Büke Koyuncu, “Benim Milletim...”: AK Parti İktidarı, Din ve Ulusal Kimlik (original) (raw)

Memory and Politics: Ottoman -Turkish Case

Kharax Forum, 2022

In this paper I'd like to discuss the politics of personal memories or autobiographies with respect to scientific history and to explore to what extent the personal memories or autobiographies align with scientific history, or official 'History', which is a narrative of the past created by political entities. These two kinds of historical narratives might complement each other, or each might incite us to question the validity of the other. In the latter case, the disparity might arise from the political ideology of the political entity creating the scientific or official 'History', as well as the subjective nature of the personal memories. It is evident that life stories and perspective of individuals have objective and subjective characteristics. My aim is to display and discuss, on the personal and subjective level, the political character of memories and their relation to the scientific, mainstream 'History' by citing two examples from Russia and Egypt, examples from late Ottoman period as well as writers and memories from the Republican period in Turkey. Of these three groups, the first (Dostoyevsky and al-Tahtawi) don't seem to contradict with the scientific history whereas the latter two groups (late Ottoman and Republican Turkey) are mainly civil and stay outside the mainstream with respect to either political or class and ethnic origins.

Memory Politics and Cultures in Turkey

Balkanistic Forum, 2013

The article gives an insight into memory politics and cultures in Turkey and into related discussions throughout the 20th century until today. Academic studies on memory politics and cultures have only begun recently, as this kind of research has always been linked to taboo topics such as the state’s politics against non-Muslim minorities in the Turkish Republic, as well as the methodology of oral history is still weakly institutionalized in Turkey. Furthermore the state’s monopoly in creating collective memories constituted a serious obstacle for alternatives in historical research. Although the ROW of 1877 – 1878 played a decisive role in the creation of modern Turkey at a political, social, cultural and demographic level and has therefore taken an important place in the popular memory, it has not caused an adequate manifestation in Turkish historiography and has not recently triggered a discussion within the framework of memory politics and cultures in Turkey.

Between Memory, History and Historiography: Contesting Ottoman Legacies in Turkey, 1923–2012

Echoes of Empire: Memory, Identity and Colonial Legacies, 2015

The chapter develops an original theoretical framework to capture how traumatic memories are collectivized and transmitted inter-generationally. It does so by focusing on evolving contests over the transition from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic, tracing how three schools of historiography - Kemalist, critical, and Islamist read the transition differently. The chapter is part of a rich volume edited by Nicolaidis, Sebe and Maas that brings together imperial historians and IR scholars to assess Echoes of Empire.

Perceptions of the Past in the Turkish Republic (Classical and Byzantine Periods) (ed., with Scott Redford)

The land of Turkey has not only yielded archaeological finds essential to the formation of the field of archaeology; these finds also played a crucial role in the making of a national narrative in the transition from the late Ottoman Empire to the present-day Republic. The outcome of a symposium organized by the Koç University's Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations in Istanbul, the essays in this volume critically engage with the constitution of Classical and Byzantine archaeology in Turkey, addressing such issues as the historical context of the production of knowledge, the roles of individuals and institutions in shaping scholarship, and the current and future state of the field.