olarak yansıtmadığı düşünülmektedir. Bu bağlamda, İran ve Türkiye’nin gelecekte yapacakları araştırmalar ile bilgibilim dünyasında daha etkin bir konumda olması gerekmektedir.

Turkey: Myths and Realities

The first question that a reader of the International Journal will likely ask is why release a special issue on Turkey? With all that is happening in global affairs today, focusing on a single country, and one not among the first rank of powers, might seem unjustifiably parochial. Twenty years ago, that charge would have been a reasonable one to make. Today, such thinking is out of date. Turkey is frequently, and unavoidably, near the centre of many pressing international issues. The country is located in a region where conflict is ongoing and political change, particularly as a result of the US-led war in Iraq, is now underway. It is too soon to know whether that change will improve regional stability, but Turkey will not be able to avoid its effects, however they play out. Turkish political culture, Muslim but officially secular, is viewed by many as a nexus or bridge between the western and Islamic worlds. This role has been endorsed by the current Islamist government in Ankara, and is reflected in the long-held goal of membership in the European Union (EU). That government must nonetheless reassure traditional domestic elites (and also some foreign observers) that its agenda is designed to reinforce, and not to undermine, the country's secular order. Lastly, there is the ongoing war on jihadism. The bombings in Istanbul in November 2003, and elsewhere in the country since then, clearly demonstrate that Turkey is viewed by the enemy as a target of value. The real question is, therefore, not whether Turkey should receive such attention in prestigious publications such as this one, but rather why it is not getting more.There is no clear answer to that question. In part, the answer might lie in simple oversight. During the Cold War years, and relative to the attention paid to many other European and Asian countries, Turkey was not the focus of a great deal of widely known scholarship. With the exception of a few scholars, such as Bernard Lewis or Stanford Shaw, the history and politics of modern Turkey were too arcane for most academics.1 The Ottoman empire, from which the modern republic emerged, was given even shorter shrift. That record has slowly begun to change in recent years. New works on Turkey by Emil Zurcher, Andrew Mango, and Philip Robins, to name but a few, along with an increasing number of native Turkish scholars publishing in English-language publications, including specialized journals, are fuelling a new interest in Turkey.2 The events of the past 15 years, since the start of the first Gulf war, have also drawn our attention to the regional presence of the Turkish republic. The five articles in this issue might legitimately be seen, therefore, as a small contribution to that trend.Beyond their focus on Turkey, it is nonetheless difficult for this writer to find a unifying theme that underlies the articles herein. Each of the authors has approached their subject from a unique and often stridently personal perspective. Two of the authors are based in Canada, while four hold academic positions in Turkey: four are political scientists, one is an historian, and one a frequent contributor to intelligence journals. Although the articles cover a broad range of topics, the contributions by the authors clearly highlight the potential for, and hopefully will encourage members of International Journal's readership to undertake, further studies.In the first essay, Virginia Aksan, a noted historian of the Ottoman empire, invites her readers to contemplate the linkages between the modern republic and its imperial predecessor. Despite efforts by the founders of the modern republic to build a new state and society by breaking both political and emotional ties to what they saw as a decrepit, irrational, and self-defeating past, it is an open question even 80 years later whether that exercise was, or ever could be, successful. Many of the challenges that confront Turkey's leaders and people today have their origins in the Ottoman past, the study of which was until recently discouraged or seriously constrained, and in some ways apparently still is. …

Archaeology as a Source of National Pride in the Early Years of the Turkish Republic

This paper investigates the change of discourse related to the inculcation of national pride through archaeology in the first 15 years of the Turkish Republic. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, archaeological knowledge was used by Turkish scholars in the propagation of national identity and pride by illustrating that Turks were an ancient people with a long and remarkable past. After the commencement of the first Turkish excavations in 1934, archaeology assumed a different role. More than the data produced, the practice of archaeology itself became a source of national pride because it was an important indicator that Turkey was a modern country that could contribute to international scholarship. This change of discourse can be followed in archaeological field reports and in the papers presented at the first two meetings of the Turkish Historical Society in 1932 and 1937.

