The Turkish Connection: Deniz Kuru / Hazal Papuççular

Deniz Kuru / Hazal Papuççular
The Turkish Connection

Critical Readings in
Global Intellectual History
Edited by
Susan Richter, Milinda Banerjee,
Sebastian Meurer, and Li Xuetao
Volume 2
The Turkish
Connection
Global Intellectual Histories of the

Late Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey
Edited by
Deniz Kuru and Hazal Papuççular
ISBN 978-3-11-075627-2
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-075729-3
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-075735-4
ISSN 2568-843X
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021951720
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
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Table of Contents

Introduction 1
Section I. Inside Out: Global Intellectual Trajectories of the

Ottomans
Harun Buljina
Chapter 1
Bosnia’s “Young Turks”: The Bosnian Muslim Intelligentsia in its Late
Ottoman Context, 1878 – 1914 29
Barış Zeren
Chapter 2
Between Constitution, Empire, and Nation: An Intellectual Trajectory of
Pancho Dorev and his Legalist Paradigm 49
Berrak Burçak
Chapter 3
Deconstructing ‘Orientalism’ at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition:
Esmeralda Cervantes, Sultan Abdulhamid II and the “Address on the
Education and Literature of the Women of Turkey” 79
Section II. From Empire to Republic: The Transformation of

Intellectual Dispositions in Republican Turkey
M. Sait Özervarlı
Chapter 4
Ottoman-Turkish Thought from a Global Intellectual History Perspective:
An Analysis of Disenchantment from Positivism and Engagement with
Bergsonian Intuitionism 109
VI Table of Contents
Pascale Roure
Chapter 5
Between French Culture and German Geist – The Transnational Constitutions
of Turkish Academic Philosophy 137
Deniz Kuru
Chapter 6
Globalizing Turkey’s Intellectual Histories 173
Section III. Interaction with the Global: Formation and

Propagation of Ideas and Ideologies in Turkey
Hazal Papuççular
Chapter 7
The Wilsonian Ideas of the Ottoman Turkish Intelligentsia in Post-World War I
Turkey 197
Doğan Gürpɪnar
Chapter 8
Turkish Anticlericalism, Republicanism, and the Left: Intersections and
Departures 219
Jan-Markus Vömel
Chapter 9
Global Intellectual Transfers and the Making of Turkish High Islamism,
c. 1960 – 1995 247

Conclusion 271
Index 279
List of Contributors 283

Introduction
Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a novel approach in historical
studies, one that could be interpreted even as a new subfield of history: global
intellectual history. It is possible to employ its lenses in more than a single way
when it comes to adopting a global-based perspective. On the one hand, it relates
to various attempts to present a more globally shaped understanding of intellec-
tual history. On the other hand, this search can also concern more interactive
and less hermetically separate engagements that go beyond distinctive national
settings, either in the shape of entanglements and connections, or as a conse-
quence of increasing global integration.¹ The joint endeavor remains, neverthe-
less, to widen, in different ways, scholarly perspectives by choosing a broader
setting through which to analyze how ideas emerge, interact, are altered and
given new forms or associations.
Where is global intellectual history located? While multiple answers could
be provided in this regard, what matters most is that it emerges at the intersec-
tion of global history and intellectual history. These two are themselves relative
newcomers in historical scholarship from the earlier and later periods of the 20th
century. However, it is only with the globalization-focused years of the 1990s and
later that global history has emerged as a popular scholarly undertaking across
the globe.² By overcoming national takes of national histories, it has visibly suc-
ceeded in generating fresh insights that present innovative aspects for studying
the past.
With global history to a significant degree covering a very broad array of top-
ics, a more recent approach has developed in order to offer a focused engage-
ment with the role of ideas in their global(ized) settings. The emphasis is thus
on tracking ideas in their global journeys or analyzing how it is rather difficult
to insist in many instances on ideational trajectories that are/remain nationally
 For this take concerning global history broadly, see Sebastian Conrad, What is Global History?
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 6 – 11.
 On its global status, see Sven Beckert and Dominic Sachsenmaier, eds., Global History, Glob-
ally – Research and Practice around the World (London: Bloomsbery, 2018); for recent close en-
gagements, see James Belich, John Darwin, Margret Frenz and Chris Wickham, eds., The Pros-
pect of Global History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), as well as the succinct study by
Alessandro Stanziani, Eurocentrism and the Politics of Global History (Cham: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 2018).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-001
2 Deniz Kuru and Hazal Papuççular
framed. Overall, an essential shift is underway by dealing with intellectual his-

tory by accounting for ideas’ non-nation-state-based or non-national pathways.
The most significant role in preparing the ground for global intellectual his-
tory came with the eponymously titled book by Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sar-
tori.³ In their edited volume, a rich group of contributors discussed diverse ap-
proaches for generating global intellectual history. They also debated possible
problems, challenges and pitfalls when engaging with intellectual history in a
global manner. Coming from diverse backgrounds, the message they presented
was nonetheless quite important. In their account, the time has come to carefully
provide novel ways of doing intellectual history, in a fashion that would take the
complex trajectories of ideas and their various carriers more directly, and less in
national(istically) framed ways, into consideration.
This approach paves the way for an intellectual history that goes beyond
separate nationally defined or framed intellectual histories. The present volume
also takes this perspective as its main inspiration, aiming to use these novel in-
sights for overcoming Ottoman and Turkish intellectual historical approaches
that have for too long been structured along specific geographical lines, and
mostly on the basis of distinct national frameworks. It is important to remember
therefore that global intellectual history does not force us to search after globally
interacting ideational dynamics behind every single idea. What it does is call our
attention to the ways in which intellectual history has remained quite parochial
in its focus on nationally constrained ideational contexts. Furthermore, a
global(ly conscious) engagement with ideas also allows us to more concretely
study varying ways through which even nationally defined actors can shape
ideas in settings that are located out of their original localities. This also
means engaging with groups such as exiles, and various other forms of migra-
tion in order to study nation-pertinent ideas outside their original national
frames.
In the remainder of the introduction, we will focus on the main benefits of
the global turn in intellectual history at a specific intersection. It is by having
briefly elaborated on global intellectual history’s significant position at the inter-
section of global history and intellectual history that it becomes possible to turn
our attention to a rather neglected aspect: the late Ottoman and Turkish repub-
lican intellectual histories under an emerging global gaze. After this general
elaboration, the focus shifts to these two specific contexts. We discuss how the
current state of scholarship relates to a rather enduring involvement within
 Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, eds., Global Intellectual History (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 2013).
Introduction 3
national(ized) frameworks. In order to overcome this problem, we explore in turn

how global intellectual history could provide useful insights for analyses of late
Ottoman and Turkish republican eras in the context of their ideational worlds. In
order to underline our specific contributions, we will explain how the different
chapters, separately and in combination, reflect diverse aspects of an intellectual
history that does not stop at the national borders. The final part presents brief
overviews of all the nine thematic chapters and discusses the multiple ways
they contribute to the project of global intellectual history while engaging
with the late Ottoman and Turkish republican periods. We will return to the pros-
pects of this undertaking in the conclusion, which we use in order to offer our
own ideas about how to make the most of the global turn in intellectual history
for the specific contexts, in their temporal and spatial dimensions, of the late Ot-
toman and Turkish republican intellectual histories.
1. “The Turkish connection”

While the book focuses on the late Ottoman and Turkish republican eras, the
focus is mostly on the 20th century, starting from the final decades of the Otto-
man Empire and reaching into the last decades of the 20th century in discussing
the intellectual histories of the two societies in a global manner. A pertinent
question in this regard would be why the volume refers to “the Turkish connec-
tion”. Our brief answer is that the temporal frame of the 20th century with the
distinct role played by the Turkish ideational realm allows us to sidestep the Ot-
toman one. Nevertheless, this should not be interpreted, following the critical re-
marks of Edhem Eldem,⁴ as a perspective that equates the Ottoman experiences
with the Turkish ones. On the contrary, the very goal of this work is to point to all
the different levels at which nationally shaped or regionally defined intellectual
horizons become questionable. As will be seen in the chapter by Harun Buljina,
it is possible to write global intellectual histories of the Ottomans from the pe-
ripheries, underlining the agential power of those actors who were usually situ-
ated at the border spheres between the empires, in this case Bosnian Muslims
between Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans.
As is visible from these remarks, even the adjective “Turkish” does not mere-
ly refer, in this context, to nationally or regionally specified subjects or process-
es, signifying in this sense actors and mechanisms that, at various points of their
interactions and trajectories, engage with Turkey in terms of geographies, citi-
 Edhem Eldem, “Osmanlı Tarihini Türklerden Kurtarmak,” Cogito no. 73 (2013), 260 – 282.
zenships, or ideational connections. This is a major point that we want to em-

phasize because the way this book approaches Turkey pertains very substantially
to the global intellectual history perspective. It is this perspective that we, as co-
editors and contributors, employ as our main building block in presenting the
subsequent studies of intellectual history. Important to further underline in
this regard is that our reference to the Turkish connection functions as a mech-
anism that specifies the common feature of all the present contributions in this
volume. Stated differently, we focus on Turkey in order to provide a de-parochial
approach to the late Ottoman Empire’s and Turkey’s intellectual histories. In this
sense, the subsequent chapters do not provide the Turkish intellectual history
but Turkey-pertinent intellectual histories (always in plural, conceptualizing
thereby the different possibilities and potentials immanent to global frames)
through the lenses of a globally conscious approach, one that decenters Turkey
in order to reposition it within global intellectual history. Likewise, we engage
with Ottoman era ideas and intellectual actors in a similar manner, without put-
ting the Ottoman-Turkish experience necessarily at center stage.
As global intellectual history originates from emphases on the prominent
role played by processes of interactions, alterations and modifications, the
role of (mis)translations, and various dynamics through which ideas are carried
around the globe or across multiple regions by diverse actors, this volume’s en-
gagements with the late Ottoman and Turkish republican periods derive from a
joint desire: to overcome the self-centered analyses of intellectual history that re-
main too heavily connected to the Turkish setting via implicit or explicit self-lim-
itations to a nationally confined and world-detached environment. This prevail-
ing and problematic approach generates in turn a pre-selected way of engaging
with ideas by disregarding the interwoven mechanisms and entanglements that
significantly define and determine the emergence, development and change of
ideas. An intellectual history relating to Turkey’s varying contexts can even be
seen as necessarily featuring a broad range of elements that become more easily
comprehensible when approached through an alternative and globally attentive
perspective. Following a framework that aims to denationalize Turkey’s intellec-
tual history, it would become possible to focus more directly and extensively on a
broad range of actors whose roles in, and contributions to, Turkey-pertinent tra-
jectories of diverse ideas have been rather neglected. The chapter by Deniz Kuru
offers a pertinent framework for engaging with this issue.
With regard to the late Ottoman and Turkish republican eras, which lie at the
basis of this volume, global intellectual history is also promising thanks to its
suitability for analyzing such contexts that are both temporally and spatially
marked by intensive dynamics of change. As the Ottoman Empire was collaps-
ing, and subsequently, a new Turkish nation-state as well as other entities
Introduction 5
were emerging on its former territories, these developments would take place in
settings that were visibly marked by interactions with forces beyond distinct na-
tional frames. In fact, even the national(istic) condition itself was being, idea-
tionally and actor-wise, constantly influenced by a range of broader forces.
Not only were many leading names of the Turkish nationalist ideology recent im-
migrants from the non-Ottoman territories (such as those coming from the Rus-
sian Empire, including Ismail Gaspıralı (Gasprinskiy), Yusuf Akçura, Ahmet
Ağaoğlu)⁵ but also the very idea of such a state had been a work-in-progress
whose contours were defined by the West European, but also Southeastern Eu-
rope and Japanese experiences and ideational interactions.⁶ Instead of relying
on a mere transfer-based approach, global intellectual history also consequently
promises for these Ottoman and Turkish contexts a deeper engagement with
ideas’ transnational features and impact.
In this regard, the present volume uses global intellectual history in order to
emphasize various strategies through which to highlight ideas’ unending jour-
neys. Even when their origins, to wit, points of departure, can be more definitely
pointed out, “the Turkish connection” means that no final point of arrival is pre-
given. As shown by Doğan Gürpınar’s chapter, even scholarship known for its
critical or revisionist perspective can end up reproducing earlier frameworks
when not sufficiently careful in its engagement with ideas in a distinct, and con-
comitantly global, context. The pertinence of Turkey, to wit, its intellectual geog-
raphies, should not be interpreted as omnipresent structures. On the contrary,
our goal is to use the Turkish case for realizing a dual maneuver. Due to the rel-
ative novelty of global intellectual history, its geographic scope has been rather
constrained to specific settings, mostly the Western European and US and their
interactions with Asia, and less frequently Latin America.⁷ While it is not always
useful to tie ideas to a certain place, what these intercontinental connections
refer to are in fact the lack of more inclusive studies that emerge on the basis
of this novel subfield. The first move concerns, thus, shifting global intellectual
 See James H. Meyer, Turks across Empires: Marketing Muslim Identity in the Russian-Ottoman
Borderlands, 1856 – 1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) on how emigrees from the Rus-
sian Empire influenced Pan-Turkist thinking in the Ottoman Empire.
 See Şükrü Hanioğlu, Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2011) on how various geographies and their thinkers influenced the future founder of the Turkish
Republic.
 See Stefanie Gänger and Su Lin Lewis, “Forum: A World of Ideas: New Pathways in Global
Intellectual History, c.1880 – 1930,” Modern Intellectual History 10, no. 2 (2013), 347– 351. Here
347– 348, fn. 2. Not much has changed, with these two regions still being the preferred “non-
Western” regions for global intellectual histories.
history’s search after interactions and deparochialization toward a geography,

which remained until now quite disregarded. This is where the Turkish connec-
tion enters the picture. Yet, the second move allows us to go even further. It re-
lates to starting with the Ottoman Empire and Turkey without, geographically
speaking, staying in this territorial setting. As seen in Berrak Burçak’s chapter,
for instance, it is of utmost relevance to extend our intellectual gaze to a US in-
ternational exposition from the late 19th century, in order to provide a broader
narrative of Hamidian imperial regime’s perceptions regarding women, Islam,
and modernity.
Consequently, by globalizing late Ottoman and Turkish intellectual histories,
we call for a perspective that simultaneously connects and refocuses. Instead of
assumptions of disconnections, the goal is to demonstrate how ideas do not nec-
essarily travel around merely one-way, and to illustrate how such an alternative
perspective does not have to be centered on any given regional setting. “The
Turkish connection” thus becomes a means of refocusing, but not of centering.
It is in this sense that we even attempt to de-center. The chapter by Harun Buljina
testifies how Constantinople mattered as the Ottoman center, but without being
the sole definer of the ideational journeys of its (former) subjects.
In a related manner, our starting premise also includes an understanding of
institutions that takes their transnational emergence and modification into con-
sideration. Instead of approaching academic establishments, political entities, or
publication houses as national actors, or from a reverse point, as completely
global (international or transnational) agents, we aim to focus on them with re-
gard to their globally re-defined and transnationally shaped features. As seen in
the chapter by Pascal Roure, early 20th century academic philosophy in republi-
can Turkey was structured by background dynamics that were heavily influenced
by Franco-German scientific diplomacy as well as late Ottoman and early repub-
lican scholarly preferences. The very interaction immanent to French and Ger-
man university developments from the 19th century on would thus in turn interact
with Turkish political elites’ and scholars’ own choices and the distinct tenden-
cies that would take shape on these bases.
Using frameworks emerging from the recent scholarship on global intellec-
tual history also allows us to connect a globally present European thinker to
the distinct context of the late Ottoman or Turkish republican periods. While
the origins lie, in such cases, still on a European thinker, this should not
mean that the emerging analysis should be a Eurocentric one.⁸ What this alter-
 See the distinct manner in which Buck-Morss presented exactly this kind of a counter-narra-
tive by focusing on the Haitian Revolution’s potential and implicit impact on Hegelian thought
Introduction 7
native offers is a framework through which to discuss the reasons not merely of
transfer, but also of the intra-(Ottoman and) Turkish dynamics that would shape
how a given philosopher’s or scholar’s ideas and concepts would go on develop-
ing their own lives in these new settings. As shown in the chapter by Sait Özer-
varlı, it thus becomes possible to not only contextualize the ideas of Henri Berg-
son in their new and distinct tempo-spatial frames, but also to explain how the
local expectations and experiences would determine their influence, at times in
ways that significantly extend beyond the original impact. Therefore, our per-
spective paves the way for taking into account geographically global ideational
diffusions by demonstrating how the local actors (and all their intermittent
transnational activities such as having studied abroad) matter a lot.
This relevance of national intellectuals, and of other such ideational carriers
in general that could include those who are not themselves intellectually the
most famous, popular, or active ones (such as publishers, scholars in peripheral
settings, ordinary travelers interested in ideas, etc.) presents an interesting as-
pect of global intellectual history. For it shows how even the global circulation
of a European thinker’s ideas presents in many instances a process of nationally
re-defined conditions and differing local mechanisms. It is at these intersections
that we are able to go beyond the national but also beneath the global levels.
Approaching ideas at the time of their travels across the world, it becomes pos-
sible to elaborate how their impact and meaning could be modified or re-appro-
priated at the basis of local dynamics. In this regard, the ideas we engage with
no longer belong to the original thinker or the local influencers but are re-gen-
erated via these interactions and their often unforeseeable processes. This never-
theless does not signify that the national is an always easily discernable local
setting. It is also in this regard that a global take helps as far as allowing us
to perceive and consider multiple trajectories, their interactions, and at times, di-
vergences.
Relying on insights derived from global intellectual history also helps in con-
necting intellectual history to specific debates that relate to other fields such as
political or diplomatic history. In order to better understand why certain actors
acted in certain ways, it becomes helpful to understand the different ways in
which their decisions were shaped by the ideas with which they had been in en-
gagement. How do various players make their political decisions on the basis of
their ideas and ideological outlooks? To what extent are their actions, in turn,
shaped by these ideational elements whose origins are not directly attributable
in Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 2009).
to a homogeneous “Western” or “Eastern” setting? Instead of constraining our

analyses to national(ist) frames or intra-imperial spheres, using a more global
consciousness in our approaches allows us to perceive the relevance of ideas
in their mostly interacting ways (as neither European nor Ottoman, for instance),
in a manner that also acknowledges the contingent role of ideational back-
grounds. As seen in the chapter by Barış Zeren, one could gain much when fo-
cusing on an intellectual-politician whose moves were taking place at the inter-
sections of the Ottoman Empire and a changing Balkan nation-state landscape,
if the ideational circumstances are discussed by considering not merely the re-
gional, nationally shaped or imperially set but also global dimensions, which
are of significance in these processes.
An important aspect of global intellectual history relates to acknowledging
the limits of globality. To put it differently, not all ideas, thinkers, or processes
would be similarly global in their impact or influence.⁹ It is not helpful to insist
on a framework that would merely prioritize the global.¹⁰ In this regard, taking
global, regional and national contexts and background conditions simulta-
neously into account provides new means of engagement with the varying trajec-
tories of ideas. At such junctures, also scholarly analyses require multiple levels
in order to deal with these situations of lacking (or even non‐)involvement. These
cases could testify to visible constraints faced by significant transnational actors
in spreading their ideas across the globe. While it would be difficult to speak of a
small Gaul village still resisting against the Roman invaders, à la Asterix, it is
still useful to focus on settings that have provided rather surprising reactions
when certain novel ideational waves would reach them. Studying the degrees
of (non)globalization of ideas is thus another essential point of this volume.
The chapter by Jan-Markus Vömel highlights a pertinent example from the Turk-
ish context by discussing how Turkey’s Islamist movements have kept acting as
the decisive domestic ideational actors due to their predominant national status,
even in the face of powerful dynamics emanating from the Arab and Iranian set-
tings.
As stated above, Turkish intellectual history, while developed by a certain
range of, varying, academic approaches, has usually tended to consist of narra-
tive that have taken the Turkish national perspective as the omnipresent one. For
 See Samuel Moyn, “On the Nonglobalization of Ideas,” in Global Intellectual History, eds.,
Moyn and Sartori, 187– 204; Frederick Cooper, “How Global Do We Want Our Intellectual History
to Be?,” in Global Intellectual History, 283 – 294.
 See Conrad, What is Global History? for elaborations on this problematique.
Introduction 9
some Islamist ideas and thinkers, “the idea of the Muslim world”¹¹ has played a
prominent role, while in the case of Marxism and the broader left, the focus was
partially at the Soviet or Third World revolutionary geographies, as well as the
West European original contexts. Nevertheless, the overall scholarly output
has been substantively defined by a national Turkish setting without much em-
phasis on or even interest in the various ways in which domestic debates on
ideas, ideologies, or intellectuals do not take place in a hermetically sealed off
environment.¹² Such a starting point has frequently made it self-evident to ap-
proach these as if they were all merely locally shaped phenomena.
A global involvement with intellectual history serves in this regard as a tool
to overcome such parochial attitudes, but without automatically going the other
direction by unnecessarily assuming that all ideas within the context of Turkey
would have their origins within an imagined “Western” or “Eastern” other.
Through its involvement with all the distinct manners of interaction, as well
as recognizing the limits of these, this novel approach to intellectual history of-
fers many advantages in dealing more innovatively with late Ottoman and Turk-
ish intellectual histories. As recently stated by Omnia Al-Shakry, the increasing
relevance of global intellectual history notwithstanding, “the larger field of intel-
lectual history has yet to grapple fully with its geohistorical and geopolitical lo-
cation…” as it is still “Western European intellectual traditions [that] remain cen-
tral in the formation of its canon.”¹³ As she asserts, it becomes important to deal
with an important question: “[H]ow specific non-Western intellectuals might best
be thought of as generating epistemologies for modern social theory, rather than
as mere exemplars of Arab thought.”¹⁴
This presents a significant engagement that also affects this volume when
adjusted in a relevant way. To what extent can we re-center Turkish intellectual
history in order to make it less parochial while also aiming at globalizing intel-
lectual history itself – and this in a fashion that rejects the Eurocentrism that has
for too long prevailed in this subfield? In looking to answer these questions, this
volume perceives in global intellectual history a dual chance concerning our re-
 Cemil Aydın, The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2017).
 We should also emphasize that a nascent effort to portray the connection of the Turkish set-
ting with that of the global is noticeable but still scarce. For a recent attempt in this respect, see
Pascal W. Firges, Tobias P. Graf, Christian Roth, and Gülay Tulasoƭlu, eds., Well-Connected Do-
mains: Towards an Entangled Ottoman History (Leiden: Brill, 2014).
 Omnia El Shakry, “Rethinking Arab Intellectual History: Epistemology, Historicism, Secular-
ism,” Modern Intellectual History 18, no. 2 (2021): 547– 572, here 547.
 El Shakry, “Rethinking Arab Intellectual History,” 550.
search agenda. On the one hand, its (extant and emerging) toolkit could help us
in broadening present forms of intellectual histories across the globe. A focus on
the late Ottoman and Turkish contexts, which one could argue have been for too
long disregarded from this angle, could provide a much-needed refreshment by
broadening the geohistorical and geopolitical locations Al-Shakry refers to. Fur-
thermore, the very geoepistemologies that would thus more directly, and addi-
tionally, relate to present debates in intellectual history would present important
gains. Answering the question above, it also becomes pertinent to search after
those aspects of late Ottoman and Turkish (ideational) developments, which
could in turn extend epistemologies in humanities and social sciences that
have been much shaped by the “West.” On the other hand, this move would
not merely try to challenge the Western-centric canon, but also aim to expand
the horizons of Turkish intellectual history itself. Obviously, the validity of
these claims, as well as the feasibility of our expectations, depend to significant
degrees on the issues, periods, or thinkers with which one engages. As stated
above, certain ideological positions would be more prone to global, or at least
less national pathways, whereas some other cases could due to their specifics re-
main ipso facto more parochial. Nonetheless, going beyond the national focus
allows us to take into consideration regional, (tri- or four‐)continental, and liter-
ally global aspects in the study of Ottoman and Turkish intellectual histories.
In this sense, the global approach is not always about presenting a totally
connected framework of ideas or ideational entrepreneurs, be it intellectuals
or other actors involved in these processes. It is possible to remain at a national
or regional level by nevertheless pointing to the various ways in which these dy-
namics take shape by inter-connecting the local(s) and the non-local(s).¹⁵ In the
chapter by Hazal Papuççular, it becomes possible to notice how “the Wilsonian
moment”¹⁶ also generated its Turkish-Ottoman version through the joint impact
of the global and local forces. It is in such tempo-spatial contexts that even a na-
tionally focused approach can gain much from broadening its analytical gaze.
Instead of mere transfers, one could thus notice that domestic settings play a
role that should not be overlooked in shaping the changing features of ideas
or related policies.
 For a recent example of this possibility see John T. Sidel, Republicanism, Communism, Islam:
Cosmopolitan Origins of Revolution in Southeast Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021).
 See the important study by Erel Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the
International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Introduction 11
2. Overcoming Binaries, Underlining Pluralities

While we have emphasized the visible lack of studies influenced by global intel-
lectual history in certain regions, including the Middle East, such studies tend to
engage, even when present in this regional case, mostly with the Arab national-
ism.¹⁷ This also leads to less emphasis on cases such as Turkish or Iranian intel-
lectual history. In this regard, in an important recent study on Iran’s intellectual
history, Afshin Matin-Asgari has pointed out how employing the perspectives of
comparative and global histories was apt to demonstrate that Iranian society
was “[b]oth Eastern and Western,” as also thus reflected in his book’s title.
This is presented as an aspect that is valid “culturally and intellectually,” reject-
ing thereby the Shah-era and Islamist suggestions about Iran being “neither
eastern, nor western.”¹⁸ This framework provides a useful basis from which to
think about the late Ottoman and Turkish republican intellectual histories, as
it helps us in overcoming supposedly homogeneous distinctions between the
“West” and the “East”/“non-West.” The cases studied in the present volume fur-
ther underline that such ways of distinguishing between various “civilizational”
spheres end up re-producing their own narrow narratives, rather than providing
new perspectives to comprehend the intellectual past of these societies, geogra-
phies, and settings. A recent piece by Katerina Dalacoura dealt directly with this
problem in discussing Turkish Islamism, calling to overcome the dualities and
binaries that prevail in certain studies of intellectual history and analyses,
which are tied to assumptions of too homogeneous “Western” or “Eastern” mind-
sets, structures, or mechanisms.¹⁹
If we do not effectively deploy such a change of perspective as a broadening
device to intellectual histories of these two eras, then it would be quite impos-
sible to engage with the question of how certain attitudes, ideational capacities,
political decisions, and similar dynamics could have taken place in the ways
they did. This not only concerns the late Ottoman but also the Turkish republican
periods with their broad range of thinkers, scholars, and other ideational entre-
preneurs. In the former case, it would be pertinent to consider, for instance, the
last grandvizier of the Abdulhamid II regime, Ferid Pasha. An Albanian, he kept
 Afshin Matin-Asgari, Both Eastern and Western – An Intellectual History of Iranian Modernity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 4.
 Matin-Asgari, Both Eastern and Western, 5.
 Katerina Dalacoura, “Global IR, global modernity and civilization in Turkish Islamist
thought: a critique of culturalism in international relations,” International Politics 58, no. 1
(2021): 131– 147.
serving the empire during and briefly also after the Hamidian era. His education-
al trajectory, governmental career and brief exile years combined cover very dif-
ferent regions: from Crete to Mardin, from Sarajevo to San Remo, or from the Ot-
toman capital to Cairo.²⁰ While working for the autocratic sultan, he also had a
bust of Voltaire in his library, which was filled with history books written by Thi-
ers and Mommsen.²¹ Himself educated at a Greek school, Ferid Pasha was eager
to establish a state-run school system to prevent Muslims from receiving their ed-
ucation at non-Muslim or foreign schools.²² These apparent contradictions, or in-
consistencies, could be explained by an approach that relies more on global in-
tellectual history.
A similar example could come from the consequent setting of Turkey. In the
case of the Turkish republican period, it would be helpful to refer to the most
significant political actor of its founding and development: Mustafa Kemal Ata-
türk. An Ottoman soldier who became a hero at the Battle of Gallipoli and would
establish the Turkish Republic merely a few years later was born in 1881 in a city
that was marked by its cosmopolitan structure: Salonica.²³ His educational path
was marked by the Hamidian reforms, and quickly led him to interact with ideas
that would be heretical to this very regime. On the other hand, when analyzing
his worldview and the later reforms he would undertake in his new state, of
which he became the uncontested founder and leader, it was the 19th century
and its distinct world of ideas that would play the most important role. As
shown in Şükrü Hanioğlu’s intriguing biography of him,²⁴ it was the impact of
Western and broader global dynamics in the sphere of ideas that would shape
the future leader from early on. A similar approach can also be seen in the
book by Zafer Toprak as he tries to locate the importance of Western philosophy
in the ideational world of Atatürk.²⁵ The result is a 20th century implementation
of 19th century ideas, at times conflicting not only with their new settings but also
seen, in certain moments, as passé for their Western contexts. This relates in par-
ticular to his engagement with what Hanioğlu refers to as vulgar materialism and
some pseudo-scientific aspects of the late 1800s. However, taking another per-
 Abdulhamit Kırmızı, “Experiencing the Ottoman Empire as a Life Course: Ferid Pasha, Gov-
ernor and Grandvizier (1851– 1914),” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 40, no. 1 (2014): 42– 66.
 Kırmızı, “Experiencing the Ottoman Empire,” 54.
 Kırmızı, “Experiencing the Ottoman Empire,” 53.
 Mark Mazower, Salonica: The City of Ghosts, Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430 – 1950 (New
York: Vintage, 2004).
 Hanioğlu, Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography.
 Zafer Toprak, Atatürk: Kurucu Felsefenin Evrimi (Istanbul: Türkiye Iş Bankası Kültür Yayın-
ları, 2020).
Introduction 13
spective, Atatürk’s attempts in spheres such as nation building, and an emphasis

on sovereignty, would later become influential elements in the case of newly
emerging states in the Third World, with, for instance, not a few Arabs naming
their children after this former Ottoman pasha and later Turkish statesman.²⁶
It is in instances such as these that global intellectual history and its rich
toolkit can be seen to provide a most welcome contribution in the sense of wid-
ening our ideational histories. The following section focuses on exactly these
premises and elaborates how these can be realized. At relevant junctures, we
also refer to specific contributions in this volume that emphasize these specific
points in more detail.
3. Locating Global Intellectual Histories of the

Late Ottoman and Turkish Republican Settings
Recent years have witnessed new tendencies that emphasize the relevance of
going beyond a Western-centric intellectual history or political theory. At
times, the focus is on comparative approaches in order to widen the extant
base of scholarly undertakings. This is seen most clearly in the case of compa-
rative political theory/thought that aims to deal with ideas and with political
thought in general by, as the name suggests, comparing or combining different
political ideas across the globe in order to study their similarities, differences,
overlaps or the potential of their joint employment.²⁷ On the other hand, decolo-
nizing approaches target the very Western-centricness of scholarly frames, reject-
ing what they perceive as a dominant and constant involvement with merely (or
mostly) the ideas in their Western settings – or only to the extent of their West-
ern-based relevance. In combination with broader criticisms of humanities and
social sciences that have emerged and influenced today’s scholarship,²⁸ these
 For an important recent contribution on the regional impact and interactions of Atatürk’s
Turkey and its Kemalist ideology, see Nathalie Clayer, Fabio Giomi, and Emmanuel Szurek,
eds., Kemalism: transnational politics in the post-Ottoman world (London: I.B. Tauris, 2019).
 Daniel J. Kapust and Helen M. Kinsella, eds., Comparative Political Theory in Time and Place
– Theory’s Landscapes (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Michael Freeden, ed., Comparative
Political Thought: Theorizing practices (London: Routledge, 2013); Melissa S. Williams, ed., De-
parochializing Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
 For a recent exemplary study see Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh, On decoloniality:
concepts, analytics, praxis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018).
critics underline the need for the significance of the “non-Western” settings, with
their different epistemologies, ontologies, and cosmologies.²⁹
Based on global intellectual history takes, and the broader dynamics affect-
ing our scholarship, a new question emerges: Where can we localize the late Ot-
toman and Turkish republican intellectual histories in this regard? This presents
a challenging question that requires a detailed answer. First of all, as stated
above, the neglect of non-Western thought and intellectual histories, or the
study of these ideas through Western-centric lenses have not infrequently gener-
ated a rather narrow engagement with the local dynamics of ideas’ trajectories.
We aim in this volume to provide a via media that would allow locating the
weight of various ideas in their differing contexts, without going thereby in either
a holistically globalizing direction or a completely nationally defined framework.
This means that we want to uncover those aspects of intellectual history that
have remained rather overlooked due to too heavy a focus on national levels
without a sufficient consideration of ideas’ regional and global routes and the
ideational entrepreneurs’ distinct roles in this process.
This premise leads us to a second point. It relates to assuming a framework
that is temporally and spatially adequately broad and flexible enough to engen-
der a research agenda that takes these expectations into account. Our goal is to
follow ideational paths through their multiple and changing settings, by consid-
ering the crossing of political borders or the overcoming of temporal differentia-
tions. Therefore, the task we have to confront is not an easy one, as global intel-
lectual history concomitantly forces us to extend beyond extant analytical layers.
It leads us to get involved with 19th century academic competition and political
rivalry among the French and German to understand the 20th century develop-
ment of Turkey’s academic philosophy (see the chapter by Roure). This approach
expands our horizons by discussing Turkish leftism and republican rhetoric by
considering similar past dynamics of the European and other settings, and in
this way ensuring a globally framed analysis of Turkish domestic processes
(see the chapter by Gürpınar). Similarly, it explains why certain globally influen-
tial movements were less successful in the Turkish context of the late 20th centu-
ry, pinpointing the surprising interactions between “the local” and “the global”
(see the chapter by Vömel).
A third aspect pertains to the changes that take place within the Ottoman
and Turkish settings themselves, and which in turn require us to offer analyses
whose premises are not stuck to a given tempo-spatial dimension. With shifting
 See, for instance, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming
of Age of Epistemologies of the South (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018).
Introduction 15
paradigms, one also needs to adjust the perspectives one employs. This point is
also valid concerning the global dimension, as this level is undergoing its own
modifications, if not transformations in a constant fashion (at times more speed-
ily and sometimes more gradually). It suffices to reflect on the transformational
and revolutionary ideational dynamics that we observe just in the last two cen-
turies.³⁰ These currents have, in turn, in differing ways and to varying extents,
shaped the ideational interactions and (dis)connections to the Ottoman and
Turkish settings. Without considering these dynamics simultaneously, the intel-
lectual histories that emerge would be bereft of significant background condi-
tions whose importance is paramount. In the chapter by Berrak Burçak, it be-
comes visible how the new role of women in the “Western” world forced
Ottoman rulers to embrace new tactics in order to empower themselves at the
battlefield of ideas.
A fourth element refers to the different geographies that one could cover
when presenting global intellectual histories of the late Ottoman or Turkish re-
publican periods. This directly ties to the question of Western-centrism and its
possible continuation even within shifting perspectives. To what extent is it pos-
sible to develop scholarly frameworks that not only focus on the interconnected
ideational trajectories between the Western settings and the Ottoman or Turkish
ones? It is important to not remain in such a type of relationships that would dis-
regard the latter’s ties with the “non-Western” idea worlds. This means that glob-
al intellectual history in the context of the late Ottoman as well as Turkish repub-
lican eras should also pay substantial attention to being inclusive when it comes
to other dynamics such as those that one could locate in different connections to
Japan,³¹ India,³² or the Arabic world,³³ and the broader Islamicate context.³⁴ In
this volume, while the majority of chapters deal indeed with the Turkish (and Ot-
 For the 19th century, see the opus magnum by Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of
the World : A Global History of the Nineteenth Century, tr. Patrick Camiller (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2014).
 On Japanese-Turkish connections, see the collection of a leading expert in this field, Selçuk
Esenbel, Japan, Turkey and the World of Islam – The Writings of Selçuk Esenbel (Leiden: Brill,
2011).
 See Mushirul Hasan, Between Modernity and Nationalism: Halide Edip’s Encounter with Gan-
dhi’s India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010).
 On post-Ottoman impact on the Middle East by Ottoman-socialized rulers, see Michael Pro-
vence, The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2017).
 See Brett Wilson, Translating the Qur’an in an Age of Nationalism: Print Culture and Modern
Islam in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
toman) connections with various Western settings or thinkers from the West, we
also manage to exemplify the alternative case as seen in the chapter by Vömel. It
presents a study, which demonstrates in detail how some Islamist currents in
Turkey were taking shape due to the impact of contingent dynamics of interac-
tions with important thinkers or movements from the Middle Eastern region.
A fifth point that we aim to highlight concerns the significance of agency. By
this, the chapters in this volume emphasize the Ottoman and Turkish ideational
entrepreneurs’ active co-involvement and co-shaping of different ideational tra-
jectories. In line with the focus on the broad tempo-spatial frameworks we em-
ploy, it becomes possible to elaborate how a great number of individuals, collec-
tivities, or institutions played major roles in the global entanglements of ideas in
the Ottoman and Turkish settings. This also follows major insights of the global
turn, with its significant underlining of processes such as translation and publi-
cations,³⁵ or more ordinary people involved in the global spread and interactions
of ideas.³⁶ Most importantly, this perspective acknowledges the agential capacity
of those actors whom one could, geographically speaking, label the local ones.
In this regard, it is not merely an Ottoman sultan or Turkish political leaders who
considerably influence the pathways of a given idea, but also new generations of
scholars, societal actors and their expectations, or other intellectual circles with
their varying extents of transnational ties.
Furthermore, the global intellectual histories that here come to the fore also
relate to other frameworks: from conceptual history to social histories of intellec-
tuals, going beyond transfer approaches to extend toward transnational dynam-
ics and regional interactions. What is demonstrated is that the local actors’ im-
pact is an essential element in exploring ideas’ differing pathways also in the
Ottoman and Turkish contexts.³⁷ Taking a step further, it is also a crucial aspect
to take into consideration these contexts beyond their geographically more limit-
ing features. This signifies that in both instances those actors who were based
abroad, or whose lives were centered outside the relevant (and differing) geogra-
phies of these two contexts, should not be left out of our analyses. Such an ap-
 In addition to contributions in Moyn and Sartori, Global Intellectual History, see also recent
analyses by Lisa Hellman and Birgit Tremml-Werner, “Translation in Action: Global Intellectual
History and Early Modern Diplomacy,” Journal of the History of Ideas 82, no. 3 (2021): 453 – 467.
 See, for example, the interesting study by Dominic Sachsenmaier, Global Entanglements of a
Man Who Never Traveled: A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Christian and His Conflicted Worlds
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2018).
 For a relevant case regarding concepts, see Samim Akgönül, “Laïcité, Laiklik,” in Diction-
naire des concepts nomades en sciences humaines (vol. 1), ed. Olivier Christin (Paris: Métailié,
2010), 283 – 296.
Introduction 17
proach allows, consequently, engaging with migrant or exile communities and

their respective ideational roles, looking at how the relevant actors within
these settings contribute to the regional and global trajectories of ideas. It
would be difficult to engage especially with the late Ottoman settings without
simultaneously looking at the “domestic” developments and the actions and
ideological developments, for instance, of the political elites who opposed the
rule of Abdulhamid II.³⁸ Similar dynamics are at play at different eras of repub-
lican era (see the chapter by Deniz Kuru).
A sixth point that is of importance for us, and which we consider to be a cru-
cial element of global intellectual history, relates to focusing on multiple fields.
To put it briefly, it means to engage with ideas and ideational actors in a number
of issue areas, without necessarily prioritizing one of them at the expense of the
other. This we undertake through a broad range of subjects that are presented in
nine separate chapters, excluding this introduction and the concluding discus-
sion. From looking at the role of a Turkish Islamist intellectuals vis-à-vis globally
active Islamist movements to dealing with a Macedonian-Bulgarian political and
thinker from the 20th-century Ottoman political context, from analyzing Bergso-
nian ideas in the early republican era in their interactions with local actors to
studying Franco-German academic rivalry at the transitional periods of late Otto-
man and Turkish republican periods under varying influences of local actors in
the context of developing departments of academic philosophy – the general
framework we offer aims in all these instances to consider the liminal, the in-be-
tween, the neglected. It does so without emphasizing merely one single issue
such as politics, culture, religion, academia, literature, ideologies, or concepts.
The chapters serve in their joint manner to offer a broad enough picture to reflect
late Ottoman and Turkish intellectual histories at their intersections with the
global. As stated earlier, the global contains in this regard a dual nature: first,
going beyond the mere domestically focused settings, via regional or more inter-
national as well transnational dynamics; second, aiming if possible for a global
level in approaching a given idea’s pathways.
As we have tried to demonstrate so far, for perspectives that center on the
Ottoman and Turkish experiences, the engagement with insights and frame-
works derived from global intellectual history provide a number of advantages.
Most importantly, it helps in overcoming national settings with regard to how
one deals with ideas and their varying trajectories. While it is possible to follow
 For some examples of Young Turks’ oppositional activities from European centers, see Şükrü
Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902 – 1908 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001); Erdal Kaynar, L’héroïsme de la vie moderne: Ahmed Riza 1858 – 1930 en son temps
(Louvain, Paris: Peeters, 2021).
the domestic debates in their intellectual, political, social or other contexts with-
out attending to the interactions with ideas’ beyond-the-national pathways, this
does not ensure a sufficiently broad analysis that would take in relevant contexts
more inclusively into account. Consider for example the case of Nazım Hikmet, a
leading Turkish poet of the mid-20th century who would die in the Soviet Union
in exile. How can one debate his politico-intellectual impact on modern Turkish
society (thus keeping the focus of ideational influence geographically limited)
without considering his escape from Istanbul to Stalin’s Moscow and the various
ways through which he tried to stay in touch with his Turkish co-citizens? These
included appearances on Turkish language radio stations run by Eastern bloc
countries such as Bizim Radyo, different interactions with the Stalinist and
post-Stalinist order, as well as his contacts with the global socialist community
that would also shape his ideas, thereby further requiring us to get involved in
broader analyses of his life and impact. A similar point could be made for
many others. There are some works that focus on the Cold War era and its ram-
ifications for the cultural dimensions.³⁹ Nevertheless, a visible lack of such stud-
ies, which would allow a truly global trajectory as their main framework, contin-
ues to define the extant scholarship. This situation is even more visible in the
existing literature written in Turkish. Several studies occupy an important
place in the scholarship mostly with regard to the emergence and development
of political ideologies in Turkey yet the “national” inside the narratives usually
dominates the “global.”⁴⁰ In a similar vein, biographical studies of the intelli-
gentsia are relatively plenty although global currents that shaped their ideational
world remain rather in the backdrop.⁴¹ Even so, one can notice an increase in
studies related to intellectual history, which have the potential to constitute a
bridge between the global and the local.
Another very relevant opportunity for late Ottoman and Turkish republican
intellectual histories is the possibility of employing multiple lenses in engaging
with various ideational dynamics that are influenced by different actors’ deci-
sions and actions. In the realm of ideas, this has become an area of research
 See various contributions in Cangül Örnek and Çağdaş Üngör, eds., Turkey in the Cold War –
Ideology and Culture (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
 See the ten-volume-work Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 2001
and later); Tanıl Bora, Cereyanlar: Türkiye’de Siyasi İdeolojiler (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 2017).
 For two most recent examples, see Tanıl Bora, Hasan Âli Yücel (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları,
2021); Halil Akkurt, ed., Siyasal ve Entelektüel Tarihimizden Portreler (Istanbul: Tarihçi Kitabevi,
2021).
Introduction 19
with increasing attention.⁴² Our aim in this volume is to contribute to a gradual

emergence of a literature that deals, in various ways, and through different levels
of actorhood and tempo-spatial framings, with the intellectual histories that per-
tain to the Ottoman and Turkish contexts.
4. Frames of the Late Ottoman and Turkish

