Development of Ottoman historiography in Turkey since the late 1970s: a general assessment
OKTAY ÖZEL - GÖKHAN ÇETİNSAYA
The study evaluates the development of Ottoman historiography of the past quarter of a century in Turkey by underlining the principal socio-political and institutional developments as well as the ideological currents that affected the practice of historical profession.
The authors are of the opinion that the 1980 coup-d’etat had profound effects on social sciences in general and historical studies, in particular during the following decade. It brought about fundamental changes in institutional bases of social science research as well as in the education system, such as the reorganization of Turkish Historical Society as a governmental institution and of higher education under the authoritarian top-down administration of the Higher Education Council (YÖK). Along with other similar changes, the general social scientific conditions in Turkey seriously deteriorated, and practical as well as ideological constraints imposed on universities and research centers and on the social scientists left little room for scholars, including historians, to research and write their works freely while remaining within the establishment. The majority of Turkish historians in the 80’s either took active part in the statist-nationalist political and ideological currents that were largely determined and imposed by the state, or remained silent to the resulting changes that directly undermined the institutional foundations of their scholarly activities. While a signifcant number of historians produced works in line with the currents, some scholars, mainly Marxizm-oriented, who had tried to develop throughout the 70’s an alternative history-writing to the established academic tradition in the historical profession in Turkey were driven out of their university positions.
The authors emphasize that the historical studies both in the 80’s and particularly in the 90’s developed along two lines. First, the state-centric nationalistic line developed mainly in the universities as well as in the “12 Eylül”-institutions and other research centers with the similar ideological orientation; the other line was established and developed largely by the works of those left outside the universities. It was the latter that tried to maintain an alternative agenda for historical studies in Turkey by numerous research projects and publication of academic or semi-popular books and journals. The 90’s saw important developments that changed significantly both the institutional framework as well as the intellectual climate that dominated historical studies in the 80’s. The most remarkable of these developments was perhaps the emergence of non-governmental or semi-governmental historical research centers on the one hand and of privateĞfoundation universities on the other. The other notable change that had diverse effects on Ottoman historiography up until the present was the doubling of the number of state universities, and of history departments, all over Turkey with nearly no infrastructure, either physical or scholarly.
It was mainly on the basis of these changes that two approaches and understanding of history and historical research began to cristallize with distinct features. While one approach aimed to uphold internationally-accepted standards and produced for world-wide audience, the other appears to have created a peculiar work-style and language of its own, seriously falling behind international standards. However, it is equally true that during the last decade there has been a visible increase both in the number and quality of young historians and of their works. It is in this context that the study provides a comprehensive picture and analysis of recent developments in Ottoman historiography in Turkey, assessing the major works produced during the period.
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Turkish historiography between Enlightenment
and historicism: The case of feudalism
SUAVİ AYDIN
Modern historiography established its “profession principles” and “methodology” by breaking from the historicist tradition represented by German History School and the historiographies following the Enlightenment tradition. In contrast with the Enlightenment tradition, this historiography formed an “idiographic” -not “nomotetic”- and “particularist” -not “universalist”- tradition. Historiography, which is closed to simplistic and world-historical analyses, was established usually as “national histories”. In the formation of nation-states, it established not only the “particular” and “ethnic” history on which the state will be based but also “the historical framework of national identity”, and it preferred a primitive positivist method in this formation. This trend was repeated in all nation-state historiographies. Turkish historiography is not an exception. What is interesting in Turkish historiography is that; history writing that relies on the Enlightenment and materialist tradition and that defines itself usually as “leftist” has the same handicap. Within this “leftist” tradition a historiography which emphasizes “particularity” is dominant. In this article the reasons and results of this is discussed and the strength of Kemalist influence that relies on “particularity” thesis as it defines itself as the “nationalist ideology” is revealed.
