Arap Bacı’nın Ara Muhaveresi: Under the Shadow of the Ottoman Empire and Its Study (original) (raw)
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African Diasporas in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey
African diasporas in The Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, 2020
This study critically reviews historical narratives on Black enslaved people in the Ottoman Empire to better comprehend their self-conscious efforts to build communities despite the conditions forced upon them and their legacies in Modern Turkey. Inquiring about these entities leads one to trail some complexities lost to the narration of the past, primarily Black enslaved people’s agencies. Therefore, it sets out to explore their agencies and the dynamic nature of their living ways through breaking down many of the concepts, narratives, and historiographies that appear neutral, thus channeling many historical actors to the taxonomy of humanness. Through this framework, the present dissertation aspires to indicate Black enslaved people’s subsistences in the history of Turkey to challenge the process to become discernable by bringing the heterogeneities and complexities of historical African diasporas in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to light.
Turcica, 48, 2017
Despite the fact that during the last decades Ottoman slavery became the subject of numerous publications, it is only very recently that the history of the black people in Ottoman lands has caught the attention of Ottomanists. The few relevant studies begin to unfold the complicated cultural and organizational relations that existed inside the Ottoman black communities, yet the data available on the subject are still marginal, referring mainly to the black population of large cities, such as Istanbul and Izmir, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This paper presents some relatively or completely unknown cases of black communities in the Ottoman Empire and revisits some of the interpretations that pertain to the history of the already known ones. In particular, its main focus is on the role of the leaders of the Ottoman black communities, often referred to in the sources with various titles, such as “Sheikhs,” “Beys,” “Godiyas,” and “Kolbaşıs.” Its purpose is to expand our knowledge on these enigmatic figures, to elaborate on their role in the religious and administrative practices of the Ottoman-African diaspora, and to see if there were any common features connecting their functions throughout the Ottoman history in different times and places.
2016
Public and Private Spaces Moral Qualities of the Town Square Urban Transformation-Spatial Orders Collide Conclusion: Contextual Moral Frameworks Glossary References v List of Illustrations Maps Map 1. Beyoğlu, the Historical Peninsula, the Bosporus and the Golden Horn viii Map 2. Istiklal Street, Tarlabaşı and Tophane viii Map 3. Streets of Tarlabaşı Map 4. Istiklal Street and its subsidiary streets Map 5. Kayaşehir Map 6. Crossings of Tarlabaşı Boulevard Map 7. The area of urban renewal in Tarlabaşı vii Map 1. Beyoğlu, the Historical Peninsula, the Bosporus and the Golden Horn. Map 2. Istiklal Street, Tarlabaşı and Tophane. viii This is also a study of Turkish modernity that works toward rethinking the dynamic framed as an encounter between informal multiplicity of alternative modernities and an imposed, top-down modernity. The symbolic boundaries within Istanbul are constantly shifting with concrete processes of urban renewal, competing approaches to historical legitimization and mobility of people, goods and ideas, transnationally and translocally. They do not follow the teleological idea of universal modernization nor the determinist models of global geographical flows. Rather, I consider the city as shaped by socioculturally specific flows, complex patterns realized in encounters, that constantly reproduce moral frameworks, groups and their boundaries. They are often rather vaguely understood but nevertheless reproduced in different contexts, related to the official histories and, in turn, reshaping them. There are three central theoretical themes: spatiality and morality, formation of historical consciousness and dynamics of modernityapproaching the research questions from differently framed but interrelated perspectives-that run throughout the study. Spatial Divisions and Appropriate Moral Frameworks Istanbul's quintessential centre of modernity, the district of Beyoğlu, has acted for centuries as a space of intricate boundaries. Home to the non-Muslim minorities of the Ottoman Empire and the celebrated pinnacle of urbanity during the formative decades of the Turkish Republic, it is nowadays a space where many of the fault lines of urbanity are realized and negotiated. Characterized by abundance of boundaries and internal divisions, from skyrocketing rent values in Istiklal Street to impoverished but rapidly gentrifying inner-city quarters just a few minutes walk away, the area portrays historically developed spatial arrangements in myriad ways. The questions of its history are also conceptualized at different spatial scales, from "global hierarchy of value, " a system of worldwide evaluation extending over boundaries of the nation-state (Herzfeld 2007:316) to the cultural intimacy of a neighbourhood (mahalle), 1 a differently ordered space with distinct moral qualities. Furthermore, the boundary dynamics of Beyoğlu are experienced very differently by its inhabitants, a fact that quickly became clear when observing the constant navigation across sociospatial boundaries Historical Consciousness-Between the Grand Narratives and Cultural Intimacy In my study, history is realized in movement within the city, mostly concentrated on just a few quarters in Beyoğlu, but stretching in imagination to distant periods and spaces immensely larger than the experienced physical environment. Beyoğlu's spatial arrangement also encapsulates many crucial twists and turns of the modern history of Istanbul; from the gradual repositioning of the central institutions of education and business-even the sultanic palaces-to its confines during the late Ottoman era, all