Gözde Emen-Gökatalay | Independent Scholar (original) (raw)

Papers by Gözde Emen-Gökatalay

Research paper thumbnail of Patterns of Far-Right and Anti-Minority Mobilization in the Era of Fascism: the Case of Muslim Communities in Interwar Bulgaria

Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, 2023

This study explores the link between far-right movements and anti-minority policies in interwar B... more This study explores the link between far-right movements and anti-minority policies in interwar Bulgaria, with a focus on Muslim communities. Generally speaking, right-wing extremism consists of parties and organizations that are ideologically linked by their support of cultural conservatism, xenophobia, and racism, and in the specific case of interwar Bulgaria, smaller and fragmented right-wing groups represented this political orientation. Despite its fragmentation into several groups, the Bulgarian extreme right had one thing in common: discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities. Their anti-minority agenda shaped not only the Bulgarian political landscape but also the daily lives of Muslim communities because of sporadic violence, rape, beatings, attacks, arson, and torture by paramilitary organizations, such as the Rodna Zashtita (the Defense of the Fatherland) and Vatreshna trakiyska revolutsionna organizatsiya (Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organization) (ITRO), as well as assimilation attempts of cultural organizations, such as Rodina (Motherland). Providing a more nuanced account of this link, this study significantly departs from the existing literature. Although scholars have paid attention to the place of minorities in the relations between Bulgaria and its neighbors, only a few studies have examined the role of non-state actors in shaping the lives of such minorities. Acknowledging the primary role of state authorities in deciding minority rights, the present study moves beyond the state-centric assessment of interwar Bulgaria. It challenges both Bulgarian and Turkish nationalist historiographies. While Bulgarian nationalists undermined the destructive role of extreme-right groups in everyday politics and ruled out the mistreatment of minorities at the hands of armed organizations, Turkish nationalists uniformly blamed all Bulgarian political groups for the suffering of Muslim minorities. Instead of seeing Bulgarians and Muslims as monolithic groups, the study reveals the complex interplay between different segments of Bulgarian society regarding their attitude toward right-wing extremists. Bringing two different historiographies – the one on Bulgarian fascist-like movements and the one on the Muslim population of Bulgaria – and consulting a variety of primary sources, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of changing alliances and shifting identities in interwar Bulgaria with an emphasis on the political and social importance of minorities in right-wing politics.

Research paper thumbnail of From Religious to Ethnic Minorities: The Cultural and Social Integration of Pomaks into Post-Ottoman Turkey

Migration Letters, 2023

This article traces the cultural and social integration of Pomaks into post-Ottoman Turkey and th... more This article traces the cultural and social integration of Pomaks into post-Ottoman Turkey and the controversy over their 'Turkishness'. Current scholarship on early republican nationalism is particularly interested in the importance of the imperial legacy in nation-building in the early republic period. Scholars discuss that the Ottoman legacy of the millet system was vital to the formation of Turkish identity because the republican elites continued to accept Muslim immigrants from the Balkans due to their Islamic background. A closer analysis of primary sources with a focus on Pomak-speaking immigrants, however, reveals not only the challenges that their cultural assimilation posed for the government but also competing versions of Turkishness within intellectual and political circles. This article argues for a complex understanding of relations between immigration and nationalism, which shows that the public acceptance of Pomaks as Turks depended on domestic factors, such as linguistic nationalism and security concerns.

Research paper thumbnail of Was there room for Christian Turks in early Republican Turkey? Debates on the migration and Turkishness of the Gagauz

Middle Eastern Studies, 2023

The article traces the debates on the migration of the Gagauz into post-Ottoman Turkey and the co... more The article traces the debates on the migration of the Gagauz into post-Ottoman Turkey and the controversy over their ‘Turkishness’. The debates, concurrent with the migration of Muslim communities to Turkey, formed the basis of the dominant view on the Turkishness of the Gagauz in the current literature. A significant number of scholars have argued that the Gagauz were not admitted to Turkey, and, therefore, the ruling elite did not view Christian Turks as a valid cultural, legal, and social category in the nation. A critical reappraisal of archival documents, media debates, political discussions, academic studies, newspaper articles, and memoirs, however, does not support this conclusion. Reassessing the boundaries between religion and ethnicity in early Republican Turkey, the present article offers fresh insights into the attempts of republican intellectuals to assert the acceptance of Christian Turks. It argues that the debates on the Turkishness of the Gagauz were indicative of a special stage in the development of Turkish nationalism in the 1930s.