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Dependency Theory, World System Perspective
and Ottoman/Turkish studies
M. ASIM KARAÖMERLİO⁄LU
The Latin American Dependencia and the World-Systems theories have had a great impact on the historiography of the OttomanĞTurkish studies. This paper sheds lights on these theories in a critical way and problematizes some of the ways in which these theories were used in OttomanĞTurkish studies. Special emphasis is given to contextualize the historical settings within which they emerged. The paper starts with the presentation of the Dependencia which was a direct response to the Modernization paradigm. After a brief critical evaluation of the Modernization paradigm and the basic premises of the Dependencia, some of the works which focused on Turkish studies that were related to the Dependencia are analyzed. Then comes a detailed discussion on the World-Systems Theory with a particular focus on the work of Immauel Wallerstein. The paper ends with a comprehensive discussion on the validity of the major premises of the World-Systems Theory with regard to some of the problematic areas of Ottoman history.
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Studying Islam, History of Islam
and Islamic Culture in Turkey
AHMET YAŞAR OCAK
Historical consciousness of the Turkish elite, experiencing a dilemma in terms of identity and culture for a long time, is in complete confusion. This has been reflected in the studies of the historians who are in the opposite poles regarding this dilemma. One of the fields in which this confusion manifests itself in a clear fashion is the academia and popular historiography related to the study of Islam, Islamic culture and history. This article discusses the weakness of Turkish historiography in this field and the reasons behind it, as well as its reverberations in the public opinion.
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Oral history: The charm of a new discipline
ARZU ÖZTÜRKMEN
Is oral history “more history”, “anti-history” or “how history”? Looking at various aspects of this post-War field, this paper tries to make a distinction between oral history as a “methodology” and as an “approach.” Based on in-depth-interviews, oral history democratizes the writing of history, by bringing the interviewees’ voice to the center, and thus allowing them to interpret the past as much as the historian. In Allessandro Portelli’s terms, oral history tells us more about the meanings than the events in people’s lives.
If not as an approach, oral history has entered as a new “term” into the agenda of Turkish social scientists in the early 1990s. Along with social scientists, it was also discovered by TV journalists who produced documentaries based on oral interviews. However appealing was this new field to both social scientists and to the journalists, the “formalizing” of oral history projects generated a variety of experiences which deserve to be reviewed. Many of these pioneering research and film projects were pursued either as a group of researchers or under the room of sponsoring institutions. In a context where oral history has been literally “discovered” and “publicized” almost simultaneously, these projects induced different experiences which need to be discussed for a better establishment of the field of oral history in Turkey. This paper is such an attempt, and it tries to overview various experiences of “doing” oral history as social scientists and as media journalists, based on the pioneering projects.
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The study of the Armenian crisis in the late Ottoman Empires or “seizing the document by the throat”
SELİM DERİNGİL
For a Turkish historian of the late nineteenth century Ottoman Empire venturing into the Armenian crisis is like venturing into a minefield. It is fraught with dangers, the least of which is to be labelled a traitor by ones’countrymen, and the worst of which is to be accused of being a “denialist” by one’s Armenian colleagues. Even “balanced” analysis seems to have become politically incorrect as of late, at least in some circles. The basic problem in the Armenian-Turkish polemic is that the sides do not actually adress each other. What I intend to do in this paper is to try to avoid the polemic as such, and look at the archival sources and their uses and misuses. I will present a motley sample of documents, which can be read in several ways. Thus, each document will be followed by an enumerated series of interpretations, some plausible, some verging on the fantastic. My aim in this exercise (and I insist that it is a mere exercise) is by no means to give exhaustive documentary evidence re-inforcing this or that “side” in the documentary debate, but to try to show how archival materials can be used (or misused) to defend more or less any previously assumed position or prejudice. My aim is to critically examine a small sample of Ottoman archival documentation and try to point out, what all historians know but sometimes ignore, that the same document may well be “pulled” in several, sometimes even contradictory directions. Therefore there is very little point in assuming prima facie that Ottoman documents are “fraudulent”. What we may be confronted with is a fraudulent use of documents by “seizing the document by the throat” and demanding that it reveal the material supportive of a pre-conceived partisan position.
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Ottoman Parliament debating the Armenian
Massacres: November - December 1918
AYHAN AKTAR
On 13th of November 1918, the allied land forces and the navy occupied Istanbul. Allied occupation of the city made its inhabitants realize their final defeat at First World War. In the beginning, the occupation forces first permitted the functioning of the Ottoman parliament. Later they closed it down and send its deputies to Malta as prisoners.