Mapping, regularizing and modernizing Ottoman Istanbul: aspects of the genesis of the 1839 Development Policy

Modernization and westernization in the urban morphology of Istanbul during the late Ottoman period has frequently been presented by Turkish scholars in a linear process, linking urban development plans and later changes to the influence of historic figures, such as Helmuth von Moltke, a Prussian military adviser of the 1830s. A more holistic reading of this phenomenon based on primary sources, including letters in German by von Moltke, reveals a complex array of forces, responses and reactions, and simultaneously, a more modest and less seminal role for von Moltke in the development of the historic city.

Диалог о Геноциде: Усилия Армянских и Турецких Ученых по Осмыслению Депортаций и Резни Армян во Время Первой Мировой Войны

SUMMARY: “Dialogue on Genocide: Efforts by Armenian and Turkish Scholars to Understand the Deportations and Massacres of Armenians During World War I” presents R. Suny’s reflections on his efforts to initiate a Turkish-Armenian academic dialogue. The project started as a lecture he gave at Koç University, during which he saw that at least some Turks were beginning to rethink the unthinkable: to question their own nation’s past in order to make possible a more acceptable future. Suny’s initiative as well as his publications on the history of the 1915 Genocide provoked strong criticism from both Armenian and Turkish journalists and scholars. Next came the discussion of Suny’s reading of the Genocide in the journal The Armenian Forum , where three historians – two of Turkish origin, one of Armenian – got an opportunity to critique his article “Empire and Nation: Armenians, Turks, and the End of the Ottoman Empire,” based on his talk in Istanbul. In the article, and in his responses to all three scholars, Suny argued that his treatment of the events of 1915 was an attempt at an explanation that moves beyond the usual understanding of deep-seated Turkish racism, Armenian provocation, an imputed civil war, or a clash of nationalisms. It was a plea for a kind of enriched, thickly described, empirically-grounded study of the Genocide that had largely eluded us in the past. Employing some of the recent discussions of empire, nation, and identity-formation, he was trying to free the discussion from the constraints of the nationalist paradigms that had distorted older accounts. “Dialogue on Genocide” traces the success of this project by evaluating the discussions that took place at three workshops bringing together Armenian, Turkish, and other scholars: “Armenians and the End of the Ottoman Empire” (Chicago, March 17–19, 2000); “Contextualizing the Armenian Experience in the Ottoman Empire: From the Balkan Wars to the New Turkish Republic” (University of Michigan, March 8–10, 2002); the third Armenian-Turkish workshop (University of Minnesota, March 28–30, 2003). Thus, what had been an untouchable topic in the late 1990s had by 2002 become an acceptable, legitimate subject for discussion in the academic community and more broadly in the Armenian-American community.

André Joubin à Constantinople : un chargé de mission au Musée impérial ottoman (1893-1894)

André Joubin on a special mission in the Ottomon Imperial Museum (1893-1894). The Turkish journey of André Joubin (1868-1944) on a mission as a deputy heritage curator at the Ottomon Imperial Museum in Constantinople puts the Middle East journey to the test of modernity ; it is a turning point in the artistic and scientific relations between the two countries and, in a more general way, in the Eastern travel experience. From the middle of the 19th century, French artists or official representatives follow each other in Turkey and their presence tends to be permanent, for the greater renown of France. As a representative of French museology and archeology in Turkey, André Joubin acquired a great insight in the men as well as in the history and art of their country and perhaps was one of the first French Turkish scholars. Nonetheless, his mission highlights how hard it was for Europe to admit the part the Turks played in the construction of their own heritage and how disturbing it was to face a local competence.

Does Fulbright Make a Difference? The Turkish Perspective

This article reports on the findings of a research project carried out by a team of faculties at the Middle East Technical University and the Fulbright Education Committee in Turkey. The project aimed to investigate the Fulbright program's professional, personal, and social impacts and its effectiveness from the perspectives of Turkish scholars. Data were collected by mail from 277 Fulbright scholars living in various regions of Turkey. All of the scholars agreed that their Fulbright experience in the United States had had positive effects on their professional, social, and personal lives. Scholars were especially satisfied with the effect on their personal lives. For example, the Fulbright experience broadened their world viewpoint in a flexible and international setting. These results suggest that Fulbright scholars contribute to the development of the country, because many of them hold high-ranking positions that allow them to develop and implement policies in different sectors. For the development of the Fulbright program, it is recommended that continuous follow-up studies be conducted to identify its strengths and weaknesses.