Intellectual Histories under Global Lenses
Let us have a brief look at the individual chapters that concomitantly embody the
goals that we have discussed so far in the preceding parts. In addition to the con-
clusion, in which we emphasize the main features of globally shaped intellectual
histories of the late Ottoman and Turkish republican settings and discuss the
prospects of this emerging scholarship, this book is composed of three thematic
sections that highlight in their totality a substantial level of integrity regarding
the aforementioned approaches to global intellectual history’s possible ties
with the local, at times also aiming to go beyond these frames. The first part, In-
side Out: Global Intellectual Trajectories of the Ottomans, analyzes, through three
valuable contributions, different aspects related to the late Ottoman period, from
the dissemination of ideas in the border zones to non-Ottoman intellectuals rep-
resenting the empire abroad. Harun Buljina, in his chapter “Bosnia’s ‘Young
Turks’: The Bosnian Muslim Intelligentsia in its Late Ottoman Context, 1878 –
1914” shows the entanglement of the Bosnian Muslim intelligentsia with the Ot-
toman Empire, specifically with Istanbul, and underlines their emergence as in-
tellectual intermediaries in Bosnia and Hercegovina with respect to pressing
problematics of the time such as institutional reform. Buljina’s account empha-
sizes that the Ottoman intellectual influence in the region increased in this era
despite the Austro-Hungarian occupation in Bosnia. Two important links of
the intellectual dissemination were Darülfünun (imperial university in Istanbul)
that the Bosnian Muslim students opted to attend and the journals to which they
contributed with their commentaries, such as Sırat-ı Mustakim/Sebillürreşad in
Istanbul. Importantly, these were in turn also being read in Bosnia. Thus, this in-
tellectual connection with the Ottoman Empire led the Bosnian Muslim intelli-
gentsia to highlight and discuss some important subjects of the day from their
own realms. For example, the Hamidian era had become crucially influential
in the formation of the Bosnian Pan-Islamism, mostly drawing attention to glob-
 See Houri Berberian, Roving Revolutionaries – Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in
the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Worlds (Oackland: University of California Press, 2019).
al Muslim solidarity yet also serving local aims such as communal reform in-
spired from important centers of Muslim authority. Likewise, the Young Turk rev-
olution had opened a new path for constitutionalism in Bosnia, criticizing the
nature of the Austro-Hungarian rule in the region. It should be noted that
while the Ottoman Empire played an important role in the formation of the Bos-
nian-Muslim intelligentsia – though one should not consider them a monolithic
entity and not forget the existence of different views – these intellectuals also
contributed to the Ottoman intellectual sphere through their writings in the Otto-
man newspapers. Therefore, Buljina illustrates very well throughout his chapter
how the Bosnian Muslim intellectuals became intermediaries for intellectual ex-
changes between the Bosnian and Ottoman public spheres, and beyond.
The second chapter in this section, Barış Zeren’s “Between Constitution, Em-
pire, and Nation: An Intellectual Trajectory of Pancho Dorev and His Legalist
Paradigm” traces the intellectual potential that the July Revolution of 1908 in
the Ottoman Empire put in motion, transcending the ethno-religious boundaries
through the narrative of Dorev, a Macedo-Bulgarian intellectual and politician in
the late Ottoman era. He stresses that global intellectual history helps us to un-
derstand this intellectual potential of the 1908 revolution (and the restart of the
constitutional rule) through the lenses of the global instead of a national or com-
munitarian one. Dorev’s story, in this respect, exemplifies how the political goals
of a particular group were able to find a place for their development within a
broader – and global – language: in this case, that of constitutionalism. In an
era of competing nationalisms and at the apogee of the Macedonian problem,
Dorev, despite his closer circle, supported an evolutionary, in other words,
legal approach to solve the communitarian problems, facing a high level of
strong revolutionary option. This chapter underlines that Dorev’s educational
background was also important regarding the positions he took, as he had stud-
ied law both in Darülfünun in Istanbul and at the University of Vienna, gaining a
legalist understanding from the former and learning the system of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire from the latter. Dorev, who became an Ottoman parliamentar-
ian after the revolution, supported liberal constitutionalism through which the
reform of the empire could enhance Bulgarian cultural and political demands.
In this sense, his efforts to formulate a supranational but more inclusive Otto-
man identity paved the way for his offer to exchange fraternity in motto of the
Revolution with solidarism as one of the popular ideas of the time. Despite
the failures of the period, Zeren explains well the role of Dorev as an intermedi-
ary who tried to combine his community’s natural rights with the Ottoman su-
pranational identity through constitutionalism and solidarism, making him as
an exceptional character.
Introduction 21
Berrak Burçak in her chapter, “Deconstructing ‘Orientalism’ at the 1893

World’s Columbian Exposition: Esmeralda Cervantes, Sultan Abdulhamid II
and the ‘Address on the Education and Literature of the Women of Turkey’” dis-
cusses another intermediary. Esmeralda Cervantes, who was a harpist, activist,
and music teacher for girls in the palace in Istanbul during the Hamidian era,
wrote an Address on the Ottoman women for the World Columbian Exposition,
explaining their position in the imperial society, mostly to her audience in Chi-
cago, the women of the American republic. Cervantes, through her Address, chal-
lenged the existing Western ideas about Muslim women who were frequently de-
picted as uneducated, suppressed, secluded and eroticized. While she was
advocating the opposite views, one of her aims was also to try to correct the es-
tablished Western views about the relationship between Islam and women, as
well as Islam and progress. Burçak, through her narrative, also emphasizes
how Cervantes’ venture was supported by Sultan Abdulhamid II after a brief at-
tempt by his entourage to thwart the initiative, as he tried to utilize this oppor-
tunity to demonstrate the modern characteristics of his empire. According to the
witnesses of occasion, at the end, the Address that Cervantes made in Chicago
was a great success so that more than one thousand copies were published
for its Western audience. Burçak argues that the Address should be evaluated
as a transnational Muslim entanglement with the ways that the West was por-
traying as belonging to the East, indicating a juncture of Ottoman “world-mak-
ing.” Surely, in this world-making, Cervantes played a significant role as an in-
termediary through the pamphlet that she had written. According to some, the
Address even paved the way for a contact between the World Columbian Expo-
sition and Fatma Aliye Hanım, a female Ottoman intellectual of the time. Burçak
questions the link between the Address and the contact with Fatma Aliye, but
emphasizes how the Address and Cervantes ultimately combined the local
with the global.
Following the chapters concerning the late Ottoman era, the second section
of the volume, From Empire to Republic: The Transformation of Intellectual Dispo-
sitions in Early Republican Turkey, analyzes a number of possible ways through
which to gain a better understanding of the period’s intellectual tendencies –
and also of certain changes in these tendencies – during the transitional era
that led from the empire to the new Turkish Republic, relying all the way on
the lenses of global intellectual history. In the first chapter of this section, “Otto-
man-Turkish Thought from a Global Intellectual History Perspective: An Analysis
of Disenchantment from Positivism and Engagement with Bergsonian Intuition-
ism,” M. Sait Özervarlı discusses such a shift in the intellectual history of Turkey,
showing how the popularity of Durkheimian positivism decreased and Bergsoni-
an intuitionism gained strength in these transitional decades. He analyzes this
transformation not just with a focus on the local dynamics but rather by consid-
ering it all as a part of the global flow of Bergsonian thought. The rise of Berg-
sonism among the Turkish intellectuals was closely associated with their objec-
tion to the mechanical and collectivist aspects of Durkheimian sociology mostly
associated with Gökalp in Turkey. Bergsonism, on the other hand, provided the
Ottoman Turkish intellectuals with an alternative path that suggested rationality
did not necessarily have to be scientific. In that sense, this Bergsonian under-
standing did not challenge rationalism, but rather combined it with intuition.
This, as Özervarlı argues, appealed to many intellectuals of the time, who
thought that they had found an answer to the long-lasting question of the Otto-
man modernization: westernizing the country without turning back on the Turk-
ish culture. Therefore, Bergsonism turned into a solution, a middle path, not
only to the possibility of over-westernization but also as a means to prevent
the rejection of modernization. According to Özervarlı, although Bergsonism
had been already discussed since the beginning of the Second Constitutional Pe-
riod, it was not a coincidence that its rise coincided with the gloomy days of the
post-World War I period. For the intellectuals were by then in dire need for alter-
native philosophical answers to the extant problems of the society. The various
intellectuals analyzed by the author, including Rıza Tevfik, Mustafa Şekip Tunç,
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, and Mehmet Emin Erişilgil produced works based on
the Bergsonian thought, accommodating thereby new concepts to the Ottoman
Turkish philosophy, creating a strong link between Turkish and modern Europe-
an thought.
Pascale Roure, in her chapter “Between French Culture and German Geist:
The Transnational Constitutions of Turkish Academic Philosophy” explains the
formation of the Department of Philosophy at Istanbul University by looking
at French-German academic (and also political) competition as well as the for-
mation of German domination in this specific academic field, in a broad analysis
ranging from the time of the empire to the period of the republic. She argues that
German academic influence at Darülfünun (later on Istanbul University) has been
analyzed as short-lived initiatives so far, mostly relating to the First World War
years and later the 1930s, as the time of the German emigres fleeing from the
Nazi regime. However, as shown in this chapter, the German academic impact
on philosophical sciences corresponds to a broader period, covering not only
the Weimar era but also the years subsequent the post-Second World War, as
the American influence would start to dominate every aspect of life in Turkey.
During the Ottoman Empire, the modernization in the realm of education had
reflected the French understanding to a larger extent. Even so, diversity in edu-
cation had already started during the final decades of the empire, particularly
reflecting a German tendency in line with the Wilhelmine empire’s rising politi-
Introduction 23
cal and economic influence. After the war, the academic relationship between
Turkey and the Weimar Republic continued, especially through student mobility.
Roure stresses that although the scholarship on the subject mainly highlights in-
coming professors, the students sent to Germany were another major factor that
also immensely contributed to German academic tradition’s intensive dissemi-
nate in Turkey. Despite the emphasis on the German emigres that had come to
Turkey after 1933, it was actually during and after the Second World War years
that the German philosophical tradition dominated Istanbul University to such
an extent that degrees received at German universities would become almost a
prerequisite to work in the university’s Department of Philosophy until 1960.
Roure, through this narrative, suggests that an approach inspired by global intel-
lectual history allows us analyzing the institutionalization of the Department of
Philosophy not as a unilateral process in which the professors would bring in
their knowledge. Instead, she explains how it presented indeed a reciprocal
process in which the local Turkish students, assistants and translators were par-
ticipating at every aspect of its production, dissemination and reproduction.
The last chapter of this section, by Deniz Kuru, is titled “Globalizing Turkey’s
Intellectual Histories,” and relates to global intellectual history’s rich offerings
for the Turkish setting, both within and beyond Turkey. He emphasizes how a
number of different levels exist through which to advance global intellectual his-
tories that pertain to Turkey. Going geographically beyond the Turkish settings,
Kuru explains how also migrant communities and exiles need to be considered
as specific ideational actors who play distinct roles in the global entanglements
of ideas that also relate to Turkey itself. In the framework he offers, important
distinctions are presented with regard to ethno-religious backgrounds, core-pe-
riphery differentiations, socio-cultural conditions and the impact of geographies.
He exemplifies various influences generated by these dynamics, but also prob-
lematizes the overall lack of GIH frameworks in studying Turkey’s intellectual
histories. At the same time, the chapter elaborates on the different binary com-
binations through which to approach these histories, but also points to the cross-
cutting dynamics that need to be considered. Importantly, it deals with Turkey’s
in-betweenness as a possibly enriching source for further advances in global in-
tellectual history, while discussing the role of the “West” and “non-West” as po-
tential frames to employ in these approaches, without however advocating an es-
sentialized and homogeneously perceived understanding of these broader geo-
epistemological domains. Furthermore, by underlining the significant role
played by varying (takes of) temporality, it discusses how these different tempo-
ralities’ overlaps, conflicts or mutual ignorance could shape the way ideas were
able to travel through Turkey-pertinent settings within and outside the country.
In this respect, this chapter also explains how a useful framework for developing
Turkey-pertinent global intellectual histories should engage in detail with ques-

tions of tempo-spatial aspects, through which continuities and ruptures would
be considered in their territorial and time-wise divergences.
The third section, Interaction with the Global: Formation and Propagation of
Ideas and Ideologies in Turkey, looks at the interconnections of particular ideas
and ideologies of republican Turkey with the global during the 20th century –
and vice versa –, including dynamics such as anticlericalism, Islamism and Wil-
sonianism. The chapter written by Hazal Papuççular, “The Wilsonian Ideas of the
Ottoman Turkish Intelligentsia in Post-World War I Turkey” examines the diffu-
sion of Wilsonianism among the Turkish intellectuals of the era, who evaluated
and recontextualized the globalized ideas of the US president according to both
the necessities of postwar Turkey and their respective ideologies. She argues that
Turkish Wilsonianism cannot be restricted to the Wilson Prensipleri Cemiyeti
(Wilsonian Principles League) that was founded in Istanbul after the Mudros Ar-
mistice of 1918, or just to a small group of intellectuals who discussed the pos-
sibility of an American mandate. While these are the aspects that the Turkish his-
toriography has highlighted, Papuççular demonstrates how Wilsonianism would
in fact influence many different circles of Turkish intelligentsia, making them ac-
tors on their own of this global phenomenon that was of much influence during
the early postwar era. Wilsonianism, on the one hand, was translated into a po-
litical and practical agenda both in Istanbul and in Anatolia in these post-war
years, during which an utmost level of uncertainty dominated the scene. There-
fore, it became a key word that would be employed by various associations and
political parties in their programs. On the other hand, it paved the way for dis-
cussions among intellectuals from different points of view. The two most impor-
tant matters in this respect were the notion of self-determination and the twelfth
point of Wilson’s renowned Fourteen Points, which foresaw the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire together with the concept of autonomous development of the
minorities inside the imperial structure. These issues coincided with the debate
of Ottomanism vs. Turkish nationalism with alternative voices, showing that Wil-
sonianism’s Turkish connection transcended the circulation of a global idea and
necessitated the reevaluation of enduring debates of the local with a Wilsonian
wording.
Doğan Gürpınar, in his chapter “Turkish Anticlericalism, Republicanism,
and the Left: Intersections and Departures,” employs a global comparative per-
spective in order to examine Turkish republicanism’s relationship with social-
ism, emphasizing the similarities and dissimilarities with its Western counter-
part. Gürpınar rightly states that this comparative approach is needed as the
analyses of ideological currents in Turkey, including Kemalist republicanism
and the left reflect mainly assumptions of exceptionalism. Having said that,
Introduction 25
the chapter first looks at the European development of republicanism and its
stance toward religion, in order to show how organized religion was an intrinsic
part of monarchy that the republican idea would strongly challenge in order to
constitute an alternative moral and social order. He argues that Kemalist repub-
licanism was more of a nation-state program than a moral and social order. How-
ever, despite this difference, similar to its European counterparts, it nonetheless
aimed to clear the public space from religion. This “progressive” element regard-
ing republicanism’s position toward religion and fascism had already been its
connection to socialism in Europe in the interwar period, as can be exemplified
by the Spanish Civil War. Therefore, the ensuing ideological collaboration be-
tween Kemalist republicanism and socialism in the 1960s cannot be considered
as the Turkish left’s unique character. On the contrary, it was quite ordinary
given the fact that the discourses of “enlightenmentalism” and “progressivism”
had become a common understanding for both the Kemalists and Marxists in
Turkey. Although revisionist historiography would subsequently criticize this
partnership, suggesting that Kemalism was prone to authoritarianism that
could not be regarded as progressive, Gürpınar concludes that global compara-
tive method allows us to reach the conclusion that Marxism’s link with radical
French republicanism indicates that such criticisms are mostly devoid of
sound theoretical foundations even if Turkey had its own local differences.
The third chapter of this section, written by Jan-Markus Vömel, and titled
“Global Intellectual Transfers and the Making of Turkish High Islamism, c.
1960 – 1995,” analyzes another ideology, Islamism, from the perspective of global
interconnectedness. He shows the entanglement of Turkish Islamism with the
global one, which, in the end, created its own style that he calls High Islamism.
Various Cold War dynamics in Turkey, specifically anti-communism, paved the
way for sanctioning the influence of religion in the public sphere as well as
for bourgeoning intellectual productions, leading to the formation mukaddesatçı
Islamism, a local (Turkish) understanding of Islam in the 1960s. This Turkish
brand of Islamism, which criticized modernity and secularism, and championed
spiritualism, mysticism and metaphysics, had been influenced by the French po-
litical thought and at the same time had an understanding of cultural essential-
ism. However, in the 1970s, with the global upsurge of Islamism, the intellectual
basis of Turkish Islamism started to change from the West to the Muslim world. It
is not a coincidence that in those years the works of Sayyed Qutb, Hasan al-
Banna, Muhammad Iqbal were translated into Turkish. Other developments,
such as the Iranian Revolution and Saudi support to the Islamic organizations
in the world, also accelerated the dissemination of various Islamic understand-
ings to the world. According to Vömel, although transnational Islam transformed
Islamic intellectual thought in Turkey, it is simplistic to view this change as a
one-way transfer. Above all, globalized Islam had to make an effort to shape the
obstinate Turkish Islamism. Therefore, as frameworks employed by global intel-
lectual history usually emphasize, the case of Islamism in this chapter indicates
a two-way interplay, which created a hybrid and vernacular high Islam in Turkey,
instead of an ordinary copy of a global one, showing concomitantly the limits of
global dynamics over the local ones.
Section I. Inside Out: Global Intellectual
Trajectories of the Ottomans
Harun Buljina
Chapter 1
Bosnia’s “Young Turks”: The Bosnian
Muslim Intelligentsia in its Late Ottoman
Context, 1878 – 1914
1. Introduction
One of the more valuable sources in studying early 20th-century Bosnian print
culture comes in the form of the bibliophile Osman Asaf Sokolović’s (1882–
1972) extended bibliography of works by Bosnian Muslim authors.¹ Son of a
well-regarded Sarajevan family, Sokolović’s adolescent studies at a string of ly-
cées in Istanbul and Bursa, as well as subsequent sojourns in Western Europe,
left him with a worldly literary outlook and a working knowledge of Turkish and
French.² While this combination of an Ottoman education and Western travels
rendered him somewhat unique among his contemporaries, Sokolović neverthe-
less stands as part of a new generation of Bosnian Muslim students emerging
from the reformed schools of the late imperial era. Perhaps owing to these broad-
ened horizons, however, Sokolović’s own evaluation of his generation’s achieve-
ments in print appears dismissive and jaded. Even as he catalogued hundreds of
works written in multiple languages and incorporating diverse influences, the in-
troduction to his bibliography bemoaned the apparent failure of the communal
reformism of his youth. Characteristically, Sokolović admonished the Bosnian
Muslim reading public for not only failing to buy enough books at the time,
but also for not taking proper care of those they borrowed from the library in
the present day.³
Sokolović would hardly be the last Bosnian author to pass historical judg-
ment on the early 20th century reformists. By the 1960s, scholars working
under the aegis of the Yugoslav party state and its effort to institutionalize Mus-
lim “nationhood” took on a markedly different tone, celebrating the authors and
intellectuals of fin-de-siècle Sarajevo as harbingers of a veritable cultural “ren-
 Osman A. Sokolović, Pregled štampanih djela na srpskohrvatskom jeziku Muslimana BiH od

1878 – 1948 (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1957).
 Alija Bejtić, Osman Asaf Sokolović i njegov prinos društvu i kulturi Bosne i Hercegovine (Sara-
jevo: Biblioteka pokopnog društva “Bakije,” 1972).
 Bejtić, Osman Asaf Sokolović, 4– 5.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-002
30 Harun Buljina
aissance.”⁴ In many ways, this revisionist line recaptured important aspects of

the historical phenomenon that Sokolović’s elder disillusionment had obscured:
the early 20th century had seen the emergence of a burgeoning Bosnian Muslim
publishing scene, driven by rising literacy rates and rapidly proliferating ranks
of high school and university graduates. Even references to a renaissance
could point to a palatable sense of generational energy and reformist zeal,
with Sokolović’s peers self-declaring as “progressive” (Bosnian-Croatian-Serbi-
an, hereafter BCS: napredni) intellectuals, members of a new “intelligentsia”
tasked with communal uplift and, ultimately, survival.
These later studies, however, also served to entrench a markedly Eurocentric
perspective, depicting the new Muslim intellectuals as primarily products of
Western-style educational institutions and part of a broader process of Europe-
anization in the post-Ottoman period. Only more recently have historians consid-
ered the era’s Bosnian Muslim intellectual history in a trans-imperial perspec-
tive, highlighting in particular the lingering influence of the Ottoman Empire.⁵
At the same time, scholars in Ottoman and Turkish studies have produced volu-
minous work on this Bosnian intelligentsia’s generational peers in the core Otto-
man lands, with more recent revisionist studies exploring these “Young Turks’”
imperial and trans-regional origins.⁶ Bosnians, however, feature sparsely in this
literature, owing both to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s peripheral status in the Hamidian
Empire – a contested province under Ottoman sovereignty but Austro-Hungarian
occupation – and the prevailing scholarly focus on the administrative and mili-
tary cadres who instigated the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and dominated
post-Ottoman state-building.
 For an overview of this institutionalization of Muslim nationhood in socialist Yugoslavia, see

Iva Lucic, Im Namen Der Nation: Der politische Aufwertungsprozess der Muslime im Sozialisti-
schen Jugoslawien 1956 – 1971 (Harrassowitz, 2018). For one of the defining literary studies rooted
in these 1960s developments, see Muhsin Rizvić, Bosansko-muslimanska književnost u doba pre-
poroda (1887 – 1918) (Sarajevo: El-Kalem, 1990).
 Philippe Gelez, Safvet-beg Bašagić (1870 – 1934): Aux racines intellectuelles de la pensée natio-
nale chez les musulmans de Bosnie-Herzégovine (Athens: Ecole française d’Athènes, 2010); Leyla
Amzi-Erdoğdular, “Alternative Muslim Modernities: Bosnian Intellectuals in the Ottoman and
Habsburg Empires,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 59, no. 4 (October 2017): 912– 943.
 Erik-Jan Zürcher, “The Young Turks: Children of the Borderlands?,” International Journal of
Turkish Studies 9, no. 1/2 (2003): 275 – 285; Nathalie Clayer, “Albanian Students of the Mekteb-
i Mülkiye: Social Networks and Trends of Thought,” in Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual
Legacy, ed. Elisabeth Özdalga (London: Routledge, 2005), 289 – 309; Michael Provence, The
Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Chapter 1 Bosnia’s “Young Turks” 31
In fact, members of early 20th-century Bosnia’s nascent Muslim intelligent-

sia, while emerging from Habsburg administrative and educational institutions,
both intimately drew on and occasionally contributed to Ottoman discourse as
well. In this sense, they can serve to demonstrate the usefulness of some of
the key concepts and frameworks from global intellectual history to Ottoman
and Turkish studies.⁷ In particular, as intermediaries whose engagement with
the Ottoman intellectual sphere fundamentally depended on the exchange of
printed texts, trans-imperial studies, and polyglot translation, situating them
within this context requires thinking in terms of circulations and networks.
This approach can then highlight both points of similarity and divergence
with the larger “Young Turk generation,” including over such shared concerns
as communal reform, constitutional government, and the role of traditional reli-
gious authorities. Given the importance of the “Islamic World” and Pan-Islamist
thought for these Bosnian intellectuals, their story also speaks to global intellec-
tual history’s concern with “the global as a subjective category used by historical
agents,” illustrating Istanbul’s contemporary role as a gateway for Islamic glob-
alization for Muslims on the Ottoman periphery.⁸ In effect, placing the early Bos-
nian Muslim intelligentsia in its late Ottoman context can challenge older Euro-
centric and nation-centered narratives in both Bosnian and Turkish studies. This
chapter therefore traces the emerging Bosnian Muslim intelligentsia’s prosopo-
graphical origins and participation in early 20th century Ottoman intellectual de-
bates, with a particular focus on divisions between lay and theological intellec-
tuals and the consequences of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution.
2. Lay Literati
With the 1878 Congress of Berlin, the Ottoman Empire lost a significant portion
of its centuries-held Balkan possessions: Serbia, Romania, Montenegro, and Bul-
garia all attained full or, in the Bulgarian case, partial independence, setting the
stage for the ensuing decades’ explosive “Macedonian Question.” By contrast,
the contested province of Bosnia-Herzegovina emerged from the treaty with a
more ambiguous status. Although the Porte retained de jure sovereignty, de
facto control fell to Austria-Hungary, which took over the administration of the
 Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, eds., Global Intellectual History (New York, NY: Columbia
 Moyn and Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History,” in Moyn and Sartori, Global
Intellectual History, 16 – 20.
32 Harun Buljina
bulk of its territory while establishing a military garrison in the rump Sanjak of
Novi Pazar, strategically separating newly independent Serbia and Montenegro.⁹
In effect, despite the loss of control, the Ottoman state retained an important
symbolic stake in Bosnian affairs and a tenuous land link as well. On the Aus-
tro-Hungarian side, Viennese statesmen saw control of Bosnia-Herzegovina as
a geopolitical imperative in light of the irredentist ambitions of the Serbian na-
tion-state, but the Dual Monarchy’s increasingly contentious domestic politics
complicated their efforts. Bosnian administration therefore came under the pur-
view of the Joint Finance Ministry, shared by the Empire’s Austrian and Hungar-
ian halves, leading to the outsized influence of this institution’s chief adminis-
trator, Benjamin von Kallay.¹⁰ A trained Balkanist, Kallay saw his government
as carrying out a civilizing mission for the province, curbing the influence of
both local Balkan nationalist projects – Serbian in particular – as well as linger-
ing Ottoman claims. For both of the entangled Empires then, Bosnia-Herzegovi-
na emerged from 1878 not only as a sustained geopolitical concern, but also as a
noteworthy site of ideological self-fashioning – a process that would intimately
involve its diverse inhabitants.¹¹
For Kallay and the Austro-Hungarian authorities, cultural and educational
reforms would represent an important concern throughout the occupation.¹² In
large part, this proceeded from the pragmatic need for native administrative ca-
dres and collaborators, as reflected in the establishment of the Sarajevo Gymna-
sium and a number of other technical and secondary schools through the early
1880s. The Habsburg administration’s plans for Bosnian primary schooling, how-
ever, were initially more modest, owing both to these broader priorities and con-
cerns over cost, as well as to the outsized influence of local religious commun-
ities in children’s education. Kallay would gradually adopt a more proactive
approach in this matter, owing in part to the perceived threat of Orthodox con-
 Tamara Scheer, “Minimale Kosten, absolut kein Blut”: Österreich-Ungarns Präsenz im Sandžak
von Novipazar (1879 – 1908) (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013).
 Robin Okey, Taming Balkan Nationalism: The Habsburg ‘Civilizing Mission’ in Bosnia 1878 –
1914 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007).
 Malte Fuhrmann, “Vagrants, Prostitutes, and Bosnians: Making and Unmaking European Su-
premacy in Ottoman Southeast Europe,” in Conflicting Loyalties in the Balkans: The Great Pow-
ers, the Ottoman Empire and Nation-Building, eds. Hannes Grandits, Nathalie Clayer and Robert
Pichler (London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2011); Edin Hajdarpašić, Whose Bosnia? Nationalism and Polit-
ical Imagination in the Balkans, 1840 – 1914 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015), 161– 198.
 Robin Okey, “Education and Modernization in a Multi-Ethnic Society: Bosnia, 1850 – 1918,”
in Schooling, Educational Policy and Ethnic Identity, eds. Janusz Tomiak in collaboration with
Knut Eriksen, Andreas Kazamias and Robin Okey (New York, NY: New York University Press,
1991).
fessional schools in particular as a vehicle for Serb nationalism; state elementary

schools, for instance, would increasingly appear in towns where they could serve
as a counterweight to earlier Serb confessional institutions. This same concern
with Serb irredentism would also push the occupying authorities to court Bosni-
an Muslim elites, and, together with a desire to cut their remaining links to the
Ottoman lands, led to efforts to encourage local Muslim educational reformers.
These efforts, however, encountered a number of obstacles. Perhaps foremost
among them was pervasive skepticism among Bosnian Muslims in regard to
the new multi-confessional state primary schools, which many perceived as en-
couraging their children’s conversions to Catholicism.¹³ When authorities tried to
circumvent the problem by investing in reformed Muslim confessional schools,
this project also faltered amidst a power struggle between collaborationist Mus-
lim elites and dissident members of the Ulema class of local religious authori-
ties.
Despite these difficulties, the first two decades of the Austro-Hungarian oc-
cupation gradually saw the emergence of a cohort of young Muslim intellectuals
educated in the new schools. Disproportionately the children of elite families,
many of them were the sons and pupils of reform-minded administrative cadres
who had played an active role in the Ottoman Empire’s Tanzimat reforms (1839 –
1876). The most prominent example here is the poet and future University of
Vienna alumnus Safvet-beg Bašagić, whose father Ibrahim-beg had even served
as a Bosnian deputy in the first Ottoman parliament.¹⁴ While the young Safvet
spent his formative years in Sarajevo, other notable students came from more re-
mote regions, such as Ćamil Karamehmedović from Trebinje, the son of local
landowners who in 1889 became the first Muslim graduate of the Sarajevo Gym-
nasium.¹⁵ Beyond familial links and educational networks, the subtle influence
of the Tanzimat is also evident in many of their initial studies at local Rüşdiye,
which had been left over from the Ottoman state reforms and transformed into
Muslim communal primary schools.¹⁶ After completing their secondary studies
at the Sarajevo Gymnasium or elsewhere, many of these students would go on
to enjoy scholarships for higher studies in Vienna, Zagreb, and other Austro-
Hungarian urban centers, typically returning to careers as administrators and
 Hajrudin Ćurić, Muslimansko školstvo u Bosni i Hercegovini do 1918 godine (Sarajevo: Veselin
Masleša, 1983).
 Gelez, Safvet-beg Bašagić (1870 – 1934).
 “Rahmetli Ćamil Karamehmedović,” Gajret Kalendar za godinu 1938, 1937, 227– 229.
 This was the case not only with Bašagić and Karamehmedović, but with many of the other
prominent Muslim secondary school graduates in this period, such as Edhem Mulabdić and
Osman Nuri Hadžić as well.
34 Harun Buljina
professionals in their home province. Concentrated in Sarajevo, they would

prove the key collaborators of the Austro-Hungarian authorities and leading ad-
vocates of Muslim cultural and institutional reform at the turn of the century.
While Bosnian historiography has traditionally presented the Austro-Hun-
garian period as one of contested but steady Westernization – and the above-
mentioned students as vanguards of the process – Ottoman intellectual influ-
ence not only persisted during this period but, in many ways, intensified as
well. The previous paragraph’s prosopographical continuities with the Tanzimat
are perhaps the clearest example of this legacy, but more subtle aspects are ap-
parent as well. The study of “Oriental languages,” for instance, remained a mat-
ter of social prestige and a popular component of Gymnasium studies, with
Bašagić notably writing in Turkish throughout his life. Alongside Gymnasia grad-
uates, and despite the best efforts of the occupying authorities, a significant mi-
nority of Muslim students also continued to pursue secondary and higher studies
in the Ottoman lands. Some, like Sokolović at the outset of this chapter, would
attend Ottoman reformed schools, and while many of them would not return,
those who did could go on to play an outsized role in Bosnia’s periodical
press and publishing scenes owing to their linguistic versatility.¹⁷ This last
point speaks also to the intensifying material entanglement between Sarajevo
and Istanbul; postal links only came firmly into place in 1893, and together
with steam travel and the telegraph – the principal globalizing technologies of
the “Age of Steam and Print” – they allowed an unprecedented level of exchange
between the two cities.¹⁸ As Bosnian Muslim publishing ventures proliferated in
the early 20th century, their editors could therefore rely on Ottoman publications
for letter writers, news, and translated texts.
The growing ranks of Gymnasium-educated youth came to form both the pri-
mary contributors to these new publications as well as an important base of
readers, representing as they did a substantial portion of those literate in the
Latin script. This is evident as early as 1891 with the newspaper Bošnjak, the ve-
hicle of collaborationist Muslim elites in Sarajevo, where Bašagić and several of
his peers got their start penning poems and short texts. It would come to fruition,
however, with the seminal 1900 literary journal Behar (Blossom), for which
 The poet Musa Ćazim Ćatić is perhaps the most prominent example of this tendency. Abdur-
ahman Nametak, Musa Ćazim Ćatić (Tešanj: Narodni univerzitet, 1965).
 A focus on the material underpinnings of intellectual exchange in the vein of global intellec-
tual history thus nuances longstanding tropes of Ottoman “decline” vis-à-vis the empire’s lost
provinces. “Poštanske pošiljke za istok,” Bošnjak, March 30, 1893, 3.13 edition, sec. Domaće vi-
jesti; James L. Gelvin and Nile Green, Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 2014).
Bašagić served as the inaugural lead editor, and where scores of younger authors
would make their literary debuts.¹⁹ Over the remaining decade plus of the Aus-
tro-Hungarian occupation, another dozen Bosnian Muslim communal periodi-
cals would rise and fall, developing in tandem with rising literacy and expand-
ing education. By then, the young literati behind this publishing scene exhibited
a keen self-perception of themselves as forming part of a nascent “intelligent-
sia,” with perceived responsibility for the enlightenment and welfare of the
wider “people” (narod). While the term could belie a number of factional splits
or even serve as an accusation against those intellectuals perceived as overly
rarefied, participants in the discourse nevertheless shared some overarching
ideological common ground. In addition to the very notion of educated youth
as responsible for communal uplift, this included a Social Darwinian conception
of national “survival” – particularly in light of continued Muslim mass emigra-
tion to the remaining Ottoman lands – as well as growing opposition to tradition-
al religious authorities as an impediment to the same.²⁰
In articulating this student-led vision of national activism, the new
generation(s) of Bosnian Muslim students coming of age under Austro-Hungari-
an occupation incorporated a number of intellectual influences. Most immedi-
ately, they could draw on the model of their Serb and Croat peers within Bosnia
and Hercegovina, as well as the broader culture of nationalist organizing in Aus-
tria-Hungary and contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. It is instructive,
however, to also compare them to the “Young Turk” generation in the Ottoman
Empire. Like their Ottoman counterparts, the emerging Bosnian Muslim intelli-
gentsia grappled in particular with the question of the compatibility of ethno-lin-
guistic nationalism with Muslim communal loyalty, variously embracing Bos-
niak, Croat, Serb, or broadly Pan-Yugoslav national affiliations. Ottoman
territorial losses in the age of high imperialism, including both to Western colo-
nial empires and new regional nation-states, provided the crucial context
throughout. Moreover, both groups had grown increasingly skeptical or even
hostile to the Ulema following the failure of state-led educational reforms in
the 1890s. Given the ample commonalities, it comes as little surprise that Vien-
nese students appear to have been the still-clandestine Young Turk movement’s
primary Bosnian interlocutors at the turn of the century, establishing high-level
contacts and offering to smuggle propaganda materials across the border.²¹ Some
 Muhsin Rizvić, Behar: književnoistorijska monografija. (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1971).

 For a consideration of how the Bosnian case provides an “alternate genealogy of youth as a
central subject of nation-building movements,” see: Hajdarpašić, Whose Bosnia?, 127– 160.
 M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902 – 1908, Studies in
Middle Eastern History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 161– 163.
36 Harun Buljina
Bosnian scholars even tried to bring Bosnian Muslims closer to the linguistic-na-
tionalist project favored by some of the Young Turks’ key ideologues, with Salih
Bakamović notably collaborating with Bahaeddin Şakir on a Bosnian-Turkish
dictionary that would promote “Ottomanism” and “the language of [his] princi-
pal fatherland” in Bosnia-Herzegovina.²² More characteristically, however, even
those who opted for some variety of Slavic nationalism, such as the pro-Croat
poet Musa Ćazim Ćatić, recognized themselves precisely in the budding Turkish
nationalists who would seize power in Istanbul after 1908.
3. Young Ulema
While studies of the new generation of students in both Bosnia and other corners
of the Ottoman world have tended to focus on the graduates of lycées and gym-
nasia, students of theology exhibited many of the same generational dynamics.²³
As referenced in the previous section, severing Bosnian Muslims’ institutional
ties to the Ottoman Empire represented an important concern for Austro-Hungar-
ian authorities. Although their most significant effort in this vein came with the
establishment of the office of the Reis-ul-Ulema – an alternative to Istanbul-ap-
pointed Muftis as the country’s supreme Islamic spiritual authority – it also took
the form of new educational institutions meant to stem the tide of those leaving
for studies at madrasas, Islamic theological schools, in the Ottoman capital.
These included the foundation of a Sharia Judges’ School in 1887, a Teacher’s
College (Darülmuallimin) in 1892, and, closely tied to this last institution, a
short-lived effort to reform Islamic primary schools as iptidaiye mektebs in the
early 1890s.²⁴ The authorities worked closely in these ventures with collaborative
Bosnian Muslim religious authorities and pedagogical reformers, many of whom
had previously spearheaded the implementation of Ottoman state reforms dur-
ing the Tanzimat. Despite initial opposition from other segments of the Ulema
and Muslim public, these schools ultimately enjoyed considerable success, par-
ticularly as they promised graduates clear career paths in Bosnian Islamic insti-
tutions. Nevertheless, Istanbul’s madrasas retained significant popular prestige
as the region’s traditional centers of Islamic learning, drawing scores of Bosnian
 Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, 161– 163, here 162.