Throughout the months of November and December in 1918, many crucial issues, including the Armenian massacres of 1915 were discussed in the Ottoman parliament. It is quite interesting to note that although the country was under foreign occupation the representatives from Baghdad and Aleppo were still in the Ottoman parliament. Also the representatives of the Greek, Armenian and Jewish communities of the empire were present and actively participated to the debates.
In this article, the author illustrates how the Armenian massacres were discussed in the Ottoman parliament. Critical comments of the Armenian representatives made the discussions to be more precise and illuminating. Naturally, the general atmosphere of defeat shaped the tone and style of discussion of the Turkish representatives. Nevertheless in 1918, we could find traces of the arguments developed in official Turkish circles during 1980s. However representatives of the Ottoman non-Muslim minorites answered back as clear as possible. It is quite interesting to note that Turkish representatives from the opposition benches acted together with non-Muslim deputies and asked a parliamentary investigation to take place later.
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History written in novel
ÖMER TÜRKEŞ
There is a close relation between history and novel, however there is not a consensus on the degree of closeness and their impact on each other. Until 19th century, these two intellectual activities were examined as one discipline. The separation that occurred during 19th century with the claim to scientificity is today seen artificial by deconstructionist historiography and history is related again with literature. There are other historiographies which has different references and which differentiate history and novel. How can the relation between history and literature be established and how close it is? In this essay, the changes in the human activity of “narrative” which integrated not only history and literature but also all other social disciplines -mythology, geography, ethics, philosophy and etc.-, the areas where written history and literature became the same, and the relation between novel and history in Turkish novel, are examined.
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Constructing the field of debate in social sciences
and the possibilities of historical sociology
FERDAN ERGUT
The main issue of this article is to problematize the absence of discussion and debate in social sciences in Turkey. In order to explain this phenomenon it proposes two causal variables: First, it suggests that scholars in Turkey cease to ask meaningful questions on major issues related to the daily lives of the ordinary people. The second and more “objective” variable than the first one, is the fact that there exists limited number of social scientists in Turkey. For that variable, the article employs the insights from the “network analysis.” As a possible solution to the dilemma, the article urges scholars to focus on some basic insights which could be derived from historical sociology.
As related to the first variable, the article argues that the major debates of the 1960s were largely due to the practical (and political) concerns of progressive scholars. Once this highly politicized period was over and the various disciplines of social sciences securely consolidated their positions in academia, the predictable intracacies of professionalization and related concerns took the place of more practical concerns of Turkish scholars. The outcome was the loss of sense of “relevancy” in the research designs.
As related to the second variable, the article points out that social science requires a certain level of anonymity. In this context, the fact that there are few social scientists in Turkey, has led to some major problems related to the field of debate in social sciences. The high degree of personal acquintanence amongst social scientists strengthenes their sense of friendship or hostility towards each other and, most importantly, intensifies their hierarchical relations, both of which are inimical to the development of a “debating society” in social sciences.
If these arguments are true, then we have to try to bring some changes to both of these variables. Since the second varible Is structurally determined it cannot easily be changed. The first variable presents other kinds of problems. In the 1960s scholars achieved to ask meaningful questions but there was a high degree of spontaneity in this process. They did so without self-reflection, i.e. without any sense of “conribution” to the accumulation of knowledge. Very naively, their immediate aim was to bring about a social revolution. They took the attempt to reveal the historical (and structural) dynamics of Turkish society as an inevitable part of the efforts in finding the “correct” revolutionary strategy to be pursued in Turkey.
The current context in Turkey does not seem to produce such a sponteneity in a foreseable future. One might add that, as far as the future of social science in Turkey is concerned, this is not a fact which should be regretted. Sponteneity (or lack of distance between the observer and the observed) will not always serve to the benefit of social science. If this is so, then the major problem will be to find out some new mechanisms through which scholars could consciously and reflectively intervene from outside on to significant social issues. Only in such a context does it seem possible to realize the accumulation of knowledge in the field, a goal which the article attributes great significance. Asking meaningful questions on human condition and then debating on our findings with other colleagues, will only be possible if we can ground our findings on some common theoretical and methodological basis. The article urges social scientists to be more open to possible benefits that could be derived from the insights of historical sociology in this context.