Research paper thumbnail of Memorializing the Conquest of Constantinople and Strengthening the Turkish-Greek Alliance in the Context of the Early Cold War

The Middle East Journal , 2021

Despite the significance assigned to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople by official and popul... more Despite the significance assigned to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople by official and popular narratives of Turkish history, the Turkish government in 1953 chose to minimize the scope of the event’s 500th anniversary celebrations. This choice reflected the country’s main foreign policy objective at the time: maintaining close ties with Greece and the West in the context of the Cold War. Drawing on press reports, memoirs, and parliamentary records, this article shows how Turkey’s proWestern orientation shaped the remembering of this world-historical event.

Research paper thumbnail of A crisis of legitimacy or a source of political consolidation? The deportation of Bulgarian Turks in 1950-1951 and the Democratic Party

Middle Eastern Studies, 2021

The Bulgarian decision to deport 250,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey in August 1950 came as a shock... more The Bulgarian decision to deport 250,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey in August 1950 came as a shock to the Democratic Party (DP). As a party that had taken power only three months ago, the DP was not prepared to accept the influx of thousands of immigrants. The deportation initially challenged the DP’s legitimacy at home and abroad because the DP tried to exercise its political hegemony over the opposition and to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). To counter criticism in Turkey and to protect its image in the international arena, the DP formulated a set of policies, ranging from diplomatic channels to anti-communist discourses and victimization of immigrant children and women. Based on primary and secondary accounts, the article argues that the deportation of Bulgarian Turks was a challenge – and simultaneously a source of legitimacy – to the DP at the beginning of its rule.

Research paper thumbnail of Popularizing and Promoting Nene Hatun as an Iconic Turkish Mother in Early Cold War Turkey

Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 2021

This article traces Nene Hatun’s popularity and legacy for women’s image in Turkey. The rediscove... more This article traces Nene Hatun’s popularity and legacy for women’s image in Turkey. The rediscovery of Nene Hatun and the political construction of her public image during the rule of the Democratic Party (DP), as an icon of anticommunist Turkish mothers, not only maps out the gendered effects of intensified anticommunist policies in Turkey in the period under consideration but also showcases the immediate consequences of the growing conservative discourses and gender anxieties on the public images and roles of women. Exemplified by Nene Hatun’s sudden popularity, the 1950s witnessed a change in the references to motherhood in the discourses of politicians and other public figures. Framing the family roles of women as a question of security, such discourses referred to mothers as the protectors of family values against communist threats, which assigned further domestic duties to women in Turkey, already living in a strongly patriarchal society.

Research paper thumbnail of A curious case of failing sports diplomacy in the early Cold War: the Mediterranean Friendship Tournament (1949)

Soccer & Society, 2020

This article argues that anti-sportsmanship of Greek audiences, players, and officials towards Tu... more This article argues that anti-sportsmanship of Greek audiences, players, and officials towards Turkish national soccer players during the Mediterranean Friendship Tournament of 1949 in Athens not only led to a short-term crisis in the Greek-Turkish relations due to mass anti-Greek protests in Turkey, but it also held these two countries back from enjoying the power of soccer as a diplomatic tool in maintaining and developing their Cold War alliance. The verbal and physical Greek attacks against the Turkish national team provoked a major disturbance in the Turkish public sphere, and Turkish protesters filled the streets all around Turkey. These demonstrations only stopped when the Turkish authorities declared the end of national soccer activity with Greece. In short, the tournament represented a remarkable case with respect to the role of public opinion in the making of foreign policy and in the use of soccer diplomacy.

Research paper thumbnail of Turkey's Relations with Greece in the 1920s: The Pangalos Factor

Turkish Historical Review, 2016

Based mainly on Turkish archival material and newspapers, this article argues that the short dict... more Based mainly on Turkish archival material and newspapers, this article argues that the short dictatorship of General Pangalos (1925–1926) in Greece not only stalled the solution of problems remaining from the Lausanne negotiations, but also heightened Turkish concerns over Greek expansionist ambitions towards Turkey in a way unlike any other period in early Turkish-Greek relations. Despite the General’s popularity among the migrants from Anatolia, the Turkish press and authorities were aware of the lack of general popular support behind Pangalos. Pangalos’s attempts to create alliances particularly with Britain and Italy and the increasing possibility of such a coalition against Turkey led the Turkish authorities and the press to watch developments in Greece very closely.