 On the relative neglect of the Ulema in more established historiography, see Amit Bein, Otto-
man Ulema, Turkish Republic: Agents of Change and Guardians of Tradition (Stanford, CA: Stan-
ford University Press, 2011).
 Ayşe Zişan Furat, Gayr-i Müslim İdare Altında Müslümanların Din Eğitimi: Avusturya-Macari-
stan Dönemi Bosna 1878 – 1918 (Istanbul: Idil Yayıncılık, 2013).
students from across the country.²⁵ Given lay reformists’ insistence on the imme-
diate need for communal reform, the turn of the century thus saw a growing di-
vide between the emerging intelligentsia and the Ulema, with Istanbul madrasa
students the particular subject of the former’s scorn.²⁶
A turning point in these dynamics came at the very end of 1901 with the re-
turn of the theologian Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević from extended studies in
the Ottoman lands. Contemporary reports in Bošnjak presented Čaušević as ap-
pearing virtually ex nihilo to give a series of reform-minded sermons (vazovi or
vaazlar) at Sarajevo’s Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque.²⁷ In fact, the newcomer had deep
roots in an earlier era of Bosnian Islamic reformism. His father had been a local
preacher in the Bosnian Krajina, a remote region with a history of experiments in
vernacular religious instruction, and the young Čaušević himself began his ma-
drasa studies in Bihać under the same instructor who had led the occupying au-
thorities’ previously referenced mekteb reform effort in the early 1890s.²⁸ During
his time in Istanbul, Čaušević not only obtained a traditional madrasa educa-
tion, but also completed a law degree from the recently established Istanbul Uni-
versity (Ottoman Turkish: Darülfünun), studying under a circle of Young Turk-af-
filiated modernist Ulema such as Ismail Hakkı Manastırlı.²⁹ During these studies,
he also worked as a correspondent for the city’s Tercüman-ı Hakikat newspaper,
which allowed him to embark on an extended journey of the Empire’s various
provinces, completing the Hajj and later attending the lectures of the famed
Egyptian Mufti Muhammad ’Abduh in Cairo. Upon his return to Sarajevo, this
background allowed Čaušević to position himself halfway between the intelli-
gentsia and the religious establishment, combining the former’s calls for cultural
and institutional reform with impeccable theological credentials and an insis-
tence on the Ulema’s role in this process. Over the following decade, he would
build on his enthusiastic initial reception to lay the ground for an ambitious Is-
 Ahmed Mehmedović, Leksikon bošnjačke uleme (Sarajevo: Gazi Husrev-begova biblioteka,

2018).
 Despite its consistent emphasis on learning and education, Bošnjak’s first mention of a Bos-
nian theology student in Istanbul in late 1892 was to announce that one Fejzulah Kurtović had
fallen to his death from a madrasa window, scattering his money and personal belongings
across the street below. “Unesrećio se,” Bošnjak, October 27, 1892, 2.43 edition, sec. Domaće vi-
jesti.
 For the earliest mention of Čaušević and his visit in the Bosnian press, see: “Sarajevo, 9. ja-
nuara 1902,” Bošnjak, January 9, 1902, 12.2 edition.
 Enes Karić and Mujo Demirović, Reis Džemaludin Čaušević: prosvjetitelj i reformator (Saraje-
vo: Ljiljan, 2002).
 On Manastırlı’s links to the Committee of Union and Progress see: Bein, Ottoman Ulema,
Turkish Republic, 37– 38, 86.
38 Harun Buljina
lamic reform movement, with a new generation of young theological students

forming his most ardent supporters.
Čaušević’s reformist project took many forms, encompassing work both
within and without Bosnia-Herzegovina’s formal Islamic institutions, but print
and education were central and closely intertwined concerns throughout. This
is evident in his most famous initiative from this period, the standardization
of Arebica, i. e. the writing of the Bosnian language in a modified Arabic script.
A popular tool of Bosnian Islamic reformist thinkers from even before the Tanzi-
mat, Čaušević took this tradition further, envisioning it as not just a pedagogical
aid for confessional education, but also as a cornerstone of Muslim public life.³⁰
To that end, he sponsored the publication of catechisms and religious textbooks
in the script, as well as founded a string of periodicals to popularize its use, lob-
bying for broader adoption in commerce and government.³¹ By the time the first
of these, Tarik, came out in summer of 1908, the Latin script – and, to a lesser
extent, Cyrillic – had attained wide enough currency in Bosnian society that
many members of the Muslim intelligentsia opposed the project as counterpro-
ductive to communal advancement.³² Nevertheless, while this skepticism ulti-
mately curbed some of Čaušević’s more ambitious hopes, his Arebica found en-
thusiastic supporters among the young students of theology emerging from the
previously mentioned reformed institutions. Youth such as Muhamed Seid Ser-
darević (Sarajevo Darülmuallimin graduate, co-editor of Tarik, and later editor
of the journal Muallim) and Sakib Korkut (Sharia Judges School graduate and ed-
itor of Misbah) therefore proved to be among his most trusted collaborators in
both his publishing work and, crucially, Bosnian Islamic institutions. Like
their counterparts in the lay intelligentsia, they embraced a modernist outlook
on the need for immediate communal reform, but one drawing more on the
work of Islamic thinkers such as ‘Abduh, distinctly more skeptical of South Slav-
ic nationalism, and rallying around Čaušević as an authority figure.³³
 “Signs and advertisements in schools, offices, hang-outs, and coffee houses,” he wrote at
perhaps the apex of his optimism; “and then even Bošnjak, alongside Latin and Cyrillic, should
put on the fine eastern outfit that is the Arabic script.” Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević, ed., Mek-
teb Salnama za 1326 (Sarajevo: Islamska dionička štamparija, 1908).
 For a representative example from the journal Muallim, see “Za arapsko pismo,” Muallim 2,
no. 3 (December 1911): 33 – 37.
 For an overview of these intelligentsia-Ulema dynamics, see Dževad Juzbašić, Nacionalno-
politički odnosi u Bosanskohercegovačkom saboru i jezičko pitanje (1910 – 1914) (Sarajevo: Akade-
mija nauka i umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine, 1999).
 We see an early example of this in a letter addressed to Čaušević by students at the Sharia
Judges School, with Sakib Korkut as the lead signatory, in July 1905. The letter demanded that
Čaušević’s recently announced Muslim newspaper refer to its language as Bosnian rather
Attitudes toward the Ottoman Empire represented another important divid-

ing line between these lay and Ulema factions of young Bosnian Muslim intellec-
tuals, as well as a pressing political issue more generally. On the question of Aus-
tria-Hungary, the two camps were broadly aligned, as both had emerged from the
occupation’s reformed schools, worked within state institutions in Sarajevo, and
generally saw the challenge before them as ensuring Muslim communal ad-
vancement under non-Muslim rule. This stood in sharp contrast, however, to
the broader Bosnian Muslim autonomist movement of this time, which gathered
the majority of Muslim landowning elites, more conservative segments of Ulema,
and broad swathes of the Muslim masses.³⁴ Focused on wresting control of com-
munal institutions from the occupying authorities and the narrower circle of col-
laborationist elites in Sarajevo, the autonomist movement also pointedly insisted
on the Ottoman Sultan’s continued sovereignty over Bosnia-Herzegovina, with
some leaders harboring hope of an eventual return to more direct Ottoman con-
trol. As mentioned previously, lay intellectuals often retained sympathies for the
Ottoman state, but saw the autonomists’ efforts to restore Ottoman rule as coun-
terproductive and unrealistic. Within this socio-political landscape, Čaušević and
his young Ulema followers occupied a tenuous middle ground; formally affiliat-
ed with the occupying authorities and collaborationist elites in Sarajevo, they
also strove for a strengthened Ottoman role in Muslim communal and spiritual
affairs. While the ascendancy of the autonomist movement in the period leading
up to summer 1908 therefore carried tangible negative consequences for
Čaušević and his supporters as well, these years saw them lay the foundation
of a Pan-Islamist movement that would find greater success in the years to fol-
low.³⁵
The Ottoman Empire played a critical role in this Bosnian Pan-Islamism, but
primarily on a symbolic level rather than one directly involving the Hamidian
state. The movement’s key innovation was the discursive articulation and mate-
rial reification of a wider “Islamic World,” a novel geo-cultural construct that
echoed the official legitimizing ideology of the Hamidian state, but ultimately
than Serbo-Croat. The document is found in the personal archive of Reis Džemaludin Čaušević at
the Gazi Husrev-beg Library, still uncatalogued at the time of my research in 2019.
 Nusret Šehić, Autonomni pokret muslimana za vrijeme austrougarske uprave u Bosni i Herce-
govini (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1980).
 The conflict between the autonomist faction and Čaušević first surfaced in the periodical
press in spring 1908. M. Dž. Čaušević, “İzah / Razjašnjenje,” Bošnjak, March 19, 1908, 18.11 edi-
tion.
40 Harun Buljina
drew more on the era’s transnational Muslim public sphere.³⁶ To that end, Sar-
ajevo’s Arebica press drew heavily on publications in Cairo, from Muslims in
the Russian Empire, and even Pan-Islamist figures in such seemingly unlikely lo-
cales as England and Japan. This discourse of global Muslim solidarity and prog-
ress fulfilled a number of local functions, including serving as an important
source of inspiration for young Muslim intellectuals and legitimizing efforts at
communal reform by pointing to their supposedly successful implementation
in traditional centers of Muslim authority. For this reason, it appealed not only
to members of the Ulema, but many of the lay intellectuals and students gath-
ered around publications such as Bošnjak and Behar as well. It also, however,
bore more tangible fruit, including not just providing popular source material
for the flourishing Muslim press – “Dispatches from the Islamic World” became
a ubiquitous section in many publications of this time – but also in securing
scholarships for theological students wishing to pursue higher studies in Cairo
and Istanbul.³⁷ While Čaušević regularly touted the option of both cities, nearly
all students in this period opted for the latter’s Darülfünun. In effect, while the
“Islamic World’ theoretically encompassed the entire globe, it remained un-
doubtedly centered on the Ottoman capital. This is also evidenced in the same
publications’ frequent praise of Abdul Hamid II as the Sultan-Caliph, though
the Ottoman head-of-state functioned here as only a symbolic figurehead rather
than a pointed threat to Austro-Hungarian sovereignty. Indeed, the Bosnian Pan-
Islamists’ merely symbolic ties to the Sultan help explain their quick pivot to the
constitutional aftermath of 1908.
4. The Revolution and Its Aftermath

The Young Turk Revolution in the summer of 1908 would have a profound effect
on Bosnian Muslim affairs, extending well beyond Austria-Hungary’s formal an-
nexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina later that fall. Across the ideological spectrum,
the immediate reaction to the news amounted to public elation and private
shock. Despite their substantial differences, both the dominant autonomist fac-
tion, gathered around the Muslim National Organization (MNO) and its paper
Musavat, as well as their collaborationist rivals in the Muslim Progressive
Party (MNS) and its journal Muslimanska svijest, had previously expressed vary-
 Cemil Aydın, The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2017); Gelvin and Green, Global Muslims.
 “Osnovna pravila društva “Gajreta”,” Behar 5, no. 3 (June 1, 1904): 46 – 48.
ing degrees of sympathy for the now-ceremonial Sultan. Soon, however, shock
gave way to renewed factional quarrels, with the rival parties adapting to the rev-
olutionary circumstances to stake their own political claims and continue jos-
tling over Ottoman-Islamic prestige in the Bosnian Muslim public sphere. The
MNO in particular came to employ an Ottoman-inspired constitutionalist politi-
cal vocabulary to criticize Viennese authorities for not affording Bosnians their
own provincial constitution and representative assembly.³⁸ The annexation in
October brought this dynamic to a close, with the authorities swiftly censoring
MNO and Musavat, granting Muslims a religious-educational statute in March
1909, and establishing a more general provincial statute with an accompanying
parliament (BCS: sabor) for members of all three of Bosnia’s ethno-confessional
groups in February 1910. While the harshest critiques of Austro-Hungarian rule
subsequently simmered down, however, constitutionalist discourse and a corre-
sponding stress on popular political participation and rights would not only en-
dure but also intensify.³⁹ Combined with the continued expansion of education,
literacy, and publishing in Bosnia itself, as well as the sudden liberalization of
the Ottoman press, this meant that, in the years following the Young Turk Rev-
olution, Bosnia-Herzegovina and its Muslim inhabitants would experience their
own “constitutional period.”⁴⁰
Precisely because of these structural underpinnings, the mobile students de-
scribed in the previous two sections would form the key intermediaries in this
conceptual convergence and material entanglement of the Bosnian and Ottoman
public spheres. The relaxation of Hamidian censorship in Istanbul was especially
critical here, causing hundreds of newspapers to sprout and spread, under-
ground networks to suddenly surface, and various amateur journalists and ex-
iled intellectuals to prolifically transverse both.⁴¹ These early developments in-
volved a number of Bosnian émigré figures who had fled Austro-Hungarian
rule to Istanbul in the preceding decades, and whose short-lived publications re-
 “In all of expansive Europe with its 10 million square kilometers and several hundred mil-
lion inhabitants, there is [now] only one small corner under non-constitutional rule.” “Naše us-
tavno uređenje,” Musavat, May 4, 1909, 4.15 edition.
 As Musavat wrote on the occasion of the adoption of the religious autonomy statute, “[i]t is a
necessity for every Muslim to order and own this statute, because it regulates every individual’s
obligations and rights, which every conscious Muslim must know.” “Vjersko-mearifski štatut,”
Musavat, April 5, 1909, 4.12 edition, sec. Domaće vijesti.
 Nader Sohrabi, Revolution and Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire and Iran (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
 Bedross Der Matossian, “Formation of Public Sphere(s) in the Aftermath of the 1908 Revo-
lution among Armenians, Arabs, and Jews,” in “L’ivresse de La Liberté”: La Révolution de
1908 Dans l’Empire Ottoman, ed. François Georgeon (Paris: Peeters, 2012), 189 – 219.
42 Harun Buljina
ceived considerable attention in the Bosnian Muslim press, setting the pattern
for the translation and exchange of news reports from Turkish to Bosnian and
vice versa.
As these isolated émigrés fell off, however, Bosnian students in Istanbul
proved to be a more enduring and energetic human thread between Sarajevo
and the Ottoman capital. Students were therefore not only crucial in propagating
the above-mentioned constitutionalist idiom within Bosnian politics; they were
also at the forefront of new forms of political organization enabled by the revolu-
tionary conditions and their position between two empires. A new Bosnian stu-
dent organization was thus founded in Istanbul shortly after the revolution, in
close cooperation with a similar organization in Vienna that had previously
taken part in clandestine Young Turk networks in the pre-1908 period.⁴² Its mem-
bers played a key role in opposing the annexation by organizing street rallies in
the city, lobbying with leading Ottoman political figures, and encouraging a boy-
cott of Austro-Hungarian goods.⁴³ While many of these specific political initia-
tives proved unsuccessful, the significance of trans-imperial students in shaping
Bosnian political discourse and the struggle to claim communal prestige via con-
nections to Istanbul would persist in the years to come. Increasingly, however,
these would be the polyglot theological students affiliated with Mehmed Džema-
ludin Čaušević and his Pan-Islamist press.
As with Sarajevo’s political publications, the revolution had caught Čaušević
off guard; in an issue of Tarik from July 1908, he had even dismissed reports of a
military insurrection in Macedonia as “making a bear out of a fly.”⁴⁴ Once the
dust settled in both Sarajevo and Istanbul, however, Čaušević found himself
in many ways better positioned to take advantage of the new circumstances.
In particular, his Arebica-script Pan-Islamist publications in Sarajevo found nat-
ural allies among the newfound Ottoman Ulema journals of revolutionary Istan-
bul, first and foremost among them Sırat-ı Müstakim (later Sebilürreşad).⁴⁵ The
 For first-hand reporting on some of this organizing, see Salim, “Pismo iz Carigrada,” Musa-
vat, November 14, 1908, 3.48 edition; Salim, “Pismo iz Carigrada,” Musavat, January 31, 1909, 4.4
edition; Among the more prominent members of the new Bosnian-Ottoman student club would
be Hüsrev Gerede, later companion to Atatürk and prominent Turkish diplomat in the 1920s and
1930s. Murat Ramadanović, “Bosanska emigracija u Osmanskom carstvu i sultanov suverenitet u
Bosni i Hercegovini,” Znakovi vremena – Časopis za filozofiju, religiju, znanost i društvenu praksu,
no. 9 – 10 (2000): 318 – 335.
 Salim, “Pismo iz Carigrada,” November 14, 1908; Salim, “Pismo iz Carigrada,” January 31,
1909.
 “Pogled po svijetu,” Tarik 1, no. 3 (July 30, 1908): 46 – 47.
 Bein, Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic, 37.
project of a circle of reformist Ulema with close ties to the Committee of Union
and Progress (CUP) – including the editor Mehmet Akif (Ersoy), later author of
Turkey’s national anthem, and Čaušević’s former Professor Ismail Hakkı Man-
astırlı – Sırat-ı Müstakim soon reached an enthusiastic audience in Bosnia-Her-
zegovina as well, primarily through Čaušević’s Tarik, by then the flagship journal
for his entire agenda of communal reform.⁴⁶ The foot soldiers of this agenda were
exactly the sort of young, Istanbul-trained modernist theological students he
had envisioned prior to 1908, many of whom were now studying at the Darülfü-
nun under Sırat-ı Müstakim’s principal contributors. The resulting exchange of
authors, ideas, and texts would work to advance the ideological priorities of
both sides. In Sarajevo, they promoted Čaušević and his work to both a local
and international Muslim reading public, lending him critical prestige in local
reformist struggles at the dawn of mass politics. In Istanbul, the seat of a
trans-continental empire and global caliphate, the Bosnian influence on Otto-
man affairs was admittedly more marginal. Nonetheless, Bosnians regularly fea-
tured in Sırat-ı Müstakim’s conception of a community of Ottoman Muslim peo-
ples, and contributions from Čaušević’s publications and sympathizers helped
make tangible the very notion of an “Islamic World” and allowed Mehmet
Akif and his allies to reinforce Pan-Islamist arguments in the Ottoman public
arena.
In large part, this exchange continued the constitutionalist discourse from
the immediate aftermath of the revolution, albeit in a new, Ulema guise. Admit-
tedly, more forthright critiques of Austro-Hungary had by then largely tapered
off, owing to the new constitutional order within Bosnia-Herzegovina and the
CUP crackdown on independent organizing in Istanbul.⁴⁷ Still, Bosnian theolog-
ical students in the Ottoman capital continued to find venues for their commen-
tary and ideas, as in the case of Darülfünun student Derviš Korkut. The younger
brother of Čaušević ally and Misbah editor Sakib Korkut, Derviš wrote in the
city’s Kürsi-i Milel newspaper in May 1910, where he lambasted the occupying au-
thorities’ new provincial statute as “legalizing and disguising an absolutist re-
gime.”⁴⁸ Similar themes preoccupied Hidajet Kulenović, another Darülfünun stu-
dent and probably the most prolific Bosnian author in the contemporary
Istanbul press, who wrote a two-part series on the Muslim autonomy statute
 “what al-Manār is in Cairo, so today is Sırat-ı Mü stakim in Istanbul.” “Pogled po svijetu:
Sırat-ı Müstakim,” Tarik 1, no. 7 (November 24, 1908): 125 – 126.
 “Pismo iz Carigrada,” Musavat, March 11, 1911, 6.11 edition.
 Pobro Bey, “Bosna-Hersek / Bosnie-Herzégovine,” Kürsi-i Milel/La Tribune des Peuples, no. 2
(May 13, 1910).
44 Harun Buljina
for Sırat-ı Müstakim in 1912.⁴⁹ Like the Korkut brothers and other young Bosnian
Ulema before him, Hidajet framed Bosnian Islamic reformism in constitutional
terms, emphasizing the extent to and mechanisms by which the new arrange-
ments he described placed control over communal institutions in the hands of
the broader Muslim community. Hidajet would later publish likeminded analysis
of ongoing Islamic institutional reforms domestically in Misbah as well, but be-
yond these original contributions, students such as Hidajet and the Korkut
brothers had also translated numerous Turkish studies on constitutionalism
and Islamic law over the preceding years.⁵⁰ In other words, the Young Turk Rev-
olution enabled a new trans-imperial dialogue, initiated by young Bosnian Mus-
lim students of theology and broadly concerned with how the era’s constitution-
al reforms could make Islamic institutions more representative while preserving
the role of the Ulema in communal affairs.
Beyond shaping institutional reforms, this exchange also served a reciprocal
function, promoting Pan-Islamist ideas in both Sarajevo and Istanbul. This is al-
ready evident, for instance, in Hidajet’s initial contribution to Sırat-ı Müstakim
from May 1911, where he first praised the publication for “introducing the Islamic
peoples to one another,” but then quickly bemoaned that “only us poor Bosniaks
have been left bereft of this blessing of acknowledgment.”⁵¹ To rectify this short-
coming, Hidajet translated a story from Hazim Muftić, a recent graduate of the
Sharia Judges School, whom he described as “the most attention-grabbing and
praiseworthy among” a new generation of Muslim youth emerging from re-
formed schools. This story, however, centered on a stereotypical member of
the Bosnian intelligentsia, whose successful education in Western schools,
meant to bring benefit to the Muslim community, instead turned him into an
alien figure and elitist pariah. In the context of Sırat-ı Müstakim, therefore, Muft-
ić’s translated story played several overlapping roles. In contributing exclusive
information about Muslim affairs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it reinforced the jour-
nal’s status as a key medium for knowledge about the Islamic World, while its
appearance in a prestigious Ottoman publication simultaneously promoted the
reformists’ activities in Bosnia itself.⁵² In a broader intellectual context that
 Hidayet Kolinovıç, “Hayat-ı Akvam-ı Islamiyye: Bosna Müslümanları 1: Ahval-i Ulema,” Se-
bilürreşad 8, no. 197 (June 13, 1912): 288 – 290.
 One representative example is the translation by Sakib Korkut, writing under a pseudonym,
of a Mahmud Es’ad article on Islam and constitutionalism in Tearüf-i Müslümün: Mahmud Esad,
“Islam i konstitucija: Uspomeni merhum Alibega Firdusa,” trans. Ibni Munib, Gajret 4, no. 7
(April 1, 1911): 99 – 102.
 Bosnalı Hidayet, “Bosna Müslümanları,” Sırat-ı Müstakim 6, no. 141 (May 18, 1911): 174– 175.
 “Društvene vijesti: Prevedena na turski,” Gajret 4, no. 11 (June 1, 1911): 167.
Yusuf Akçura famously described as a struggle between multi-confessional Otto-

manism, Pan-Islamism, and Turkish nationalism for primacy as state ideology,
Bosnian students writing in the Istanbul press thus served to bolster the middle
option.⁵³ It is no coincidence, for instance, that Sırat-ı Müstakim’s earliest men-
tion of the Bosnian Ulema came in December 1908, where a letter writer from
the Russian Empire praised Čaušević’s Arebica as a model for the viability of a
modified Arabic script for the Turkish language as well.⁵⁴
This dynamic would continue through the Balkan Wars of 1912 to 1913, when
Sırat-ı Müstakim enthusiastically carried reports of Bosnian Muslim contributions
and volunteers to the Ottoman cause.⁵⁵ While the fighting did not directly affect
Bosnia-Herzegovina itself, it also had consequences for Bosnian Muslim affairs,
particularly as it crystalized growing rifts over the so-called “national question.”
In the face of growing sympathy of many young Muslim students for South Slavic
nationalist ideologies, the Ulema-led Pan-Islamist movement had advocated for
Muslim unity at both home and abroad as an explicit alternative. Given the Otto-
mans’ extensive territorial losses in the Balkans, so extreme that only Istanbul
and its hinterland remained, the Balkan Wars prompted Čaušević’s followers
to intensify their rhetoric against Serb and Croat nationalists and their Muslim
sympathizers. This is most evident in an exchange between Misbah and a
group of Bosnian students in Vienna, who had come out in favor of the Balkan
allies, with the journal publishing vituperative polemics by the above-mentioned
Hidajet Kulenović and others.⁵⁶ This renewed anti-nationalist fervor in the Areb-
ica press found a ready home in the pages of Sebilürreşad, which carried Hida-
jet’s polemic and praised Misbah as “the translator of the thoughts of Bosnian
Muslims,” approving of the article’s stance “against those working to mesh Bos-
nian Muslims with the Christian Serb and Croat peoples.”⁵⁷ Other issues from
this time would further cite the success of Bosnian Muslim aid collection for
the Ottoman Red Crescent, providing a quantifiable measure of Pan-Islamist sol-
idarity.⁵⁸ In the meantime, this same organizing energy pushed Bosnian Muslim
 Yusuf Akçura, “Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset,” Türk, April 14, 1904, 24 edition.
 A Sevindik, “Islam ve Türk Alemi: Rusya Müslümanlarında Dil ve Edebiyat,” Sırat-ı Müsta-
kim 1, no. 19 (December 31, 1908): 300 – 303. The letter came from Ufa in the Russian Empire.
 “Müslüman Memleketlerine Avrupa’nın Hücumuna Karşı Alem-i İslam’da Galeyan,” Sırat-ı
Müstakim 7, no. 162 (October 12, 1911): 95 – 96.
 Hidayet, “Naši dopisi: Açık Mektup,” Misbah 1, no. 18 – 19 (August 20, 1913): 148.
 “Matbûât: Bosna Müslümanlarında Mevcûdiyet-i Milliyye,” Sebilürreşad 10, no. 255 (July 31,
1913): 347.
 Mustafa (Kāri’lerden, Saraybosna), “Mekâtîb: Sebîlürreşâd Cerîde-i İslâmiyyesi’ne,” Sebilür-
reşad 10, no. 236 (March 20, 1913): 33 – 34.
46 Harun Buljina
students in Vienna to organize a new student organization in the Habsburg cap-

ital, explicitly Pan-Islamist in its ideological orientation and an alternative to
two earlier Bosnian Muslim student clubs that had been pro-Serb and pro-
Croat respectively.⁵⁹
This Ulema and Youth organizing would culminate in the protracted election
for Reis-ul-Ulema in 1912 to 1913. While the precise machinations of this intra-
Bosnian Muslim political struggle would go beyond the scope of this chapter,
the key point is that the opening up of the selection process for this position
– initially a purely top-down appointment from Vienna – in the aftermath of
the religious autonomy statute had set up a conflict over communal leadership
between Bosnian Muslim political elites in the new provincial parliament and
the Ulema.⁶⁰ Following disputes with more conservative segments of Ulema dur-
ing previous attempts to reform Islamic education, and working together with
the Austro-Hungarian authorities, the Bosnian parliamentarians sought to install
a secular-educated candidate who would curb the Ulema’s influence in commu-
nal affairs. At the same time, younger members of the Ulema, while criticizing
their older peers, coalesced around Čaušević as the chief representative of a re-
formist current that nonetheless preserved Ulema leadership in questions of re-
ligious education. Establishing themselves as the leading figures in the major
representative body of Bosnian Ulema, these “Young Turks” aggressively champ-
ioned Čaušević’s candidacy, appealing to the theologian’s prestige in Istanbul
publications such as Sebilürreşad, critiquing the Viennese authorities in consti-
tutional terms, and even employing popular political pressure.⁶¹ Facing a candi-
date with both broad support among the Ulema and an emerging popular man-
date, the authorities ultimately relented, formally accepting the nomination of
Čaušević as Reis-ul-Ulema on October 27, 1913. In effect, the new generation of
Ulema had achieved a substantial institutional victory for the Bosnian Pan-Is-
lamist movement on the eve of the First World War, but also exposed a growing
divide with their peers in the lay intelligentsia in the process.
5. Conclusion
While far from unified, Austria-Hungary’s occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina
produced a generation of Muslim intellectuals who nevertheless shared a com-
 “Kulturne bilješke: Klub muslimana akademičara u Beču,” Biser 2, no. 1 (July 1, 1913): 15 – 16.
 Adnan Jahić, “O imenovanju Džemaludina Čauševića za reisul-ulemu 1913. godine.,” Prilozi,
no. 41 (2012): 59 – 78.
 “Naše predstavke glede izbora reis-ul-uleme,” Misbah 1, no. 22– 23 – 24 (October 17, 1913): 185.
mon set of concerns and structural origins. Emerging from reformed schools in
the era of global high imperialism, they overlapped in many of these with their
peers in other Muslim societies under colonial or quasi-colonial rule. From a
global history perspective, operating as they did between Austro-Hungary and
the Ottoman Empire, they therefore functioned primarily as intellectual interme-
diaries, translating and exchanging texts across imperial and national bounda-
ries. Within their regional context, these cross-border activities help further nu-
ance several important aspects of late Ottoman intellectual history. Above all,
the new Bosnian students underscore how Istanbul’s intellectual influence on
former imperial territories did not simply dissipate or decline with the loss of po-
litical authority, and direct territorial control itself, but in fact intensified on the
back of globalizing technologies such as steam and print. Consequently, the
now-common acknowledgment of the influence of Turkic-speaking Muslims
from the Russian Empire in the transition from Empire to Republic should not
lose sight of the involvement and particular position of non-Turkic Muslims in
many of these same discussions, particularly in the period prior to 1918. Working
outside of the military-administrative context of their Young Turk contempora-
ries, Bosnian graduates nevertheless shared with them a sense of urgency over
the need for communal reform, similarly focusing on issues of constitutional
governance, educational modernization, and student organizing. Beyond thus
suggesting the utility of global intellectual history for understanding the chang-
ing relationship between the Ottoman center and its former provinces, the Bos-
nian case also underscores the importance of the Ulema and Islamic intellectual
history in this endeavor, as well as the potential for combining this approach
with prosopography and social history in future studies.
Barış Zeren
Chapter 2
Between Constitution, Empire, and Nation:
An Intellectual Trajectory of Pancho Dorev
and his Legalist Paradigm
1. Introduction
This chapter can be seen as a preliminary step to evaluate the Ottoman constitu-
tional experience as an intersection of global intellectual projects mixed with
local political concerns. Undoubtedly, the historiography on the late Ottoman
Empire has already laid ground to reconsider the Ottoman intellectual develop-
ments from a transnational perspective. Even for the earlier historiography, as a
result of the modernization paradigm, a major theme was the adaptation (or re-
jection) of western intellectual currents by the Ottoman Empire – above all, the
constitutional thinking being the most relevant with the political structures to be
imported.¹ These studies focused mostly on the transfer of constitutional thought
to the Islamic discourse and discussed Ottoman constitutionalism as a step with-
in the general evolution of Turkish constitutionalism. On the other hand, studies
of the last decade examine predominantly the Ottoman constitutionalism “in
practice,” dwelling on the political conjuncture of the 1908 constitutional revo-
lution. The latter scholarship approaches the 1908 revolution in the scope of a
global wave that stroke political systems neighboring the West – the 1905 Rus-
sian and 1906 Iranian revolutions being the most relevant ones. Such studies
not only connected the development of the 1908 revolutionary period with a
broader international scheme, but they also enhanced the established percep-
tion about its actors toward non-Turkish political figures, enriched the parties in-
volved, rendered it a scene of competing public opinions of various communities
in the empire.²
 Two seminal works with opposite stances can be mentioned here: Şerif Mardin, The Genesis of
Young Ottoman Thought: A Study In The Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas, Syracuse Uni-
versity Press, Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East (Syracuse: Syracuse
University Press, 2000), and Niyazi Berkes, Türkiye’de Çağdaşlaşma (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayın-
ları, 2002).
 See Nader Sohrabi, Revolution and Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire and Iran (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Houri Berberian, Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-003
50 Barış Zeren
Still, traces of the above-mentioned boundaries seem to dominate the re-

search on Ottoman constitutionalism, for the Ottoman constitutional revolution
is considered as a moment in which ethnoreligious politics with pre-existing and
ready-made ambitions and programs (particularly in relation with Ottoman
Christians) came together and broke up within five years, ending with the Balkan
Wars in 1913. This approach leaves the Ottoman experience of constitutionalism
merely as a scene of disconnection, a transitory period squeezed between revo-
lution and war, or, at best, a missed opportunity between isolated nationalist/se-
cessionist stances. This gap requires a reconsideration of the post-1908 constitu-
tional developments in terms of interconnections and interactions, taking
“constitutionalism” (rather than nationalist aspirations) as a meta-category to
which also the non-Muslim actors would adopt themselves.
In this regard, Moyn and Sartori’s recent volume on a global intellectual his-
tory, by suggesting a research agenda that would cross not only political and cul-
tural boundaries but also the boundaries that divide intellectual activity, brings a
new focus to grasp the points of intellectual interaction. Insofar as a global per-
spective draws attention to the modes of appropriation of ideas and political
forms, of their interconnection or circulation in a way to constitute a global
scale, the sphere of an intellectual history expands and encompasses the prac-
tice – even in the narrow sense, the practical concerns –, the formation of the
intellectuals themselves or networks that might have played a role in reproduc-
ing ideas in a certain context.
Hence, in our context, a global intellectual perspective can contribute to the
examination of the intellectual ventures on a broader scale, in their relation with
political efforts to overcome the communitarian boundaries for the sake of a su-
pranational and even global social frame.³ This would also hopefully contribute
to pass beyond the dominant narrative on the “rupture” associated with the Bal-
kan Wars and provide us with clues to trace further the various connections that
have been left unconsidered.
Such an agenda seems all the more necessary, considering that the Ottoman
constitutional revolution of 1908 occurred as an open-ended process. Although
and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Worlds (California: Univer-
sity of California Press, 2019); Bedross Der Matossian, Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Lib-
erty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014); Nathalie
Clayer, Aux origines du nationalisme albanais : la naissance d’une nation majoritairement musul-
mane en Europe (Paris: Karthala, 2007).
 For the term global debated from various perspectives, see Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori,
“A Framework for a Debate,” in Global Intellectual History, eds. Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sar-
tori (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 3 – 30.
Chapter 2 An Intellectual Trajectory of Pancho Dorev 51
the manifest aim of the revolution was to restore the 1876 constitution abrogated
by Sultan Abdulhamid II, giving the impression that it was an intervention to im-
plement an already existing legal framework, almost all the participants of the
imperial political life were aware that the 1876 constitution, Kanun-ı Esasi,
would fall short of answering the new problems that had emerged in the past
three decades.⁴ Starting with the problem of containing the rising – and rival
– nationalisms, the whole imperial political and judicial body had to be rede-
fined, discussed, and legitimized in accord with the constitutional premise of
popular sovereignty. This vacuum drew in to itself various centers of power,
not only the European Great Powers but also neighboring Balkan states along
with their ideological stances. Hence, the 1908 revolution mobilized not only
the masses but also the intellectual potential of the late Ottoman society, includ-
ing its various ethnoreligious networks – a potential which had a background in
the Ottoman intellectual sphere, and was an expression of broader circulations
of ideas, political figures, and peoples before the revolution.
With the reopening of the Ottoman parliament following the restoration of
the constitution in 1908, this potential took the specific form of legalism,
which would have to be employed by political representatives with the necessary
formation to translate their political aims into the common language of consti-
tutionalism and law. As the new regime and its parliamentary form required a
new typology of statesmen, such politicians had various interests in knitting
new ties and acting as intermediaries to reconcile so far conflicting loyalties.
In the hands of these mediators, constitutionalism, legalism, and the Ottoman
identity constituted a paradigm through which the communitarian and political
networks of the empire would interact with each other, and broader global cur-
rents. So, the intellectual history of the 1908 revolution did not only consist of
thinkers systematically considering a doctrine, but also of politicians as intellec-
tuals who had to articulate their aims through universal legal and social philos-
ophies. In turn, the following question emerges: What kind of actors might this
parliamentary representative system and the new discourse it required have en-
gendered, particularly in terms of non-Muslim political networks? What were
their backgrounds, and how did they make use of their different sets of knowl-
edge to define the ambiguous Ottoman society? Lastly, which connections did
 This can be seen most clearly in the programs of various political factions of ethnoreligious
communities, right after the revolution in August 1908. A common title in these programs was
the administrative autonomy in various forms that demands a radical restructuring of the em-
pire. The programs can be found in Zorka Pārvanova, Mezhdu Neosāshchestveniya Hurriyet i
Neizbezhnata Voyna: Natsionalnite Dvizheniya v Evropeyska Turtsii i Mladoturskiyat Rezhim
1908 – 1912 (Sofia: Khelikon – Petār Dobrev, 2002), 79 – 120.
52 Barış Zeren
they establish to overcome political rivalries, what role did they assume between
their socio-political networks and the new, constitutionally defined Ottoman loy-
alty?
I aim to shed light on certain aspects of these question by putting at the cen-
ter of the study a Macedo-Bulgarian deputy in the Ottoman parliament, Pancho
Dorev.⁵ Dorev seems to be a figure cut out for such a study not only due to his
wide intellectual capacity as a jurist, politician, and eventually a historian and
a polyglot,⁶ but also because he had a good acquaintance with the Turkish cul-
ture and with the Turkish-Ottoman statesmen of the era. His intellectual trajec-
tory along with his political career, which I will put together here drawing on bi-
ographical and archival documents, might contribute to our understanding of
the complex formation of the politico-ideological sphere in question.
Pancho Dorev was born in 1878, in Lerin (Florine or Florina), a district of Bi-
tola (Manastɪr) Province of the Ottoman Empire and died in 1938 as a diplomat
and politician in Sofia, Bulgaria. After his early political life as a member of the
Macedo-Bulgarianist struggle in Ottoman Rumelia, he became the deputy of Bi-
tola in the Ottoman parliament following the Ottoman constitutional revolution
in 1908, as a representative of the Bulgarian Constitutional Clubs (BCC). In the
course of the crisis of the constitutional parliamentarian regime, unlike other
deputies of the Macedo-Bulgarian network who tended to break relations with
the Ottoman political sphere, he preserved his position as a deputy until the
eve of the Balkan Wars.⁷ After the war, he was a counselor of Bulgarian diplo-
matic mission in Istanbul during a time when the Ottoman-Bulgarian enmity
was rapidly turning into an alliance. He had personal contacts with leading fig-
 For a study focusing on the Hellenic deputies, see Caterina Boura, “The Greek Millet in Turk-
ish Politics: Greeks in the Ottoman Parliament (1908 – 1918),” in Ottoman Greeks in the Age of
Nationalism: Politics, Economy, and Society in the Nineteenth Century, eds. Dimitri Gondicas
and Charles Issawi (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1999), 193 – 206.
 “Dorev, Pancho,” in Znachajni Lichnosti za Bitola / Distinguished People for Bitola (Bitola: Ob-
shtina Bitola / Municipality of Bitola, 2007).
 As the identities, self-identifications and organizations underwent substantial changes
throughout the epoch in question, I will adopt a specific terminology to avoid possible misun-
derstandings. I will use the term Bulgarianist to indicate the movement in general that promoted
the Bulgarian identity in the Ottoman Balkans, including the Exarchists, the Sofia-centered cir-
cles and Macedonian-Bulgarian organizations. The term Macedo-Bulgarianist will specifically
refer to Slavophone militants and intellectuals (and not the population) who pursued the strug-
gle for an autonomous or independent Macedonia. As will be seen throughout the article, the
agenda and organization of this latter movement could radically differ from that of the official
Sofia to such an extent that it involved preventing Sofia’s interventions in the region and even
claiming a separate “Macedonian” government. Also, the term Hellenic/Hellenist will be used to
denote the policies of both the Ottoman Rum community and the Hellenic Kingdom.
ures of the Ottoman politics such as Talat Pasha, Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha, or Enver
Pasha, occasionally referring in his memoirs to their dialogs.⁸ In the post-World
War I period, when he developed a political and diplomatic initiative to prevent
the loss of the territories called Macedonia, he would always opt for including
the Turks as an ally to the struggle.⁹ During the inter-war years, Dorev used
his intellectual merits as a historian and planned a visit to the Ottoman archives
in Istanbul to extract Ottoman documents regarding Bulgarian history.¹⁰ His con-
nections proved again helpful. In 1929, Ismet Inönü, then Prime Minister of Tur-
key, was directly interested in arranging the formal procedures of this visit.¹¹ In
1930, Dorev was permitted once again to study in the archives of the General In-
spectorate of Rumelia (Rumeli Müfettişi Umumiliği) with the signature of Mustafa
Kemal.¹² Thus, he was given access to secret documents related to the Macedo-
nian question, particularly to the documents of Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha who, as the
General Inspector of Rumelia between 1902 and 1908, and Sadrazam of the con-
stitutional era, had been the prominent Ottoman official to deal with the Mace-
do-Bulgarian militants and politicians, including Pancho Dorev.¹³ In short, he
 Pancho Dorev, Vănshna Politika i Prichini na Nashite Katastrophi: Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti
(Sofia: Pechatnitsa Rodopi na T. Klisarov, 1924), 7 and 10.
 Having entered World War I as a member of the Central Powers, Bulgaria lost at the end of the
war its possessions and the political initiative in Macedonia, which the Allied Powers gave to
Serbia and Greece. To oppose such a development, Dorev presented in his memoirs the petition
sent to the Peace Conference of Paris that was signed by local Christian, Muslim and Jewish rep-
resentatives from Macedonia demanding an autonomous, independent Macedonia for all nation-
alities; see Dorev, Vănshna Politika, 26 – 29.
 According to Todorova, Dorev was “[t]he last Bulgarian historian to have been admitted for a
longer research period in the Ottoman archives before 1989.” See Maria N. Todorova, Balkan
Family Structure and the European Pattern: Demographic Developments in Ottoman Bulgaria (Bu-
dapest: Central European University Press, 2006), 11.
 Dorev more than once expressed his gratitude to Inönü, the “prominent partner of Mustafa
Kemal, the creator of new Turkey.” Pancho Dorev, Dokumenti za Bălgarskata Istoriya: Dokumenti
iz Turkskitje Dărzhavni Arkhivi chast I, vol. III (Sofia: Bălgarskata Akademija na Naukitje, 1940), v;
Dorev added his words of appreciation for Inönü and Atatürk along with the permission docu-
ments at the beginning of another compilation: Pancho Dorev, ed., Kostursko v Makedonskata
Revolyutsiia: Ofitsialni Dokumenti iz Tajnitie Turski Arhivi na Velikoto Vezirstvo i na Hilmi
Pasha, Materiali iz Minaloto na Kostursko (Sofia: Kostursko Blagotvoritelno Bratstvo, 1937).
 BCA, Kararlar Daire Başkanlığı, 14– 65 – 11, 08.10.1930.
 Dorev published secret documents of Hilmi Pasha in Pancho Dorev, Kostursko v Makedon-
skata Revolyutsiia. With this research mission, Dorev became “the first Bulgarian Ottomanist his-
torian who managed to study in the Turkish archives.” (Stefka Petrova, “Pismata na Pancho
Dorev do Georgi Sokolov: Izvor za Tārgovsko–Stopanskoto i Kulturnoto Razvitie na Bālgariya
v Nachaloto na XIX v.,” Izvestiya na Dārzhavnite Arkhivi 61 (1991): 111– 25, 111.); The research
was published in two parts titled “Documents for Bulgarian History” by the Bulgarian Academy
54 Barış Zeren
embodied a contrast to the dominant narrative about rival and isolated nation-
alisms that marked the turn of the century, exemplifying a relation that might be
called a “republic of constitutionalists” within an intensive era of conflicts.
Apparently, Dorev saw continuities between what he had learned and expe-
rienced in the context of the late Ottoman imperial and interwar Balkan politics.
Hence, it is not a coincidence that he consecrated his memoirs to the inquiry on
“the reasons of our catastrophe,” and touched upon critical issues of the Otto-
man Empire – above all the Exarchist struggle, the Macedonian question, and
Ottoman parliament – to discuss the problem of nationalities amidst the post-
World War I “catastrophe.”¹⁴ In the hectic years of the late 19th and early 20th cen-
turies, he kept a distance from revolutionary circles, insisted on the possibility of
reconciliation between rival national-confessional interests, and underlined the
importance of the evolutionary method in materializing this reconciliation. But
importantly, the mechanism of this evolution was law and legal means, i. e. in-
ternational regulations at the international level and parliamentarian constitu-
tionalism at the national level. Based on these principles, the international
search for peace was the ideal, goal, and task of the epoch in question.¹⁵ He
was obviously against nationalist subjectivism, as echoed more than once in
his memoirs published in 1924. In a period in which Bulgaria struggled to find
its place within the new international order, Dorev wrote in his memoirs that
“[o]ne of the major reasons of our misfortune is that we are seeing events only
through Bulgarian glasses and do not think within the mentality of our neigh-
bors or Europeans as the English say –to put himself to the others’ place– […]
or the Germans’ Einfühlung.”¹⁶
The Turkish sources define him as a “socialist” though one does not see any
reference by him to socialist thinkers nor an expression of political support to
the left-wing currents of Macedo-Bulgarianism of his time.¹⁷ Instead, there is a
variety of Western liberal mainstream thinkers cited by Dorev such as Bacon,
Ranke, Lloyd George, or writers as Daniel Defoe, or Jonathan Swift who would
of Sciences as Dorev “laid the foundation of Ottoman studies in Bulgaria.” See “Dorev, Pančo”
section in Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia (Toronto: Scare-
crow Press, 2009), 62.
 See his preface in Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti. All translations into English are mine
unless otherwise stated.
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 9.
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 8. (Translations from Bulgarian are mine.)
 For records defining him as a socialist see, Aykut Kansu, 1908 Devrimi, trans. Ayda Erbal (Is-
tanbul: Iletişim, 1995), 366. It must be added that Dorev was a member of the circle known as the
“right-wing” of the Macedo-Bulgarianist movement in the constitutional era. His position in the
Macedo-Bulgarian struggle will be elaborated below.
frame his rhetoric. He seems rather to be a centrist trying to benefit from differ-
ent progressive thoughts of his era. If, as Watson defined, the Balkan intelligent-
sia of the time had found itself at the crossroads of collided political doctrines of
nationalist irredentism and social revolution, Pancho Dorev was for social evo-
lution, expressing a contradictory character within a network of revolutionary
actors.¹⁸
This centrist vision seems to be a combination of three tendencies that co-
incided with three strata of the late-Ottoman politico-ideological sphere: com-
munitarian, imperial, and global (which one can safely identify with the
West). A survey on his intellectual trajectory suggests that Dorev endeavored
to politically harmonize a) evolutionary educationalism of the Exarchate on
the communitarian level, b) legalism in the imperial politics, and c) solidarism
as a contemporaneous universal project to overcome socio-political conflicts.
This whole scheme was a thread connecting in Dorev’s mind the great ruptures
of the early 20th century.
2. The Background of an Ottoman Bulgarian