the way to the Gezi Park protests in 2013. I approach the relationship to changes as a development of historical consciousness that cannot be formalized perfectly; Dynamics of Modernity and Urban Transformation The topic of modernity is strongly present throughout the study and ties together several approaches to spatial and historical classifications. In Turkey, modern is one of the most powerful classificatory categories that integrates the specifically Turkish experience into issues with global reach, from the concrete transformation of a country, remaining unequally divided The Structure of the Thesis My exploration of everyday life brings together the spatial orders and contested historical trajectories of Istanbul to illustrate its specific condition of modernity in the present day. Methodologically, the study is divided into two parts. Its first half focusses on the central questions thematically: Chapters 1 and 2 examine qualities of different spaces and boundaries, Chapter 3 shifts attention to the operations of the historical consciousness and Chapter 4 concentrates on the questions of modernity. The second half of the study integrates these themes to different periods of Turkish history; from the emergence of Turkish modernity in the late Ottoman period to the most recent developments in the twenty-first century. However, the aim is not to study history as linear progression but to locate significant events and developments and analyze how they are related to different spaces and moral INFORMANTS A substantial part of the study consists of the depiction of the lives of underemployed men, between 25 and 30 years of age, working in the area around Istiklal Street and living in Tarlabaşı. Especially two of them, Şivan and Ridvan, 5 have very central role and their experiences are referred to throughout the text. Of the many others involved, some might appear in the Ridvan knew Şivan by name but they moved in different groups of friends and would not keep in touch. He was 30 years old and had had a very troubled past. His home village, also near Mardin, had been bulldozed during the civil war in the 1990s, both of his parents were dead and he had moved to Istanbul, after living in Mardin and Diyarbakır for few years, in 2000. He shared a small room in Tarlabaşı with his older brother who alternated between different jobs. Unlike Şivan's very close ties with his relatives, he mostly spent his free time with a circle of friends of approximately the same age, usually around Taksim Square. Against all the odds, Ridvan had been successful in his undertakings. He operated a small grocery store (bakkal) together with a friend, ordering nuts and dried fruit from Eastern Turkey and keeping a wide variety of other products available. In addition to these chores, he worked as a waiter in a teahouse nearby and had detailed of plans to expand his business in the future. He had very strong political opinions and his high-temperedness had led him into trouble with the authorities several times. At the same time, he had a great sense of humour and would often take joking stance towards misunderstandings of his past. Ahmet often emphasized that he was a newcomer to Istanbul and had not really become familiar with the city in his first two years. His family was originally from Diyarbakır, also in the Southeast, but had moved together to Istanbul and settled in Tarlabaşı in the search for better life. He was 25 years old, slightly younger than Şivan and Ridvan, very pious and would have wanted to carry on with Islamic education. His family lived a tiny flat in a run-down building with lots of relatives coming and going. He was working in a modest family-run teahouse neighbouring his home and spent most of his time in the vicinity. Ahmet often stressed the significance of being Kurdish and Muslim; he felt isolated from Turkish society and often depicted his life as a constant struggle in a hostile environment. Despite the anxiety and confusion, he had no plans to return into quieter life in a more religiously oriented neighbourhood and would come up very quickly with ingenious solutions to issues disturbing him. Veli, 30, was living in the neighbourhood of Tophane, down the hill towards the Bosporus from Istiklal Street, and worked as an artist and art instructor. He was originally from a small town close to the Syrian border and had background in Islamic medrese education, in addition to the state-run primary school. From very early on, he had wanted to move to Istanbul and, despite the opposition from his family, had enrolled into an art school and later continued his studies in the university. We became friends and later flatmates after a random encounter in one of the teahouses of Beyoğlu. Veli was a self-confessed urbanite and cosmopolite with a wide circle of friends but would often relate his current situation with his roots at the periphery of the country. He also proved to be incomparable help to me in explaining the complex dynamics of Turkish society and Istanbul's urban transformation. Didem, 27, had been living half of her life in an upper-middle-class neighbourhood of Ataköy, some 15 kilometres from Beyoğlu, near the Atatürk airport. She was working in a production company and rapidly moving towards international career path, already spending a fair amount of her time in Germany and England. At the same time, she was proud to be Turkish and Istanbulite and often saw her work as a way to promote the country and correct misconceptions associated with it. Knowledgeable about history of Turkey and closely following the political developments, she would be very eager to engage in lengthy discussions of the future course of Qualities of Boundaries and Moral Frameworks of Istanbul 53 31 e.g. Asmalı Mescit Mahallesi is used as a general name for the quarter famous for its bars and meyhanes and Arap Camii Mahallesi (Neighbourhood of the Arab Mosque) is named after a renowned mosque, probably given to the Arab refugees who settled into the area after escaping the Spanish Inquisition (Sumner-Boyd and Freely 2000:441) 32 Saz is a long-necked lute, best-known for its central role in Anatolian folk music.