Research paper thumbnail of Turkey's Reaction to the Bulgarian Memory of the Balkan Wars in the Inter-war Period

Thesis Chapters by Gözde Emen-Gökatalay

Research paper thumbnail of Turkey and Turkish/Muslim Minorities in Greece and Bulgaria (1923-1938)

This thesis examined how Turkish perception of insecurity, which was based on its suspicions abou... more This thesis examined how Turkish perception of insecurity, which was based on its suspicions about Greek and Bulgarian intentions and politics towards its territorial integrity and stability of its regime, shaped its view of Turkish/Muslim minorities living in these two states in the early Republican period. Using a wealth of archival material and newspapers, it questioned to what extent these physical and ideological concerns of the Turkish Republic played a role in its approach to these minorities in the period between 1923 and 1938. Turkey perceived the Greek and Bulgarian maltreatment of these minorities as a part of these states’ hostile intentions regarding the new Turkish state. Thus, what this thesis argued is that Turkey responded to pressure on Turkish/Muslim minorities in these two states not only because of humanitarian concerns but according to its security concern, which became an important factor to determine Turkish interventionist approach to the minority issues in Greece and Bulgaria in this period.

Academic Life by Gözde Emen-Gökatalay

Research paper thumbnail of The Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in Interwar South Eastern Europe: Between Conservatism and Fascism

by Dragan Bakić, Dušan Fundić, Aleksandar Stojanović, Andrei Dalalau, Dimitrios Soulakakis, Filip Lyapov, Gözde Emen-Gökatalay, Igor Vukadinović, Ivana Vesic, Maja Vasiljevic, Raul Carstocea, Vasilije Dragosavljevic, and Vladimir Cvetkovic

An international conference entitled "The Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in Interwar South ... more An international conference entitled "The Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in Interwar South Eastern Europe: Between Conservatism and Fascism" was held in the Great Conference Hall of the Hotel Majestic in Belgrade on 7-8 April 2022. The conference was part of the ongoing project "The Serbian Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 1934-1941" supported by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, PROMIS, Grant No. 6062708, SerbRightWing.
Over the two days 24 papers were presented both on-site and online via Zoom (three presenters were, unfortunately, unable to join us) divided into seven thematic panels. There was a nice mixture of both established and emerging scholars from the field coming from a number of countries. Professor António Costa Pinto from the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, delivered a keynote lecture “Building Dictatorships in the Era of Fascism. A Global View” on the second day of the conference.
The organizers, Dragan Bakić, Dušan Fundić and Rastko Lompar from the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, would like to extend their thanks to all the participants. It is their intention to publish an edited volume consisting of the conference proceedings which will, hopefully, be out in print next year.

Research paper thumbnail of Patterns of Far-Right and Anti-Minority Mobilization in the Era of Fascism: the Case of Muslim Communities in Interwar Bulgaria

Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, 2023

This study explores the link between far-right movements and anti-minority policies in interwar B... more This study explores the link between far-right movements and anti-minority policies in interwar Bulgaria, with a focus on Muslim communities. Generally speaking, right-wing extremism consists of parties and organizations that are ideologically linked by their support of cultural conservatism, xenophobia, and racism, and in the specific case of interwar Bulgaria, smaller and fragmented right-wing groups represented this political orientation. Despite its fragmentation into several groups, the Bulgarian extreme right had one thing in common: discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities. Their anti-minority agenda shaped not only the Bulgarian political landscape but also the daily lives of Muslim communities because of sporadic violence, rape, beatings, attacks, arson, and torture by paramilitary organizations, such as the Rodna Zashtita (the Defense of the Fatherland) and Vatreshna trakiyska revolutsionna organizatsiya (Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organization) (ITRO), as well as assimilation attempts of cultural organizations, such as Rodina (Motherland). Providing a more nuanced account of this link, this study significantly departs from the existing literature. Although scholars have paid attention to the place of minorities in the relations between Bulgaria and its neighbors, only a few studies have examined the role of non-state actors in shaping the lives of such minorities. Acknowledging the primary role of state authorities in deciding minority rights, the present study moves beyond the state-centric assessment of interwar Bulgaria. It challenges both Bulgarian and Turkish nationalist historiographies. While Bulgarian nationalists undermined the destructive role of extreme-right groups in everyday politics and ruled out the mistreatment of minorities at the hands of armed organizations, Turkish nationalists uniformly blamed all Bulgarian political groups for the suffering of Muslim minorities. Instead of seeing Bulgarians and Muslims as monolithic groups, the study reveals the complex interplay between different segments of Bulgarian society regarding their attitude toward right-wing extremists. Bringing two different historiographies – the one on Bulgarian fascist-like movements and the one on the Muslim population of Bulgaria – and consulting a variety of primary sources, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of changing alliances and shifting identities in interwar Bulgaria with an emphasis on the political and social importance of minorities in right-wing politics.