Intellectual
One can safely say that Dorev was a member of the post-1878 generation, reflect-
ing the complexity of being at the intersection of borders determining the Exar-
chist and Patriarchist struggle, the Ottoman and Bulgarian identities, the strat-
egies of Bulgarianist circles, and last but not least, legality and illegality.
Through his family, he was affiliated with the local Bulgarian educated society.
His father was a bookseller in Bitola, engaging in small-scale trade with the
province of Eastern Rumelia, from where he imported Bulgarianist revolutionary
literature.¹⁹ Dorev was raised within the Bulgarianist network of Lerin, going to
 Hugh Seton Watson, “‘Intelligentsia’ und Nationalismus in Osteuropa 1848 – 1918,” Histori-
sche Zeitschrift 195, no. 2 (1962): 331– 345, here 342.
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 34. Eastern Rumelia was a part of the “Greater Bulgaria”
envisaged in the San Stefano Treaty in 1878. But with the intervention of the European Powers in
the Treaty of Berlin in the same year, the territories of a Greater Bulgaria were divided in three
regions: the Principality of Bulgaria with Sofia as the capital city became a suzerain of the Otto-
man Empire, its eastern part with Plovdiv (Filibe) at the center was given back to the Ottoman
Empire as an autonomous province named “Eastern Rumelia” whereas the southern part – com-
prising Bitola, Thessaloniki and Kosovo – which would be popularly called Macedonia was re-
turned to direct Ottoman rule. After a coup d’état in 1885, the Principality annexed the Eastern
56 Barış Zeren
the school of the Exarchate.²⁰ An important phase in his life was the relationship
with Dame Gruev, one of the leading figures of the Macedo-Bulgarianist struggle.
When Gruev came to Bitola in the early 1890s to establish a Macedo-Bulgarianist
political network of booksellers, teachers, and tradesmen, he had recently bro-
ken himself from the methods of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Exarchate.
This was also an expression of divergence within the Bulgarianist network relat-
ing to the methods to follow for the unification of Bulgarians. In contrast to the
method of Exarch Yosif who was directly responsible before the Sultan for the
administration of the Bulgarian Orthodox community along with the Exarchate
schools, and who attached much importance to preserving the legitimacy of
the Exarchate, Gruev would adopt a revolutionary method emphasizing the sig-
nificance of illegal organization that found an appropriate climate in Bitola, at
the center of ethnoreligious rivalry.²¹ It was during his stay in Bitola that
Gruev seemed to have recruited the Dorev brothers into his organization –
Rumelia. On the other hand, Macedonia remained an area of ethno-religious disputes, creating
what was called the Macedonian question.
 Simo Mladenovski, “Dorev, Pancho Todorov,” in Makedonska Entsiklopedija, ed. Blazhe Ris-
tovski (Skopje: Makedonska Akademija na Naukite i Umetnostite, 2009). Bitola (Ottoman Man-
astɪr) had always been a center of various intercommunal rivalries but, after 1878, when the un-
satisfactory regulations of the Treaty of Berlin paved the way for further intercommunal rivalry,
the political life of the province diversified as new actors became visible, such as Patriarchists,
Exarchists, Slav Patriarchists, Serbists, Albanophone Muslims – not to mention that the prov-
ince would be one of the centers of the constitutional revolution in 1908. For a comprehensive
history of Bitola in the epoque in question, see Bernard Lory, La Ville Balkanissime Bitola
(1800 – 1918) (Istanbul: ISIS, 2012).
 The Exarchate was a political, as well as a spiritual center of Ottoman Bulgarians and had
complex relations with other Bulgarianist actors, notably, the Principality and political brigands
called komitadjis who increasingly emphasized a “Macedonian” identity opposing policies of
Sofia in these territories. As an alternative to other strategies such as violence and uprising,
the Exarchate’s main concern was to guarantee and expand its jurisdiction within the Ottoman
system, particularly considering the ongoing rivalry with the Greek Orthodox Church, the Patri-
archate. The strategy of the Exarchate would later be defined as educationalism (a network of
schools, teachers, and ecclesiastical authorities), applying “evolutionary” methods in the devel-
opment of national identity. It was mostly supported by merchants and petite-bourgeoisie that
developed thanks to their relations with commercial centers in Russia or Eastern Europe; Fikret
Adanır, Makedonya Sorunu (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2001), 65. See also Zina Marko-
va, Bolgarskaya Egzarkhiya: 1870 – 1879 (Sofia: Izdatelstvo Bolgarskoy Akademii Nauk, 1989).
Daskalov presents a general view of these evolutionary and revolutionary methods along with
their perception in the Bulgarian historiography: Rumen Daskalov, The Making of a Nation in
the Balkans: Historiography of the Bulgarian Revival (Budapest: Central European University
Press, 2004), 162– 176.
Atse, brother of Pancho who was a bookseller, would become a central figure of
this organization as the bookkeeper and a komitadji.
Gruev’s organization in Bitola was part of a broader tendency to build a
struggle for the liberation of “Macedonia,” which would mark the history of
the region with its radicalism. ²² Initially inspired by the former struggle of Bul-
garianism in the Ottoman Empire, the new generation of militants increasingly
distinguished themselves from the official policies of the Principality of Bulgaria.
Starting with the 1890s, as an alternative to the Verkhovist (Supreme) committee,
which was organized as a political tool of Sofia in the Ottoman Rumelia, Mace-
do-Bulgarianism developed another organization that would in short be called
the “Internal Organization,” aiming at the liberation of Macedonia and Thrace.²³
Increasing radicalism produced new uprisings and a generation of outlawed
local militants who pursued secret activities against the Sultan Abdulhamid
II’s regime.
Pancho Dorev, on the other hand, followed an alternative path, which was
not a preference of his circle, and went to Darulfünun (the imperial university)
in Istanbul to study law.²⁴ He does not provide us with details of his motives
or the education he received in Istanbul, but he must have acquainted himself
with the legalist mindset of the Ottoman statesmen during his stay in the impe-
rial capital. He returned to Bitola as a lawyer in 1903, on the eve of an event con-
stituting another milestone for the Macedo-Bulgarianist cause as well as for the
history of Ottoman Rumelia in general: The Ilinden Uprising. In this uprising
 For Gruev, see Yordan Badev, Dame Gruev: Zhivot i Dyelo (Sofia: Ministerstvo na Narodnoto
Prosvyesheniye, 1943), 64– 67; Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 14; the earlier organization
Gruev founded was the Macedonian Revolutionary Committee, see Adanır, Makedonya Sorunu,
128.
 In fact, the name of the organization underwent several changes, mostly referred to as VMRO
(IMRO – Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) but it was the “Internal Organiza-
tion” which remained as a brand to summarize the organization apart from the organization
of Sofia.
 Bechev, “Dorev, Pancho,” 71. The local Slavic youth had multiple opportunities to get forma-
tion in – and to get acquaintance with – a wider, global political, cultural, and intellectual agen-
da, as the demographical competition between regional powers extended toward the sphere of
education. A major example of this tendency was the Principality of Bulgaria, which, right after
the Treaty of Berlin, with the help of Bulgarian philanthropic organizations abroad, allocated
scholarships for Macedonian Slavic youth to receive education in European institutions. The
work of Tanchev provides a list of youngsters from Macedonia educated in prestigious universi-
ties of the West: Ivan Tanchev, “Mladezhi ot Makedoniya, uchili v Evropeyski Uchebni Zavede-
niya s Materialna Pomoshch ot Bălgarskata Dărzhava (1879 – 1892),” Makedonski Pregled XIII,
no. 4 (1991): 143 – 150.
58 Barış Zeren
comprising Bitola along with its villages, the Macedo-Bulgarianist movement

achieved a considerable demonstration of power and took the main stage in pol-
itics, although it was eventually suppressed by the Ottoman forces. According to
Dorev’s accounts, he and his brother strived for participation in the armed strug-
gle but it was the leader Gruev who stopped them. On his order, both stayed in
Bitola, with Atse being responsible for internal communication, and Pancho for
correspondence with the consuls and foreign representatives on behalf of the up-
rising. Gruev’s words as cited by Pancho Dorev seem to represent his prospect of
a career as a jurist: “Revolutionary struggle needs legal adherents […] indirectly
and morally supporting the Bulgarian revolutionary cause in Macedonia.”²⁵
Dorev’s connection with high-level Ottoman statesmen seems to coincide
with this period. While a considerable part of the voivodes and komitadjis
along with Macedo-Bulgarian representatives were purged after the uprising,
the Dorev brothers could continue their activities for one more year, while the
“[r]evolutionary struggle went into a winter sleep” and national struggle turned
to cultural terms.²⁶ Against the Patriarchists who opened a campaign to ensure
the loyalty of the local population, Dorev prepared petitions for villages to re-
adopt the Exarchate. According to him, the campaign succeeded with more
and more villages desiring to return to the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Church.²⁷
In March 1904, however, the Ottoman authorities captured these petitions in the
bag of a voivode and imprisoned Dorev with certain other adherents of the Bul-
garianist network. For Dorev, it was the success of Grigor Nachovich, the diplo-
matic representative of the Bulgarian Principality in Istanbul, in getting amnesty
from the Sublime Porte, which saved them from imprisonment or exile.²⁸ A dif-
ferent version of the story related by Silyanov – a militant and historian of the
Macedonian movement – mentions that the case drew the attention and inter-
vention of diplomatic circles, including representatives of the Principality, as
well as the Russian consul and Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha, the highest Ottoman au-
thority in Rumelia.²⁹
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 14.

 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 15.
 For the growing Hellenist and Serbist propaganda in the region; see Adanır, Makedonya Sor-
unu, 220 – 223.
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 15.
 Silyanov’s account is partly based on the information of Andrey Toshev, the commercial
agent of the Principality of Bulgaria in Bitola: Hristo Silyanov, Osvoboditelnitye Borbi na Make-
doniya, fototipno izdanie, vol. II: Sled Ilindenskoto Văstanie (Sofia: Nauka i Izkustvo, 1983), 121–
123.
Dorev left Bitola and the Ottoman Empire in July 1904 for another law degree
in Vienna. This move seemed to differ from that of other Bulgarian elites who
were purged in the aftermath of the Ilinden Uprising. Most Bulgarian (Exarchate)
teachers and priests who had benefited from the amnesty of 1904 were urged by
the Ottoman authorities to stay in their native place without permission to leave,
whereas the ones who could take refuge abroad were not permitted to return.³⁰
However, Dorev’s travel was apparently not a case of illegal refuge or political
immigration, because his stay was completely in line with formal procedures,
as he was registered in the Ottoman embassy in Vienna.³¹
The Austro-Hungarian Empire, particularly Vienna, was one of the centers
where Bulgarian intellectuals, in general, went for education at the turn of the
century.³² Being a peculiar model as a dual monarchy, a center of debates on na-
tional rights, and last but not least, a key power in the Macedonian question,
Vienna must have been a suitable place to enhance one’s vision on common
popular themes of Balkan nationalisms such as national-cultural autonomy
and constitutional solutions to the problem of nationalities. Indeed, at the
same time with Dorev, a universally leading figure in the debates on the national
question, the Austrian Marxist Otto Bauer was preparing in the same school, in
the Faculty of Law of University of Vienna, his famous work to be published in
1907, Die Nationalitätenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie. There is no indication
that they had contact with each other.
In accord with these themes, Dorev specialized in administrative and fiscal
law during his study in Vienna,³³ and turned his attention to the governmental
and political formation of the Habsburg Empire along with the parliamentarian
 At least in Sofia, the Ottoman consul refused to give these fugitive teachers and priests their
passports. Elena Statelova, Radoslav Popov and Vasilka Tankova, Istoriya na Bălgarskata Diplo-
matiya 1879 – 1913 g. (Sofia: Fondatsiya Otvoreno Obshchestvo, 1994), 348.
 BOA, TFR.I. ŞKT, 105 – 10420, petition of Pancho Dorev, “Rumeli Vilâyât-ı Şâhânesi Müfettiş-i
Umumiliği Cânib-i Sâmisine,” 22 Kânun-I Sâni 1322 (04.02.1907).
 Tanchev states that between 1878 to 1912, 2,300 Bulgarians studied in Austro-Hungary with
Vienna occupying the first place, see Ivan Tanchev, “Avstro-Ungariskiyat Prinos v Podgotovkata
na Bălgarska Intelligentsiya s Evropeysko Obrazovanie (1878 – 1912) (Vtora Chast),” Istoricheski
Pregled, no. 3 – 4 (2012): 165 – 209. Pancho Dorev is listed among these students, see 179.
Dorev mentions his exact date of departure from the Ottoman Empire, 1 July 1904, in a petition
he wrote to the Ottoman authorities in 1907: BOA, TFR.I. ŞKT, 105 – 10420, the petition of Pancho
Dorev, “Rumeli Vilâyât-ı Şâhânesi Müfettiş-i Umumiliği Cânib-i Sâmisine,” 22 Kânun-ı Sâni 1322
(04.02.1907).
 BOA, TFR.I. ŞKT, 105 – 10420, petition of Pancho Dorev, “Rumeli Vilâyât-ı Şâhânesi Müfettiş-i
Umumiliği Cânib-i Sâmisine,” 22 Kânun-I Sâni 1322 (04.02.1907).
60 Barış Zeren
agenda of Hungary.³⁴ The Austria-Hungarian Empire – the status of Hungary in

particular – would continue to be a reference in his future political life. For in-
stance, in 1923, when the status of Macedonian Slavs became a question for the
government of newly independent Yugoslavia, Dorev reminded the wide autono-
my Hungary had enjoyed within the dual empire as proof that national rights
would not harm the political unity, and that in fact “[a] honest and tolerant ad-
ministration in Macedonia is in the interest of the Serbian state as well.”³⁵
If Dorev took the view that the emerging question of nationalities would be
solved through formal, legal regulations based on national rights, his stay in
Vienna must have consolidated this approach. This was undoubtedly a new
stage, which eventually established his political career on the solid judicial
ground, following his primitive diplomatic activity alongside the komitadji
Gruev during the Ilinden Uprising. He would bring this idea to the Ottoman par-
liament whose major agenda was to build an Ottoman unity between different
and even rival ethnoreligious and political poles.
3. Dorev’s Ottoman loyalty

By this point, we do not have exact information as to whether Dorev had formal
connections with the Exarchate. But Dorev’s initial career oscillating between il-
legal and legal spheres took a decisive step with his return to the Ottoman Em-
pire after which he would constantly pursue the legal path.
On 4 February 1907, Dorev sent a petition to the General Inspectorate of Ru-
melia to prepare his return in three or four months. Besides his competence in
the official style of Turkish, the petition is remarkable for Dorev’s moderate
and even subordinate language. In his petition, accompanying the information
about his stay in Vienna, Dorev asked for the removal of a false official register
placing him under suspicion of being a conspirator (erbab-ı fesaddan). He ar-
gued that he was not the “Dorev” mentioned in the illegal publication which
caused the record, for he had already left the empire by the time it was written.
Dorev repeated more than once his fidelity and obedience to the Ottoman gov-
ernment, “which had never been a lip service” (“hükümet-i metbuama olan sada-
kat ve ubudiyyetim hiçbir vakit boş laf olmamış”) or his belief as a student of a
 See his foreword in Pancho Dorev, Ungariya-Madjarite v Politichesko, Kulturno i Stopansko

Otnoshenie (Sofia: Tsarska Pridvorna Pechatnistsa, 1917).
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 59 – 62. He underscored that he proposed not to copy an
outdated stereotype but to think about modern ways to create an administrative system suitable
for multiple nationalities; see also there 32.
Turkish school (“Türk mekteplisi”) in the mercifulness and justice of the Ottoman
(“merhamet ve adalet-i Osmaniyye”). In the petition, he underlined his commit-
ment to the Ottoman justice and his determination of coming back to the coun-
try, saying that he would return in any case to defend himself before the Ottoman
courts. But a significant part of the petition consisted of his request for being ap-
pointed to an appropriate governmental post in order to render good service to
“my” sublime state (“devlet-i aliyyeme hizmat-ı nafiada bulunacak suretde […]
münasib bir memuriyete tayin buyurulmaklığımı istirham eylerim”).³⁶ The Ottoman
authorities accepted his application, and he became the deputy prosecutor in
Thessaloniki on the eve of the 1908 revolution.³⁷
Despite complexities, the general political situation became more conven-
ient for Pancho Dorev. As reported by the international press, the Internal Mac-
edonian Revolutionary Organization held a congress in a border town between
Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, in which Hristo Matov, Apostol Dmitrov,
and Atse Dorev were elected as its new leaders, whereas the left-wing Sandansk-
ists were renounced and declared as “bandits.” With the congress, “the intellec-
tual promoters” of the movement, the circle of Dame Gruev – including Atse
Dorev, Pancho’s brother – and partisans of Boris Sarafov dominated the organ-
ization and decided to disband the armed groups. In the overall movement, the
revolutionary method was put aside temporarily to observe the application of the
new era’s reforms in Macedonia. Or otherwise, a great insurrection was waiting
ahead.³⁸ At this junction, a relative pacifist climate was about to be born that re-
quired diplomatic skills of negotiation rather than revolutionary voluntarism.
Such a climate would set the ground for the rise of Pancho Dorev.
4. Rise of Evolutionary Ideas within the

Revolution
The Young Turk revolution in July 1908, led by the upheaval of Ottoman army
officers affiliated with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in Bitola in-
cited enthusiasm among different communities of the empire and changed the
overall view of the political scene. The promulgation of the Kanun-ı Esasi drew
mass support from almost every ethnoreligious community in the empire.
 BOA, TFR.I. ŞKT, 105 – 10420, petition signed by Pancho veled-i Todori Dorev, “Rumeli
Vilâyât-ı Şâhânesi Müfettiş-i Umûmîliği Cânib-i Sâmîsine,” 22 Kânun-I Sâni 1322 (04.02.1907).
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 17.
 “Nouvelles d’Orient”, Pro-Armenia, 05.05.1908, 1271– 1272.
62 Barış Zeren
“There were demonstrations and a boundless joy,” Dorev recalls, “[w]e, Bulgar-
ians, convened a meeting in the boys’ high school to decide on our position.”
Following the internal disputes about the position of the Macedo-Bulgarianist or-
ganization, Dorev’s side convinced the Bulgarian community to participate in the
constitutionalist demonstrations.³⁹ The conflict-ridden atmosphere was almost
immediately vaporized while the representatives of the Bulgarian community de-
clared that “from now on bullets and bombs will be directed to the enemies of
the Ottoman constitution.”⁴⁰ The Ottoman Rumelia, being the epicenter of the
revolution, witnessed the descent of komitadjis from mountains to the cities,
and the slogans derived from the French revolution, freedom (hürriyet), equality
(musâvat), and fraternity (uhuvvet) echoed on other edges of the empire, from Is-
tanbul to Palestine.⁴¹
As the revolution opened ways for legalization to the general tendency of
pacification, the Macedo-Bulgarianist circles sought ways to represent them-
selves within the flourishing constitutional public sphere. Aside from other
non-Muslim communities, the two main currents of the Macedo-Bulgarianist
movement established two parties, particularly strong in the triangle of Serres,
Thessaloniki, and Bitola. Initially the “left-wing” stepped forward in support
of the constitutional revolution and on 31 July, the Serres group unified with
the Struma group of Chernopeyev adopting pro-CUP policies.⁴²
In contrast to the rapid mobilization of the left-wing, the established cadres
of the Macedo-Bulgarian movement or “the right-wing”, of which Dorev was a
member, had to eliminate internal hesitations vis-à-vis the revolution. The de-
bates on the relation to the new regime even brought the movement to the
brink of a split, which would be avoided on the initiative of certain leaders
such as Petko Penchev and Pavel Hristov. There was an intensive debate between
the representatives of this wing and the CUP on the conditions of support to the
constitutional regime before the movement was convinced that the revolution
had opened new ways to the Bulgarianist cause.⁴³ Dorev was also actively in-
volved in establishing a thread between the two sides.
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 17.

 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 18.
 There is a wide literature on the embracement of the constitutional revolution by various po-
litical and communal camps, for a recent example, see Matossian, Shattered Dreams, part 1 in
particular.
 Părvanova, Neosăshchestveniya Hurriyet, 71. This movement would form the People’s Federal
Party (Bulgarist Section) in 1909.
 For the role of Penchev and Hristo along with other information in the paragraph, see Părva-
nova, Neosăshchestveniya Hurriyet, 70 – 73, 81.
According to his account, at the end of July 1908, Dorev sent a report to the
CUP including advice on the route to follow. In his report, after – once again –
providing the example of Austria-Hungary as an empire that had collaborated in
Bosnia-Herzegovina with the “most honest” and “intelligent” forces of the coun-
try, Dorev criticized Ottoman revolutionaries who “hold themselves back from
the Macedonian Bulgarians, from the leaders of the Exarchate, from the teachers
and citizens” that is, he continued, “the real representatives of the Bulgarian
people in Macedonia.”⁴⁴ The CUP responded to the report, and wanted to nego-
tiate with Dorev on the issues he had raised. Dorev advised them to get in touch
with the Bulgarian organization. Upon CUP’s invitation, critical meetings started
with the right-wing Bulgarianist network on 1 August 1908, in which the network
had its famous leaders such as Hristo Matov, Petko Penchev, and Apostol Dimi-
trov, whereas Cemal Pasha, Hacı Adil Bey and Enver Bey (the latter to be re-
placed by Hasan Rıza Pasha at the second meeting) represented the CUP.
In these negotiations, Dorev adopted the role of a mediator and translator
between the two parties rather than being a representative of the Bulgarianist cir-
cle.⁴⁵ In his memoirs, Dorev preserves his distance from the leaders of his net-
work, expressing the opinion that the demands of the Macedo-Bulgarianist circle
were excessive. By this token, one can learn his position and strategy in compar-
ison to other Bulgarian politicians. According to Dorev, the Bulgarianist leaders
brought forward the demand of a broader autonomy, and a regional parliament
in Macedonia to the negotiation table. This, Dorev argued, was unacceptable for
the CUP leaders. On this point, the negotiations stopped. This result would con-
stitute in Dorev’s memoirs an example of the “errors” that would later lead the
Bulgarian nation to a “catastrophe.” The essence of the error seems to be the un-
realistic or maximalist approach. For him, in their demands of autonomy, the
Macedonian-Bulgarianist leaders were asserting the model of the province of
Eastern Rumelia, although in Macedonia the situation was altogether different:
“In the case of Eastern Rumelia, 85 % of the population was of Bulgarian ele-
ment, there had been two years of Russian occupation, no Turkish officials or
gendarmerie, the Bulgarian language was official, and the region was neighbor-
ing only with Bulgaria.” In the case of Macedonia, on the other hand, where the
Turkish army, laws, and language officially dominated, and where there were no
Bulgarian cadres to govern, but ongoing hostility by other nationalities (narod-
nosti), it was more plausible to demand self-government at the level of obschini
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 18.

 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti,18.
64 Barış Zeren
(Bulgarian translation of Ottoman nahiye or belediye) and kaza, which the CUP
was more prone to accept.⁴⁶ It appears that Dorev opted for a more gradual ap-
proach, and supported the strategy of advancing Bulgarianist demands through
reforming or improving the Ottoman state. In another formulation, it was an at-
tempt to combine Bulgarian cultural demands with the Ottoman constitutional-
ism’s quest for sovereignty.
Amidst these ardent debates, the Macedo-Bulgarianist faction that was
called the “right-wing” gained a new formation, legalizing itself within the con-
stitutional framework. Named “Bulgarian Constitutional Clubs” (BCC), it opened
in August 1908 first in Thessaloniki, and then in Bitola.⁴⁷ Dorev acted within this
movement that comprised a large part of Macedonian-Bulgarianist networks,
with the exception of the left-wing. It was mainly the Macedonian-Bulgarian in-
tellectuals, the old central committee of the Internal Organization, which had
pursued activity in Macedonia and Adrianople, who led the foundation of the
BCC. Alongside the traditional leaders of the movement, representatives of the
Exarchate, Bulgarian representatives in local administrations, and revolutionary
militants came together under the framework of the clubs.⁴⁸ Sofia too had an ac-
tive involvement in the clubs through its commercial agents in the region and
leaders such as Toma Karayovov, who put his effort to draw financial support
from the Bulgarian government.⁴⁹ By this picture, the BCC was a project to chan-
nel three strategies – Exarchist educationalism, Macedo-Bulgarian revolution-
ism, and Sofia-based nationalism – into Ottoman parliamentarianism.
The BCC program preserved the original framework of the 5 August meeting,
which had been criticized by Dorev. It emphasized an administrative division of
the empire based on “the principle of nationality.” The BCC also put forward an
immediate program that was implied in the very name of the organization: Lib-
eral constitutionalism. It adopted the goal of the revision of the Kanun-ı Esasi
based on “European liberalism,” and envisaged transforming the Ottoman re-
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 19. Based on the archival documents, Părvanova states
that cadres of the “right-wing” in consultation with foreign diplomats proposed local parlia-
ment; see Părvanova, Neosăshchestveniya Hurriyet, 81, and for the meeting, 82.
 The official congresses were held in September 1908. See Mihailo Minoski, “Bygarski Konsti-
tutsionni Klubovi,” in Makedonska Entsiklopedija, ed. Blazhe Ristovski (Skopje: Makedonska
Akademija na Naukite i Umetnostite, 2009).
 Părvanova, Neosăshchestveniya Hurriyet, 97– 98.
 Slavi Mitkov Slavov, “Bălgarskata Dărzhava i Săyuzăt na Bălgarskite Konstitutsionni Klubove
v Osmanskata Imperiya,” Istoricheski Pregled 65, no. 3 – 4 (2009): 20 – 38, here 25.
gime into a fully parliamentarian system, guaranteeing national and individual

rights and accountability of executive power before the legislative.⁵⁰ The foun-
dation of the clubs expressed the will of the Macedo-Bulgarian network to sup-
port the constitutional regime. However, their substantial reserves about the sta-
tus of nationalities in the empire, along with their connection to Sofia, were
creating a great barrier in their relationship with the CUP. In this context, one
event escalated the suspicions over these clubs: The Principality of Bulgaria de-
clared independence from the Ottoman Empire in September 1908. Although a
representative of the clubs in Thessaloniki, Svetoslav Dobrev participated in a
demonstration organized by the CUP and gave an ardent speech criticizing
the decision of Sofia, the organization’s affiliation with Sofia undermined its po-
litical credibility.⁵¹
This sensitive situation must have increased BCC’s need for a representative,
who could be more acceptable, and more trustworthy, in the eyes of the CUP.
Pancho Dorev, despite being an old adherent of the movement, did not get in-
volved in violent confrontations in Rumelia, and could integrate himself into
the Ottoman state mechanism before the revolution, as an Ottoman jurist.
Thus he was an ideal figure in this context. But a more distinguishing feature
of Dorev was his Ottoman subjecthood (tabiiyyet) – a connection which he me-
ticulously preserved in the preceding period: There were not many leaders hav-
ing Ottoman subjecthood. As a result, he became the representative of the BCC in
the Ottoman parliament as the deputy of Bitola.⁵²
5. Dorev in the Ottoman Parliament: The

formulation of Ottoman Supranational identity
Established after the elections of 1908, the Ottoman parliament was loaded with
the task of being the constitutive power of the “Ottoman nation,” although the
whole constitutional and parliamentarian framework had crucial deficiencies.
The ambiguities were extending from the legal sphere, civil rights, and commu-
 For the program of the BCC see, Angel Tomov, “Makedonskite Partii Sled Mladoturskiya Pre-
vrat: 1. Săjuzăt na Bălgarskite Konstitutsionni Klubove v Turtsiya,” Makedonska Misăl 1– 2, no. 2
(October 1946): 53 – 60, here 58 – 59; and Părvanova, Neosăshchestveniya Hurriyet, 101.
 For the demonstrations, see “Miting v Solun,” Nov Vek, no. 1365, 3/16 October 1908, 3.
 The problem of citizenship is mentioned in Kansu, 1908 devrimi, 235. Pancho Dorev had also
the support of the Committee of Union and Progress, see Tasos Kostopoulos, “Entre Vote et
Marchandage,” Cahiers Balkaniques [En Ligne] 40 (March 9, 2012), https://doi.org/10.4000/
ceb.1269. §21.
66 Barış Zeren
nitarian privileges to administrative and cultural issues. For the CUP, at the cen-
ter of all problems stood the task of establishing the sovereignty of the empire
and of ensuring the unification of the population under the “Ottoman” identity
after long years of tyranny (istibdat). On the other hand, although “unification of
elements” (ittihâd-ı ‘anâsır) was a term widespread in popular and official dis-
course, there was little agreement on how this unification would be achieved.⁵³
All was left to the course of events, to the parliament, the legislative organ in
which the representatives of various segments of the Ottoman society would
reach a formula on these critical issues. In other words, the revolution – with
the lack of a revolutionary conception of power – promoted evolutionary
ways. It was a time of law and diplomacy.
In this conjuncture, every community introduced their conception of Otto-
man unity through certain critical laws that were related to various conflicts in-
herited from the ancien régime and that would have effects on their status in the
new regime. These were the law of associations (Cemiyetler Kanunu), the law of
churches and schools (Kiliseler ve Mektepler Kanunu), and the law on brigandage
(Çeteler Kanunu).
The Macedonian-Bulgarian network was represented in the chamber by four
deputies. While Dimităr Vlahov (the deputy of Thessaloniki) and Hristo Dalchev
(Serres) were affiliated with the left-wing, Todori Pavlov (Skopje) and Pancho
Dorev were from the BCC.⁵⁴ A general view of the Macedo-Bulgarian deputies
in the parliament suggests that they did not carry their internal disagreements
to the Chamber of Deputies, and conducted a common policy, particularly con-
cerning these laws. In all these agendas, the Macedo-Bulgarian deputies –similar
to the strategy of the Hellenic deputies – tried to justify their position by refer-
encing the identity of “Ottoman,” or as a prerequisite of being Ottoman. Howev-
er, there were important nuances in their conception of “Ottomanism,” which
was of importance to elaborate the peculiarity of Pancho Dorev. ⁵⁵
 For various definitions for a unified Ottoman identity, see Alexander Vezenkov, “Reconcili-
ation of the Spirits and Fusion of the Interests. ‘Ottomanism’ as an Identity Politics,” in We, the
People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe, ed. Mishkova Diana (Budapest:
Central European University Press, 2013), 47– 77.
 Kansu, 1908 devrimi, 325, 336 – 337.
 The Hellenic network, in coordination with Athens and the Patriarchate, could demonstrate
a relatively homogenous attitude in the parliament despite their divergences. The discourse of
Helleno-Ottomanism, describing the Ottoman Empire as a common state of Greeks and Turks
drew a framework under which the Hellenic deputies could develop their positions. The Hellenic
deputies used this discourse extensively during earlier sessions of the Ottoman parliament. See
Sia Anagnostopoulou, “La Macédoine des Jeunes-Turcs et l’hellénisme à travers la presse grec-
An emblematic debate for demonstrating the relation of these communities

with the parliament and Ottoman identity was the one that erupted during the
20th and 21st sessions of the Chamber of Deputies at the end of January 1909.
The debate broke out because of a parliamentary interpellation presented to Hü-
seyin Hilmi Pasha – the former General Inspector of Rumelia and Interior Min-
ister in the period in question – by two Bulgarian deputies (Dalchev and Vlahov)
along with Abdullah Azmi (a CUP-affiliated deputy of Kütahya) on the disorder
in the provinces of Bitola, Thessaloniki, and Kosovo.⁵⁶ The chamber elaborated
the Macedonian question from various sides and aspects, as each party present-
ed its version of the historical account, definitions, terminologies, and solutions
of the problem.
The Hellenic deputies, such as Giorgos Haneous or Giorgos Boussios, ad-
dressed the sovereignty concerns of the Ottoman statesmen by emphasizing
that the main problem in Rumelia were Russia’s pan-Slavist ambitions and Bul-
garian nationalism originating in the San Stefano Treaty that had put the idea of
“Greater Bulgaria” into the minds of pan-Slavists. In this discourse, it was mainly
the influence of the Patriarchate which posed an obstacle to such separatist am-
bitions. The Ottoman state had, however, made crucial mistakes, first by permit-
ting the opening of the Exarchate, and second by giving berats to open churches
and schools in Rumelia in a way to impair the authority of the Patriarchate, the
ancient ally of the Ottoman Empire.⁵⁷ The Hellenic deputies took a stance con-
fronting the “national” demands and emphasized the superiority of religious af-
filiation (Orthodoxy) over the national one in overcoming the divisions.⁵⁸
que : 1908 – 1910,” Cahiers balkaniques, no. 40 (January 9, 2012), https://doi.org/10.4000/

ceb.1128.
 The debate is evaluated in the context of various interpretations of the Ottoman identity
more broadly in Ileana Moroni, “The Transformation of Loyalties as a Continuous Process: Ot-
tomanism and Its Different Versions in the Aftermath of the Young Turk Revolution,” in Balkan
Nationalism(s) and the Ottoman Empire, ed. Dimitris Stamatopoulos, vol. III: The Young Turk
Revolution and Ethnic Groups (Istanbul: ISIS Press, 2015).
 See Trayanos Nallis’ intervention in MMZC, Term 1, Session 20, 381– 386. Nallis referred to
the regulations of Sultan Mehmed II about the Patriarchate concluding that the survival of
the Patriarchate is only possible with the survival of the Ottoman state [ “(…) zira patrikhanenin
vücudu daima Hükümet-i Osmaniyenin vücuduyla kaimdir”] (orthography in the source is pre-
served). MMZC, Term 1, Session 20, 383. Yorgos Boussios supported this view adding that the cri-
terion of nationality (kavmiyet) on language would be harmful and Macedonian was not a part
of Bulgarian language; see his intervention in MMZC, Term 1, Session 21, 408 – 409.
 See Haneus’ speech in MMZC, Term 1, Session 21, 412. For the connection of Hellenic depu-
ties’ discourse with the Helleno-Ottomanism, see Moroni, “The Transformation of Loyalties,”
68 ff.
68 Barış Zeren
As for the Macedo-Bulgarian deputies, they tended to draw a bold line be-
tween the past and present of the Ottoman Empire, emphasizing the rupture
from the ancien régime: The “Ottoman” was an identity to be built thencefor-
ward. What they underscored was tyranny and despotism, which had forbidden
the rights of the Bulgarian people to choose the Exarchate and use the Bulgarian
language. In contrast to the mention of San Stefano by the Hellenic deputies, the
deputies of the Macedo-Bulgarian network underscored the Ilinden Uprising as
the starting point of the confessional conflicts. It was the increasing oppressions
of the Patriarchists that had led the actors of the Macedo-Bulgarian cause to an
armed struggle. Now that the constitution was promulgated, they opined, it was
time to provide complete rights, including the freedom of religion, which was for-
mulated as a natural right.⁵⁹ This required the removal of the principle of status
quo, but as the executive branch was incapable of bringing peace in Rumelia, the
immediate solution should be to change the officials in the region while an es-
sential solution would be in the hands of the parliament.⁶⁰
To this general framework, Dorev added other arguments that drew strong
support from the Ottoman chamber. He opened his speech with a definition of
Ottoman identity, criticizing Greek deputies’ linking the Ottoman state to the
Rum identity, and declared that the Ottoman state could be matched “neither
with the Rum nor with the Turk. And henceforth the Ottoman state would belong
to the Ottomans.”⁶¹ Therefore, he pictured an Ottoman identity having a “supra-
national,” independent character, which would set it apart from its constituting
elements. As this definition of Ottoman state was greeted with applause in the
chamber, Dorev advanced his argument radically, rejecting Hüseyin Hilmi Pa-
sha’s accusations about the foreign (implying Sofia) interference on the Mace-
do-Bulgarian movement, or those of the Hellenic deputies about “pan-Slavism.”
He reminded that the founders of the Internal Organization were Ottomans, and
that this organization resisted the infiltration of the Verhovist group (of Sofia) as
well.⁶² On the issue of churches, repeating the Macedo-Bulgarian position on the
freedom of belief, he criticized theological references of Hellenic deputies, stat-
 See Dalchev’s speech in MMZC, Term 1, Session 20, 375.

 See Dalchev’s speech in MMZC, Term 1, Session 20, 374, 377. Dorev too considers the princi-
ple of status quo as a sign of weakness of the executive branch and emphasizes that the parlia-
ment should take over the solution of the problem of churches; see his speech in MMZC, Term 1,
Session 21, 430. See also Moroni, “The Transformation of Loyalties,” 72– 73.
 “Hayır, Devleti Osmaniye ne Rumlukla ne de Türklükle tev’emdir. Devleti Osmaniye bundan
böyle Osmanlıların olacaktır.” MMZC, Term 1, Session 21, 428.
 “Halbuki, biliniz ki, 1902 senesinde Rumeli’ye dahil olan o Virhovist ilhak çetelerine en ziyade
mukavemet eden, mücadele eden işte bu dahili çetedir.” MMZC, Term 1, Session 21, 428.
ing that it was not the Patriarchate or Exarchate who owned the churches, but
the community who had put their effort and assets in building them. For
Dorev, the problem of churches was not only a denominational issue, but also
a political and social problem.⁶³ He articulated the conception of natural rights
with the Exarchist position and, in contrast to the Hellenist network’s reference
to the historical legitimacy, emphasized the change the constitution should bring
about.
After having defined a legal space for Bulgarian communitarian rights,
Dorev raised the issue of Ottoman identity. According to him, in such a hard
time, private interests of the Patriarchate or the Exarchate should not be imposed
on the general interest of the Ottomans but on the contrary, “[g]eneral interest of
the Ottoman should be imposed on private interests.” However, as a general Ot-
toman interest did not exist, one should for the time being find a solution for the
private interests.⁶⁴
Yet, as for the critical question of the era, how would this general interest be
created? Dorev found the solution in a moderate and peaceful policy that re-
quired a compromise from every party. The extremist and inflexible ones,
whom it was impossible to see as an Ottoman, would stay out of the political
body of Ottomans (“kitle-i Osmaniye”). Furthermore, as a key nuance, Dorev
made a change in the established tripartite motto of the revolution – freedom
(“hürriyet”), equality (“müsavaat”) and fraternity (uhuvvet) – by substituting
the latter with the motto of “solidarité” (which he put forward without translat-
ing) as the basis of a unified Ottoman political mass. This solidarité meant com-
mon (müşterek) and hierarchically continuous (müteselsile) responsibility. Dorev
concluded his last words with general applause from the chamber: “We should
put on the Ottoman glass and must look through the glass of an Ottoman.”⁶⁵ This
speech also circulated among the Macedonian-Bulgarian public with a BCC pub-
lication in Thessaloniki.⁶⁶
 “Onun için bu mesele sırf bir mezhep meselesi değildir. Bir meselei ictimaiye ve siyasiye ve idar-
eten halli lazım gelir.” MMZC, Term 1, Session 21, 430.
 “Fikri acizaneme kalırsa Patrikhanenin, egzarhanenin menafii hususiyeleri, Devletimizin şid-
detli ihtiyacı olan böyle bir zamanda menafii umumiyei Osmaniyeye takdim olunamaz. (Şiddetli
alkışlar) Ve menafii hususiyeye, her vakit, menafii Osmaniyeyi takdim etmeliyiz. Ancak menafii Os-
maniye mevzubahis olmadığı bir zamanda menafii hususiyeyi halle çalışmalı”. MMZC, Term 1, Ses-
sion 21, 430.
 MMZC, Term 1, Session 21, 430.
 Otomanskiyat Parlament za Polozhenieto v Makedoniya. Izdanie na “Săyuza na bălgarkiste
konstitutsiyonni klubove” v Evropeyska Turtsiya, Solun, 1909, cited partially in article no. 115, in
Macedonia Documents And Materials, eds. Voin Bozhinov and L. Panayotov (Sofia: Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences, 1978), http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/ban/index.html.
70 Barış Zeren
It is worth elaborating en passant on Dorev’s reference to the concept of sol-

idarité, which was a well-known approach in mainstream legal thinking of the
epoch. As he used solidarité as a replacement of the term of fraternity, he
must have asserted it as a concept to concretize the content of the slogan,
which up to that time had remained a blur. We do not know to what extent
this concept of solidarité determined Dorev’s thinking, but his whole chain of
ideas in this critical debate suggests that Dorev imagined the Ottoman identity
as a collective body of common reason that would come out gradually from mod-
erate thinking. Although in the French context this concept was asserted to over-
come class differences in favor of general interest, here Dorev seems to use it to
subdue ethnoconfessional differences; this was a scheme proposed in addition
to the framework of natural rights and parliamentarianism reiterated by other
Bulgarian deputies. This can be seen as a legalist approach, which tended to re-
place the subjectivism of the social contract with a sociological approach under-
lining the objective interests in creating a society.⁶⁷ His further moves would
prove that this scheme was not mere lip service.
As his prestige increased in politics, Dorev established official connections
with the Exarchist circle. In 1909, he became a member of the civil council of
the Bulgarian Exarchate. Thus, he could be directly involved in the activities
of the Bulgarian community, which, in Dorev’s view, had largely benefited
from the proclamation of the hürriyet. According to the data in his memoirs, at
the time in Rumelia the Exarchate had 2000 schools with 60,000 students
and well-paid, qualified teachers; three (boys’, girls’, and commercial) gymnasi-
ums in Thessaloniki along with two publishing houses, booksellers, journals,
and magazines. There were “young and energetic representatives of the commu-
nity,” doctors, and lawyers in big towns. The community could open a Bulgarian
school in the vicinities of Istanbul such as Çatalca while almost all Macedonian
militants and voyvodi were appointed as school inspectors, metropolitan offi-
cials, and teachers. Furthermore, Dorev significantly argues, the enactment by
the parliament of the Law on Churches and Schools provided the Exarchate
with additional 140 village churches and 70 – 80.000 people. This picture of a
flourishing Ottoman Bulgarian society proved in the eyes of Dorev the rightful-
ness of his “evolutionary method” in “peacefully solving the problem of Bulgar-
ian people.” Instead of Sofia or komitadji groups, the Macedo-Bulgarian cause
should be based on the Exarchate, which combined moral and spiritual author-
 See M. Diroux, De La Solidarité Sociale (Orléans: Imprimérie Orléanaise, 1902). Solidarism

(translated in Turkish as tesânütçülük) deeply influenced Turkish statesmen of Dorev’s genera-
tion, see Zafer Toprak, Türkiye’de Popülizm 1908 – 1923 (Istanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2013), 291– 334.
ity with “inalienable rights (neotemlemitye prava) of a young and uncorrupted

people.” According to Dorev, this gradual and evolutionary attitude would
lead to a “national unification” (natsionalno obedinenie) by removing the distrust
with the Turks and friction with the Greeks.⁶⁸
This account from 1920 gives us important clues as to the underlying motives
of Dorev’s strategy in the Ottoman constitutional era and demonstrates the po-
litical investment he made in the Ottoman legal sphere and Ottoman parliamen-
tarianism. In his thought, extant confessional institutionalization was a base to
satisfy all national interests with the additional benefit of adapting itself to the
constitutional framework. But the whole scheme of evolution and natural rights
would gain meaning with the endurance of the Ottoman parliament.
However, the course of events turned to the opposite direction. Initially,
there came the “March 31” uprising (of April 1909) led by soldiers, supported
by certain Islamist circles and students of Islamic religious schools in Istanbul.
The incident started as an anti-CUP reaction but revealed that anti-constitution-
alist dynamics in the empire were still alive and organized. The mutineers took
control of the Ottoman capital, dissolved the cabinet, and put the Chamber of
Deputies under pressure. The uprising was suppressed by the Army of Action
(Hareket Ordusu) organized in Macedonia, and led by Ottoman constitutionalist
army officers with the participation of volunteers from various segments of the
Ottoman society, including Macedo-Bulgarianist left-wing leaders such as Cher-
nopeyev.⁶⁹ Sultan Abdulhamid II was dethroned. The Kanun-ı Esasi was substan-
tially amended, in order to strengthen the power of the parliament vis-à-vis the
Sultan. However, the obvious fragility of the parliament during the uprising,
which had only worsened the previous impression of its incapability in bringing
solutions to critical questions, set the ground for a strict political extra-parlia-
mentary intervention. Hence, when the Army of Action, commanded by Mahmud
Şevket Pasha suppressed the mutiny, it declared martial law (idare-i örfiyye) in
Istanbul as well as in other provinces, starting an era that would continue
with short intervals until the end of the World War I. Enforcement of the martial
law meant the domination of the executive power in the administration of the
state, putting the parliament in the secondary position along with the weakening
of constitutional rights.
 Excerpt from Dorev’s article in Tsărkoven Vyestnik, no 1, 14 March 1920 as given in Dorev,
Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 23 – 24.
 Părvanova, Neosăshchestveniya Hurriyet, 171– 172.
72 Barış Zeren
6. In Defense of Constitutional Rights