Women in Modern Turkish Society: A Reader

This is an interdisciplinary feminist reader about women in modern Turkish society put together by Turkish women scholars. The contributors demonstrate the problems inherent in existing social and economic institutions, the failed promises of education and development programmes, and the media's continuing dissemination of traditional sexual stereotypes. They consider power relationships within families and explore women's political participation.

Turkey in Transition: New Perspectives.

This collection of essays by prominent Turkish scholars provides a comprehensive historical, political, and economic analysis of Turkey from the inception of its republic after World War I right up to the present. The essays--most never before published in English--break away from the conventional analytic approach, which holds the modernization process of 19th-century Europe as a paradigm for all developing countries. Instead, the contributors focus on Turkey's transition to capitalism to reveal other, indigenous paths to development experienced by many non-Western nations. The anthology concludes with an assessment of the past decade and examines future prospects for the nation.

A Polemical Treatise By Abd Al-Gani Al-Nabulusi Against a Turkish Scholar On the Religious Status of the Dimmīs

A Polemical Treatise By Abd Al-Gani Al-Nabulusi Against a Turkish Scholar On the Religious Status of the Dimmīs

Asine 2. Results of the Excavations East of the Acropolis 1970-1974. 1. General Stratigraphical Analysis and Architectural Remains. By So̵ren Dietz.

could be studied separately from the text. A few minor problems should be noted: the hard-to-find plan 7 is placed between fig. 7 and fig. A (to illustrate the details shown in figs. 5-7), while most of the plans are before the figures; plans 1-4 and 8 are large foldouts bound at the back of the book; the designations figs. 1-7 are used twice, once in the drawings of architectural features and storage pithoi and again in the pottery profiles. Rooms 43, 44 and 45 are misnumbered on p. 74. It is a credit to Ozgdi's devotion and energy that we have this prompt report on the 1979-1980 excavations, with an appendix on the major finds of 1981. The volume is the fruit of a sabbatical year, as is apparent from Ozgii's gracious acknowledgement of the stimulation and help provided by colleagues in the U.S. as well as in Turkey. Included in the volume is a paper which Ozgii? wrote to celebrate the centennial of Atatirk's birth, demonstrating the foresight of that statesman in encouraging and supporting the study of archaeology in Turkey, especially by Turkish scholars. Ozgii's accomplishments embody Atatirk's goals, and the Turkish Historical Society, thanks to Ataturk's benefaction,

A Historical Glance at the Development of the Current Turkish National Bibliography and Other Major Bibliographical Sources in Turkey

“Bibliography”, as a concept and as an instrument to control the products of intellectual and artistic activities, has had a long history of evolution in Turkey as in other countries of the world. Kâtib Çelebi (1609-1657), a seventeenth century Turkish scholar, who is known as Haji Khalifah by Westerners, produced his famous work “Keşfu’z-Zunûn ‘an Esmái’1-Kütübi ve’1-Fünûn” in the middle of that century, and this was first published by Gustav Fluegel in seven volumes between the years of 1835–1858, in Arabic and Latin with the title of Lexicon Bibliographicum et Encyclopaedicum. This work marks one of the summits of bibliographical evolution in Turkey. More than three hundred years have passed since the appearance of this monumental work which is universally considered as an important contribution to human knowledge. So far the Turkish intellectuals have not been able to produce another work of this calibre, however they have always been aware of the importance of bibliographical activities for a changing society. I will soon try to draw a picture of the scene of the bibliographical activities in today’s Turkey by giving some concrete examples.

