İpek Yosmaoğlu's review of The Ottoman Culture of Defeat: The Balkan Wars and Their Aftermath (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2016): International Journal of Middle East Studies 49 (2017), 333-345. (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Balkan wars represent, together, the first total war of the Ottoman state. During this conflict, the Ottomans endeavoured to enlist all its citizens into the war effort. The aim of this study is twofold. First, to explore Ottoman propaganda and the set of symbols it employed to promote patriotism and cohesion among soldiers and civilians. Second, by using memoirs written by army officers, contemporary press articles, literature produced by and for non-Muslims, theatre plays, etc., it will dwell upon the responses from below to this propaganda, and the reactions of the different groups inside Ottoman society to the mobilization, to the war and to the military disaster.
Coming to Terms with the Imperial Legacy and the Violence of War
Writing the Great War, 2020
In Turkey, interest in the Great War was quite limited for a long time.1 An important reason has been the clear break with the Ottoman past intended by the Kemalist Republic, including especially the tragic developments during the years 1912–22, a decade that the fi rst republican generations experienced as well. Nonetheless, the wars of this period (the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the War of Independence) became aspects of national history as catalysts for the foundation of the republic. A retrospective reading of these events opened a space for narratives concerning the territories of the new republic, thereby omitting the Balkan and Arab provinces. Contrariwise, the Battle of Gallipoli—which was, together with the Battle of Kut-Al-Amara in Ottoman Iraq from December 1915 to April 1916, one of the two main victories of the Ottomans during the Great War period—gained importance by being inscribed into the hagiographical narrative of the national hero, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Turki...
2021
The defeat in the Balkan War (1912-1913) was a critical moment for the Ottoman Empire. It was a traumatic event that challenged the established principles and projects and initiated a period of profound uncertainty regarding the future of the Empire. The article seeks to analyze some of the representations about the trauma of the defeat and the future of the Ottoman Empire through the editorials of an Ottoman newspaper, La Jeune Turquie, which was published in Paris during the conflict. The intention is not to present a detailed and comprehensive picture of the various narratives about the conflict but to assess some of the impasses about the event. More specifically, we seek to present the Balkan War as a liminal period. It was a traumatic experience that constituted a rearrangement of existing tendencies, unveiling new expectations for the future. The argument presented here is that more than a “point of no return,” the defeat brought a new horizon of expectations on the Ottoman l...
Estudos Internacionais, 2021
The defeat in the Balkan War (1912-1913) was a critical moment for the Ottoman Empire. It was a traumatic event that challenged the established principles and projects and initiated a period of profound uncertainty regarding the future of the Empire. The article seeks to analyze some of the representations about the trauma of the defeat and the future of the Ottoman Empire through the editorials of an Ottoman newspaper, La Jeune Turquie, which was published in Paris during the conflict. The intention is not to present a detailed and comprehensive picture of the various narratives about the conflict but to assess some of the impasses about the event. More specifically, we seek to present the Balkan War as a liminal period. It was a traumatic experience that constituted a rearrangement of existing tendencies, unveiling new expectations for the future. The argument presented here is that more than a “point of no return,” the defeat brought a new horizon of expectations on the Ottoman l...
Children and Youth: Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Empire/Middle East)
1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, 2015
Ottoman children were not simply passive victims or casualties; they were engaged in every facet of total war. They also became active agents as wage earners, peasants and heads of family on the home front. They directly contributed to the propaganda and mobilization effort as boy scouts, symbolic heroes and orphans of martyrs. Ottoman children from different communal identities also embodied and reproduced internal political crisis and rivalries as actors and targets of nationalist politics. The development of childhood differed in the Ottoman Empire from in the other combatant states, especially due to the rise of nationalism(s), leading to the extermination of the Armenian population and the fall of the supranational Ottoman Empire. This paper discusses the variegated involvement of Ottoman children and youth in the war effort while recognizing the significant agency exercised by children and youth.
Yale University, The Great War in the Middle East and Balkans, 1910-1925, Hist 335J Syllabus
(with special thanks to Yiğit Akın and Mehmet Beşikçi) This seminar explores the tumultuous and devastating years of military mobilization, war, diplomacy, and nation-building that created the modern Middle East and Balkans as we know them today. It will investigate the political, social, and military history of the period in a wholistic manner, by looking into institutional reform, debates of constitutionalism, and rising nationalisms throughout the 19th and early 20th century Ottoman Empire. We will scrutinize the Ottomans’ road to war through studying the rebellions in Albania and Yemen (1910-12), the Italian invasion of Ottoman North Africa (1911-12), the Balkan Wars (1912-13), and the definitive establishment of the Committee of Union and Progress’ dominance in the empire. We will concentrate on the important aspects of the First World War as fought by the Ottomans, not only the military campaigns, but the declaration of Jihad (Holy War), wartime propaganda, home front, forced deportations, and state-sponsored population engineering projects. Finally, we will try to understand the impact of the war on societies and political entities which were drastically reshaped by the direct results and long-term legacies of the conflict. The class aims to familiarize the students with the fundamental chronology, events, and individuals in the Ottoman and post-Ottoman World during this period. Another goal is to introduce students to the basic historiography and major historical debates regarding the Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the experiences of the civilians as well as the members of the armed forces. Finally, students will learn how the war is remembered in the post-Ottoman world and how the perception of the conflict created competing national narratives and national identities.