Remarkably, that was the time when most critical laws were enacted in virtue of
the pressure of the government and in certain cases, by the army. The law on
churches and schools triggered disputes among Hellenic and Macedo-Bulgarian
networks during which Dorev, as well as other Macedo-Bulgarian deputies, en-
thusiastically supported the immediate enactment and enforcement of the
law.⁷⁰ However, this enthusiasm did not last long, for another crucial law, the
law on associations deeply disappointed deputies from both Hellenic and Mace-
do-Bulgarian affiliations. It was the March 31 incident that had raised the idea of
regulating the organizations, but when the government prepared the draft law, it
was seen that certain articles were directly targeting Hellenic and Bulgarian as-
sociations. Article 4, in particular, drew reaction, for it prohibited the establish-
ment of associations based on racial (cinsiyet) and ethnic/national (kavmiyet)
identity. This time, the non-Muslim deputies from Hellenic, Macedo-Bulgarian,
and Armenian networks acted jointly to oppose this article, reminding the parlia-
ment of the idea of inalienable, fundamental rights. Dorev too was one of the
critics, and pointed out the similarity between the old regime, which had cen-
sured the terms such as freedom (hürriyet) or homeland (vatan), and the consti-
tutional regime that intended now to prohibit the words cinsiyet and kavmiyet.
During his short intervention, he maintained that nationalities were not harmful
to Ottoman unity, and on the contrary, that they altogether constituted compo-
nents of the Ottoman society, as each national affiliation corresponded to a cer-
tain economical occupation (“Yani herbiri muayyen mesaliki iktisadiyeye tabidir-
ler”).⁷¹ Nevertheless, the law was enacted as it was, leading to the closure of the
BCC along with other associations having a national title, such as the Bashkim
Association (of Albanians) or Iha el-Arabi.⁷² This signified the shift of ground on
which Dorev had risen and was standing, as rumors began to circulate about
Macedo-Bulgarian organization planning to return to armed struggle.
The third critical law, the law on political brigandage (Çeteler Kanunu) had
been enacted during this time as a provisional law (kanun-ı muvakkat), and
 MMZC, Year 1, Session 136, 04 Ağustos 1325 (17 August 1909), 498– 500.
 “For example, Turks and Bulgarians are overwhelmingly occupied with agriculture, whereas
Rums, Armenians, and Jews are with trade.” MMZC, Year 1, Session 115, 449. However superfi-
cial, it should be noted that Dorev attributed a sociological ground for the Ottoman society
that was coherent with his emphasis on the solidarité mentioned above.
 Zafer Toprak, “Cemiyetler Kanunu,” in Tanzimattan Cumhuriyete Türkiye Ansiklopedisi (Istan-
bul: Iletişim Yayınları, 1983), 206.
was immediately enforced, although it had not been approved by the parliament.
In the beginning, Dorev emphasized the instant need to enact this law that
would expectedly reduce the influence of brigandage networks from the political
scene. Presumably, his support was not only a step against the Hellenist or rival
ethnoreligious groups but also against his rivals in the BCC network who were
monitoring the correct time to resort to armed struggle. Furthermore, it was sure-
ly a reflection of his expectation that the parliament’s legislative regulation
would solve an issue in the field.⁷³
Indeed, a blow to Dorev’s efforts took place in Bitola with the assassination
of a certain Yovo Yovanovich, a Montenegrin Slav militant in the Macedo-Bulgar-
ian network known for his precarious past, who had become a school inspector
during the constitutional era. Upon the assassination, local Ottoman authorities
arrested notables of the Macedo-Bulgarian organization, including Pancho’s
brother, Atse Dorev. While these notables were brought to the court-martial
(Divan-ı Harb-i Örfî) as political criminals investigated under the martial law,
the arrests led to a scandal that drew Pancho Dorev into the middle of a conflict
between his network and the Ottoman state. Not only his ex-comrades but also
the social network of the Macedo-Bulgarian organization was now mobilized
against the government, sending protest telegrams.⁷⁴ The situation was evolving
toward a split between the Macedo-Bulgarian network, whose leaders would be
brought before the court-martial, and the new Ottoman constitutional regime.
This case seemed to shake the difficult balance Dorev had tried to establish
in politics. First, the parliament proved ineffective as the regime was sliding into
an exceptional character. As a provisional law, the law on brigandage was being
enforced in Rumelia without parliamentary approval. Hence, he looked for infor-
mal ways to interfere with the question. In his memoirs, we read that he got his
brother and the other suspects released by the involvement of Hüseyin Hilmi
Pasha and Habib Bey (the Bolu deputy) who had pressured the local court-mar-
tial. ⁷⁵
When the law on brigandage was presented to the Chamber in the form of a
new martial law, Dorev took this time a rather critical stance, and underscored
that in Rumelia the conditions had deteriorated due to bad government. Aside
from stating the incompatibility of the martial law draft with Kanun-ı Esasi, he
expressed his regret that the Ottoman state lacked a spiritual force (kuvva-i man-
eviye) while the creation of a unity of elements (ittihad-ı anasır) had proved un-
 Dorev gave the chamber a parliamentary notice demanding immediate negotiation of the
Law on Brigandage. MMZC, Year 2, Session 23, 28 Kanun-ı Evvel 1325 (07 January 1910).
 For instance, BOA, DH.MUİ. 46 – 2/21, 22 Kanun-ı Evvel 325 (04.01.1910).
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 17.
74 Barış Zeren
successful. He criticized the central government for letting outlawed people be

employed as secret police in Rumelia (as a reference to Yovanovich), while the
local authorities were taking arbitrary measures against local population. The
problem with the law draft was that it would lead to increased arbitrary admin-
istration at the local level. This picture, for Dorev, was undermining the senti-
ment of Ottomanity (Osmanlılık). Remarkably, to an objection of Rahmi Bey (a
Thessaloniki deputy and prominent CUP leader), Dorev argued that he could
be seen as a more appropriate representative of the Ottomanness, for he had
been educated both in Bulgarian and Turkish schools as opposed to Rahmi
Bey who had only lived in Turkish quarters.⁷⁶
7. Return of the Revolutionary Struggle and

Dorev’s New Political Party
The second blow to Dorev was the decision of Macedo-Bulgarianist “right-wing”
to return to the armed struggle. The closure of their organization appeared as
part of a wider transformation in politics in a period when expectations from
the parliament, from the CUP, and by this token from Ottoman constitutionalism,
were broken down with consecutive events, such as the Albanian uprising of
1911, the increasing pressure of the Ottoman government, and the local bureauc-
racy’s arbitrary measures all destabilizing the region. Eventually, the illegal for-
mations of the Internal Organization returned to revolutionary strategy by organ-
izing bomb attacks, resisting the disarmament campaign, and imposing the
immediate application of administrative reforms. There was not much to be
done in terms of legislation, except that the Macedo-Bulgarian deputies, with
the last move, resorted to parliamentary motions to the government, and formu-
lated their complaints about the local authorities, infringements to the constitu-
tional rule, their demands to prevent oppression on the Bulgarian population,
for a re-evaluation of the law on brigandage, and for preserving various rights
of Bulgarians.⁷⁷
Dorev seems to have radically separated his way from his Macedo-Bulgarian-
ist network in this political conjuncture. Remarkably, he did not sign the parlia-
mentary motion presented by the Bulgarian deputies.⁷⁸ Instead, one sees him
 MMZC, Year 2, Session 74, 5 Nisan 1326 (18 April 1910), 194– 195.
 BOA, BEO, 3779 283412, 22 May 326 (04.06.1910).
 “Memoar na bălgarskite deputati protiv povedenieto na Mladoturskiya rezhim kăm bălgar-
skoto naselenie” Debărski Glas, no. 10, May 1910.
building another type of diplomacy by visiting the Greek Patriarch for a rap-
prochement of the Greek and Bulgarian Orthodox churches.⁷⁹ Besides, Dorev em-
barked upon a policy that seemed substantially in contrast with the tendencies
of this period. He founded a new party, called the Ottoman Progressive Party,
centered in Thessaloniki and Bitola “to save the Bulgarians and to bring peace
with the Turks.”⁸⁰ This was an attempt to construct Ottoman unity outside the
parliament, and a quest for gaining the trust of the constitutional regime. In-
deed, in his memoirs, he mentions three mistakes of the Macedo-Bulgarianist
network that had led him to take this route. First, at the head of the organization
there existed foreign people who were not credible in the eyes of the Young
Turks. Second, there was the inadequacy in explaining the significance of the
law on associations. The third point relates to the reluctance of the established
leaders to resign from their posts as the “chiefs” of the movement. Considering
the deteriorating conditions, Dorev stated, he took the initiative in order to save
the Bulgarian population from danger and “gain the trust of authorities to gain
justice.” He even declared that the left-wing, organized under the Federalist
Party, had agreed to collaborate. Furthermore, he guaranteed that if he could
not create a consensus, he would step back.⁸¹
Thus was sealed the fate of his endeavor. Within a year, his initiative would
dissolve, as politics had become rapidly polarized on the question of nationali-
ties. Dorev’s entourage interpreted his policies as giving up all the demands of
the Bulgarians, with the full adoption of the Young Turk program. As reflected
in the Macedo-Bulgarian press, Dorev was accusing his network of bombarding
the newly born constitutional regime with demands of autonomy the like of
which even Kropotkin or Bebel would not dare to assert.⁸²
As the whole tension within the constitutional regime echoed in the neigh-
boring Balkan states, it became more and more clear that the conditions were
getting favorable for foreign intervention. In 1911, the Tripoli War with Italy im-
plied that external wars would add to the civil war atmosphere. The Balkan Wars
in 1912 finished an era for the Ottoman Empire, depriving it of 500-year-old pos-
sessions in the Balkans, and also for Dorev, who had to leave the empire after all
 “Le Patriarcat du Phanar et l’Exarchat bulgare,” La Jeune Turquie : organe des intérêts gén-
éraux de l’Empire ottoman, November 23, 1910.
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 20.
 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 21.
 Konstantin Pandev, “Politicheski iskaniya i programm na bălgarskoto natsionalno–osvobo-
ditelno dvizhenie v Makedoniya i Ordinsko (1878 – 1912),” Istoricheski Pregled, no. 6 (1980):
21– 49. http://www.electronic-library.org/articles/Article_0088.html accessed, 27.04. 2020.
76 Barış Zeren
the expectations about the parliamentary regime, and an ittihad-ı anasır, had
failed.
8. Conclusion
This trajectory suggests that in the persona of Pancho Dorev we see an intellec-
tual figure in the fin-de-siècle Balkans expressing multiple loyalties – as a Bul-
garian and an Ottoman – and nourished by a wider web of connections extend-
ing from illegal komitadji groups to legal ecclesiastical institutions, not to
mention the Ottoman statesmen of the era. In contrast to his entourage, includ-
ing his brother, Dorev embraced legal and legalist politics, and firmly adopted a
judicial stance, which he had acquired from universities of two empires. This for-
mation provided him with an intellectual tool – a legal and institutional perspec-
tive – to solve the extant conflicts of the era, with the question of nationalities in
the first place.
On the other hand, it was mostly after the July revolution of 1908 that Dorev
found a suitable climate to use his set of knowledge and put an effort to develop
a constitutional understanding adopted to the Ottoman society. He acted as an
intermediary to create a legal sphere covering various Ottoman parties, and com-
bined Exarchist demands with the notion of natural and inalienable rights. But
he did not limit himself with defining his community’ status and formulated a
framework for a common Ottoman identity that, in the first place, depended
on the French idea of solidarism.
His discourse and effort in the Ottoman parliament suggest that he opted for
the transformation of the Ottoman society from within. In the constitutional pe-
riod, Pancho Dorev was trying to pass beyond the existing points of deadlock by
referencing judicial-sociological notions of national unity. Thus, he planned to
purify the political sphere from revolutionary radicalism of any type and, in
turn, to gain the trust of the constitutional regime, as another formal ground
to hold. Although inspired by western sociology, his judicial supranationalism
seems to have been a genuine construction, for other Bulgarian networks saw
the constitutional revolution as an opportunity to impose their nationalist de-
mands, and did not completely give up political militancy. Interestingly, he
was so insistent on introducing a legalist stance over other ideologies that he as-
sumed the role of an intermediary between the parties of these schisms, rather
than acting as a deputy representing his community or his network.
Dorev’s future efforts, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, suggest
that his underlying concern was not to save the empire but to apply his legalist
worldview in such a way as to constitute a supranational tie overcoming rival re-
gional and even global poles. Consequently, assuming different roles in his late
19th-century and early 20th-century political life, he sought to introduce a certain
legalist worldview to the inter-imperial political sphere and represented a typol-
ogy that envisaged an international order strictly connected to constitutional,
legal practices and institutions.⁸³
The Ottoman constitutionalism served only as a laboratory, a micro-universe
to build a “société des nations” as Léon Bourgeois, who was known for leading
the current of “solidarisme,” famously mentioned in his works. This view be-
came a global trend considering that Léon Bourgeois was eventually awarded
the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1920 at a time when Dorev was continuously indi-
cating points of reconciliation between the Eastern European “nations” and
even demanding a pan-European movement.⁸⁴ Obviously, his expectations in
this era proved again an illusion with the coming of World War II, as had
been the case in the Ottoman Empire.
 For a broader framework on this typology particularly in the extra-European political sphere,
see Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History 1400 – 1900 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 6, also see 3, 16 – 18. For the role of various forms of
intermediaries, also see Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, “A Framework for a Debate,” 10 – 16.
 Pancho Dorev, Vănshna Politika: Nashi i Svjetovni Problemi (Sofia: Pridvorna Pechatnitsa,
1926), 60 – 64. In this book consecrated to the global problems in the 1920s, he gave an explicit
example of his stance.
Berrak Burçak
Chapter 3
Deconstructing ‘Orientalism’ at the 1893
World’s Columbian Exposition: Esmeralda
Cervantes, Sultan Abdulhamid II and the
“Address on the Education and Literature
of the Women of Turkey”
“Islam neither destroyed knowledge nor was it
destroyed with knowledge.”¹
Namık Kemal
1. Introduction
In July 22, 1893 the renowned Catalan harpist, composer and activist Clotilde
Cerdà i Bosch (stage name Esmeralda Cervantes, 1862– 1926) delivered a speech
entitled Address on the Education and Literature of the Woman of Turkey [hence-
forth Address] at a subsidiary exposition at the World’s Columbian Exposition in
Chicago.² Enquiring into why a Catalan female musician spoke on behalf of Otto-
man Muslim women at the Chicago fair, this chapter explores the politics of
knowledge in the belle époque. Adopting global history as an approach, the
chapter examines the Address not as a case of Western impact vs. Eastern re-
sponse, but part of a larger process of transnational movement of ideas and in-
tellectual entanglement in the nineteenth century.³ It maintains that the Address
 Quoted in York A. Norman, “Disputing the ‘Iron Circle’: Renan, Afghani, and Kemal on Islam,
Science and Modernity,” Journal of World History 22, no. 4 (December 2011): 694.
 Senorita Esmeralda Cervantes, “Address on the Education and Literature of the Women of
Turkey,” Delivered Before the World’s Congress Auxiliary, Saturday, July 22, 1893. For the trans-
lation of the Address into Ottoman-Turkish see Başkanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (hereafter BOA),
Y.PRK.TKM., 29/76, H. 6 Safer 1311 (19 August 1893). The Address has also been published in Mu-
hammad Al-Ahari, The 1893 World Parliament of Religion: Papers on Islam (Chicago: Magribine
Press, 2017), 160 – 177. A transcription of the Address may also be found in Arşiv Belgelerine Göre
Osmanlı’da Kadın (Istanbul: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü, 2015), 276 – 287.
 Sebastian Conrad, What is Global History? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-004
80 Berrak Burçak
constituted a significant moment in late Ottoman “world-making”⁴ within a

transnational Muslim engagement with European ways of imagining and depict-
ing the East; an important phenomenon “of writing the world”⁵ that Edward Said
later conceptualized as ‘Orientalism’ in his 1978 text.⁶ In the nineteenth century,
the particular ways of distinguishing the ‘West’ from the ‘East’ were part of his-
toricism, which the historian Monica Ringer describes in her recent work as “a
constellation of ideas including progress, universalism, comparativism, evolu-
tion, civilisation, humanism and science.”⁷ Affected by “the simultaneous
growth of European (and later American) power over Muslim lands and peo-
ples,”⁸ historicism prevailed as a new transnational methodology and epistemol-
ogy. Within this framework, the Orient became a “powerful category in the nine-
teenth-century European popular and scholarly culture” in defining the
superiority of the West.⁹ Historicism was closely associated with the twin con-
cepts of progress and civilization:
History emerged as the story of universal civilisational progress. Civilisation was imagined
as a series of steps, or levels, that displayed particular characteristics. Cultures were as-
signed to these different levels of civilisations according to their ‘civilisational’ features.
[…] Writ large, history was the charting of the progress of the torch of civilisation as it pro-
gressed from civilizational level to civilisational level, carried forward by one culture before
being taken up by another, more advanced culture. At the granular level, history involved
the location of a specific cultures within the universal civilisational hierarchy, the stringing
together of all cultures, past and present, in order of civilisational progress.¹⁰
 Duncan Bell, “Making and Taking Worlds,” in Global Intellectual History, eds. Samuel Moyn
and Andrew Sartori (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 254– 279. See also Conrad,
What is Global History.
 Conrad, What is Global History, 214.
 Edward Said, Orientalism (Vintage Books, 1994). Said attempted the first systematic study of
how the ‘West’ constructed an intellectual discourse on the ‘East,’ based on increasing power of
the former over the latter.
 Monica M. Ringer, Islamic Modernism and the Re-Enchantment of the Sacred in the Age of His-
tory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 11.
 Zachary Lockman, Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Oriental-
ism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
 Zachary Lockman, Contending Visions; “Over the course of the nineteenth century, Europeans
and Americans would increasingly come to see the Orient as divided into two distinct units: a
‘Near East’, comprising southeastern Europe, the Levant […] and other parts of western Asia
nearer to Europe and a ‘Far East’, encompassing India, southeast Asia, China and Japan”
cited in Lockman, Contending Visions, 66.
 Ringer, Islamic Modernism, 16.
Chapter 3 Deconstructing ‘Orientalism’ at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition 81
Gender and religion were two significant and interrelated categories in this intel-
lectual configuration; religion, the status of women, and the civilizational stage
of a people were all closely linked.¹¹ The “oppressed” state of Muslim women
“served as a key criterion in judging the civilizational ‘backwardness’ of Muslim
majority societies.”¹² A plethora of Western works including travel literature, art
and photography depicted “Muslim women as terribly oppressed and subjugat-
ed, indeed as little more than slaves, constantly available for the erotic gratifica-
tion of oversexed Muslim men.”¹³
The particular shaping of Orientalist discourse owed much to the French Ori-
entalist Ernest Renan’s (1823 – 1892) widely circulated 1883 Sorbonne lecture en-
titled “Islam and Science.” In his lecture “Renan argued that Islam was a meta-
phoric ‘iron band’ crowning the heads of Muslims that prevented rational and
scientific thought and which therefore constituted Islamic societies’ backward-
ness vis-à-vis Europe.”¹⁴ This attack on Islam as hostile to science and Muslims
as backward people engendered a number of refutations from various Muslim in-
tellectuals as well as “dissident Europeans”¹⁵ around the world. These included
the Iranian ideologist and political activist Cemaleddin Afghani (1838 – 1897)
who widely traveled the world,¹⁶ the prayer leader (imam) of the St. Petersburg
Mosque Ataullah Bayezidof (1841– 1911) from the Russian Empire, the jurist and
author Syed Emir Ali (1849 – 1928) writing from India, the renowned man of let-
ters and a leading member of the Young Ottoman movement Namık Kemal
(1840 – 1888) and the reformer and revivalist thinker Reşid Rıza (1865 – 1935)
among others.¹⁷
Thanks to modern developments in steam and print, people and ideas easily
traveled around the globe, creating conversation not only between Muslims and
 Ann Towns, “The Status of Women as a Standard of ‘Civilization,’” European Journal of In-
ternational Relations 15, no. 4 (2009): 681– 706.
 Ansev Demirhan, “‘We Can Defend Our Rights By Our Own Efforts’: Turkish Women and the
Global Muslim Question, 1870 – 1935,” Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Chapel Hill, 2020, 29. I thank
Deniz Kuru for bringing this thesis to my attention.
 Lockman, Contending Visions of the Middle East, 70. See also Adil Baktıaya, Bir Osmanlı Ka-
dınının Feminizm Macerası ve Hamidiye Modernleşmesi (Istanbul: H20 Kitap, 2016).
 Ringer, Islamic Modernism, 2.
 Lockman, Contending Visions, 83.
 Nikkie Keddie, “The Pan-Islamic Appeal: Afghani and Abdülhamid II,” Middle Eastern Stud-
ies, 3, no. 1 (1966): 46 – 67.
 For an annotated bibliography of all the refutations to Renan’s lecture, see Dücane Cündioğ-
lu, “Ernest Renan ve ‘Reddiyeler’ Bağlamında Islam-Bilim Tartışmalarına Bibliyografik Bir
Katkı,” Divân: Disiplinlerarası Çalışmalar Dergisi 2 (1996): 1– 94. See also Norman, “Disputing
the ‘Iron Circle’”.
82 Berrak Burçak
Europeans but also between Muslim intellectuals. For example, in 1872 Namık
Kemal published “Europe Knows Nothing of the East” in the newspaper Ibret
(Admonition).¹⁸ The Ottoman intellectual and publisher Ebüzziya Tevfik
(1849 – 1913) followed suit with another article bearing the same title in his Mec-
mua-i Ebüzziya. ¹⁹ Cemaleddin Afghani visited the Ottoman Empire on Abdulha-
mid’s II’s invitation in 1892 and Bayezidof’s refutation was translated into Otto-
man-Turkish as twin-essays with the titles Refuting Renan: Islam and Science
(1890/91) and Islam’s Relationship with Education and Refutation from an Islamic
Perspective (1893/94) by the Ottoman journalist Ahmed Cevdet (not to be con-
fused with Ahmed Cevdet Pasha) and the Russian Orientalist Olga Sergeevna
de Lebedef (1854-?), known to her Ottoman audience as Madame Gülnar.²⁰
These interactions all played into shaping Pan-Islamism as a modern ideology.
Pan-Islamism centred on what the historian Cemil Aydın has termed “the idea
of the Muslim world,” a geopolitical unit of united Muslim peoples in those
areas both inhabited by and ruled over by Muslims.²¹
Prior to their publication as books, the two essays were published as a series
in the newspaper Tercüman-ı Hakikat (Interpreter of Truth) that was headed by
the renowned Ottoman man of letters Ahmed Midhat Efendi (1844– 1912). Ma-
dame Gülnar, whom Midhat described as a “pro-Ottoman woman in love with
Islam,”²² was “one of the first to introduce the Turkish reading public to the
treasures of Russian literature, thus making an invaluable contribution to Turk-
ish-Russian literature at the end of the nineteenth century.”²³ In fact, Sultan Ab-
dulhamid II was so pleased with Gülnar’s literary activities that he honored her
with the Order of Charity (Şefkat Nişanı), an Ottoman decoration exclusively re-
 Zeynep Çelik, Avrupa Şark’ı Bilmez: Eleştirel Bir Söylem (1872 – 1932) (Istanbul: Koç Üniversi-
tesi Yayınları, 2020), 59 – 62.
 Çelik, Avrupa Şark’ı Bilmez, 63 – 64.
 Petersburg imam ve müderrisi Ataullah Bayezidof, Islamiyetin Maarife Taalluku ve Nazar-ı
Muarızında Tebyini, translated from the Russian by Gülnar (Madame de Lebedef) and Ahmed
Cevdet (Dersaadet: Tercüman-ı Hakikat Matbaası, 1308[1890]); Petersburg imam ve müderrisi
Ataullah Bayezidof, Redd-i “Renan”: Islamiyet ve Fünun, translated by Madame Gülnar and
Ahmed Cevdet (Istanbul: Tercüman-ı Hakikat Matbaası, 1311[1894]).
 Cemil Aydın, The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2017).
 Ahmed Midhat Efendi, Fazıl ve Feylesof Kızım: Fatma Aliye’ye Mektuplar, prepared by F. Sa-
mime Inceoğlu and Zeynep Süslü Berktaş (Istanbul: Klasik Yayınları, 2011), 57.
 Türkan Olcay, “Olga Lebedeva (Madame Gülnar): A Russian Orientalist and Translator En-
chants the Ottomans,” Slovo 29, no. 2 (Summer 2017): 40.
served for women.²⁴ Midhat had initially met Madame Gülnar in 1889, at the
Eight Congress of Orientalists in Stockholm when he was appointed by sultan
as an Ottoman delegate. Impressed with Gülnar, Midhat invited her to Istanbul
as an exemplary female writer who could become a spokesperson for Islam.²⁵ He
shared his observations in his work Avrupa’da Bir Cevelan (A Tour in Europe),²⁶
where he also commented upon European misrepresentations of Ottoman
women:
[This] lovable person lies negligently on a sofa. One of her slippers, embroidered with
pearls, is on the floor, while the other is on the tip of her toes. Since her garments are in-
tended to ornament rather than to conceal [her body], her legs dangling from the sofa are
half-naked and her belly and beasts are covered by fabrics as thin and transparent as a
dream. Her disheveled hair over her nude shoulders falls down in waves […]. In her
mouth is the black end of the pipe of a narghile, curving like a snake […]. A black servant
fans her. […]This is the Eastern woman Europe depicted until now[…]. It is assumed that
this body is not the mistress of her house, the wife of her husband, and the mother of
her children, but only a servant to the pleasures of the man who owns the house. What
a misconception!²⁷
In the above passage, Midhat problematizes representation by juxtaposing an

eroticized European image against “the reality” of Ottoman women as wives,
housewives and mothers. This portrayal is not unlike the popular Victorian
image of women as “the angel in the house,” submissive to her husband and de-
voted to her home and children that Queen Victoria (1819 – 1901) personally en-
couraged.²⁸
Exploring the Address within the framework of what Ansev Demirhan has
termed the “global Muslim woman question,”²⁹ this chapter focuses on the com-
plex relationship between women, knowledge and representation in the belle
 Carter Vaughn Findley, “An Ottoman Occidentalist in Europe: Ahmed Midhat Meets Madame
Gülnar, 1889,” American Historical Review 103, no. 1 (1998): 15 – 49.
 Midhat, Fazıl ve Feylesof Kızım, See also Murat Koç, “’Üdeba-yı Nisvanın Yardımcısı’ Ahmet
Midhat Efendi ve Fatma Aliye Hanım,” A.Ü. Türkiyat Enstitüsü Araştırmaları Dergisi 48 (2012):
191– 216.
 Ahmed Midhat, Avrupa’da Bir Cevelan (Istanbul: Tercüman-ı Hakikat Matbaası, 1307). See
also Findley, “An Ottoman Occidentalist in Europe.”
 Cited in Zeynep Çelik, “Speaking Back to Orientalist Discourse at the World’s Columbian Ex-
position,” in Noble Dreams Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870 – 1930, ed. Holly Ed-
wards (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 81– 82.
 “The Angel in the House” was a poem written by the British poet Coventry Patmore, origi-
nally published in 1854 and expanded in 1862, depicting the Victorian ideal of a blissful mar-
riage.
 Ansev Demirhan, “‘We Can Defend Our Rights.’”
84 Berrak Burçak
époque. Drawing upon three different stages of the Address, i. e., the preparation,
the presentation and the aftermath, the chapter makes two interrelated argu-
ments. First, the chapter argues that the Address points to a paradox between
women’s representation in terms of knowledge and their lived reality. While
the Address positions the figure of the educated Muslim woman as a powerful
symbol against Western stereotypes and female education as the building
block to construct the category of the ‘Muslim woman,’ actual woman such as
Esmeralda Cervantes and Fatma Aliye had to strive to acquire, present and circu-
late knowledge to have their voices heard. Second, the chapter explores the de-
tails of Fatma Aliye’s invitation to display her work at the Women’s Library in
Chicago in August 1893, enquiring into whether the Address may have played
a role in prompting the invitation.
The Ottoman state actively participated in nineteenth-century world con-
gresses and fairs as “congresses of Orientalist scholars in Europe presented
good opportunities for various Muslim intellectuals to address European schol-
ars directly and to convince them that the Muslim world was indeed capable of
civilizational progress.”³⁰ Numerous studies on the Ottoman involvement in the
19th-century world fairs in general, and Ottoman representation at the 1893 expo-
sition, have examined the motivations behind Ottoman participation.³¹ For ex-
ample, in his important work The Well-Protected Domains, the historian Selim
Deringil states: “Its ‘fairs policy’ consisted of two main elements. First, there
was the aim of presenting the Ottoman Empire as the leader of the Islamic
world yet a modern member of the civilized community of nations. Second, con-
stant vigilance aimed to repel any slight or insult to the Sublime State’s pres-
 Cemil Aydın, “Beyond Civilization: Pan-Islamism, Pan-Asianism and the Revolt against the
West,” Journal of Modern European History 4, no. 2 (2006): 210.
 Rifat Önsoy, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun Katıldığı Uluslararası Sergiler ve Sergi-i Umumî-i
Osmanî (1863 Istanbul Sergisi)”, Belleten 47, no. 185 (January 1983): 195 – 235; Zeynep Çelik, Dis-
playing the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth-Century World’s Fairs (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1992); Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimi-
zation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876 – 1909 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998); Çelik, “Speaking
Back to Orientalist Discourse at the World’s Columbian Exposition”; Gültekin Yıldız, “Ottoman
Participation in World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago-1893),” Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi 9
(March 2001): 131– 167; Zeynep Çelik, “ Speaking Back to Orientalist Discourse,” in Empires of
Vision: A Reader, eds. Martin Jay and Sumathi Ramaswamy (Durham: Duke University Press,
2014), 395 – 414; Zeynep Gerdan Williams, “Triumph of Commercialism: The Commodification
of the Middle Eastern Exotica at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893,” Master’s Thesis, Bil-
kent University, 2008; Ibrahim Şirin, “Dünya Fuarları ve Osmanlı Modernleşmesi,” History Stud-
ies 9, no. 2 (June 2017): 189 – 204.
tige.”³² This chapter will show that the Address engaged with both goals. There
was, however, also another goal related to the first one, to showcase the modern
image of Ottoman Muslim women at a global platform. Zeynep Çelik elaborates
on this particular dimension of the Ottoman representation at the 1893 exhibi-
tion:
[T]he Ottoman empire offered a corrective to Orientalist stereotypes in the Chicago fair and
re-represented Muslim women to the Western world by means of two interventions: a col-
lection of photography albums known as the ‘Abdul-Hamid II Albums’ and the publications
of an Ottoman woman writer, Fatma Aliye Hanım. […] By August 1893, when she received an
invitation from Edith Clark, the cataloguer of the Woman’s Library of the World’s Fair, to
send her publications for an exhibition of works by women from all over the world,
Fatma Aliye Hanım had published three books: Hayal ve Hakikat (Dream and Reality,
1892– 93), a romantic novel she co-authored with the prominent Ottoman writer Ahmet
Midhat Efendi; Muhazarat (Conversations, 1891– 92), another novel that dealt with prob-
lems of family structure from a woman’s perspective; and most importantly, Nisvan-ı
İslam (Women of Islam, 1891– 92), an analysis of women’s status in Islam. All three must
have been sent to Chicago, as the Library of the Woman’s Building recorded ‘three books
in Turkish’ under the name of “Fathma Alié.”³³
It can be observed that Fatma Aliye’s voice is central to the representation of Ot-
toman women at the Chicago fair along with the Abdulhamid albums, albeit
both being indirect representations. Actually, the organizers of the World’s Con-
gress of Representative Women had wished for Ottoman female representation at
the congress. The vice president of the World’s Congress of Representative
Women, May Wright Sewall (1844 – 1920) had extended an invitation to the Otto-
man state, but the invitation had remained inconclusive.³⁴
Fatma Aliye [Topuz] (1862– 1936), considered the first Ottoman Muslim fe-
male novelist, was the eldest daughter of the eminent Ottoman statesman, histor-
ian and jurist Ahmed Cevdet Pasha (1822– 1895).³⁵ Fatma Aliye’s prolific writing
career included translations of Western works into Ottoman Turkish as well as
 Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 154.

 Çelik, “Speaking Back,” 83 – 84, 92.
 Nicole A.N.M. van Os, “‘They Can Breathe Freely Now:’ The International Council of Women
and Ottoman Muslim Women (1893 – 1920s), Journal of Women’s History 28, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 18.
See also Çağrı Erhan, Türk-Amerikan Ilişkilerinin Tarihsel Kökenleri (Istanbul: Imge Kitabevi,
2001), 373.
 Serpil Çakır, “Aliye, Fatma (1862– 1936),” in A Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Move-
ments and Feminisms: Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries,
eds. Francisca de Haan, Krassimira Daskalova and Anna Loutfi (Budapest: Central European
University Press, 2006), 21– 24.
86 Berrak Burçak
monographs on topics ranging from the status of women in Islam to history and
philosophy. Fatma Aliye was the protégée of Ahmed Midhat; he wrote Fatma
Aliye’s biography³⁶ and in an 1890 dated letter, urged her to write Nisvan-ı
Islam (Women of Islam) as a corrective to Western misconceptions about Muslim
women.³⁷
Studies on the life and works of Fatma Aliye portray her as the quintessential
late Ottoman female writer, an Islamist feminist with a double mission to re-
spond to the Western misrepresentation of Muslim women while also fighting
for women’s rights in the Ottoman society.³⁸ Furthermore, recent studies locate
her in a global framework as “the first 19th century Ottoman transnational Mus-
lim female writer and thinker.”³⁹ These studies, which all underline that the
Women of Islam was displayed at the Woman’s Library among her two other
works, however, take the invitation at face value and do not enquire into its de-
tails.⁴⁰ One exception is the historian Nicole van Os, who suggests that Fatma
Aliye’s invitation might be linked to “Mrs. Marcellus Bowen, née Flora Pierpont
Stearns (1849 – 1927), the wife of the director of the Bible House in Istanbul.”⁴¹
More on this point will be discussed later.
What is more, studies on the Ottoman participation in the Chicago fair either
do not mention Cervantes or simply list her as a speaker among other European
 For a detailed analysis, see Hülya Adak, “Gender-in(g) Biography: Ahmet Mithat (on Fatma
Aliye) or the Canonization of an Ottoman Male Writer,” Querelles 10 (2005): 189 – 204.
 Midhat, Fazıl ve Feylesof Kızım, 27. Published in 1892, Women of Islam was translated into
French by Madame Gülnar in 1893 and Nazime Roukiyé in 1894.
 For a representative sample on Fatma Aliye, see Mübeccel Kızıltan, “Öncü Bir Yazar: Fatma
Aliye Hanım,” Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmaları 14 (1993): 282– 323; H. Emel Aşa, “Fatma Aliye Hanım
(Hayatı-Eserleri-Fikirleri),” Ph.D. Thesis, Istanbul University, 1993; Mübeccel Kızıltan, Fatma
Aliye Hanım: Yaşamı-Sanatı-Yapıtları ve Nisvan-ı Islam (Istanbul: Mutlu Yayıncılık, 1993); Elif
Ekin Akşit, “Fatma Aliye’s Stories: Ottoman Marriages Beyond the Harem,” Journal of Family His-
tory, 35, no. 3 (2010): 207– 18; Cevdet Kırpık, “Fatma Aliye Hanım and Historiography,” Bilig 53
(2010): 139 – 166; Elizabeth Paulson Marvel, “Ottoman Feminism and Republican Reform: Fatma
Aliye’s Nisvân-ı Islâm,” Master’s Thesis, The Ohio State University, 2011; Zeynep Direk, “Fatma
Aliye Hanım: Gender Debates in Turkey,” Études Asiatiques 72, no. 3 (2018): 693 – 716; Başak
Deniz Özdoğan, “In the Beginning Was ‘A Woman’: Motivation, Agency, and the Will of Fatma
Aliye,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 6, no. 2 (Fall 2019): 55 – 72.
 Senem Timuroğlu, Kanatlanmış Kadınlar: Osmanlı ve Avrupalı Kadın Yazarların Dostluğu (Is-
tanbul: Iletişim Yayınları 2020), 23. See also Demirhan, “We Can Defend Our Rights By Our Own
Efforts’”.
 See Aşa, “Fatma Aliye Hanım.”
 van Os, “‘They Can Breathe Freely Now,’” 18 – 19. See also Nicolina Anna Norberta Maria van
Os, “Feminism, Philanthropy and Patriotism: Female Associational Life in the Ottoman Empire,”
Ph.D. Thesis, Leiden University, 2013, 77.
speakers on Islam as a part of a “pro-Ottoman chorus.”⁴² Meanwhile, neither

studies in Spanish/Castilian and Catalan on the life and works of Cervantes ex-
plore how and why she presented the Address. ⁴³ By examining the Address as a
process of entanglement between local and international actors, this chapter will
explore the gendered nature of transnational networks and connections, display-
ing the “Turkish connection.”
The remainder of this study is divided into three parts. The first part outlines
the preparation of the Address in Istanbul, exploring the specific circumstances
and/or actors that shaped the Address. Shifting to Chicago, the second part fo-
cuses on the speech itself examining how the Address engages with epistemol-
ogy and history to question the validity of ‘Orientalism’ as a discourse, while
also presenting education as the building block towards constructing the catego-
ry of the ‘Muslim woman.’ Last, the chapter turns to the aftermath of the speech,
examining the Address’ agency in three areas, the sending of a thank you letter
to Sultan Abdulhamid II, the distribution of copies to India, and the invitation of
Fatma Aliye to exhibit her work at the Women’s Library during the world exhi-
bition.
2. Spring 1893, Istanbul: Preparing the Address

Residing in Istanbul since 1890, Cervantes was working at the Ottoman capital as
a music teacher for the women at the Palace and those associated with it. In a
letter written to her friend, the Spanish politician and writer Victor Balaguer, Cer-
vantes relates how she ended up staying in Istanbul after having performed for
Sultan Abdulhamid II, how much the sultanas loved her and how happy she was
to be in Istanbul.⁴⁴ Prior to her arrival in Istanbul, Cervantes had traveled the
world as a harpist. She was also interested in women’s education, having opened
an educational center for women, the Academy of Sciences, Arts and Offices for
 Umar F. Abd-Allah, A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 233.
 See Isabel Segura Soriano, Els viatges de Clotilde Cerda i Bosch (Edicions Tres i Quartes,
2013); Zoraida Isabel Ávila Peña, “Música, textos y filantropía en Esmeralda Cervantes: una ar-
pista de la España romántica,” Ph.D. Thesis, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2016; Gültekin
Yıldız, “Ottoman Participation in World’s Columbian Exposition; Aydın, The Idea of the Muslim
World; Cemil Aydın, “Globalizing the Intellectual History of the Idea of the ‘Muslim World’,” in
Global Intellectual History, eds. Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 2013); van Os, “Feminism, Philanthropy, and Patriotism” and van Os, “‘They Can
Breathe Freely Now.’”
 Soriano, Els viatges.
88 Berrak Burçak
Women, in Barcelona (1885). However, when she was unable to find funds to ex-
pand the academy, she had to leave Spain accompanied by her mother. The his-
torian Isabel Soriano argues that her prior involvement with the Cuban inde-
pendence movement during a previous concert, coupled with the fact that the
secretary of the Academy, Antonia Opisso had published a novel on Carlos Atre-
gui, a Cuban abolitionist, had angered the Spanish crown. This resulted with the
crown withdrawing their prior support to Cervantes; she was told not to pursue
such activities and advised to stick to her musical life.⁴⁵ When she received an
invitation for a concert in Istanbul, she decided to stay at the Ottoman capital.
The Spanish newspaper La Monarchia reported that the sultan was so impressed
with her performance that he asked Cervantes to become a music teacher to the
women in his family.⁴⁶ Besides her teaching, Cervantes also maintained her mu-
sical activities in Istanbul. The newspaper La Turquie reported three different oc-
casions in 1891 where Cervantes performed as a harpist: the Teutonia Concerts
under the auspices of the German Embassy, concerts under the auspices of the
French and Greek embassies and a concert at the Imperial Persian Embassy
for the benefit of the orphan children of the Persian School of Constantinople.⁴⁷
During her stay in Istanbul Cervantes received an invitation to represent the “El
Fomento de las Artes” (Promotion of the Arts) of Madrid and the Choral Societies
“Euterpe” of Barcelona at the World’s Columbian Exposition and to perform as a
harpist.⁴⁸
Cervantes also received a “confidential letter” from an undisclosed friend in
the US, whom she mentions in the Address as “a member of the Board of Ladies,”
asking Cervantes to “get for them some information on Woman’s Education in
the Orient.”⁴⁹ Cervantes explains that she set out to work right away, but that
her task proved to be rather difficult: “I immediately began to search for authen-
tic documents about this, but in vain; there are no statistics in Turkey. I applied
to his Excellency Zuhdi Paşa, Minister of Public Education, who could not fur-
nish me with the information I wanted. Nevertheless, I was not discouraged,
but went on in my investigations, and I am happy to say that my perseverance
has not proved unsuccessful.”⁵⁰ Statistics did, in fact, exist in the Ottoman Em-
 Soriano, Els viatges.