Research paper thumbnail of From Religious to Ethnic Minorities: The Cultural and Social Integration of Pomaks into Post-Ottoman Turkey

Migration Letters, 2023

This article traces the cultural and social integration of Pomaks into post-Ottoman Turkey and th... more This article traces the cultural and social integration of Pomaks into post-Ottoman Turkey and the controversy over their 'Turkishness'. Current scholarship on early republican nationalism is particularly interested in the importance of the imperial legacy in nation-building in the early republic period. Scholars discuss that the Ottoman legacy of the millet system was vital to the formation of Turkish identity because the republican elites continued to accept Muslim immigrants from the Balkans due to their Islamic background. A closer analysis of primary sources with a focus on Pomak-speaking immigrants, however, reveals not only the challenges that their cultural assimilation posed for the government but also competing versions of Turkishness within intellectual and political circles. This article argues for a complex understanding of relations between immigration and nationalism, which shows that the public acceptance of Pomaks as Turks depended on domestic factors, such as linguistic nationalism and security concerns.

Research paper thumbnail of Was there room for Christian Turks in early Republican Turkey? Debates on the migration and Turkishness of the Gagauz

Middle Eastern Studies, 2023

The article traces the debates on the migration of the Gagauz into post-Ottoman Turkey and the co... more The article traces the debates on the migration of the Gagauz into post-Ottoman Turkey and the controversy over their ‘Turkishness’. The debates, concurrent with the migration of Muslim communities to Turkey, formed the basis of the dominant view on the Turkishness of the Gagauz in the current literature. A significant number of scholars have argued that the Gagauz were not admitted to Turkey, and, therefore, the ruling elite did not view Christian Turks as a valid cultural, legal, and social category in the nation. A critical reappraisal of archival documents, media debates, political discussions, academic studies, newspaper articles, and memoirs, however, does not support this conclusion. Reassessing the boundaries between religion and ethnicity in early Republican Turkey, the present article offers fresh insights into the attempts of republican intellectuals to assert the acceptance of Christian Turks. It argues that the debates on the Turkishness of the Gagauz were indicative of a special stage in the development of Turkish nationalism in the 1930s.

Research paper thumbnail of Memorializing the Conquest of Constantinople and Strengthening the Turkish-Greek Alliance in the Context of the Early Cold War

The Middle East Journal , 2021

Despite the significance assigned to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople by official and popul... more Despite the significance assigned to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople by official and popular narratives of Turkish history, the Turkish government in 1953 chose to minimize the scope of the event’s 500th anniversary celebrations. This choice reflected the country’s main foreign policy objective at the time: maintaining close ties with Greece and the West in the context of the Cold War. Drawing on press reports, memoirs, and parliamentary records, this article shows how Turkey’s proWestern orientation shaped the remembering of this world-historical event.

Research paper thumbnail of A crisis of legitimacy or a source of political consolidation? The deportation of Bulgarian Turks in 1950-1951 and the Democratic Party

Middle Eastern Studies, 2021

The Bulgarian decision to deport 250,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey in August 1950 came as a shock... more The Bulgarian decision to deport 250,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey in August 1950 came as a shock to the Democratic Party (DP). As a party that had taken power only three months ago, the DP was not prepared to accept the influx of thousands of immigrants. The deportation initially challenged the DP’s legitimacy at home and abroad because the DP tried to exercise its political hegemony over the opposition and to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). To counter criticism in Turkey and to protect its image in the international arena, the DP formulated a set of policies, ranging from diplomatic channels to anti-communist discourses and victimization of immigrant children and women. Based on primary and secondary accounts, the article argues that the deportation of Bulgarian Turks was a challenge – and simultaneously a source of legitimacy – to the DP at the beginning of its rule.

Research paper thumbnail of Popularizing and Promoting Nene Hatun as an Iconic Turkish Mother in Early Cold War Turkey

Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 2021

This article traces Nene Hatun’s popularity and legacy for women’s image in Turkey. The rediscove... more This article traces Nene Hatun’s popularity and legacy for women’s image in Turkey. The rediscovery of Nene Hatun and the political construction of her public image during the rule of the Democratic Party (DP), as an icon of anticommunist Turkish mothers, not only maps out the gendered effects of intensified anticommunist policies in Turkey in the period under consideration but also showcases the immediate consequences of the growing conservative discourses and gender anxieties on the public images and roles of women. Exemplified by Nene Hatun’s sudden popularity, the 1950s witnessed a change in the references to motherhood in the discourses of politicians and other public figures. Framing the family roles of women as a question of security, such discourses referred to mothers as the protectors of family values against communist threats, which assigned further domestic duties to women in Turkey, already living in a strongly patriarchal society.