Early Ottoman Monuments in Bulgarian Thrace

The five centuries, in which the Bulgarian lands were included within the frontiers of the Ottoman empire, left deep traces behind, some of which are stili visible today. Among these is the architectural heritage which has been tremendously rich. The vicessitudes of the extremely agitated history of the past hundred years caused the majority of the Ottoman monuments to disappear, but the number of those preserved is still considerable, and among them are works of the greatest quality which shed ample light on some important phases of the development of this architecture. Our knowledge of the Ottoman Turkish monuments of architecture in the Bulgarian lands is far from complete, partly due to the relatively late date in which Bulgarian science began to realise their value, partly of the difficulty to Western and Turkish scholars to travel the land extensively. A general work covering al! existing Ottoman-Turkish monuments in Bulgaria does not exist as yet and will take much pain-staking labour to produce. In this modest contribution we do not endeavour to give a full list of existing buildings nor wish to mentional all literature in Bulgarian, in Turkish or in other languages concerning these monuments but merely pick out a few important works of Early-Ottoman art which have remained largely unknown and unstudied until now.

Social Sciences in Contemporary Turkey

In a previous article I sought to appraise the field of Turkish studies, for the most part among western (predominantly American) scholars (MESA Bulletin, Vol. 3, No. 3, October 15, 1969). To fill out the picture, it is appropriate to also view the state of social research among the rapidly growing body of Turkish teachers and researchers. This article is not, however, a direct parallel to others in the MESA “State of the Art” series, in that it is not basically bibliographical. Such a review would require far more time, space, and knowledge in depth of several other social science disciplines than is currently available to me, because despite the remarks made below about problems of definition, the quantity and technical sophistication of work by Turkish researchers is quite large and is growing rapidly. Furthermore, since most of the research referred to below is in Turkish, the number of persons to whom a bibliographic review might be useful is quite limited. Instead, I think it would be more interesting to MESA members and other American social scientists to examine the characteristics and problems of what is probably one of the most vigorous social science communities in the “developing” countries, with a view (among other things) to helping facilitate increased cooperation between Turkish and American scholars in our common endeavors of advancing the state of knowledge.

The Publication and Distribution of Karamanli Texts by the British and Foreign Bible Society Before 1850, I

One of the most interesting of the various groups of Orthodox Christians that constituted the Rum Milleti within the Ottoman Empire were the Karamanli Christians of Asia Minor. These Karamanli Christians, or Karamanlides, were a substantial body of Christians Orthodox in religion but Turkish in speech. During the Ottoman period they were largely concentrated in the interior of Asia Minor, although they were also to be found in the Crimea and on the shores of the Sea of Azov. The question of their origin is a matter of controversy and is likely to remain so. Greek scholars incline to the view that the Karamanlides were of Greek descent and adopted Turkish as their vernacular, either by force or as a result of their isolation from the Greek speaking Orthodox Christians of the coastal regions. Turkish scholars regard them as the descendants of Turks who had migrated to Byzantine territories before the conquest or had served as mercenaries in the Byzantine armies and who had adopted the religion but not the language of their new rulers.

New Developments in Early Anatolian Archaeology

Anatolian prehistory has had great pioneers: Myres, Ormerod, Frankfort, Götze and others. Yet, in its present form, it is one of the youngest branches of archaeology. We might say that it was born when the Alişar excavations were in progress, round about 1930, on which reckoning it is less than twenty years old. Unfortunately for us in England, it grew with the rapidity of adolescence between 1939 and 1945 when our attention was otherwise engaged.During the war Turkish scholars were extremely active, and made some very important discoveries. German scholars were active too, at first in the field, later in research. The fresh material, like the comments thereon, has been published mainly in Turkish or in German works, the former being accessible but not always translated, the latter for the most part not available in England. Therefore a person whose opportunities and obligations have led to the study of both Turkish and German periodicals should try to make the results available: hence this paper. It is not, of course, confined strictly to the chronological and linguistic limits just mentioned, nor is it purely objective. For not only is a summary of facts needed, but also indications of the manner in which they might modify preconceived notions. Those indications may prove to be wrong. And whether much modification is needed depends on the notions. On almost every question one should keep an open mind, since excavation and exploration are still being carried on intensively, and new factors are continually introduced.