 “En el Harén del Sultàn,” La Monarchia, June 13, 1890, 2. See also van Os, “They Can Breathe
Freely Now,” fn. 11.
 Evren Kutlay Baydar, Osmanlı’nın ‘Avrupalı’ Müzisyenleri (Istanbul: Kapı Yayınları, 2010).
 Address, 3.
 Address, 3.
 Address, 3.
pire as a means of gathering information for “imperial control,”⁵¹ so the question

as to why Cervantes described her research in the above manner lies at the heart
of this chapter. In order to examine Cervantes’ experience in detail, let us turn to
Istanbul in the spring of 1893.
Before proceeding further, it is useful to contextualize Cervantes and her re-
search. Cervantes was living in Istanbul during expanding imperial supervision
over society and politics. Ascending the throne in 1876 amidst local and interna-
tional crisis, Sultan Abdulhamid II (1876 – 1909) had promulgated the Ottoman
constitution only to suspend it two years later. Subsequently, he secured an ab-
solutist rule through a bureaucracy loyal to the sultan himself, a large police net-
work, an expanded public education system and strict press censorship. In the
Hamidian era, the police force not only maintained public order but also control-
led the political landscape with a special emphasis on suppressing seditious op-
erations and censoring missionary activities.⁵² The sultan also promoted Pan-Is-
lamism as a state ideology placing a marked emphasis on the Islamic character
of the state in order to create a world-wide Muslim solidarity by increasingly
using the title and symbols of the caliphate.⁵³ In this period, information, closely
associated with politics, was an asset which could make or break one’s image/
 Fatma Müge Göçek and M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, “Western Knowledge, Imperial Control, and the
Use of Statistics in the Ottoman Empire,” Center for Research on Social Organization Working
Paper Series, University of Michigan, 1993.
 On Hamidian censure, see Ipek K. Yosmaoğlu, Chasing the Printed Word: Press Censorship in
the Ottoman Empire, 1876 – 1913, The Turkish Studies Association Journal 27, no. 1/2 (2003):
15 – 49; Ebru Boyar, “The Press and the Palace: The Two-Way Relationship between Abdülhamid
II and the Press, 1876 – 1908,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 69, no. 3
(2006): 417– 432; Fatmagül Demirel, II. Abdülhamid Döneminde Sansür (Istanbul: Bağlam Yayın-
cılık 2007); Noémi Lévy-Aksu, Osmanlı Istanbul’unda Asayiş 1879 – 1909 (Istanbul: Iletişim
Yayınları, 2012); Melih Erol, “Surveillance, Urban Governance and Legitimacy in Late Ottoman
Istanbul: Spying on Music and Entertainment during the Hamidian Regime (1876 – 1909),”
Urban History 40, no. 4 (2013): 706 – 725; Emre Gör, Abdülhamid Döneminde Istihbarat: Mutla-
kıyetten Meşrutiyete Imparatorluğun Haber Alma Faaliyetleri 1876 – 1909 (Istanbul: Kitap Yayıne-
vi, 2019); Nour Nicole Dados, “Mapping Empire: Knowledge Production and Government in the
Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire, in Media and Mapping Practices in the Middle East and
North Africa: Producing Space, eds. Alena Strohmaier and Angela Krewani, (Amsterdam: Amster-
dam University Press, 2021), 27– 44.
 Kemal Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Communi-
ty in the Late Ottoman State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Deringil, The Well-Protected
Domains.
90 Berrak Burçak
status vis-à-vis the Ottoman sultan and vice versa. The central Ottoman admin-
istration exercised control over information as a “technique of government.”⁵⁴
The series of events began at the end of April 1893, when Cervantes was in-
tercepted by the Hamidian police. On April 24, a certain Salim (kulları) reported
to Hüseyin Nazım Pasha, the minister of the Ottoman Police, about an ongoing
investigation into the activities of a Spanish Madame Esmeralda Cervantes,
whose visiting card identified her as musician to the Spanish and Portuguese
crowns. Salim communicated that Cervantes was frequenting, for some time
now, a number of respected Muslim families and embassies in the Beyoğlu dis-
trict. There was also news that Cervantes had a certain Muslim teacher (hoca) in
Beyoğlu translate various Quranic verses for her that she intended to include in a
“harmful” (muzırr) speech on the condition of Muslim women to deliver at the
World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. What is more, Cervantes was also
noted to be in touch with Fatma Aliye, the daughter of Cevdet Pasha. Salim con-
cluded his report by stating that the result of investigation, which was put on the
fast track, into the identities of those parties who encouraged the aforemen-
tioned families to talk to Cervantes as well as the identity of the Muslim teacher,
would soon be disclosed.⁵⁵
Approximately one month later, Hüseyin Nazım Pasha’s report to Sultan Ab-
dulhamid II, dated May 14, 1893 clarified the matters. The report identified the
Muslim teacher as a certain Bağdatlı Hoca Ahmed Efendi, who taught Arabic
and Persian at the aforementioned embassies. Cervantes had turned to him for
the translation of various Quranic verses and Prophetic traditions on female ed-
ucation in Islam to include them in a “pamphlet” (risale) on Eastern women and
Islamic precepts on female education that would be presented at the Chicago
fair. It is interesting to observe the shift in the nature of the speech from Salim’s
description as “dangerous” (pointing to a political text) to Nazım Pasha’s iden-
tification as a “pamphlet,” indicative of a scholarly text. Nazım Pasha pointed to
an obstacle that Cervantes faced in her research process with a potential to turn
into a serious problem for the Ottoman state: while Cervantes had easily ob-
tained information on the French, English, Greek, Armenian and Jewish girls’
schools in Istanbul, she had not been able to do the same about Muslim girls’
schools. Thus, she had turned to Zühdü Pasha, the Minister of Education; how-
ever, he would not disclose the necessary information. To make things worse, the
Pasha added, the London Times correspondent Monsieur Guarraçino had accom-
 Michel Foucault, On the Government of the Living: Lectures at the College de France 1979 –
1980, ed. Michel Senellart, François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana, translated by Graham
Burchell (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014).
 BOA. Y. PRK.ZB. 11/45, H. 7 Şevval 1310 (24 April 1893).
panied Cervantes to the selamlık ceremony at the Palace the previous Friday,
communicating that Cervantes, who had taken on this enterprise in good faith,
intended to complain about Zühdü Pasha at the Exposition.
Subsequently, there were summons for the pamphlet to be examined, where-
by Cervantes delivered the text written in French along with the Ottoman trans-
lation of the introduction. Upon examining the text, the Pasha stated that while
it contained detailed information about non-Muslim girls’ schools in Istanbul, it
lacked information about the Muslim girls’ schools. In light of the situation, Hü-
seyin Nazım Pasha offered a solution that would benefit both parties, thus pre-
venting the issue from turning into an international scandal. The Ministry of Ed-
ucation should provide Cervantes, who was a world-famous musician, who had
been honored with many European medals and decorations, and ready to depart
for Chicago the following week to represent the Spanish crown at the Exposition,
with the necessary information. It should also appoint her as an Ottoman dele-
gate. This would prevent the delivery of an erroneous presentation at the Expo-
sition and a complaint about the Ministry of Education since there already exist-
ed many perfect schools for girls in Istanbul such as the Teacher-Training School
for Female Teachers (Darülmuallimat), the School of Fine Arts (Sanayii Nefise
Mektebi) and secondary schools for girls (inas rüşdiyeleri). The Pasha ended
the report by saying that the final decision rested with the sultan.⁵⁶ The sultan’s
response was positive; Cervantes was provided with the necessary information,
subsequently setting off to Chicago in June 1893.
The above correspondence provides an important lens into the workings of
the politicization of knowledge in the Hamidian era where appearances could
often be misleading. In a highly controlled political climate, a simple request
for information about female education could quickly turn into a power struggle
between two parties centering on a binary of foreign (read: with potential to
harm) versus Ottoman (read: with duty to protect) actors. As such, on one side
stood Esmeralda Cervantes representing the Spanish and the Portuguese crowns
as well as the American women in Chicago, who had invited her to inform them
about ‘Oriental women.’ They were perceived as foreigners who harbored polit-
ical intentions and could potentially harm the Empire. On the other side, there
were Hüseyin Nazım Pasha, Zühdü Pasha, and Fatma Aliye, all of them members
of the political and intellectual Ottoman elite endowed with the duty and respon-
sibility of protecting Ottoman interests. The fact that Cervantes intended to talk
about the condition of Muslim women on the demand of a foreign organization
outside the control of the sultan must have raised a red flag for the Ottoman au-
 BOA. Y.MTV., 77/145, H. 27 L 1310 (14 May 1893).

92 Berrak Burçak
thorities. For not only was ‘Orientalism’ in full sway in the period, but Cervantes
was a Westerner, with the sultan being anxious about his image in the interna-
tional arena. Zühdü Pasha’s refusal, however, brought matters to an impasse.
In an atmosphere where knowledge operated within a political-scholarly bi-
nary, it is not surprising that matters came to a halt. It was only natural for the
Minister of Education Ahmed Zühdü Pasha (1834– 1902), whom the historian
Akşin Somel described as the “representative of the autocratic traits of the Ha-
midian regime in the realm of education”⁵⁷ to exercise control over information.
In this era, public education constituted an important vehicle for maintaining
the unity of the multi-ethnic Ottoman society. Following the regime’s consolida-
tion after 1880, “the state tried to combat nationalistic secessionism by stressing
religious and authoritarian values in education. This development showed the
increasing dominance of the educational tradition of social disciplining, now
being used by the Sublime Porte to strengthen the ideological basis of the Otto-
man state among Muslims.”⁵⁸ The Ottoman state approached foreign/missionary
schools as proxies of foreign powers that were aiming to intervene into the do-
mestic affairs of the Empire, with special reference to American missionaries:
“By the 1890’s the education minister, Ahmed Zühdü, had compiled inventories
of the American Board’s curricula, textbooks, teachers, and staff. These invento-
ries recorded the legal name, country of citizenship, and educational back-
ground of employees and included the bibliographical information and educa-
tional value of textbooks.”⁵⁹ As a matter of fact, Zühdü Pasha’s report on the
foreign schools, most probably dated 1893/94, clearly demonstrates the Ottoman
perception of these schools as vehicles that were instilling separatist sentiments.
In his report, the pasha not only pinpointed the number and location of foreign
schools but also elaborated on whether the schools possessed a permission from
the Ottoman state along with the various regulations pertaining to their inspec-
tion. In the closing section of the report, he wrote that foreign schools sowed the
seeds of disloyalty to the Ottoman state:
 Selçuk Akşin Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 1839 –
1908: Islamization, Autocracy and Discipline (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2001), 213
(fn. 113).
 Somel, The Modernization of Public Education, 180. On late Ottoman education see also Ben-
jamin C. Fortna, Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) and Emine Ö. Evered, Empire and Education Under the
Ottomans: Politics, Reform, and Resistance from the Tanzimat to the Young Turks (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2012).
 Emrah Şahin, Faithful Encounters: Authorities and American Missionaries in the Ottoman Em-
pire (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018), 127.
[F]oreigners have understood that they can reach their political aims by leading the stu-
dents at such schools astray and by corrupting their minds […] although it is presently
not possible to fully counter and defend against the influence posed by the wide array
of disruption/agitation (envai fesadat) that foreign schools exert […] it is nevertheless pos-
sible to prevent them from progressing further by the spread of science and education.⁶⁰
It was the London Times correspondent Guarraçino who broke the stalemate by
accompanying Cervantes to the selamlık ceremony and communicating to the Ot-
toman authorities that she not only had started her research in good faith but
also that she intended to complain about Zühdü Pasha at the Chicago fair. The
risk of this incident turning into a full-blown international scandal led Hüseyin
Nazım Pasha to recommending to the sultan to respond favorably to Cervantes’
request, which the sultan did. Let us also recall that Nazım Pasha’s report had
disclosed Cervantes’ text to be of a scholarly nature. In fact, this case shows
how the Ottoman authorities profited from the occasion by turning her into an
Ottoman delegate at the Chicago exposition. Ironically, in the final analysis Cer-
vantes’ speech shifted into a political tract, an Ottoman manifesto showcasing
not only Islam’s modernist essence capable of progress under Abdulhamid II
but also how education functioned as the building block in constructing the cat-
egory of the Muslim woman.
A closer scrutiny into the activities of Guarraçino, however, reveals him to be
a much more complex figure than a simple negotiator, one who seems to have
saved the day. In fact, he is someone who defies the simple foreign/Ottoman di-
chotomy. In a report that Guarraçino would later send to Abdulhamid II, on the
success of the Address in Chicago, he underlined not only the fact that it was
Guarraçino himself who had advised Cervantes to look into the Muslim girls’
schools in the first place, but also that he had authored the introduction of
the Address. ⁶¹
Although it is not possible to establish whether Guarraçino was telling the
truth or not, the reasons behind his claims can be sought in the rather strained
relationship between Abdulhamid II and the foreign press. It is a well-known fact
that the sultan, concerned about portraying a positive image of himself in the
foreign press, used to put foreign correspondents in Istanbul on his payroll.⁶²
Guarraçino frequently comes up in the Ottoman archival documents between
1885 and 1895, revealing a transformation from being a foreign correspondent
 Atillâ Çetin, “Maarif Nâzırı Ahmed Zühdü Paşa’nın Osmanlı Imparatorluğu’ndaki Yabancı
Okullar Hakkında Raporu,” Güney-Doğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi, 10 – 11 (1983): 206.
 BOA. Y.PRK. AZ., 29/3, H. 29 Z 1311 (3 July 1894).
 Demirel, II. Abdülhamid Döneminde Sansür.
94 Berrak Burçak
who risked expulsion from the Ottoman Empire because of negative articles
about the Ottoman sultan and state, to a pro-Ottoman journalist on Sultan Ab-
dulhamid II’s pay list. A case in point is the fact that Guarraçino petitioned
the sultan asking for a full year’s rent. In this petition Guarraçino stated that
The Times had lowered his salary because he would not write against the sultan
in the hope that he might leave Istanbul, but that he had resisted the pressure
and remained both loyal to the sultan and in Istanbul.⁶³ It may very well be
that Guarraçino was a foreigner; however, he not only expressed himself in
his petitions as someone with Ottoman interests at his heart, but also showed
up in Hüseyin Nazım Pasha’s report as the man who had broken the stalemate.
Another rather complex position vis-à-vis knowledge is that of Fatma Aliye,
a female member of the Hamidian intellectual elite, who was favored by the
court:
Due to both her father’s and her husband’s occupations, Fatma Aliye had ties to the palace.
Aliye was in essence one of the ‘servants of the imperial harem’ (perestaran-ı Harem-i hü-
mayun), as the Palace would send high-status female visitors to her to answer their ques-
tions. Her fluency in French allowed her to converse easily with these visitors.⁶⁴
In fact, her father Ahmet Cevdet Pasha presented a thank you note to the sultan
for granting Fatma Aliye the honor to “come and be of service when foreigners
arrive.”⁶⁵ Fatma Aliye did interact with foreign women. For instance, in a letter
dated October 16, 1890, from Ahmed Midhat to Fatma Aliye, Midhat wrote that
Madame Gülnar had arrived in Istanbul and that he considered Fatma Aliye’s
family to be the first among the esteemed families that he wanted Gülnar to
meet with.⁶⁶ Subsequently, the two women met in Istanbul.⁶⁷
It is important for our purposes to establish whether Cervantes met with
Fatma Aliye. Although Salim’s report, discussed above, mentioned the two
women to be in touch without going into detail about the nature of their commu-
nication, archival evidence shows that no actual meeting had taken place. An
investigation document (varaka-ı tahkikiye) states that Fatma Aliye postponed
Cervantes’ request for information on grounds of ill health, but that since it
would not be possible to postpone the meeting for a second time, she awaited
 BOA. Y.PRK. AZJ., 36/42, H. 29 12 1315 (21 May 1898). See also Demirel, II. Abdülhamid Döne-
minde Sansür.
 Marvel, “Ottoman Feminism and Republican Reform,” 37.
 BOA. Y.EE., 38/109, H. 6 R 1327 (27 April 1909).
 Midhat, Fazıl ve Feylesof Kızım.
 BOA. Y.EE. 38/47, H. 25 03 1308 (8 November 1890).
the sultan’s permission to meet with Cervantes so as not to say anything that
would go against his wishes.⁶⁸ It is clear that Fatma Aliye, albeit appointed by
the sultan, was not at liberty to share information with a foreigner without the
sultan’s explicit permission. In the Ottoman patrimonial landscape, it was appa-
rent that the sultan wished to control the supply, circulation and representation
of knowledge.
3. Summer 1893, Chicago: “The Mahometan

religion is not an obstacle to women’s
development”
Cervantes arrived in Chicago on June 14, 1893. In her later letter to Abdulhamid
II, signed as “Esmeralda Cervantes, Membre du Jury pour l’Empire Ottoman à
l’Exposition de Chicago,” she relates that as the official congress had ended
on May 22, a special session was organized on her behalf in July 22, where she
spoke to a distinguished group of ladies.⁶⁹ The Address on the Education and Lit-
erature on the Women of Turkey, originally written in French, was translated into
English by Seraphim Efendi, an Ottoman Armenian employed at the Ottoman pa-
vilion; the English translation was first typed with typewriter, subsequently
printed and finally distributed to the attendees in Chicago.⁷⁰
The Address contains an introduction, a main text and concluding remarks.
In the introduction, Cervantes relates her happiness for being in Chicago, inform-
ing her audience that she had earlier visited America as a child. Here Cervantes
also presents the thrust of the Address: “I will try first of all to point out as well
as I can the most important, though unknown, influence that Oriental Women
exert on the march to progress, thanks to the gracious patronage of His Imperial
Majesty, Sultan Abdul-Hamid Khan II, the benefactor of the country that God
gave him to rule over.”⁷¹ In the main text, Cervantes first demonstrates that
Islam is not a religion hostile to women and against progress, drawing not
only upon Islamic history but also underlining the sultan’s efforts in providing
female education in the Ottoman Empire, informing on various schools for
girls in Istanbul. This part is followed by a short section on music education
 BOA. Y.EE. 38/120, H. 6 R 1327 (27 April 1909). See also Aşa, “Fatma Aliye Hanım,” 389 – 390.
 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 301/101, H. 29 Z 1311 (3 July 1894); See also Yıldız, “Ottoman Participation.”
 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 279/36, H. 8 S 1311 (21 August 1893).
 Address, 5.
96 Berrak Burçak
in the Ottoman Empire. In her concluding remarks, she invites the organizers to
acknowledge Abdulhamid II for his great efforts “for the advancement of
women” by writing him a letter of thanks signed by all the attendees.⁷²
Cervantes addresses the issues of knowledge, religion, civilization, modern-
ity and progress by drawing upon historicism as method and epistemology. She
questions the validity of Western knowledge about the Orient by pointing to its
problematic nature in assessing Muslim societies. She states that the Western ap-
proach is unscientific in terms of knowledge production. Correcting Western ster-
eotypes, she defends the position of women in Islam, blaming Western igno-
rance for the mistaken representation of Muslim women in general and
negligence for the educational status of Ottoman Muslim women in particular.
In order to prove her case, she juxtaposes knowledge against ignorance, under-
lining that it is experience and/or firsthand knowledge that leads to truth, where-
as ignorance can only lead to imaginary accounts.
Cervantes first presents Western stereotypes of the Muslim woman to her au-
dience: “The nations of the West have been taught to consider Oriental women as
abject slaves, as bodies with no soul; as prisoners enclosed within the four walls
of the Harem, spending their whole time plunged in deep ignorance and in hope-
less sloth.”⁷³ The image of the Muslim woman is that she is subjugated, captive,
passive, ignorant and eroticized. She then points out the major fault lines in this
mistaken representation: “Perhaps there have been instances when such a life
has been imposed upon a few women but taking this up as a general fact and
admitting as a rule such extreme ignorance of the Oriental woman, is marching
against Truth.”⁷⁴ She elaborates, “For various authors who have written about
Turkey, on account of the scarcity of precise information, gave a very inexact de-
scription of Public Instruction in the Ottoman Empire. But it is when these au-
thors speak about woman’s influence in society and her instruction and develop-
ment that they commit the greatest blunders.”⁷⁵ The major culprit is not only the
lack but also the misinterpretation of information, leading to sweeping general-
izations and false accounts:
Several European authors have founded the erroneous idea they had about female educa-
tion in the Orient, on totally wrong interpretations of the Koran, which, they pretend, con-
demns woman to remain in ignorance. Nothing is more false. On the contrary that sacred
 Address, 16.
 Address, 3 – 4.
 Address, 4.
 Address, 3.
book urges most explicitly the propagation of instruction among men as well as among
women, in an equal degree and without distinction whatever.⁷⁶
In order to support her argument, she turns to the Quran, providing her audience
with several verses: “The Koran which contains the basis of all liberal institu-
tions and social duties, mutual assistance, equality before the law, respect to-
wards the family, etc., says”:
Woman’s education must be equal to man’s. (Chapter 22. Verse 33 to 35.)
By God’s demands, I make no distinction between man and woman. The same rewards and
same punishment for the sexes. […]
It is a man’s duty as a woman’s (Chapter 6. Verse 34 to 35).⁷⁷
It is interesting to note here that there are problems related to the verses that Cer-
vantes provides in the Address. Cervantes mentions in the Address that she used
Kazimirski’s French translation of the Quran.⁷⁸ Albert Kazimirski de Biberstein
(1808 – 1887) was a French Orientalist whose many works also included a French
translation of the Quran in 1844. The volume Women in the Ottoman Empire Ac-
cording to Archival Documents published by the Ottoman Archives scrutinized
the verses Cervantes mentions using not only Kazimirski’s translation of the
Quran but also the Translation of the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet).
It states that the information provided by Cervantes can neither be found in Ka-
zimirki’s translation nor in the translation by the Directorate of Religious Af-
fairs.⁷⁹ It is ironic for a text written in defense of Islam to contain information
that does not seem to exist. It is not clear where Cervantes received this informa-
tion. Although Hüseyin Pasha’s report stated that Cervantes frequented a certain
Bağdatlı Hoca for the translation of various verses, it is rather unlikely that he
would have provided Cervantes with such erroneous information. Could we as-
sume the newspaper correspondent Guarraçino to be behind this information?
What is more, this anomaly was not picked up by Hüseyin Nazım Pasha. It is
also interesting that the American writer and publisher Alexander Russell
Webb (who had converted to Islam in 1888), the only Muslim representing
Islam at the First Parliament of Religions in Chicago, reacted favorably to Cer-
vantes: “Webb was clearly impressed with her and drew on her work in subse-
 Address, 4.
 Address, 5.
 Address, 6.
 Arşiv Belgelerine Göre Osmanlı’da Kadın.
98 Berrak Burçak
quent issues of his journal. In 1895 he advertised her book, Education and Liter-
ature of the Women of Turkey.”⁸⁰ In any case, this is an important question in
need of further scrutiny.
Next, Cervantes reverses the gaze from the Orient onto the West. It is not Ori-
ental women who are ignorant, lazy and captive, she argues, but rather Western
observers who encapsulate these characteristics attributed to Muslim women.
Western observers are ignorant because they lack information. They are lazy be-
cause they do not persevere in their quest for correct information (as opposed to
Cervantes who did not give up in the face of obstacles posed by the Ottoman au-
thorities). Finally, they are captives of their own imagination, for they produce
false accounts. Cervantes believes that it is close engagement with a culture
that brings forth a true account: “As my friend Fatma Alié Hunam [sic.] says
in her charming book, ‘The Mussulman Woman’, ‘[i]n order to know the Turkish
character it is necessary to understand the language and traditions of the coun-
try, and to be familiar with the people both in their natural and family charac-
ter.’”⁸¹ As a case in point, Cervantes points to her own experience in Istanbul:
“I am honored with the friendship of many Turkish ladies, and I can safely testify
that their instruction and development are not in the least inferior to the educa-
tion of our own intelligent ladies.”⁸² Thanks to her firsthand knowledge, Cer-
vantes is able to enlighten her audience by telling the truth about Ottoman Mus-
lim women: “I will only remark here that the Oriental women possess a deep,
natural, poetic instinct, as I have been able to see myself in my careful investi-
gation during the preparation of this modest work.”⁸³
What is more, Cervantes equates Islam with progress, civilization and mod-
ernity via female education within a historical framework. She draws on the tem-
poral categories of a distant past, a recent past, the present and the future to
argue that Islam is not against women’s education. She first presents her audi-
ence with an Islamic golden age of female education, supported with a generous
list of famous educated Muslim women in history. The examples range from the
women in the family of the Prophet Muhammad to the wives, daughters and sis-
ters of various Muslim rulers located from various locations and eras. Cervantes
brings together women across time and space constructing the category of the
‘Muslim woman.’
 Abd-Allah, A Muslim in Victorian America, 233.

 Address, 4.
 Address, 4.
 Address, 15.
Next, in an effort to highlight Abdulhamid II as a modern and progressive

ruler, the Address juxtaposes the glorious Islamic educational past against a re-
cent past, which is tainted by neglect on the part of rulers prior to this ruler: “It is
indeed since his accession to the throne that female education has taken up
again the course that was interrupted for too a long time.”⁸⁴ Cervantes presents
the sultan as the champion behind female education who is pushing the empire
towards a better future thanks to his determination, benevolence and intellect:
“By his strong will that surmounts all obstacles, by his wide and developed
mind, by his inexhaustible generosity, the Mussulman women’s education has
realized during the last fifteen years, a progress that is indeed marvelous.”⁸⁵
Notwithstanding Cervantes’ hyperbolic remarks, the Hamidian era did con-
stitute a break-through in female public education building upon the efforts of
the previous Tanzimat era.⁸⁶ Here Cervantes again provides a long list of educat-
ed women. She pinpoints seven contemporary Ottoman Muslim women of letters
and a foreign woman starting her elaboration with Fatma Aliye: “Alier Hanoum,
who wrote various works, among which ‘The Mussulman Women’ is a classic
book full of details on the customs and habits of Oriental women. She also
has translated George Ohnet’s ‘Volonté,’ a novel on customs and many treatises
published in the papers.” Next is the poetess Makbule Leman Hanım (1865 –
1898), whom Cervantes describes as, “a philisophic [sic.] author” – whose
“works are published daily in the Turkish journal, Terdjuman Hakikat […] She
has besides written a pamphlet ‘Vedat’.” The third woman Cervantes mentions
is the composer, poet and writer Leyla Hanım (1850 – 1936): “[T]he daughter of
the late Ismail Pasha, is well known by her articles and her poetry which
have been published in the Turkish papers.” Next comes Madame Gülnar: “Gul-
nar Hanoum is a remarkable philosophic writer.” Cervantes included Madame
Gülnar in her list although Gülnar was not a Muslim; most probably, Cervantes
wanted to underline the similarity between Gülnar and herself as pro-Ottoman
foreign women who portrayed Islam in a favorable light.
Gülnar is followed by the poetess Abdülhak Mihrünisa Hanım (1864– 1933),
the sister of the famous Ottoman man of letters, Abdülhak Hamit Tarhan: “Muh-
 Address, 5.
 Address, 5.
 On Ottoman female education see Selçuk Akşin Somel, “Osmanlı Modernleşme Döneminde
Kız Eğitimi,” Kebikeç 10 (2000): 223 – 238; Somel, The Modernization of Public Education; Meryem
Karabekmez, “A Case Study of Women Instructors and Their Education in the Reign of Abdülha-
mid II, Paedagogica Historica 53, no. 1 (2017): 71– 79; Badegül Eren Aydınlık and Seyfi Kenan,
“Between Men, Time and the State: Education of Girls during the Late Ottoman Empire
(1859 – 1908),” Paedagogica Historica 57, no, 4 (2021): 400 – 418.
100 Berrak Burçak
rul Nessa Hanoum is still very young and of great promise. She has been known
and much admired through the journals which have published her works.” Then
Cervantes presents the writer Zafer Hanım, who wrote the novel entitled Love of
Motherland (Aşk-ı Vatan) in 1877: “Zafer Hanoum, wife of Hilmi Effendi, is famil-
iar with the French, Turkish, Greek, Arabic and Persian languages. She has writ-
ten four books, one of which is a novel.” Next is the teacher, “Kamer Hanoum,
who “has written a book on Mohammedan religious precepts.” Last but not least,
Cervantes presents Fatma Aliye’s sister, the writer and activist Emine Semiye
[Önasya] (1864 – 1944) as, “the author of an arithmetic, which she has written
for the benefit of the pauper asylum.”⁸⁷ All the women Cervantes presented to
her audience were elite women, suggested by the title Hanım (Lady), who had
been home-schooled and related to the Hamidian political and intellectual
elite in their capacity as daughters, sisters and/or wives.
Cervantes’ engagement with history and epistemology in the Address was
not her own invention, but a part of the transnational Muslim engagement
with Islam, science, civilization and modernity within a historicist framework.
Renan’s lecture, discussed above, had acted as an important moment in boun-
dary making, toward excluding Islam and the Muslims from civilization and
progress. Other Europeans also argued for the impossibility of Muslims to be civi-
lized by underlining the status of women in Islam. For example, Lord Cromer,
the British consul general in Egypt between 1883 and 1907, maintained that
“Muslim men’s ‘subjugation’ of Muslim women evidenced their own inferiori-
ty.”⁸⁸
To counter these claims Muslim intellectuals around the world elaborated on
the status of women in Islam. From the Tanzimat Era (1839 – 1876) onwards, Otto-
man intellectuals such as Şemseddin Sami (1850 – 1904), Namık Kemal and
Ahmed Midhat engaged with the “woman question” in the context of Islam.
They argued that the “myth of the Golden Age of Islam, referring to the idea
that the new rights that will be granted to women as a consequence of modern-
ization attempts, will not conflict with the practices of early Islam and that every
novelty to be adapted from the West can be detected within the sources of
Islam.”⁸⁹
Late Ottoman men of letters publicly debated issues related to the condition
of women such as education, marriage, motherhood and polygyny: “In 1869, the
editors of the newspaper Terakki (Progress) initiated the publication of the first
 Address, 9 – 10.
 Demirhan, “We can Defend Our Own Rights,” 37.
 Nilüfer Göle, The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling (Ann Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press, 1996), 34.
women’s periodical in Ottoman Turkish as a weekly […] Terakki-i Muhadderat

(‘Progress’ of Virtuous Ladies).”⁹⁰ In 1879, the publisher and writer Şemseddin
Şami, “as an early Muslim advocate of women’s rights in the Ottoman Empire”,
published his famous monograph Kadınlar (Women).⁹¹ Subsequently, in 1893
Tevfik published an almanac addressed at women.⁹²
The Ottoman state also undertook Muslim female education. In 1869, the Ot-
toman central administration introduced mandatory education for girls between
the ages of six and ten.⁹³ Besides state schools, there existed other channels for
Ottoman Muslim women to receive an education in the late Ottoman era: “Some
fathers hired tutors to teach their daughters at home, others sent their daughters
to small schools in the homes of educated women, or to ones where they were
taught by a graduate of the female teacher’s college which had opened in
1871.”⁹⁴ Albeit operating in a patriarchal setting, women started to have a
voice in public discussions: “In the regular newspapers and periodicals letters
started to appear from Ottoman Muslim women, as well as in the women’s peri-
odicals edited by men. Eventually women started to publish periodicals for
themselves.”⁹⁵ The longest published newspaper for women came in the Hami-
dian Era, Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete (Ladies Gazette) was in print between 1895
and 1908, with the elite sisters Fatma Aliye and Emine Semiye as regular contrib-
utors to the gazette.
Muslim intellectuals separated Islam as essence from Islamic history as con-
text, to account for “the historical conditions in which Islam as essence could
and did generate progress, as well as explanations of Islam’s failure to do so
in the present.”⁹⁶ Cervantes’ presentation at the world exposition reflected this
historicist conceptualization. When the Address presented a glorious Islamic
past, Cervantes argued for Islam as essence, which promoted women’s education
by juxtaposing it to a historical context that had not allowed for women’s edu-
 Nicole A.N.M Van Os, “Ottoman Muslim and Turkish Women in an International Context,”
European Review 13, no. 3 (July 2005): 461.
 George W. Gawrych, “Şemseddin Sami, Women, and Social Conscience in the Late Ottoman
Empire,” Middle Eastern Studies 46, no. 1 (2010): 97.
 Özgür Türesay, “An Almanac for Ottoman Women: Notes on Ebüzziya Tevfik’s Takvimü’n-
nisâ (1317/1899),” in A Social History of Late Ottoman Women: New Perspectives, eds. Duygu
Köksal and Anastasia Falierou (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 225 – 48.
 Somel, The Modernization of Public Education.
 Van Os, “Ottoman Muslim and Turkish Women,” 461.
 Van Os, “Ottoman Muslim and Turkish Women,” 461. Serpil Çakır has argued that these de-
velopments constituted Ottoman women’s movement. See Serpil Çakır, Osmanlı Kadın Hareketi
(Istanbul: Metis, 1996).
 Ringer, Islamic Modernism, 66.
102 Berrak Burçak
cation before the era of Abdulhamid II. When he ascended the throne, the sultan
had simply reintroduced what Islam had always been promoting. He secured civ-
ilizational progress by educating women so that they could become enlightened
wives and mothers. Furthermore, Cervantes suggested that it was education that
brought women in Muslim societies across time and space together, thereby cre-
ating a uniform category of the Muslim woman.
Next, the Address listed various schools Istanbul schools for girls of the era,
including Turkish, Greek, French, German, Armenian, and Alliance Israelite Uni-
verselle schools, elaborating on not only their history but also their numbers,
with information on their students, teachers, and classes for each of the catego-
ries she had listed.⁹⁷ The list of schools was followed by Cervantes mentioning
her female students of music: “[S]ome of my pupils on the harp who are very
talented and of some that are noted for their skillful play on the piano and Ori-
ental instruments,” ⁹⁸ which included such elite women as:
[T]he princess Emina Hanoum, daughter of His Highness, Ismael Pasha, Ex-Khedive from
Egypt; the princess Sahara, the daughter of His Highness, Halim Pasha, Leila Hanoum,
the daughter of his Excellence, Hamdy Bey, the eminent archeologist; Seiger Hanoum,
daughter of his Excellence Ferid Bey; Lucy Woods, daughter of his Excellence, Wood
Pasha […]. On the piano are distinguished their Highnesses, the Sultan’s sisters and daugh-
ters of the His Imperial Majesty; the princess Nimet, daughter of His Highness Ismael
Pasha; the princesses, the daughters of Halim Pasha; the daughters of the prince Housman
Pasha, (Miserly); the daughters of Gelal Pasha; Mustafa Bey, and Galip Bey, and Rebeca
Hanoum, daughter of Sarah Hanoum.⁹⁹
Last but not least, in her concluding remarks Cervantes explained the purpose
behind late Ottoman female education: “I feel certain that by developing Orien-
tal woman’s mind she will teach her children to love and study the science and
the arts, for you know well, Ladies, that the majority of eminent men have had
their mothers as guides and councellors.”¹⁰⁰ This is an education, patriarchal in
nature, which prioritizes the raising of the future Ottoman Muslim male genera-
tions. In the patrimonial Ottoman world, women, albeit educated in modern sub-
jects, are defined as mothers, sisters, daughters and wives vis-à-vis the men in
their lives, assisting them in their pursuit for progress. Cervantes, who may
have conceived of women’s education along different lines, was not at liberty
to argue otherwise.
 Address, 10 – 15.
 Address, 15.
 Address, 15.
 Address, 15 – 16.
4. August-September 1893, Chicago-Istanbul:

After-effects of the Address
Glowing reports from Chicago reached Istanbul, informing Abdulhamid II about
how well the Address was received in the US. In her letter to the sultan, Cervantes
elaborated on her efforts informing her audience about Ottoman women’s edu-
cation and its favorable reception.¹⁰¹ She was not only well received by the
women in Chicago but also by the Ottoman delegation: “She was even invited
to give a harp recital at an official Ottoman banquet of the Ottoman commission-
er, Ibrahim Hakkı Bey.”¹⁰²
Furthermore, in his report to the sultan a week after the Address was deliv-
ered, Guarraçino listed a number of aspects, all in favor of the sultan. First, he
stated that many newspapers and personal letters (he does not specify which let-
ters) spoke favorably of Cervantes and the Address. He emphasized how the con-
tents of the speech removed erroneous ideas about the Ottoman lands, and how
the audience highly admired sultan’s exalted morals, compassion and hospital-
ity, a point that was attested by their continuous applause. What is more, 5,000
copies of the Address had been printed and sent to India, with 1,000 copies dis-
tributed in America. He added that this was a decision taken by the members of
the society in Chicago. Further, he stated that while it had formerly been decided
for ten books in Ottoman Turkish to receive a prize, fifty books have received
prizes. Last but not least, a thank you note, prepared by the prominent members
of the Women’s Board, comprising a couple of thousand signatures, had also
been handed to Hakkı Bey to be presented to the sultan. As a token, Guarraçino
included the pages of a Chicago newspaper, The Evening Post with the title “Af-
fairs in the Polite World,” which showcased Cervantes, her Address and Sultan
Abdulhamid II to the whole world, in the following words:
[…] Senorita Cervantes has presented, before the congresses at the Art Palace and at the
Woman’s Building, some interesting addresses upon the literature of Turkey and the char-
ities and philanthropies of that country. Through the instrumentality of Senorita Cervantes,
a cablegram of appreciation was sent to His Imperial Majesty Sultan Abdulhamid II., and a
testimonial brochure was prepared by the ladies of the auxiliary congress to convey to him
the compliments and gratitude of the women of America for his efforts on behalf of their
sisters of the Ottoman Empire. The souvenir consists of letters from Mrs. Bertha Honore
Palmer, Mrs. Ellen Henrotin, Mrs. May Wright Sewall and Mme. Salasar, followed by
forty pages covered by the signatures of other well-known women. The whole is bound
 BOA.Y.A.HUS. 301/101, H. 29 Z 1311 (3 July 1894). See also Yıldız, “Ottoman Participation.”
 van Os, “Feminism, Philanthropy and Patriotism,” 76.
104 Berrak Burçak
in white leather, embossed with gold, and has been placed by Esmerelda [sic.] in the hands
of his Excellency Haaky [sic.] bey, the Turkish commissioner, for conveyance to the sul-
tan.¹⁰³
There were also other reports communicating that these letters were presented to
the Ottoman first commissioner Hakkı Bey.¹⁰⁴ Furthermore, Hakkı Bey also sent a
telegram from Chicago on July 31, 1893 to the sultan, which informed him about
the thank you letter.¹⁰⁵
What more could the Ottoman ruler have asked for? The sultan reciprocated
to this grand gesture à l’Abdulhamid: “As a token of appreciation, both the pres-
ident of the Board of Lady Managers, Mrs. Bertha Honore (Potter) Palmer as well
as the vice president and acting president of the Woman’s Branch of the World’s
Congress Auxiliary, Mrs. Ellen Martin Henrotin, were rewarded with the Şefkat
Nişanı, an Ottoman medal especially for women.”¹⁰⁶
On August 10, 1893, Fatma Aliye received a letter from Amey M. Starkweath-
er, the chief of Installation at the Women’s Building, World’s Columbian Exposi-
tion. The letter, a permit, stated: “Permission is hereby given to Fatma Alié Han-
oum, daughter of Djevdet Pasha “c/o Mrs. Marcellus Bowen Bible House
Constantinople Turkey, to place in Library, one book entitled “Facts and Actual-
ities” 2, “Manners and Conversations Turkish Women” a newspaper with articles
favoring the emancipation of Turkish Women.”¹⁰⁷ An interesting detail is that the
permit included a name and address: “Mrs. Marcellus Bowen, Bible House Con-
stantinople.” This presents some significant information, which the scholarship
on Fatma Aliye has not inquired into.
Mrs. Bowen was an American missionary. Educated at Mount Holyoke Fe-
male Seminary, Flora Pierpoint Stearns (1846 – 1927) had married Marcellus
Bowen (1846 – 1916) in 1871, an ordained minister who had joined the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM). They served in the West-
ern Turkey mission in Manisa and Smyrna between 1874 and 1880. On his return
to the US, Marcellus Bowen was appointed by the American Bible Society as As-
sociative Agent for the Levant and came to Istanbul in September 1888, joined by
Mrs. Bowen. Could Fatma Aliye have given Mrs. Bowen as the address to which
correspondence should be sent? The historian Nicole van Os states that Mrs. Mar-
 BOA. Y.PRK.AZJ 29/3, H. 29 Z 1311 (3 July 1894).

 BOA. Y.A.HUS. 301/101, H. 29 Z 1311 (3 July 1894); BOA. Y.A.HUS. 279/36, H. 8 S 1311 (21 Au-
gust 1893).
 BOA. Y.PRK. BŞK. 32/30, 17 M 1311 (31 July 1893).
 van Os, “Feminism, Philanthropy and Patriotism,” 76.
 IBB, Atatürk Kitaplığı, FA, Evr. 18/3. See also van Os, “‘They Can Breathe Freely Now,’” 19.
cellus Bowen “obviously had contacted the Board of Lady Managers about Fatma
Aliye.”¹⁰⁸ Why would she have done so? Furthermore, could Cervantes’ speech
have paved the way for the Board of Ladies in extending an invitation to
Fatma Aliye, considering that the Address was delivered on July 22 and the invi-
tation would arrive on August 10, 1893? The details of Fatma Aliye’s invitation are
important for women in transnational history and/or to connect local and global
women. Invitation-related aspects are in need of further scrutiny.
Fatma Aliye received another letter also dated August 10, 1892, from Edith E.
Clark, the cataloguer of the Women’s Library at the World’s Columbian Exposi-
tion. Clark requested to include both her work and biography at the library:
“We hope to include in our catalogue of the Women’s Library of the World’s
Fair, something distinctive in regard to each author, so as to make it of perma-
nent value as a bibliography of woman’s work in literature.”¹⁰⁹ Approximately
a fortnight later, another letter arrived on August 28, 1893, from Susan Gale
Cooke, Secretary Board of Lady Manager’s World’s Columbian Commission, in-
forming Fatma Aliye that “the books and papers, which you so generously
sent to the Woman’s Building World’s Columbian Exposition, have been received
and installed in the library of the Woman’s Building.”¹¹⁰
Cutting across women’s and global history the Address on the Education and
Literature of the Woman of Turkey is a significant case that allows for gendering
global history. Placing women at the center of analysis and examining the expe-
riences of Esmeralda Cervantes and Fatma Aliye the chapter connected the local
with the global demonstrating the entangled nature of the Address. In the final
analysis, the aim of this chapter has been to write women into global history and
to offer new vistas for further research.
 van Os, “‘They Can Breathe Freely Now,’” 19.