Research paper thumbnail of A curious case of failing sports diplomacy in the early Cold War: the Mediterranean Friendship Tournament (1949)

Soccer & Society, 2020

This article argues that anti-sportsmanship of Greek audiences, players, and officials towards Tu... more This article argues that anti-sportsmanship of Greek audiences, players, and officials towards Turkish national soccer players during the Mediterranean Friendship Tournament of 1949 in Athens not only led to a short-term crisis in the Greek-Turkish relations due to mass anti-Greek protests in Turkey, but it also held these two countries back from enjoying the power of soccer as a diplomatic tool in maintaining and developing their Cold War alliance. The verbal and physical Greek attacks against the Turkish national team provoked a major disturbance in the Turkish public sphere, and Turkish protesters filled the streets all around Turkey. These demonstrations only stopped when the Turkish authorities declared the end of national soccer activity with Greece. In short, the tournament represented a remarkable case with respect to the role of public opinion in the making of foreign policy and in the use of soccer diplomacy.

Research paper thumbnail of Turkey's Relations with Greece in the 1920s: The Pangalos Factor

Turkish Historical Review, 2016

Based mainly on Turkish archival material and newspapers, this article argues that the short dict... more Based mainly on Turkish archival material and newspapers, this article argues that the short dictatorship of General Pangalos (1925–1926) in Greece not only stalled the solution of problems remaining from the Lausanne negotiations, but also heightened Turkish concerns over Greek expansionist ambitions towards Turkey in a way unlike any other period in early Turkish-Greek relations. Despite the General’s popularity among the migrants from Anatolia, the Turkish press and authorities were aware of the lack of general popular support behind Pangalos. Pangalos’s attempts to create alliances particularly with Britain and Italy and the increasing possibility of such a coalition against Turkey led the Turkish authorities and the press to watch developments in Greece very closely.

Research paper thumbnail of Turkey's Reaction to the Bulgarian Memory of the Balkan Wars in the Inter-war Period

Research paper thumbnail of Turkey and Turkish/Muslim Minorities in Greece and Bulgaria (1923-1938)

This thesis examined how Turkish perception of insecurity, which was based on its suspicions abou... more This thesis examined how Turkish perception of insecurity, which was based on its suspicions about Greek and Bulgarian intentions and politics towards its territorial integrity and stability of its regime, shaped its view of Turkish/Muslim minorities living in these two states in the early Republican period. Using a wealth of archival material and newspapers, it questioned to what extent these physical and ideological concerns of the Turkish Republic played a role in its approach to these minorities in the period between 1923 and 1938. Turkey perceived the Greek and Bulgarian maltreatment of these minorities as a part of these states’ hostile intentions regarding the new Turkish state. Thus, what this thesis argued is that Turkey responded to pressure on Turkish/Muslim minorities in these two states not only because of humanitarian concerns but according to its security concern, which became an important factor to determine Turkish interventionist approach to the minority issues in Greece and Bulgaria in this period.

Research paper thumbnail of The Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in Interwar South Eastern Europe: Between Conservatism and Fascism

by Dragan Bakić, Dušan Fundić, Aleksandar Stojanović, Andrei Dalalau, Dimitrios Soulakakis, Filip Lyapov, Gözde Emen-Gökatalay, Igor Vukadinović, Ivana Vesic, Maja Vasiljevic, Raul Carstocea, Vasilije Dragosavljevic, and Vladimir Cvetkovic

An international conference entitled "The Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in Interwar South ... more An international conference entitled "The Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in Interwar South Eastern Europe: Between Conservatism and Fascism" was held in the Great Conference Hall of the Hotel Majestic in Belgrade on 7-8 April 2022. The conference was part of the ongoing project "The Serbian Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 1934-1941" supported by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, PROMIS, Grant No. 6062708, SerbRightWing.
Over the two days 24 papers were presented both on-site and online via Zoom (three presenters were, unfortunately, unable to join us) divided into seven thematic panels. There was a nice mixture of both established and emerging scholars from the field coming from a number of countries. Professor António Costa Pinto from the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, delivered a keynote lecture “Building Dictatorships in the Era of Fascism. A Global View” on the second day of the conference.
The organizers, Dragan Bakić, Dušan Fundić and Rastko Lompar from the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, would like to extend their thanks to all the participants. It is their intention to publish an edited volume consisting of the conference proceedings which will, hopefully, be out in print next year.