Historical sociology, with its deeply enthrenched sense of “path dependency”, could be one possible solution to the problem at hand. From the very beginning, historical sociology situates itself at the intersection between “structure” and “situation.” In other words, it has the necessary tools to deal with human actions by giving special importance to constraints and institutional andĞor social limitations on human freedom. To find out what isĞwas possible and what isĞwas not for agency, could help us to form a common ground upon which we can compare our findings, and put one more brick on our common social science “building.” The article argues that the works and the research program offered by Charles Tilly could be of a great help in this enterprise. Especially his emphasis on capitalism and state-making as the two most important processes will help us to reorient our social studies.
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“The science of history” in Ibn Kaldun’s
clasification of sciences
MEHMET KUYURTAR
In this article, we tried to study Ibn Khaldun’s view on the science of history with respect to the relation among philosophy, religion and politics which was the main problem in Medieval Islamic thought. Indeed, having focused on the science of history, at first sight, he seems as if he were not concerned with the problem in question. But when his thought on the methodological principles of the science of history are eleborated, it is obvious that his thoughts suggest a solution for that problem.
While claiming that social-political events which are the subject matter of history as a consequence of the necessary-causal relations; he not only criticizes the traditional Islamic historiography but also claims that the demand to order the social-political realm in accordance with religious and philosophical ideals is invalid. In this respect, Ibn Khaldun’s science of history and the science of umran, can be considered as a criticism of Islamic political theology and Islamic political philosophy.
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Nationalist historiography and
the “consciousness of underdevelopment”:
Perceptions of past in Greek historiography
FOTİ BENLİSOY - STEFO BENLİSOY
The article deals with attempts to redefine the perceptions of the past among the Greeks in the process of the establishment of national identity in Greece. It also seeks to describe this process through establishing parallels with the Turkish perceptions of the past during the process of Turkish nation building. Despite huge differences, the comparison of the Greek and Turkish cases of perceptions of past reveal some important similarities.
A “consciousness of underdevelopment”, which results from an awareness of a great chasm between “East” and “West” through increased interaction with the WestĞcentre, was a key figure in the development of both Greek and Turkish historical narratives. One way of overcoming this consciousness of underdevelopment for the nationalist ideologies was to connect themselves somehow into the main narrative of the WestĞcentre. Nationalist historiography played a major role in this effort through the denial of the “living pastĞtradition” -Byzantine and Ottoman- which is defined by its “oriental” qualities. Both the Greek and the Turkish historical narratives are examples of the displacement of a living pastĞtradition with a deadĞdistant pastĞtradition which is imagined as a secular tradition. In the Greek case the antiquity and in the Turkish case the Central Asian Turkish civilization played the role of the authentic and secular essence of the nation which embodied in itself qualities that were associated with the West. In fact both nationalist historiographies through the imagined qualities of their mythical past claimed a central role in the formation of the Western civilization. The living past in this scheme is rejected because it is associated with alienĞoriental elements which degenerated the authentic essence of the nation. Thus both historiographical traditions internalized the assumptions of orientalism and sought to include their national histories into the main narrative of the West. Attempts to give a formative place to the history of the nation in the history of the Western civilization gives the nationalist historiography a paradoxical nature. On the one hand the nationalist historiography claims the authenticity and autonomy of the nation, while on the other hand it tries to integrate the nation through these qualities into the narrative of the “civilized world” that is the West.
Despite its attempts to overcome the consciousness of underdevelopment through integrating the nation into the narrative of Western civilization this scheme had many shortcomings. The main problem was the great time gap between nation’s mythical past and its present condition. Also the rejection of the living past created problems of national integration. Thus in order to overcome these, nationalistic historiographies in both cases presents the restoration and integration of the living past into the nation’s historical narrative and emphasize the continuous existence of the nation.