 IBB, Atatürk Kitaplığı, FA, Evr. 18/ 1. See also van Os, “They Can Breathe Freely Now,’” 19.
 IBB, Atatürk Kitaplığı, FA. Evr. 18/2. See also van Os, “They Can Breathe Freely Now,’” 19.
Section II. From Empire to Republic: The
Transformation of Intellectual
Dispositions in Republican Turkey
M. Sait Özervarlı
Chapter 4
Ottoman-Turkish Thought from a Global
Intellectual History Perspective: An Analysis
of Disenchantment from Positivism and
Engagement with Bergsonian Intuitionism
1. Introduction
In this chapter, I will highlight the interest of certain Ottoman Turkish intellec-
tuals in Henri Bergson’s philosophy in the context of a global curiosity towards
its popularity, and the shifting trends in the reception of philosophical move-
ments. I will explore this interest within the framework of interconnectivity of
ideas and the dynamism of global intellectual history that explain transmissions
of ideas. The exploration will be based on a specific connection, as a result of the
circulation and transmission of modern ideas in the late Ottoman and early Re-
publican Turkey, and the flow of erudite trends especially from French thinkers,
by demonstrating the decreasing role of Durkheimian sociology and the rise of
Bergsonian thought among a certain group of intellectuals. By presenting this,
I will trace the formation and growth of Bergsonism in Turkey as an intellectual
school through its main figures in philosophy and literature.¹ The chapter aims
to examine the development and manifestations of Bergsonism among Turkish
scholars not only as a local case, but also as an integrated example of worldwide
philosophical transfers and crossing perspectives. By that, it tries to highlight
the global outcomes of Turkish intellectual history through the perception of
Bergsonian ideas. Its goal is to envision a rich discussion on the Turkish case
as a part of the global circulation of Bergsonism beyond its point of genesis in
 Similar accounts have demonstrated other non-European receptions and analysis of some Euro-
pean intellectual trends via interconnectivity. See Daryl Glacer and David M. Walker, eds., Twentieth
Century Marxism: A Global Introduction (London: Routledge, 2007); Marwa Elshakry, Reading Dar-
win in Arabic (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2013); Bernard Lightman, ed. Global Spencerism:
The Communication and. Appropriation of a British Evolutionist (Boston: Brill, 2015); Omnia El Shak-
ry, The Arabic Freud (Princeton, Princeton University Press 2017); Yoav Di-Capua, No Exit: Arab Ex-
istentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Decolonization (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2018); Jo-
hannes Feichtinger, Franz L. Fillafer, Jan Surman, eds., The Worlds of Positivism: A Global
Intellectual History, 1770 – 1930 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-005
110 M. Sait Özervarlı
order to more robustly postulate the transnational spaces of thought in the mod-
ern period.
While interactions with the West, and translations from European languag-
es, had started earlier in the Ottoman Empire, it is commonly accepted that the
ideas more easily flowed into local discourses during the relatively open atmos-
phere of the Constitutional decade (1908 – 1918). As known by historians of mod-
ern Turkey, the transition from the late Ottoman period marked a sharp increase
in the transmission of ideas from the West and their impact on the intellectual
atmosphere.² Members of the newly established translation offices, such as
Te’lif ve Tercüme Dairesi, for instance, translated certain classics of European
modernism, including the seminal work of René Descartes (1596 – 1650) on phil-
osophical method.³ Apart from early adaptations under the wave of translations
from European philosophical writings,⁴ the collectivist positivism of the French
sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917) became very popular. The trend was es-
sentially advocated by the leading modernist, and the founder of sociology in
Turkey, Ziya Gökalp (1876 – 1924) via journal articles, and lectures. European
thought continued to be discussed among a rising number of modern educated
students, but soon the enthusiasm for positivism vanished while new scholarly
circles and favored intellectual trends emerged in the same period. After World
War I, most significantly another French thinker, namely Henri Bergson (1859 –
1949) came to the frontline of intellectual discourse.⁵ Bergson’s writings and the
“Bergsonian” approach to questions of time, human freedom, evolution, memo-
ry, and society had already influenced the intellectual landscape of the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. Thus, Bergsonism as an intellectual, philosophical ori-
 M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, “Blueprints for a Future Society: Late Ottoman Materialists on Science,
Religion, and Art,” in ed., Elisabeth Özdalga, Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy (Lon-
don: Routledge, 2005), 28 – 115; M. Sait Özervarlı, “Positivism in the Late Ottoman Empire: The
‘Young Turks’ as Mediators and Multipliers”, in: The Worlds of Positivism: A Global Intellectual
History, 1770 – 1930, eds. Johannes Feichtinger, Franz L. Fillafer and Jan Surman (London: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 2018), 81– 108; M. Sait Özervarlı, “Reading Durkheim through Ottoman Lenses:
Interpretations of Customary Law, Religion, and Society by the School of Gökalp”, Modern Intel-
lectual History 14, no. 2 (2017): 393 – 419.
 See René Descartes, Usul Hakkında Nutuk (Discourse de la méthode), trans. by Ibrahim Edhem
(Istanbul: Mahmud Bey Matbaası, 1894).
 For instance, French scientific positivism of Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857) was followed by
Ahmed Rıza (1858 – 1930), German popular materialism of Ludwig Büchner (1824– 1899) was
adopted by Beşir Fuad (1852– 1887) and Baha Tevfik (1884– 1914).
 See Mehmet Emin Erişirgil, Bir Fikir Adamının Romanı: Ziya Gökalp (Istanbul: İ nkılâp Kitabe-
vi, 1951), 127.
Chapter 4 Ottoman Turkish Thought from a Global Intellectual History Perspective 111
entation was reaching well beyond France and Europe into Asia, Africa and
Latin America.⁶
Exploring this type of a “Turkish connection,” as it is highlighted in the title
of this book, will shed light on a relatively neglected part of global intellectual
history in terms of a rapid spread of ideas in a period of European dominance
over other cultures. This global approach is especially relevant in examining
the early 20th century, when intellectual exchanges, migration of scholars,
waves of translation, and spread of articles through journals facilitated the trans-
mission of ideas not only in various parts of Europe, but all around the world.
Since global intellectual history is history of relations, connections and interac-
tions as a part of human conditions, it cannot be regarded isolated from region-
al, national, political and religious movements of specific connections that en-
rich and modify the global intellectual activity.⁷ In the case of this chapter, for
instance, the integration of Bergsonian ideas into the Turkish cultural heritage
is more important than the knowledge of the philosophy of Bergson by Turkish
intellectuals. As Sebastian Conrad pointed out, generally global history’s
core concerns are with mobility and exchange, with processes that transcend borders and
boundaries. It takes the interconnected world as its point of departure, and the circulation
and exchange of things, people, ideas, and institutions are among its key subjects.⁸
 Larissa Rudova, “Bergsonism in Russia: The Case of Bakhtin,” Neophilologus 80 (1996): 175 –
188; Benjamin Fraser, Encounters with Bergson(ism) in Spain: Reconciling Philosophy, Literature,
Film and Urban Space (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Caterina Zanfi,
“Reazioni italiane al bergsonismo,” Philosophia. Bollettino della Società Italiana di Storia della
Filosofia 3, no. 2 (2011): 127‐152; Caterina Zanfi, Bergson et la philosophie allemande: 1907 –
1932 (Paris: Armand Colin, 2013); Simon Ebersolt, “Une réception japonaise de Bergson: Miki
Kiyoshi et l’empirisme integral”, Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger 137, no. 2
(2012): 209 – 222; Joseph Ciaudo, “Introduction à la métaphysique bergsonienne en Chine:
échos philosophiques et moralisation de l’intuition,” Noesis, “Numéro spécial: la traduction phi-
losophique” 22 (2013): 293 – 328; Souleymane Bachir Diagne Bergson Postcolonial: L’élan vital
dans la pensée de Léopold Sédar Senghor et de Mohamed Iqbal (Paris: CNRS, 2014); Emile Ken-
mogne et Ebénerzer Njoh Mouelle, eds., Vie et éthique de Bergson à nous (Eclairages philosophi-
ques d’Afrique) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2015); Enrique Dussel, “Philosophy in Latin America in the
20th Century: Problems and Currents,” in Contemporary Philosophy: A New Survey, Vol. 8, Philos-
ophy of Latin America. ed. Guttorm Floistad (Dodrecht: Kluwer, 2003), 15 – 60.
 For an interesting link established between intellectual history and international relations
from a global perspective, see Deniz Kuru, “Dialogue of the ‘Globals’: Connecting Global IR to
Global Intellectual History,” All Azimuth 9, no. 2 (2020): 229 – 248.
 Sebastian Conrad, What is Global History? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 5.
The whole process of circulations with its actors, texts, translations, teachings,
and debates turns into a local perception in its language and understanding,
which is not disconnected from its origin or other perceptions, while also repre-
senting its own character that comes from its history and culture. This method
allows us to focus on diverse manifestations of intellectual movements from a
global perspective, while at same time close analyses of each context and dis-
course become possible. Thus, “intellectual history is the form of historical en-
quiry most suited to our global world.” It deals “with long spans of time, the
translation of ideas across cultures and their necessary adaptation to new cir-
cumstances, and the inevitability of the revision of ideas and of their misunder-
standing.”⁹
Following this global approach, therefore, is not something like pursuing
grand theories or big ideas; it is rather about connections of intellectual process-
es with local appearances.¹⁰ In other words, it focuses on local cases with an
awareness of interdependent connections and conditions. For such contributions
via connections show that local thinkers had been engaging in the laborious
tasks of translation, interpretation, and concept creation. Therefore, to produce
an accurate image of the transmission of an intellectual movement, such as
Bergsonism in this case, requires a close analysis of regional actors, and dis-
courses in connection with its global phenomenon. As intellectual historian
and comparative literature expert Christopher Hill accurately pointed out,
through this circulation, or “travel of concepts,” a sort of a “universalization
of concepts” took place. According to Hill, it seems as if “[t]he extent of intellec-
tual circulation by the end of the century may show that the scale of this intel-
lectual field finally became coextensive with the geographical globe, to the dis-
advantage of other intellectual ‘worlds’ defined by distinct processes of
universalization.”¹¹
 Richard Whatmore, “The State of Intellectual History, the Local and the Global,” [Intellectual
History Archive 1, 2016], 2, in www.helsinki.fi/sites/default/files/atoms/files/intellectual_history_
archive_2016.1_Whatmore.pdf.
 This is because global history is not seen as a synonym for macro-history or world history. It
is instead described with junctures “where global processes intersect with their local manifesta-
tions […] with an awareness of global connections and structural conditions.” See Conrad, What
is Global History?, 12.
 Christopher L. Hill, “Conceptual Universalization in the Transnational Nineteenth Century,”
in Global Intellectual History, eds. Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 2013), 134– 158, and for the quote, 135.
Human history at large has experienced several major intellectual transmis-

sions of knowledge through translations or commentaries: Early Arab philoso-
phers, for instance, were successful in transmitting via Baghdad ancient Greek
thought to the Muslim lands in the 9th century. One should also remember
that following this translation movement from notably Greek into Arabic, anoth-
er major wave of translation was from Arabic into Latin, which took place in Eu-
rope starting in the 12th century. In other words, “the very European culture
whose extension is associated with ‘globalization’ owes much to the transmis-
sion, via centers of Islamic learning, of Hellenistic culture to Western Europe.”¹²
It was through translations as well as the mobility of scholars and texts that a
new awakening in the late medieval and early Renaissance periods was generat-
ed. A similar intellectual surge took place in the 19th century. In this age of the
rapid spread of modernization, all sorts of concepts moved around the world
through multiple mediations, including translation into other languages and
mass circulation, which can be described as a global transfer of ideas and con-
cepts.
Despite this reality, with the exception of a few global assessments, most
studies dealing with intellectual history still attempt to use only resources locat-
ed within one tradition or to undertake comparative examinations. However,
solitary examinations or dual comparisons do not provide deep insights into
syntheses or new perspectives coming out of intellectual encounters, because
a comparative approach in a disciplinary project is not able to demonstrate
wider engagements between multiple traditions of thought. While comparative
approaches demonstrate important points of comparison and similarity, they
do not bring cultural and intellectual traditions into connection or an interactive
relationship. Therefore, a search for new horizons in order to improve conceptual
clarity about transmissions of ideas and movements both interactively and un-
boundedly needs to be the core of global intellectual history. This is so because
such an approach not only highlights connections, but also allows us to discover
what is new and different as a result of these connections. Such an attempt will
encourage looking beyond limits and boundaries, improving our capacities to
shed light on common questions with different answers and discussions.
 Frederick Cooper “How Global Do We Want Our Intellectual History to Be?,” in Global Intel-
lectual History, 283 – 294, specifically 289. Also see Donald R. Kelley, “Intellectual History in a
Global Age.” Journal of the History of Ideas 66, no. 2 (2005): 155 – 167.
2. The Fading Appeal of Durkheimian Positivism

among some Turkish Intellectuals
After considerable enthusiasm for Durkheim at the beginning of the 20th century,
especially via the efforts of Ziya Gökalp, there soon occurred a shift of attention
particularly among a prominent circle of intellectuals, who later had a deep im-
pact on Turkish thought. In his memoirs, the well-known novelist and literary
critic Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901– 1962) in a very significant account refers
to a noticeable intellectual change and the new curiosity that he had observed
during his studentship, which must be by the early 1920s:
When I entered Higher Teachers School (Yüksek Muallim Mektebi) I had found my seniors
swearing an oath on the names of Durkheim and Ziya Gökalp. Later on with the studies of
Rıza Tevfik, and especially of Şekip in Dergah [Journal], Durkheim fell behind Bergson. One
day Yahya Kemal, like every kind of artists, who were not fond of just abstract thought and
preferred thinking on reality with their own intuition, said to Şekip Bey: ‘Şekip! All of us are
now Bergsonian!” That was expressed as a bit of a joke. But it meant a truth. Bergson did
not just come to our world with the teachers who were transmitting his philosophy. He had
also entered our literature with the influence of the authors that emerged around every
great philosopher. However, Durkheim and Bergson were not the only ones on their
own. The names of T. Ribot, Spencer, William James, Stuart Mill, Kant and Schopenhauer
were coming to blows with one another in our [intellectual] atmosphere that we lived in.¹³
So the question is what caused this quite rapid paradigmatic change of interest
among the professors of the newly established European style university, the
Darülfünun, in between the short period of junior and senior years of Tanpınar’s
college education?¹⁴ Was there a disenchantment with Durkheimian thought, or
 See Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, “Hasan Ali Yücel’e Ait Hatıralar ve Düşünceler”, Yeni Ufuklar
10, no. 109 (1961): 4– 5. Reproduced in Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Mücevherlerin Sırrı: Derlenmemiş
Yazılar, Anket ve Röportajlar, eds. Ilyas Dirin, Turgay Anar and Şaban Özdemir (Istanbul: Yapı
Kredi Yayınları, 2002), 134– 135. All translations from Turkish are mine.
 Interestingly a similar shift took place in Japan. A Japanese thinker Kuki Shuzo (1888 – 1941)
at about the same time emphasized the end of the neo-Kantian monopoly in Japan with the first
translation of Bergson into Japanese in 1910, a time when people were looking for fresh ideas.
According to Kuki, Bergsonian thought made its appearance and popularity in Japan mainly by
the existing desire among intellectuals to revive metaphysics. Bergsonian intuition was nourish-
ment for Japanese spirits, since it allowed scholars to engage with the center of concrete reality.
Neo-Kantian positivism, however, could only provide signs, representations, or images of reality.
Kuki Shûzô, “Bergson au Japon,” Annales Bergsoniennes 6 (reprinted 2013 [1928]): 57– 61. Also
see Leslie Pincus, Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shuzo and the Rise of National
Aesthetics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 67– 69.
was it just an attraction to a new thinker? Was Bergson admired in full as a rep-
resentative of modern thought, or did Ottoman intellectuals prefer a selective ap-
proach towards his ideas? To find answers for these questions, I shall focus on
this very shift of interest among Turkish scholars. I will argue that it was caused
by the variety of backgrounds and motivations among intellectual circles, and
also by the depressing war atmosphere in the Ottoman capital that was directing
the authors to look for alternative ideas.
As I have already shown in another article, Gökalp and his school made use
of certain ideas of Durkheim, and especially his theory of collective conscious-
ness (conscience collective), to inspire and mobilize the transformation of Otto-
man society. The Durkheimian doctrine of social solidarity and public morality
was presented by them first as a guiding scientific insight for modern Turkish
social thought, and then turned into the inspiration for the secular foundation
for the Turkish nation-building project.¹⁵ Gökalp and his followers stressed the
unity of society and saw individuals in the service of this cause. However, Berg-
sonists did not agree with sacrificing all individual creativity and freedom for the
sake of society. As the leading Bergsonist Mustafa Şekip Tunç (1866 – 1958) de-
scribed it, according to the group, although fieldwork numbers could give
some indications, more detailed facts and conditions of individuals with their
inner feelings were also needed for a better comprehension of society. In order
to realize the full dynamism of life and its continuous transformations, it re-
quired employing personal intuitional abilities along with rational capacities.
This had to do with the fact that the logic and function of rational and intuitional
capacities were different from each other and needed to be engaged complimen-
tarily. The intellect received information from the outside world through senses
and rational understanding; however, intuition worked via “inner comprehen-
sions” and “sympathy” in accordance with the stream of the person’s life. In
other words, the soul achieved its independence from material bodies through
intuition, and thus, individuals became distinctive personalities of society rather
than becoming its slave. Thus, in Mustafa Şekip’s analysis, Durkheimian sociol-
ogy would not achieve a long-term interest among the intellectual vanguard of
the new Republic but would soon become another outdated historical theory
found in textbooks only, like Comtean sociology.¹⁶
 Özervarlı, “Reading Durkheim through Ottoman Lenses,” 394– 395.

 Mustafa Şekip (Tunç), “Hakikî Hürriyet,” 1:3 (1337 [1921]), 37– 39; and “Hislerimizin Mantığ ı,”
Dergâh, 1, no. 7 (1337 [1921]): 97– 98. It must be noted that Bergsonian intuition was similarly
highly regarded in other philosophical traditions in the same period. In China, Bergson was fre-
quently considered a philosophical ally in the battle against scientism and positivism, two new
intellectual trends that dominated the global intellectual field. Bergson’s philosophy of creative
Nevertheless, there were some earlier signs of looking for alternative ways in
the late Ottoman period. The debates on the mechanistic and collectivist aspects
of Durkheimian positivisms, and their possible negative impact on society, had
stirred doubts among some intellectuals over their relevance to Ottoman culture,
generating in turn a curiosity towards other European intellectual trends. As a
result, an increasing attention was paid to the non-positivistic rationalist philos-
ophies.¹⁷ With these new curiosities, a number of figures from different disci-
plines and fields, such as philosophers, sociologists, artists, and writers turned
towards Bergson and Bergsonism as a philosophical language through which to
express their anxieties and criticisms, as well as their hopes and visions for the
future. Following the above quotation about the dissatisfaction with positivistic
approaches, the spiritualist/mystic strand of pre-modern Ottoman philosophy all
of a sudden also connected itself to Bergson.¹⁸ As detailed below, Bergsonism
began to find a place in the late Ottoman and early Republican landscape
through translations and short treatises especially on its notions of time, intu-
ition, and evolution.¹⁹ Bergson’s popularity was mainly related to his critical
views of exclusive rationalism, scientific materialism, and positivism.²⁰ Bergson-
evolution was very much employed by Chinese thinkers during debates about science. However,
from the many aspects of Bergson’s philosophy, it was the concept of “intuition” that was the
most highly regarded. Often translated as zhijue, also sometime zhiguan, “intuition” was to
play a great role in the development of modern Confucian epistemology. See Joseph Ciaudo,
“Bergson’s “intuition” in China and its Confucian fate (1915 – 1921): Some remarks on zhijue in
Modern Chinese Philosophy,” Problemos (Supplément 2016): 35 – 50, specifically, 35 – 36.
 It is, thus, not surprising that European criticisms of materialist scientism, such as that of
Henri Poincaré’s (1854– 1912) critical relativism, and Emile Boutroux’s (1845 – 1921) rationalist in-
determinism also attracted the attention of scholars. See Henri Poincaré, Ilim ve Usûl: Felsefe-i
Ilmiyye, trans. Salih Zeki (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1927); Henri Poincaré, Ilim ve Faraziye: Fel-
sefe-i Ilmiyye, trans. Salih Zeki (Istanbul: Milli Matbaa, 1927); Emile Boutroux, Ilim ve Din, trans.
Hüseyin Cahid (Istanbul: Akşam Matbaası, 1927). For more details see M. Sait Özervarlı, “Alter-
native Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman Period: Izmirli Ismail Hakki’s Religious
Thought against Materialist Scientism,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 39, no. 1
(2007): 77– 102.
 M. Sait Özervarlı, “Intellectual Foundations and Transformations in an Imperial City: Istan-
bul from the Late Ottoman to the Early Republican Periods,” The Muslim World 103, no. 4 (Oc-
tober 2013): 518 – 534, specifically 522– 524.
 Tanpınar remarked that the 1920s and 1930s was an “era that Bergson’s philosophy swam in
the middle” (Bergson felsefesinin ortada yüzdüğü bir devir). See Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Yahya
Kemal (Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, 2007), 27.
 In Tanpınar’s words Bergsonian philosophy found a suitable environment between pure rea-
son and materialism: “aklımahzın çıkmazıyla –nükte Valéry’nindir- materyalizmin pek az vadini
tutan cenderesi arasında yaşanacak iklimi bulmuştu.” Quoted in Turgay Anar, “Tanpınar’ın Bi-
ism suddenly became a key conceptual tool to combat the hegemony of other
trends, which represented a more positivistic approach.²¹
It should be underlined that Bergson was not against scientific progress per
se, rather, his philosophy was in fact based on science and philosophical ration-
ality. However, he did not think that human philosophical activity was solely
based on the analytical process of intellect. To him, while the intellect dissects
the reality into parts, in order to re-connect its multiple perspectives and to re-
embrace it as a whole, philosophical intuition was still indispensable for the
comprehension of reality. Through the intellect, one understands an object
from the outside, while through intuition knowledge comes from the inside
that relates to the flow of life. This kind of outward and inward ability works
as an intellectual sympathy, which means a complete comprehension towards
a harmonious symphony among things.²² As will be specified in more detail in
the following sections, it was this integrated rationality that would attract Turk-
ish Bergsonists, who could more easily accommodate culturally important and
historically inherited local spiritual values.
3. Rise of Bergsonian Intuitionism as an

Alternative Path to Positivistic Thought
The followers and promoters of Turkish Bergsonism found a strong link of inter-
connectivity between their lively consciousness of local traditional thought and
the wider manifestation of modern European philosophy especially in a period
of post-war quests and pursuits.²³ However, there is a relative lack of scholarship
regarding the impact of Bergson in Turkey, since the existing literature on the
linmeyen Dört Yazısı,” Hece: Aylık Edebiyat Dergisi, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Özel Sayısı, 3rd edi-
tion, 61 (2016); 639 – 652 from Tanpınar, “Fikir Sohbetleri,” Ulus (1945), 2.
 Nazım Irem, “Bergson and Politics: Ottoman-Turkish Encounters with Innovation,” The Euro-
pean Legacy 16 (2011): 876. Also see Nazım Irem, “Turkish Conservative Modernism: Birth of a
Nationalist Quest for Cultural Renewal,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 1
(2002): 87– 112; Nazım Irem, “Undercurrents of European Modernity and the Foundations of
Modern Turkish Conservatism: Bergsonism in Retrospect,” Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
40, no. 4 (2004): 79 – 112.
 Cf. Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mitchell (London: Macmillan, 1954),
160 – 186.
 As an example, a vivid debate took place between Turkish Marxist School of mainly the
Kadro journal and the Bergsonist circle, but it requires a separate investigation. Şevket Süreyya
Aydemir (1897– 1976) and Hikmet Kıvılcımlı (1902– 1971) were the leading Marxist/communist in-
tellectuals, who harshly criticized Bergsonism.
works of Ottoman-Turkish Bergsonian intellectuals is largely descriptive and ex-

planatory in the sense of summarizing the texts and ideas. They do present the
views of the followers, but do not profoundly explain their attraction to Bergson,
and the motives behind the significant shift from a positivistic to an intuitionist
(and, to some extent, spiritualist) worldview.²⁴
The effects of Turkish Bergsonism are arguably much broader than a philo-
sophical dispute amongst a small cadre of theoretical sociologists in the years
during and after World War I. Nevertheless, I argue that this particular engage-
ment with Bergsonism through disappointed ex-admirers of Durkheim captures a
decisive phase in Turkish and global intellectual history. That is to say, despite
regarding modernization as an unavoidable necessity for Turkish society, the
Bergsonian intellectuals were also keen on building a vivid link with the Otto-
man Turkish intellectual heritage. Thus, the primary goal of the Turkish Bergson-
ists was the pursuit of change and modernization that did not completely rule
out cultural tradition in the late Ottoman struggle to settle the conflict between
the old and the new. They found a match for their expectations for the future in
the general outline of Bergson’s philosophy. But what was the motivation behind
this new self-awareness of their own culture, and the eagerness to reconcile their
circumstances within European thought? This can be explained by earlier de-
scriptions and comparisons of Bergsonian thought with other Western ideas,
which highlighted its significance for a better connection. To put this develop-
ment in a time frame, one could say: although the focus on Bergsonian thought
by some Turkish intellectuals had started only after World War I, and especially
by the early 1920s, there was some awareness of his significance already earlier
 Some exceptions are Nazım Irem’s articles cited above, which are based on his dissertation
and analyze Bergsonian influence on Turkish conservatism from a political point of view. Yakup
Yıldız’s article is a good summary of the birth and growth of the movement. See Yakup Yıldız,
“Bergsonculuğun Türkiye’ye Girişi ve Türk Felsefesine Etkisi”, Türkiye Araştırmaları Literatür
Dergisi 9, no. 17 (2011): 333 – 356. Şerif Eskin’s book, which explores how Bergson’s philosophy
can be traced in Turkish writer and thinker Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s fictive and non-fictive
works presents an interdisciplinary approach. In his book, Eskin tries to highlight the founda-
tional role of Bergsonian philosophy in Tanpınar’s literary works, and shows how Bergsonism
constructed his thought. Şerif Eskin, Zaman ve Hafızanın Kıyısında: Tanpınar’ın Edebiyat, Estetik
ve Düşünce Dünyasında Bergson Felsefesi (Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, 2014). For an analytic re-
view on Eskin’s book in English by Adem Dal see https://bergson.hypotheses.org/1286#more-
1286. Dilek Sarmış’s PhD dissertation is the most comprehensive work on Turkish Bergsonism
against the setting of political and institutional reforms during the early Republican period.
See Dilek Sarmış, La pensée de Bergson dans la genèse de la Turquie moderne: un prisme des
transitions lexicales, institutionnelles et politiques de la fin de I’Empire ottoman à la Turquie ré-
publicaine, PhD thesis, EHESS, Paris, 2016.
during the Ottoman Constitutional period. In fact, calls to follow the path of
Bergson on evolution and recreation emerged earlier in the pre-war times
when some intellectuals urged new generations to invest their hopes and person-
al motivations into the rebuilding of their society.
In an article dated as early as 1913, the young author Köprülüzade Mehmed
Fuad (1890 – 1966; known as Fuat Köprülü in the Republican period) explained
the difference between the Darwinian and Bergsonian understandings of evolu-
tion, and suggested to young Turkish people reasons to prefer the path of Berg-
son over the deterministic and positivistic approach of Darwin. In his view, only
Bergson’s theory of a constructive future provides an unlimited space for human
will, and wakes up sleepy and resigned individuals and societies from their old
evolutionary ideas towards life and action. He then invites the Turkish youth to
feel a similar excitement in their hearts for the hope and power of will.²⁵ It is
clear from this early writing that the last generation of the Ottomans saw in Berg-
son evidence of hope for saving their collapsing state and uncertain future. The
dynamism, action, and life impulse that Bergson conceptualized for his creative
evolutionary theory looked like the only bases upon which to build their social
awakening for a modern and energetic society.
Ottoman scholars had already acquired knowledge of non-positivist philos-
ophies, and also Bergsonian thought, through some visiting scholars in the Em-
pire. For instance, Friedrich Günther Jacoby (1881– 1969), a German professor of
philosophy, who was employed at the Darülfünun during the First World War pe-
riod, published an article on Bergson in the journal of the Faculty of Literary Sci-
ences (Darülfünun Edebiyat Fakültesi Mecmuasɪ). This article proposed a connec-
tion between Bergson and German philosophy and drew attention to the non-
materialist aspects of modern Western thought.²⁶ Among Ottomans, however, al-
though some interest had begun earlier with scholars such as Ahmed Şuayb (d.
1910), the first texts on Bergson were written by Rıza Tevfik (1869 – 1949) and
Subhi Edhem (1880 – 1922?) with a certain level of criticism.
In his brief works, Rıza Tevfik introduced Bergson’s popular concepts, dis-
cussing them in the context of modern continental philosophy. In his journal ar-
ticle, he evaluated Bergson’s contributions to philosophy especially through in-
tuition as a source of knowledge. In his other piece, he expressed how Bergson
had revived the role of inner spiritual capacities in an age of strong naturalistic
and positivistic tendencies. Tevfik occasionally agreed with Bergson in his criti-
 See Köprülüzâde Mehmet Fuad, “Ümid ve Azim”, Türk Yurdu 2, no. 8 (24 Kanunusani 1328/
1913): 240 – 248, specifically 246 – 247.
 Cf. Günter Yakobi, “Henri Bergson ve Artur Şopenhaver”, trans. Y. Ibn Habib, Darülfünun
Edebiyat Fakültesi Mecmuası, 1: 5, 1332 [1914]: 481– 501.
cism of mechanistic approaches, and praised his consistency and intensity in ar-
guments, however he also emphasized that Bergson was not free of inconsisten-
cies. Tevfik’s comments can be seen as evidence of his continuous exploration of
the history of philosophy, without himself being a close follower of Bergson.
They also give clues about the early perceptions of Bergson among the late Otto-
man thinkers.²⁷ In his introduction to the re-edition of the two works of Rıza Tev-
fik, Abdullah Uçman suggests that Turkish Bergsonism was fused into a modern
mystic understanding especially during the course of the second constitutional
period. According to Uçman, Tevfik linked Bergson to the revival of spiritualism,
along with his claim that Bergson’s writing had provided a new form of doing
philosophy.²⁸ Tevfik pointed out that he had read all of Bergson’s books with
the exception of Le Rire (Laughter) several times and taken notes while cross-
checking books and essays of critics of his texts. As a result of his meticulous
reading and research, he outlined Bergson’s position as a philosopher defending
free will against determinists and fatalists, and being spiritualist against materi-
alists, intuitionist against intellectualists, and dynamist against mechanists. It is
hard, according to Tevfik, to describe Bergson (likewise Plato and Aristotle)
through one philosophical line, and thus only Bergsonism would be the appro-
priate term to depict his abundant system. Consequently, Bergson’s ideas cut
across the narrow discussions of the university campuses and reached the sa-
loons and literary circles.²⁹
Tevfik, while emphasizing his disbelief in the perfection of any philosophical
system, acknowledged Bergson’s talents in eloquent writing as a great dialecti-
cian, comparing him to Zenon of Elea in presenting his views and convincing
 Rıza Tevfik, Bergson Hakkında (Istanbul: Darülfünûn Matbaası, 1921); and “Henri Bergson ve
Felsefesi,” İctihad 4, no. 91 (9 Kanunisânî 1329): 2036 – 2044. For the re-edition of both in mod-
ern Turkish see Rıza Tevfik, Bergson Hakkında/Bergson ve Felsefesi, eds. Erdoğan Erbay and Ali
Utku (Konya: Çizgi Kitabevi, 2005), 26 – 41 and 57– 72.
 Abdullah Uçman. “Rıza Tevfik ve Henri Bergson Üzerine Birkaç Söz,” in Bergson Hakkında/
Bergson ve Felsefesi, 9. It is striking that a Chinese thinker Liang Shuming (1893 – 1988) explored
the relations between some of Bergson’s ideas and Buddhist spiritualism. In 1921, he elaborated
not only on the concept of zhijue but also dealt with the relation between zhijue and lizhi (intel-
lect) in Weishi Buddhism. For more details, see Yanming An, “Liang Shuming and Henri Bergson
on Intuition: Cultural Context and the Evolution of Terms,” Philosophy East and West 47, no. 3
(July 1997): 337– 362, specifically, 337– 338. Similarly, Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906 – 2001) relat-
ed Bergsonian thought to the African Négritude, a movement that sought an answer to existen-
tial questions: Who am I? Who are we? What are we in this white world? See Gary Wilder, Free-
dom Time: Negritude, Decolonization, and the Future of the World (Durham: Duke University
Press, 2015), 9.
 Tevfik, Bergson Hakkında, 6 – 7.
the audience.³⁰ One of the circumstantial causes that helped the spread of Berg-
son’s ideas, according to Tevfik, was the common discontent in societies towards
ethical materialism, which was based on power in politics, money in economy,
and pleasure in life. He suggested that the same environment was the cause of
the rise of Rodolf Christoph Eucken’s (1846 – 1926) philosophy of life in Germany
as part of growing ethical activism and criticism of materialism. Other reasons
for the success of Bergsonian/Euckenian philosophies, in Tevfik’s view, were
the support by philosophers of religion as well as the failure of naturalist philos-
ophy, which had relied on Cartesianism for centuries under the principles of sub-
jectivism, intellectualism, and mechanism. However, Tevfik argued, those princi-
ples had naturally led to agnosticism and determinism while keeping human will
and power idle, and ignoring the activism and dynamism of life. He suggested
that Bergsonian thought had also provided a space for art and religion in its in-
tellectual domain, thereby turning to be a more comprehensive philosophy.³¹
Therefore, having realized these shortcomings, Bergson had established a bridge
between psychology and metaphysics through free human will and “revolted”
against deterministic Cartesianism, by restricting its validity to the physical real-
ity only, while refusing its application to the non-material inner realities. This
was possible for Bergson by linking physical reality to a divisible space, and
human will and consciousness to a flowing monolithic time.³²
After underlining Bergson’s introspectionist method, Rıza Tevfik referred to
his differentiation of the essences of the inner and outer worlds, and disconnect-
ing the psychological inner qualities from all spatial categories, and finally his
call to turn attention to one’s inner representation through intuition rather
than discussing the outer reality without a valid connection. Tevfik suggested
that this Bergsonian introspective approach in philosophy contradicted Anglo-
Saxon empiricist epistemology and was close to the German idealism.³³ He
gave further details on Bergson’s clarifications on the correlation of human intui-
tive and intellectual capacities, and the crucial roles of memory and duration in
his philosophy of creative evolution, also pointing out his awareness of criti-
cisms of Bergson’s philosophy by other thinkers. In a footnote, he remarked
 Tevfik, Bergson Hakkında, 14.

 Tevfik, Bergson Hakkında, 18 – 24, and 28 – 29.
 Tevfik, Bergson Hakkında, 51– 52. According to Rıza Tevfik, Bergson’s ideas were originally
developed in Germany under the neo-Leibnitzian and neo-Kantian scholars. They were transmit-
ted to France by Emile Beautroux (1845 – 1921), who studied philosophy there for two years and
attended the courses of Eduard Gottlob Zeller (1814– 1908). See Tevfik, Bergson Hakkında,
56 – 57.
 Tevfik, “Henri Bergson ve Felsefesi,” 2038 – 2039.
that he had ordered all texts written against Bergson from England. Among
them, it was Hugh S. R. Elliot’s (1881– 1930) book, prefaced by the well-known
evolutionary biologist Ray Lankester (1847– 1929), that presented the harshest
criticism.³⁴ As seen through his reviews of Bergson ideas, Tevfik appears to
have examined the French thinker objectively without being a follower. Despite
acknowledging Bergson’s originality and difference from other contemporary
philosophers, and his solutions to the limitations of materialistic determinism,
he also cited counterarguments against his thought and other questions that
could be raised toward his overall system. Moreover, as a person popularly
called “Filozof” (The Philosopher), Tevfik did not pay attention to Bergson for
pragmatic reasons to stimulate society, but because of his intense philosophical
significance.
Another remarkable early publication on Bergsonian thought was Subhi Ed-
hem’s Bergson and His Philosophy (Bergson ve Felsefesi).³⁵ Edhem was already
known for his work on evolution via his articles on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
(1744– 1829) and Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882).³⁶ He suggested that Bergson
had tried to revive Kantian theodicy, which was fading recently in scientific phi-
losophy. He also emphasized that Bergson was indirectly connected to German
philosopher Frederic William Schelling (1775 – 1854) via the latter’s French stu-
dent Felix Ravaisson (1813 – 1900), who had greatly influenced him.³⁷ Following
a summary of its main points, Edhem engaged with Bergsonian thought in a crit-
ical approach with a focus on evolution. Although Edhem was interested in Berg-
son because of his views on life and some aspects of evolutionary approach, he
was not happy with his eclectic thought borrowed from certain German philos-
ophers, which seemed to him to be a revival of a new metaphysics. For Edhem,
Bergson’s ideas were far from being scientific, but rather disconnected, reluc-
tant, and inconsistent. Despite these criticisms, he found Bergson’s style elegant,
his comprehension capacity perfect, and his descriptions interesting. He then
went on to show parallels between Bergson and German thinkers, such as Jo-
 Tevfik, “Henri Bergson ve Felsefesi,” 2040. See Hugh S. R. Elliot, Modern Science and the Il-
lusions of Professor Bergson (London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1912).
 Subhi Edhem, Bergson ve Felsefesi (Istanbul: Kader Matbaası, 1919); transliteration and ren-
dering into modern Turkish, eds. Levent Bayraktar and Zeynep Tek (Istanbul: Çizgi Kitabevi,
2014).
 Subhi Edhem, Darvinizm (Manastır: Beynelmilel Ticaret Matbaası, 1327[1908]); Subhi Edhem,
Lamarkizm (Istanbul [Dersaadet]: Nefaset Matbaası, 1330 [1911]). About the same time German
philosopher Karl Robert Edvard von Hartmann’s (1842– 1906) book on Darwinism (Wahrheit
und Irrthum im Darwinismus) was translated by Memduh Süleyman from its French version by
George Querci (Istanbul: Necm-i İstikbal Matbaası, 1329 [1910]).
 Subhi Edhem, Bergson ve Felsefesi (Istanbul: Kader Matbaası, 1919), 6, 10.
hann Gottlieb Fichte (1762– 1814), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832), and
especially Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860).³⁸ Edhem was mainly concerned
about Bergson’s undermining of biological evolution and his presentation of
an unusual theory of evolution. He also criticized Bergson’s conception of élan
vital as an attempt to rely mainly on psychological explanations instead of the
physical reality and biological evidence.³⁹ However, despite these comments, Ed-
hem’s criticisms created more curiosity towards Bergson, and the non-Darwinian
evolutionary theory evoked further interest in his thought among young Ottoman
scholars.⁴⁰
In fact, shortly after these publications, Bergson’s writings were discussed
more frequently in the late Ottoman, and early Republican circles, and his
ideas were reviewed in some literary journals like Dergâh (1921– 1923), Hayat
(1936 – 1929), Insan (1938 – 1943), and Hareket (1939 – 1982). Gathering around
these journals and especially the Dergah journal and its publication house, Turk-
ish Bergsonians were struggling for a different country.⁴¹ Under the supervision
of Yahya Kemal (Beyatlı, 1884– 1958), rigorous Bergsonian figures such as Mus-
tafa Şekip (Tunç, 1866 – 1958), and Ahmet Hamdi (Tanpınar), who will be dis-
cussed more intensively below, enthusiastically discovered Henri Bergson’s phi-
losophy as the most prospective answer to their intellectual problems.⁴²
Thus, although Bergsonism initially received only modest attention during
and right after World War I, it later became a full-fledged alternative school of
 Edhem, Bergson ve Felsefesi, 32– 34.

 Edhem, Bergson ve Felsefesi, 45 – 48.
 A professor of the Darülfünun, Mehmed Ali Ayni (1869 – 1945) devoted a chapter of one of his
books to the criticism of Edhem regarding comments on Bergson. See Mehmed Ali Ayni, İntikad
ve Mülâhazalar (Istanbul: Orhaniye Matbaası, 1923/1339), 66 – 80.
 The first article entitled “Üç Tepe” (Three Hills) in the first issue of Dergâh by Yahya Kemal,
aimed to present an alternative connection to European modernity in the light of Bergsonian
philosophy. See Yahya Kemal, “Üç Tepe”, Dergâh 1, no. 1 (1337/1921): 1– 2. Published in Istanbul
in 1921, with a total 42 of issues under the editorship of Mustafa Nahid (Özön), the Dergâh jour-
nal aimed to be in pursuit of modernization that does not exclude tradition in the ongoing in-
tellectual confrontation between the old and the new. A well-known literary person, Abdülhak
Şinasi Hisar emphasizes that the Dergâh authors were fully engaged with Bergsonian philoso-
phy. See A. Şinasi Hisar, Kitaplar ve Muharrirler, vol. 1 (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2008),
246– 251. For more details on Dergah, see Cafer Gariper, “Türk Düşüncesinde Dergâh Dergisinin
Yeri”, in Prof. Dr. Ismail Çetişli Hatıra Kitabı, ed. Mehmet Surur Çelepi (Ankara: Akçağ, 2016),
245 – 262.
 See Levent Bayraktar, “Bergsonculuğun Türkiye’ye Girişi ve Ilk Temsilcileri”, Felsefe Dünyası
28 (1998): 62– 72. According to Orhan Okay, the well-known poet Necip Fazıl Kısakürek was also
influenced by Bergson’s intuitive philosophy in his early period. See Orhan Okay, Necip Fazıl
Kısakürek (Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığ ı Yayınları, 1987), 36.
thought in the1920s. Its rapid formation took place mainly through its key doc-
trine of intuition, which was frequently cited in philosophical analyses of its
Turkish admirers. As a modern philosophical trend with broader sources of
knowledge, including intuition and other new concepts, such as creative evolu-
tion and life impulse that provided action and dynamism, Bergsonism turned
out to be captivating enough to assemble a group of anti-positivist intellectuals
as an emerging school, who were looking for an alternative West in Istanbul.
Bergsonian intuitionism, like materialism and positivism, transitioned into an
interface of cultural and intellectual interaction with European modernity. The
interest in Bergson was specifically related to the content of his philosophy of
course, but it was also strongly linked to the conditions of the country and the
world as shall be demonstrated below. In the following section, I will examine
this process of Turkish Bergsonism focusing on its rise to philosophical rele-
vance under the evolving Turkish intellectual conditions, by focusing on the pio-
neer figure Mustafa Şekip Tunç’s perceptions and interpretations of Bergsonian
concepts and ideas. Following him, I will highlight other personalities, who were
associated with Turkish Bergsonism with joint connections of other schools,
such as pragmatism.
4. Mustafa Şekip Tunç as the Leading Figure of