Istanbul as Poetic Space via the Works of Turkish and British Writers
TÜRKLÜK BİLGİSİ ARAŞTIRMALARI JOURNAL OF TURKISH STUDIES, 2023
Space is a profound and integral structure where the life flows. The trait of space about being interlocked with human and life, confirms the connection of space, memory and time. Gaston Bachelard is one of the leading theorists focusing on this connection. Bachelard, who handles space in the context of human and within the scope of poetic imagery, focuses on space as a multidimensional thing full of experience. City is one of the leading spaces demonstrating this multidimensionality. City, which is shaped by collective conscious and reflects tradition, is a space where the pulse of life beats. Istanbul is one of the cities reflecting the tight bond among space, memory and time, mentioned by Bachelard. In this regard, Istanbul is a city having historicity, sociality and intimacy. In this study, including memoirs of Turkish writers and travel works of English writers via Istanbul, it is aimed to comprehend the city by focusing on its features about intimacy, memories, dreams and poetic existence within the scope of Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space. Thus, it is aimed to trace for the hope for creating a liberating aspect for the city and its people. Within this context, Halide Edib Adıvar’s House with Wisteria and The Turkish Ordeal, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s Five Cities, Sâmiha Ayverdi’s Istanbul Geceleri and Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul Memories and the City are the memoirs included in the study. Besides, Grace Ellison’s An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem, Maurice Baring’s Letters from the Near East 1909 and 1912, Clare Sheridan’s A Turkish Kaleidoscope and Jeremy Seal’s A Fez of the Heart are the travel works handled in this study. In the light of all of these works written during the 20th century, the city of Istanbul is studied according to poetic spaces told by Bachelard in The Poetics of Space and especially ‘the house’. Keywords: Gaston Bachelard, Poetics of Space, Istanbul, House, Space-Memory-Time.
The Ottoman Legacy: Urban Geographies, National Imaginaries, and Global Discourses of Tolerance
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 2011
Turkey emerged from the ruins of the multiethnic Ottoman Empire to become a secular, ethnically Turkish, and culturally Sunni Muslim nation. While the Ottoman legacy refers to an ideal of multiethnic tolerance located in the distant past, and is deployed as a critique against a presumably intolerant state, this legacy is produced by a diversity of social groups that compete for different imaginations of Turkey's national identity. This essay argues that the Ottoman legacy, and the discourse of tolerance it represents, has two important geographic dimensions. First, the Ottoman legacy relies on and is reproduced through Istanbul's urban geography; places and landscapes that represent a multiethnic tolerant past come to serve as evidence for what the Ottoman legacy represents. Second, while discourses of Ottoman tolerance are grounded in a local past, they are informed by, and thus respond to, very contemporary geopolitical notions of cosmopolitanism and of an imagined dichotomy between East and West. The Ottoman legacy is produced locally, in engagement with national imaginaries, while it is also meant to locate Istanbul internationally as a global city. The open struggle to critique state intolerance by invoking and representing an Ottoman legacy of multiethnic harmony illuminates the dynamic and contested nature of national identity in Turkey even while it is employed in processes that redraw national boundaries of belonging and exclusion.
This article is concerned with literary representations of the affective impact of the Ottoman empire's demise on its principal metropolis, Istanbul. It discusses first the work of nineteenth-century French novelist and diarist Théophile Gautier about the city, Constantinople of Today , then moves on to analyse its subsequent influence on the work of the early Turkish Republican writers, through to Orhan Pamuk's recent memoir Istanbul. Memories of a City. In Istanbul, Pamuk forges a system of belief that presents itself as a counter-narrative to the ideological discourses that took over the city, as successive Republican governments embarked on radical urban, ethnic and religious reconfigurations of the post-Ottoman metropolis. This is registered in his memoir as an affective structure, a form of melancholy that Pamuk terms hüzün, and that may be perceived as operating through the Saidian model of 'intertwined constructions' expressed in his Culture and Imperialism. The article proposes that Pamuk's fraught gesture significantly complicates Said's unilateral argument on the French Orientalists in his Orientalism, suggesting instead the urgency of reading Gautier's influence on Pamuk through the early Turkish Republican writers as a trope of world literary dynamics.