Turkish Bergsonism
Bergsonian philosophy became a reality only after some introductory expositions
of his thought by loyal followers. The most significant figure, who absorbed and
represented Bergson’s ideas in Turkey, was Mustafa Şekip Tunç. Following his
graduation from the prestigious political science school (Mülkiye Mektebi) in
the same year of the constitutional revolution in 1908, and after some years of
public service and teaching jobs at various middle and high schools, he had
been student of pedagogy and psychology (1913 – 1915) at the L’Institut Jean-Jac-
ques Rousseau in Geneva, Switzerland. After his return, while teaching at the
Darülmuallimât-i Âliye (Teachers School for Girls), he discovered the writings
of Bergson in the last year of the World War I, just before becoming a professor
of psychology and philosophy at the Darülfünun in 1919.⁴³ He continued his pro-
 Şekip began his philosophical translations with Théodule Ribot’s (1839 – 1916) La psycholo-
gie des sentiments (Hissiyât Ruhiyatı). For details of the impact of his translations see Şerif Eskin,
“Bergson Tercümeleri ve Felsefe Dilindeki Dönüşüm,” in Yaratıcı Tekâmül (Istanbul: Dergâh
Yayınları, 2017), 8 – 10. Bergson translations were reedited in 1947 as a part of the series “Trans-
fessorship at Istanbul University after the university reform in 1933, as a faculty

member of both departments. He also chaired the Turkish Philosophical Society
(Türk Felsefe Cemiyeti) and the Teachers Association (Muallimler Derneği).
Mustafa Şekip’s enthusiasm for Bergson interestingly paralleled the develop-
ment of some intellectuals, such as American pragmatist thinker William James
(1842– 1910), the Greek thinker Nikos Kazantzakis (1883 – 1957), and the Chinese
spiritualist philosopher Liang Shuming, who had all become impressed by Berg-
son’s writings.⁴⁴ In his account of discovering Bergson for himself, Şekip ex-
plained that during his readings of other philosophers he found in them some
sort of scientific inspection (ilim müfettişliği) or system architecture (system mim-
arlığı), but despite his appreciation of their thought, he could not relate his own
will to their thinking in a deep way. Further below, he expressed a strong enthu-
siasm: “until I came across Bergson, no other philosopher was able to inspire me
to find my sense of will.”⁴⁵ He argued that other philosophical ways were rather
artificial routes opened by rational and logical methods. However, although the
aim of philosophy was expected to be in finding or at least suggesting the real
qualities and natural wills of the universe, soul, and life, the philosophizing
sources that he had read or listened to so far, had usually been frustrated efforts
to reach those. Thus, he saw that type of philosophy as to be blamed for his dis-
satisfaction rather than himself.⁴⁶
Mustafa Şekip appears to have been frustrated by pure analytical discourses
during his youth and was looking for new approaches that also addressed his
inner senses and soul. The key concept he focused on seems to be the personal
will (irade), which represents choices based on one’s own experiences and
lations from World Literature: French Classics” published by the Ministry of National Education
(Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı).
 William James stated: “I have been re-reading Bergson’s books, and nothing that I have read
since years has so excited and stimulated my thoughts.” Quoted from James by J. Alexander
Gunn, Bergson and His Philosophy, (2002 [1920]), 10. Nikos Kazantzakis expressed: “Bergson re-
leased me from insoluble philosophical anguishes that had tormented my early youth.” Quoted
from Kazantzakis by Wook-Dong Kim, “Nikos Kazantzakis’s Zorba the Greek: Another Echo of
Henri Bergson,” The Explicator 75, no. 3 (2017): 181– 183. Also see Andreas K. Poulakidas, “Ka-
zantzakis and Bergson: Metaphysic Aestheticians,” Journal of Modern Literature 2, no. 2 (1971–
1972): 267– 283. Liang Shuming, however, suggested that after examining Western and Chinese
thoughts, “I felt what most successfully developed its own idea and particularly suited my
taste was the Vitalist philosophy, mainly represented by Bergson.” (Yanming An, “Liang Shum-
ing and Henri Bergson on Intuition,” 343).
 “Bergson’a temas edinceye kadar filozoflardan hiçbirisi bana irademi buldurtabilecek bir tel-
kin yapamamıştı.” Mustafa Şekip (Tunç), Bergson ve “Manevi Kudret”e Dair Birkaç Konferans (Is-
tanbul: Muallim Ahmet Halit Kitaphanesi, 2n ed., 1934), 3.
 Tunç, Bergson ve “Manevi Kudret”e Dair Birkaç Konferans, 3 – 4.
moral-spiritual synthesis. It is something that appeared to parallel Bergsonian

intuition, as a kind of deep insight and full perception of reality. Intuition is
stronger than the Turkish word sezgi, but perhaps comparable to the mystical-
philosophical inner awareness, with a comprehensive correspondence between
self and the reality. Şekip also sensed in the world of Bergsonian philosophy
an indivisible unity of science with art, an approach that he had been whole-
heartedly searching for until he was thirty years old, when he would finally dis-
cover Bergson, and became intellectually fulfilled by the methodology of this
productive interface with inner connection.⁴⁷ He stated that before he had read
Bergson there was a disconnection between his rationality, and the ups and
downs of his life. His incapacity at reconciling logic and realities, and his diffi-
culties in accommodating the turbulences of life, had turned him into a con-
fused, reserved, and pessimistic person. He was seeing himself like a chandelier
hung in a void, only attached to his logical faculties in that void without being
aware of his other existential aspects. In such an already personally stressful sit-
uation, the occurrence of World War I had a strong effect in removing the last
barriers between his logical rationality and inner self.⁴⁸
At the Ninth International Congress of Philosophy in 1937 in Paris, which
was devoted to Descartes and the Cartesian studies, and witnessed the participa-
tion of several leading Western philosophers including Bergson, Turkish thinker
Mustafa Şekip also delivered a paper. In his talk, while underlining the contribu-
tions of Descartes’ rationalism to continental philosophy, he underlined its limits
for the contemporary world, and ended his talk by referring to the Bergsonian
concept of creative evolution. He also expressed how Turkey was steadily ad-
vancing along the path of rationality and modernity by recreating itself accord-
ing to the famous formula of Bergson.⁴⁹
The Turkish Bergsonian movement of thought, and primarily Şekip, put all
its intellectual efforts in the criticism of Durkheimian sociology, which had
been led by Ziya Gökalp. Despite their differences, all the members of the move-
 “Filozofun göstereceği âlem ne yalnız ilmin ne de yalnız san’atın âlemidir. O her iki âlemin
rabbı olmağa ve bunları parçalanmaz bir vücut halinde göstermeğe mecburdur. İşte benim sen-
elerce aradığım bu mahiyette bir filozoftu ki ben bu ihtiyacı otuz yaşıma kadar gayrımeş‘ur bir
sıkıntı halinde çektim. Nihayet Bergson’a temas ettiğim gün onda bu ihtiyacımın şuurunu bul-
mağa başladım.” (Tunç, Bergson ve “Manevi Kudret”e Dair Birkaç Konferans, 5).
 Tunç, Bergson ve “Manevi Kudret”e Dair Birkaç Konferans, 5 – 6.
 “Suivant la célèbre formule de M. Bergson, La Turquie est en train de se créer…” See Mustafa
Şekip Tunç, Apel au Congrès Descartes”, Iş, 4, no. 1 (1938): 5 – 7. For the Turkish translation of the
paper by Safa Ş. Erkün, see “Descartes Kongresine Hitab”, Iş 12, no. 54– 56 (1949): 61– 63, which
is reproduced in a commemorational special issue of Bilgi 11, no. 132 (1958): 16 – 17.
ment criticized the positivistic elements of Gökalp’s sociology as well as his strict
following of Durkheimian theory. As the main representative of the Bergsonist
circle, Şekip often expressed his unhappiness with the sociological thought of
the former. In an article devoted to the neglect of soul by the followers of Dur-
kheim, he highlighted that it was the soul which provided liberty for individuals.
Hence, any approach that undermined the significance of soul was in fact also
depriving individuals of their freedom. Since intellect alone cannot bring free-
dom of action, philosophers need to find a methodology that is able to engage
with the dynamism of the soul, and one that realizes its creativity towards con-
tinuous changes in human life. According to Şekip, while the intellect only
serves the discoveries of material science, it does not account for the importance
of the soul and its active qualities, which determine life in a more comprehensive
way. Therefore, the human comprehension of reality could be complete only with
both of them. It appears that, in the footsteps of Bergson, he was suggesting a
sort of psycho-philosophical introspection by bringing together both intellectual
and intuitive reasoning.⁵⁰ These opinions show that there was a growing tenden-
cy toward individualism and against collectivism among Turkish scholars in the
post-World War I period, a factor that had also been pointed out by intellectual
historians during the early Republican times.⁵¹
Moreover, Mustafa Şekip opened a debate over his criticism of Gökalp with a
young author. In a response published in Dergâh, the author accused Tunç of
generalizing particular statements of Gökalp, and of presenting them incorrect-
ly.⁵² In his reply in the same issue of the journal, Mustafa Şekip underlined the
imposing character of Durkheimian social theory over members of society, and
its obliviousness to human creativities, such as art, religion, and ethics. For
him, society turns into a monolithic reality in Durkheim’s sociology, which leaves
individuals empty of all their capacities.⁵³ It should also be noted that Mustafa
Şekip Tunç was not solely criticizing Durkheimian sociology that was strongly
promoted by the theoretician of the nation Gökalp, but also Edmond Demolins’
(1852– 1907) sociology of Anglo-Saxon plurality.⁵⁴
It can be argued that by criticizing the hitherto widespread official Turkish
version of Durkheimian sociology as too positivistic, Mustafa Şekip aimed to
stimulate intuitionist philosophy for its creative inspiration, as well as its com-
 Mustafa Şekip (Tunç), “Ruha Bir Dikkat”, Dergâh 1, no. 4 (1337 [1921]): 52.
 Mehmet Servet, “Fikir Hayatımız V: Cemiyetçiliğ e Karşı”, Hayat 5, no. 122 (1929): 345 – 346.
 Ragıb Hulusi (Özdem), “Bir Mukabele ve Istîzah”, Dergâh 1, no. 8 (1337 [1921]): 115.
 Mustafa Şekip (Tunç), “Cevab”, Dergâh 1, no. 8 (1337 [1921]): 116.
 Mustafa Şekip (Tunç) “Hakiki Hürriyet”, 37– 39. Demolin’s views were particularly defended
by the decentralist author (Prens) Sabahaddin (1879 – 1948).
bining of rational and spiritual aspects of human nature in a philosophical sys-

tem.⁵⁵ In his view, Bergson was one of the most challenging philosophers of
modern times because he possessed originality in showing the aspects of
human creativity.⁵⁶ Şekip fully approved Bergson’s philosophy of being, which
included the pre-eternality of the physical world, and the continuity of creation
through evolution.⁵⁷ He was thus fully representing Bergsonism in Turkey, and
could be seen as its primary figure. The approval and justification of Bergson
by Şekip gained a more pronounced form with new insights in his very last
book on a new theory of religion entitled Bir Din Felsefesine Doğru (Towards a
New Philosophy of Religion), published posthumously in 1959.
5. Authors Critical of Durkheimian Positivism

and Moderately Open to Bergson
Among late Ottomans, not all authors were following Bergson so whole-hearted-
ly as Mustafa Şekip. Some of them appreciated certain views and concepts of
Bergson, but were also interested in other figures, and developed interesting syn-
theses together with remarkable criticisms of Durkheim and his follower Gökalp
in the post-war times.⁵⁸ Following the Babıâli raid in 1913, and the assassination
of the Grand Vizier of the Constitutional period Mahmut Şevket Paşa (1856 –
1913), the Committee of the Union and Progress (CUP) had declared a censorship
of publications, which constrained the criticisms of the CUP-linked figures.
Gökalp had close ties with the CUP, and thus it was risky to write against him
in that period. However, after World War I and the removal of the CUP govern-
 See Mustafa Şekip Tunç, “Memleketimizde Felsefenin Inkişafı”, Iş 3, no. 10 (1937): 25 – 34.
 Mustafa Şekip Tunç, “Önsöz [Preface]”, in Henri Bergson, Yaratıcı Tekâmül, translated by M.
Şekip Tunç (Istanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1986), i-lii [1– 52], viii. As a part of this creativity,
Şekip also reproduced Bergson’s Le Rire (Laughter) as a translation commentary in Ottoman
(Gülmek Nedir ve Kime Gülüyoruz? [Istanbul: Kader Matbaası 1337/1921]), and later in modern
Turkish (Gülme: Komiğin Anlamı Üzerine Bir Deneme [Ankara: Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı, 1945]).
This book was recently edited with an introduction and the inclusion of related texts. See Levent
Bayraktar and Zeynep Tok, eds., Bergson’dan Mustafa Şekip’e Gülme (Ankara: Aktif Düşünce
Yayıncılık, 2015). For an English review of the latter edition by Gözde Han, see https://bergson.-
hypotheses.org/1754 .
 Mustafa Şekip Tunç, Fikir Sohbetleri: Yirmi Iki Diyalok (Istanbul: Ülkü Basımevi, 1949), 70.
 Efe Arık, “‘Birtakım Muğ lak Ziya Oyunları’: Millî Mücadele’de Ziya Gökalp ve Durkheim So-
syolojisine Yönelik Eleştiriler ve Dergâh Dergisi,” Sosyoloji Dergisi 28 (2014): 139 – 165, specifical-
ly 146 – 147.
ment, pressures and restrictions on authors would gradually ease, and opinions
could be expressed more openly.⁵⁹
An interesting case for this type of authors was Mehmed Emin Erişirgil
(1891– 1965), who in his later period put Bergsonism in conversation with Wil-
liam James’ pragmatism, and also wrote more explicit criticisms of Durkheim,
and his follower Gökalp.⁶⁰ In his early writings in the Düşünce journal, Emin
pointed out his disagreements with Durkheimian sociology, mainly suggesting
that social events could not be fully separated from behavioral backgrounds
and psychological causes. In his view, Durkheim’s sociology was examining so-
ciety one-sidedly, without a complete and more complex approach. He also
thought that it was impossible to generate ideals for future generations through
a so-called objective study of current society. Therefore, the modern scholar
needs philosophy and psychology next to sociology in order to complementarily
include spiritual and inner dimensions of inquiry.⁶¹ He referred to Bergsonian
ideas by elaborating intuition, creative evolution, and consciousness, while em-
phasizing the difficulties of explaining psychological behaviors without theoriz-
ing about the soul in a metaphysical approach.⁶² As a professor of philosophy
and sociology at the Darülfünun, Emin continued to focus on Bergson in his writ-
ings in the Dergâh journal, where he became part of the Bergsonian circle along
with Mustafa Şekip and Ismail Hakkı. Among the Western philosophers in whom
he was particularly interested were Immanuel Kant (1724– 1804), Henri Bergson,
William James, and John Dewey (1859 – 1952).
As a scholar who had translated Bergson’s Les deux sources de la morale et
de la religion into Turkish,⁶³ Mehmed Emin was not content with the positivistic
elements of Durkheim’s sociology. Disapproving of a strict mechanical causality
in life, and of human conditions in a Darwinian approach, he referred to Emile
Boutroux, a defender of indeterminism in physics. Moreover, he did not agree
with the Durkheimian division of labor as a rigid application of causality. In-
stead, he argued, the division of labor needed to be based on human under-
 For censorship during the World War I period, see Hüseyin Kalemli, “Birinci Dünya Savaşı
Yıllarında Osmanlı Devleti’nde Sansür Uygulaması,” Atatürk Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları
Dergisi 62 (2018): 509 – 538.
 M. Cüneyt Kaya, “Mehmet Emin Erişirgil: Bergsonculuktan Pragmatizme Bir Dârülfünûn
Hocası,” Kutadgubilig: Felsefe Bilim Araştırmaları 18 (2010): 129 – 180.
 Mehmed Emin (Erişirgil), “İ çtimaiyat ve Kıymet Hükümleri,” Düşünce 1, no. 1 (1337 [1921]):
30 – 34.
 Ülken, Türkiye’de Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi, 428.
 See Henri Bergson, Ahlak ve Dinin Iki Kaynağı, trans. Mehmet Emin (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaa-
sı, 1933).
standing and ability in order to aim for higher goals through will and choice. He
underlined that his criticisms were applicable to Durkheim because of a heavy
scienticist and determinist approach in his sociology, which focuses only on so-
cial conditions in comprehending human beings.⁶⁴
Directly addressing Gökalp, Mehmed Emin argued that philosophical ap-
proaches and views were normally quite open to change. However, Gökalp
had often presented them in a dogmatic way, which had usually caused misun-
derstandings. He perceived Gökalp’s approach as one-dimensional and too rigid.
According to Emin, a variety of opinions needed to be considered with vivid re-
sponses to the arguments of opposite views in order to create conditions for bet-
ter understanding, and a more objective scholarly discussion. Thus, new intellec-
tual movements could only be comprehended in view of older schools of
thought. For instance, in order to defend philosophical pluralism in a clearer
and more solid way, one needs to discuss monism, too, using a comparative
method, and finally to demonstrate that monism could not explain all aspects
of the matter. Since Gökalp did not usually bother to present various approaches
concerning certain topics, his readers, who regarded him as an authority, tended
to think that it was possible to reach certainty in sociology and philosophy as in
physics and chemistry. However, in Emin’s view, there was a significant differ-
ence between the scientific materialism of the 18th and the 19th centuries, and
Durkheim’s sociology that was to some extent linked to materialism through
its positivistic rationality, and the claim of a complete certainty. Since in Gökalp’s
static understanding of sociology, religious and moral values could be studied
like natural and material issues, Mehmed Emin linked him to materialism.⁶⁵
In his articles in the Dergâh journal, Mehmed Emin systematically synthe-
sized Bergson’s intuitionism and William James’ pragmatism. He suggested
that a combination of inspirational intuitionism based on dynamism of life
and the advantages of pragmatism provided the benefit of creating a dynamic
society. He repeatedly criticized strict rationalism and empiricism, rejecting the
dominance of matter over life and soul. Besides, in his view, inner faculties
 Mehmed Emin (Erişirgil), “Emile Boutroux ve Felsefesi” Dergâh 2, no. 19 (1338 [1922]): 99 –
100.
 Mehmed Emin (Erişirgil), “Fikir Hayatı: Diyarbakır’da Ziya Gökalp Beyefendiye”, Dergâh 3,
no. 33 (1338 [1922]): 134– 135. Gökalp’s student Ragıp Hulusi again reacted against this open criti-
cism by Mehmed Emin and wrote a short piece demanding further clarifications from the author
regarding his points, especially his comments about creating dogmas (see “Muallim Mehmed
Emin Beyefendiden bir istizah,” Dergâh 3, no. 34 (1338 [1922]): 160. Emin responded that the
role and authority of science should not be exaggerated (see “Mektuplar”. Dergâh 3, no. 35
(1338 [1922]): 176.
such as conscience and will were not dependent on rational faculties.⁶⁶ There-
fore, he argued, one should be likewise critical of limited approaches presented
by materialism, naturalism, Darwinian evolutionism, and monism. Moreover, he
was thinking that the latter schools were not able to understand Bergsonism in a
full-fledged manner, nor pragmatism neither, due to its fundamental denial of
the soul.⁶⁷ Mehmed Emin would later actively write in the Hayat journal
(1926 – 1930), where he focused in a series of articles on the new conditions,
changes, and the needs of the new generations.⁶⁸ After him, Bergson continued
to be of interest to some scholars of the later generation, specifically Nurettin
Topçu (1909 – 1975).⁶⁹ Ziya Somar (1906 – 1978) also published a book on Berg-
son, at the end of which he briefly discussed the impact of Bergson on Turkish
thought.⁷⁰
6. The Bergsonist of Modern Turkish Literature:

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
Apart from philosophy and social sciences, Bergsonism was also influential in
literature. As was pointed out earlier, several authors and poets around
Dergâh were interested in, or inspired by Bergsonian thought. For instance,
Yahya Kemal’s emphasis on continuity within change, his view of an enduring
steady time (imtidâd) as an equivalent of duration, and his idea of the “future
rooted in the past” (kökleri mâzide olan âti) are all signs of Bergsonian influence
 Mehmed Emin (Erişirgil), “Hasbıhal”, Dergâh 3, no. 33 (1337 [1921]): 53.

 Mehmed Emin (Erişirgil), “Ne Çıkar?-3,” Dergâh 2, no. 13 (1337 [1921]): 4; Mehmed Emin (Eri-
şirgil), “Anlaşılmaz ki… Anlayamazsınız ki-4,” Dergâh 2, no. 14 (1337 [1921]): 72– 73.
 See Mehmed Emin (Erişirgil), “Manevi Inzibat ve Yeni Nesil,” Hayat 1, no. 2 (1926): 21– 22;
Mehmed Emin (Erişirgil), “Eski ve Yeni Neslin Düşünceleri Arasındaki Fark,” Hayat 1, no. 3
(1926): 42– 43.
 Topçu’s intellectual formation was transnational, he studied philosophy at Strasbourg and
then at the Sorbonne, where he wrote his dissertation entitled “Conformisme et révolte: Esquisse
d’une psychologie de la croyance” in 1934. His second thesis for his associate professorship (do-
çentlik) was on Bergson under the supervision of Hilmi Ziya Ülken at Istanbul University Faculty
of Literature. First published in 1968, Topçu’s Bergson, was originally written in 1947 during a
course on the philosopher taught by Ülken. For its second edition see Nurettin Topçu, Bergson,
eds. Ezel Erverdi and Ismail Kara (Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, 1998). Also see Ali Birinci, “Nur-
ettin Topçu’nun Bergson’la Ilgili Doçentlik Tezi Hakkında Bilgiler ve Vesikalar”, Kutadgubilig:
Felsefe-Bilim Araştırmaları 26 (2014): 253 – 272.
 Ziya Somar, Bergson: Hayatı, Felsefesi, Ilk Eseri (Istanbul: Suhûlet Kitabevi, 1939).
on his writings.⁷¹ Bergsonian philosophy was not only regarded as an appropri-

ate modern source for the Ottomans, but was also seen as a natural conversation
partner with mysticism in Turkish literature by those authors, in order to get rid
of the emphasis on positivism, and to reduce the impact of mechanistic materi-
alism among intellectuals. Literature was generally a popular genre in modern
Turkish history, not only for its artistic visions, but also because of its role in
the spread of new ideas in society.
Among new literary figures, it would be appropriate to highlight the distin-
guished Turkish modernist author and poet, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, who in his
memories explicitly embraced Bergson’s philosophy, especially his conception of
time, and even compared his philosophy to a lifeguard (cankurtaran).⁷² In his no-
table study on Tanpınar, Şerif Eskin covers certain concepts of Bergsonian
thought, such as time, duration, evolution, and memory, and connects them
to his major literary works.⁷³ For instance, Tanpınar extensively employs Berg-
son’s monolithic time of duration, which is not seen as a succession of distinct
parts. The difference between mechanical (mathematical) and lived (psycholog-
ical) time, which is based on duration, illuminates certain aspects of Tanpınar’s
ideas. Mathematical time is conceptualized and formed within “space,” it is cal-
culable and divided into parts as in the calendar. In contrast, durée is experi-
enced in consciousness. However, states of consciousness are not about amounts
and numbers, but about quality and volume. According to Bergson, the fallacy
regarding “duration” or unbroken time stems from the fact that it is perceived
through the lens of space, of which Tanpınar seems to be aware. Among links
between Bergson and Tanpınar, there is also the concept of duration, indivisible
time that has been “neither in nor quite out of it,” which is called monolithic
time (yekpâre an/zaman) in Tanpınar’s poetry and texts.⁷⁴
 Beşir Ayvazoğlu, Yahya Kemal: Eve Dönen Adam (Istanbul: Kapı Yayınları, 2008), 227– 228.
 “Şiir ve sanat anlayışımda Bergson’un zaman telâkkisinin mühim bir yeri vardır.” See Ahmet
Hamdi Tanpınar, Yaşadığım Gibi, ed. Birol Emil (Istanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 2005), 352. “Bergson
kadar tam zamanında gelmiş filozof azdır. Onun felsefesi asrımızın başında bin türlü karışık
dava arasında insan düşüncesine en mesut tesadüflerle… uzatılmış bir cankurtarana benzer.
Quoted from Tanpınar in Hece: Aylık Edebiyat Dergisi, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Özel Sayısı, 3rd
edition, 61 (2016): 639 – 652. Among the books in Tanpınar’s private library were Bergson’s com-
plete works, Oeuvres complètes et annexes, and some monographs on his thought. See Handan
Inci, ed., Tanpınar Zamanı (Istanbul: Kapı Yayınları, 2012), 319 – 342.
 Şerif Eskin, Zaman ve Hafızanın Kıyısında Tanpınar’ın Edebiyat Estetik ve Düşünce Dünyasın-
da Bergson Felsefesi (Istanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 2014).
 “Ne içindeyim zamanın / Ne de büsbütün dışında / Yekpâre, geniş bir ânın / Parçalanmaz
akışında.” See Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Bütün Şiirleri, ed. İnci Enginün (Istanbul: Dergâh Yayın-
ları, 2005), 19. “Yaşadığımız, gülüp eğlendiğimiz, çalıştığımız, seviştiğimiz zamanın yanı başın-
Moreover, the constitutive structure of Bergson’s philosophy is pervasive

throughout Tanpınar’s works in his allegoric and symbolic style. For example,
each of the two clocks and two watch repairers that the protagonist of The
Time Regulation Institute, namely Hayri Irdal becomes acquainted with in his
lifetime, represent two distinct and opposite worldviews and approaches to
life. This duality is also valid for the concept of duration by comparing two
clock repairers and their relation to their works.⁷⁵ Also Bergson’s concepts of
continuous time and creative evolution, which allow change in maintenance
and conservation, are found in Tanpınar’s mind.⁷⁶ For him it was in the years
following the Tanzimat period, while seeking change that they had lost “the
idea of continuity and entirety” (devam ve bütünlük fikri), which had been effec-
tive in previous times. In the pre-modern period, there were taken-for-granted
connections between generations of intellectuals, since “they did not live in div-
ided times; present and past were interconnected in their mind (Onlar parça-
lanmış bir zamanı yaşamıyorlardı. Hâl ile mâzi zihinlerinde birbirine bağlıydı).”⁷⁷
As pointed out above, Tanpınar variously emphasized the essentialness of
change in life as a part of his Bergsonian vitalist evolutionism as against me-
chanical evolutionism, and never dreamed of a golden past to return to. What
he defended was merely some necessary representation of the past in the pre-
sent, something that can also be associated with the psychologist Sigmund
Freud (1856 – 1939), in order to avoid disconnection amid continuous change.⁷⁸
Similarly, apart from time, Bergson’s theory of matter and memory is also
heavily expressed in Tanpınar’s texts. In accordance with Bergsonian terms,
Tanpınar explicitly employs concepts such as self (benlik), consciousness
da ondan çok daha başka, çok daha derin, takvimle, saatle alâkası olmayan; sanatın, ihtirasla,
imanla yaşanmış hayatın ve tarihin bu şehrin havasında ebedi bir mevsim gibi ayarladığı velût
ve yekpare bir zaman.” See Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Beş Şehir, ed. M. Fatih Andı (Istanbul: Yapı
Kredi Yayınları, 2002), 121. Also see Ali Ihsan Kolcu, “Tanpınar’ın Bir Gün Icadiye’de Şiirinde
Bergson’un Zaman Anlayışının Etkisi”, Üsküdar Sempozyumu: Bildiriler, vol. 2, ed. Zekeriya Kur-
şun et al. (Istanbul: Üsküdar Belediye Başkanlığı, 2005), 257– 61; Eskin, Zaman ve Hafızanın Kıyı-
sında, 80 – 84.
 Eskin, Zaman ve Hafızanın Kıyısında, 84– 9. Also see Hasan Bülent Kahraman, “Yitirilmiş Za-
manın Ardında: Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar ve Muhafazakâr Modernliğ in Estetik Düzlemi,” Doğ u-
Batı 11 (2000): 9 – 43.
 See Tanpınar, Yahya Kemal, 24.
 Tanpınar, Yaşadığım Gibi, 36.
 It needs to be noted that Tanpınar often refers to Freud while dealing with time and memory,
especially when he analyzes the breakup from the past, and he even compares the Tanzimat
process to the Oedipus complex theory of Freud. See Tanpınar, Yaşadığım Gibi, 38; Eskin,
Zaman ve Hafızanın Kıyısında, 108. However, despite influences he should not be considered
Freudian in his thought.
(şuur), and memory (hâfıza), remembering (hatırlama) and forgetting (unutma) in

his literary works. For instance, the key of the old house in Tanpınar’s recalling,
an allusion to Marcel Proust’s (1871– 1922) madeleine cookies, invokes unexpect-
ed and involuntary remembrance of memories of the past in the sense of Berg-
sonian mémoire involontaire. ⁷⁹ It is widely known that Proust was inspired by
Bergsonian thought in his poetry. Tanpınar, too, portrays Proust as “the winder
of Bergsonian philosophy” (Proust, Bergson felsefesinin zembereğidir).⁸⁰ In his
philosophical and psychological novels Mahur Beste and Huzur, he also analyzes
the memories, ideals, and disappointments of Ottoman and Republican intellec-
tuals through novel characters by highlighting the crucial points of remembering
and forgetting through certain personalities, events, and encounters.⁸¹ To his
mind, for individuals and societies the already lived moments are as equally im-
portant as the current moment because they carry reminiscences that continue to
be effectual via certain emotions and vivid remembrance throughout life. This
close relation between time and memory, and between memory and self-identity,
that is so often employed by Tanpınar in his poetry and thought, is evidently in-
spired by Bergson’s philosophy.⁸²
7. Conclusion
This chapter explored the popularity of Bergson among a group of Turkish intel-
lectuals via selected figures, who considered his thought an ideal ground for a
synthesis of Turkish thought with European modernity. They regarded them-
selves as in search of a more workable harmony between modern thought and
local culture by the early 20th century when there was still a dominant influence
of positivism among intellectuals and bureaucratic elites as the continuation of
the late Ottoman period. Especially during the armistice (mütareke) with Europe-
an powers and the depressing atmosphere of the post-World War I period (1918 –
 Eskin, Zaman ve Hafızanın Kıyısında, 155 – 6. Also see Işık Yanar, “Zaman Algılarında Simge
ve Temsil, Tanpınar ve Proust’ta Zaman Tasarımı,” Hece: Aylık Fikir Dergisi, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpı-
nar Özel Sayısı, 3rd edition, 61 (2016): 584– 592.
 See Tanpınar’dan Yeni Ders Notları, ed. Güler Güven (Istanbul: Türk Edebiyatı Vakfı Yayınları,
2004), 40.
 Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Mâhur Beste (Istanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 2005); Huzûr (Istanbul:
Dergah Yayınları, 2005).
 Also see Nurten Birlik, “Tanpınar’s Attempts to Go beyond the Temporal Reality: ‘The
Dance’, a Bergsonian Analysis,” Middle Eastern Literatures 10, no. 2 (2007): 175 – 183; Idris
Çakmak, “Domination of Bergson on Tanpınar and Eliot’s Critical Agendas,” International Jour-
nal of the Humanities 6, no. 10 (2009): 29 – 35.
1920), these thinkers were dependent on more groundbreaking and innovative

movements in the hope of finding urgent solutions to their conditions. Bergson-
ism offered a spiritual command of intuition, and the material power of
change.⁸³ As intellectual historian and sociologist Ziyaeddin Fahri Fındıkoğlu
(1901– 1974) reflected, the philosophy of Bergson like a forerunner of a near
and good future affected the spirits of the demoralized university students at
the times of the city’s occupation.⁸⁴
Despite their appreciation of European progress and novel ideas, the new
group found Bergsonian thought more relevant for reconciling both the modern
global (Garb) and traditional local (Şark), while trying to settle the long-time di-
lemma of late Ottoman Turkish intellectuals to bring them together in a way that
would be agreeable for their society. This group consisted of a diverse back-
ground, ranging from nationalists to romanticists, and from philosophers to so-
cial scientists, who had come together under the Bergsonian umbrella in a com-
monly shared criticism of both materialism and positivism. With the
strengthening of the trend, the quest of modernization shifted from the generally
“what is modern” to “which modern,” a shift that gave the Ottoman/Turkish con-
nection a new and alternative standpoint in its effort to join the global trend to-
wards modern European intellectual culture.⁸⁵
There were two forms of impact on Turkey by Bergson. Firstly, certain au-
thors, poets, and intellectuals, or in Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s generalized phrase
all as a nation (millet halinde) found a new energy and vitality in Bergson to
overcome their deepening existential crisis of identity and struggle to survival
“against numbers and opportunities” during and after the gloomy war period.⁸⁶
The struggle of the National Salvation Movement, which had revived a nation
after a dissolving empire, for them, was only explicable with the Bergsonian
élan vitale. The second impact was more philosophical. Bergsonian concepts
and their analysis allowed thinkers such as Rıza Tevfik and Mustafa Şekip to
 Cf. Hilmi Ziya Ülken, Türkiye’de Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi (Istanbul: Ülken Yayınları, 1992), 375.
 “Şimdi 1922 senesine ait talebelik hatıralarımı, zamanının kadrosu içinde canlandırıyorum:
Bergson felsefesi acayip kıyafetli yabancı askerlerin dolaştığ ı Beyazıt meydanında başları eğ ik
gezen üniversitelilerin ruhunda yakın ve iyi bir istikbalin müjdecisi tesirini yapıyor.” Quoted
from Z. Fahri Fındıkoğ lu, “Bergsonizm II”, (Cumhuriyet, 15 Ikinci Kanun 1941, 2), in Yıldız,
“Bergsonculuğun Türkiye’ye Girişi”, 340.
 For a similar argument from a political thought point of view, see Furkan Livan, “Tü rk Siyas-
al Dü şü ncesinde Modernleşme ve Bergsonculuk: Anti mi Alternatif mi?” Ankara Üniversitesi SBF
Dergisi 75, no. 4 (2020): 1443 – 1467, particularly 1464– 1465.
 “Biz ise bilerek veya bilmeyerek, hepimiz az çok Bergsoncu idik. Hatta millet halinde. Çünkü
anavatan adede ve maddî imkâna karşı en çetin mücadelede idi.” See Hece: Aylık Edebiyat Der-
gisi, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar special issue, 3rd edition, 61 (2016): 306 – 307.
be impressed by his original thinking, and to reconnect the new concepts with
Ottoman philosophical terminology, religious motifs, and classical poetic sym-
bols. Such applications generated a familiarity with Bergson among the existing
scholarly culture. Connecting Bergson to the Turkish intellectual legacy provided
change but also allowed the continuity of the culture-oriented dynamic spiritu-
alism that linked society to its roots. Therefore, the new Bergsonian approach
gave an alternative middle way to the pressures coming from rigorous tradition-
alism, which opposed transformation towards Western modernity, and the push
by extreme positivism toward a complete Westernization.
Finally, the chapter demonstrated that intellectual radiations were never
stagnant, but via connections were constantly evolving to respond to the chang-
ing problems that confronted their conditions over time. Global connections were
modes of rethinking and reproducing that were used to expand and improve
local intellectual traditions with new and more argumentative insights. In
other words, they provided an openness to the need to pursue wider engage-
ments with broader intellectual circles in order to improve one’s potential argu-
mentative power. Intellectual history, thus, by turning to be more engaged, more
communicative and globally interconnected, allows better comprehensions of
complexities of interactions of ideas and debates. The exploration of the Turkish
connection, via the above analyzed reception and internalization of Bergsonism,
is expected to contribute to a better understanding of the global directions in
Bergsonian thought in multiple regions, and to the discovery of new perspectives
out of such experiences in various intellectual environments.
Pascale Roure
Chapter 5
Between French Culture and German Geist
– The Transnational Constitutions of
Turkish Academic Philosophy
“Milli felsefe deyince sakin milli feylozofların
yazılı eserlerini anlamayınız. Bunlar ulusal,
ulusal olmayan veya lâmilli olabilir”.
Ismayıl Hakkı Baltacıoğlu¹
1. Introduction
The development of a modern educational and university system in the Ottoman
and Turkish contexts is a particularly striking example of the crisis dynamics and
transnational interactions that characterize the history of European universities
from the perspective of their global expansion since the end of the 19th century.²
France and Germany belong inseparably to the global imaginary that inspired
this development – a development that was not the mere importation of a
unique model but rather the result of an interpretation and transformative ap-
propriation of interconnected and constantly interacting models and narratives.
However, when compared with the scholarly perception of the role of France
and its cultural model in the Ottoman educational reforms – including the estab-
lishment of a European-style university in Istanbul in the late 19th century – one
cannot but notice that the importance of the academic and intellectual exchang-
es with Germany has generally been downplayed or restricted to global political
upheavals such as the First World War or the rise of National-Socialism and the
Note: This chapter was prepared in the frame of the DFG project Nr. 394062667, “Deutscher
Geist am Bosporus. Zur Rezeption von Ontologie und philosophischer Anthropologie an der Uni-
versität Istanbul (1933 – 1960).”
 Ismayıl Hakkı Baltacıoğlu, Hayatım (Istanbul: Dünya, 1998), 106: “When I speak of national
philosophy, I do not mean works written by national philosophers. These can be national, non-
national or external to the nation.” Unless otherwise stated, all translations from Turkish,
French and German in this chapter are mine.
 See Christophe Charle, “Jalons pour une histoire transnationale des universités,” Cahiers
d’histoire. Revue d’histoire critique 121 (2013): 21– 42.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-006
138 Pascale Roure
presence of emigré scholars in Turkey from 1933 to 1945.³ In such a perspective,

the Turkish-German intellectual exchanges are often perceived as a short paren-
thesis in a larger French cultural one which lasted almost a century, up until the
influence of the United States became dominant in the 1960s.⁴ Two periods have
therefore been particularly neglected in the historiography of German-Turkish re-
lations: the Weimar Republic⁵ and the post-1945 period. Another consequence of
such a perspective is that the activities of the émigré scholars in Istanbul and
Ankara are often presented as a linear and unilateral transfer of knowledge,
which contributed to the modernization program of the early Republican Tur-
key,⁶ but was devoid of a lasting and significant reception, especially in the
field of philosophical and philological disciplines.
This perspective is problematic in several aspects. First, it neglects the trans-
national and multidirectional dimension of these exchanges between Turkey and
Germany, which were far from being limited to the framework of inter-state rela-
tions. Secondly, it does not account for the reciprocity at work in cultural and
intellectual transfers, and more generally for the fact that mutual relations affect
all terms of the contact, although this may be asymmetrical.⁷ Thirdly, this ap-
 Horst Widmann, Exil und Bildungshilfe, Die deutschsprachige akademische Emigration in die
Türkei nach 1933 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1973); Jan Cremer and Horst Przytulla, Exil Türkei:
Deutschsprachige Emigranten in der Türkei 1933 – 1945 (München: Lipp, 1991). This approach con-
cerns what is only a particular case of the German-Turkish academic interaction, it has also led
to a chronological reduction to the period from 1933 to 1945, which renders the account for el-
ements of continuity beyond this period difficult. On the Nazi presence in Turkey and its efforts
to control and counteract the influence of emigrants, see Kemal Bozay, Exil Türkei: Ein For-
schungsbeitrag zur deutschsprachigen Emigration in die Türkei (1933 – 1945) (Münster: LIT, 2001).
 Widmann, Exil und Bildungshilfe, 33 ff. Widmann’s periodization not only tends to identify the
action of the academics exiled after 1933 with German national representation, it also eludes the
period of the Second World War. According to him, “the contact with France clearly predomi-
nates” in the 19th century and is “still effective” during the period before the Turkish University
reform in 1933, while the German-Turkish scientific and academic collaboration predominates
rather in the period between 1933 and 1938; the 1950s and 1960s are marked by an intensifica-
tion of relations with the United States.
 Unlike the German-Ottoman relations in the Kaiserreich, the Weimar period has been neglect-
ed, see Sabine Mangold-Will, Begrenzte Freundschaft. Deutschland und die Türkei, 1918 – 1933
(Göttingen: Wallstein, 2013), 11, 19 ff.
 Appointed professors ordinarius after the 1933 reform, Reichenbach and Spitzer had the task,
respectively, of reorganizing the Department of Philosophy and setting up a department of “Phi-
lology of Western Languages” – Spitzer founded in this context the Department of Roman lan-
guages philology (Romanoloji), which also housed teaching of German and English language
and literature.
 This is notably one of the theoretical gains of histoire croisée (“entangled history”) approach,
which advocates for the need of historicizing the categories of analysis, see Michael Werner and
Chapter 5 Transnational Constitutions of Turkish Academic Philosophy 139
proach tends to put the spotlight on certain figures considered important, while
a multitude of actors essential to these exchanges remain in the shadows and
“faceless.”⁸ In other words, the reduction of the German-Turkish intellectual in-
teractions to the particular case of the exiled scholars, its problematic restriction
to the years 1933 to 1945⁹ and the unilateral use of the transfer category that eras-
es any form of reciprocity and transformation constitute, altogether, the reasons
why the importance of these exchanges is usually downplayed.
In this chapter, I analyze the role of transnational intellectual exchanges and
of academic mobility in the constitution of philosophy as an academic discipline
at the Istanbul University’s Department of Philosophy (hereafter Department of
Philosophy) from the First World War to 1960. By highlighting elements of con-
tinuity generally neglected in the literature on this topic, I will thereby reconsid-
er the processes of (inter)nationalization that deeply transformed the Turkish
university up until its disciplinary organization from the 1920s until the Turkish
coup d’état of 1960. I argue that the German-Turkish academic interactions in the
field of philosophical disciplines intensified in such a way that they can be con-
sidered neither as the simple reverse side of the real or imagined French hegem-
ony, nor as a short German parenthesis. In the first part, I take into consideration
the Faculty of Letters (Edebiyat Fakültesi) of Istanbul University from the point of
view of its exchanges with France and Germany and as a projection screen for
Franco-German relations. The second part focuses on individual trajectories
that illustrate the evolution of these relations within the Department of Philoso-
Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Beyond Comparison: Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivi-
ty,” History & Theory 45, no. 1 (2006): 30 – 50. See also Christopher L. Hill, “Conceptual Univer-
salization in the Transnational Nineteenth Century,” in Global Intellectual History, eds. Samuel
Moyn and Andrew Sartori (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 134– 158, here 146.
 I take up here the painting metaphor used by Sudipta Kaviraj to point out the “problem of
unequal description” concerning intermediation and intermediaries, Kaviraj, “Global Intellectu-
al History: Meanings and Methods,” in: Global Intellectual History, 295 – 320, here 305: “Influ-
ence-history is certainly a recognizable form of global history, but there are serious flaws in
the way that globality is conceived. To produce a real global history, historians must shift
their focus to the processes of intermediation and to the real life of intermediaries.”
 The chronological delimitation of 1933 to 1945, which corresponds to the Nazi domination in
Germany, does not correspond to the reality of the emigration from Germany. Many émigré schol-
ars, for example Leo Spitzer and Hans Reichenbach, left Turkey for the United States before the
Second World War. Scholars who remained in Turkey after 1945, for example Ernst von Aster
(Philosophy) and Gerhard Kessler (Sociology), almost felt into oblivion. Among them, the case
of Erich Auerbach, who succeeded Spitzer at the head of the Department of Romance Philology
in 1936 and went to the US in 1947, has been studied in more detail, see Kader Konuk, East West
Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).
140 Pascale Roure
phy (Felsefe Bölümü) which gradually established itself after 1933 according to
the German model of the Philosophisches Seminar.
2. German-French Relations through the Prism of

the Istanbul Faculty of Letters
In the late Tanzimât period following the Crimean War, the Ottoman state under-
took to reform its educational system by adopting institutional measures such as
the foundation of the Ministry of Public Education (Maârif-i Umûmiyye Nezâreti)
in 1857. The Reform Edict (Islâhat) of 1856 initiated the development of a modern
educational system according to European criteria.¹⁰ The role played by France
as well as the appeal of the French cultural model in these reforms is well
known.¹¹ It is often considered as having been fundamental and quasi-exclusive
in the modernization of the Turkish university system, under the late Ottoman
Empire, during the young Turkish Republic and – with the exception of a Ger-
man parenthesis in the 1930s – up until the Cold War, when the influence of
the United States increase. However, the French university system, which was
used as a model for the Ottoman university, was itself reformed at the end of
the 19th century with reference to an idealized version of the German model of
university organization.¹²
 See Selçuk Askin Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire,
1839 – 1908, Islamization, Autocracy and Discipline (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 42 ff.
 For a critical evaluation of this role and its place in Franco-Turkish cultural relations from
the Crimean War to the Cold War, see Emmanuel Szurek, “Extraversion et dépendances, les
termes de l’échange culturel franco-turc de la guerre de Crimée à la guerre froide,” in Turcs
et Français. Une histoire culturelle 1860 – 1960, eds. Güneş Işıksel and Emmanuel Szurek (Ren-
nes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014), 27– 69, here 59 ff.
 The reform of the French system of higher education, which began with the ministry of
Duruy, was accelerated under the Third Republic. See George Weisz, The Emergence of Modern
University in France 1863 – 1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). Held responsible
for the defeat of France at the end of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871, the French faculty
system had to be reformed, taking into account the supposed superiority of the “German” uni-
versity model, see Christophe Charle and Jacques Verger, Histoire des universités (Paris: Presses
universitaires de France, 2012). At the very moment when it began to be imitated in Europe and
in the world, this model was itself in crisis, on the one hand because of the increase in the num-
ber of students, and on the other hand because of the growing tendency towards specialization
and professionalization of training, see Charle, “Jalons pour une histoire transnationale des uni-
versités”, 7.
The French influence was perceptible in the new institutions founded in Is-
tanbul with a view to training the state-elites and intellectuals of the Empire and
the Turkish Republic. This was especially the case of the Ottoman Imperial High
School of Galata-Séraï (Galatasaray Mekteb-i Sultânîsi), often presented as em-
blematic of the diplomatic rapprochements between the Ottoman Empire and
the France of Napoleon III. The high school was founded in 1868 as a govern-
ment school “aiming the Ottomanist goal of providing education for both Muslim
and non-Muslim pupils,”¹³ with the intervention of the French Minister of Edu-
cation Victor Duruy (1811– 1894). This prestigious institution was conceived as
a prototype for high schools in charge of training the Ottoman elites¹⁴ and, in-
deed, the Ottoman law on public education, adopted a year later, planned the
development of Imperial high schools on the French lycée model as well as
the foundation of a secular, European-style university called Dârülfünûn. ¹⁵ Par-
allel to these developments, French universities were, under the French Third Re-
public and at least until 1914, the privileged destination for Ottoman students.¹⁶
Compared to the cultural and linguistic dominance of France in the Ottoman
educational and scientific interactions with Europe, Germany’s academic diplo-
macy is usually presented as having played a secondary role, essentially limited
to periods of crisis such as the First World War and the rise of National-Socialism
in 1930s Europe. It is at least admitted that the German-French rivalry was trans-
posed in the Ottoman context where it created an alternative between two dis-
tinct models of modernization and played an effective role in the development
of the Turkish university.¹⁷ This rivalry in the educational and cultural fields
was especially severe after the French-German war (1870 – 1871), when Germany
 See Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 52 ff.
 François Georgeon, “La formation des élites à la fin de l’Empire ottoman: le cas de Galata-
saray,” Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée no. 72 (1994): 15 – 25.
 On the different attempts leading to the foundation of the Dârülfünûn in 1900, see Ekmeled-
din Ihsanoğlu, “The Genesis of the ‘Darulfünun’. An Overview of Attempts to Establish the First
Ottoman University,” in Histoire économique et sociale de l’Empire ottoman et de la Turquie
(1326 – 1960), ed. Daniel Panzac (Paris: Peeters, 1995), 827– 842.
 Klaus Kreiser, “Étudiants ottomans en France et en Suisse (1909 – 1912),” in Histoire écono-
mique et sociale de l’Empire ottoman et de la Turquie, 843 – 849.
 Hamit Bozarslan, “Modèles français et allemand au miroir ottoman,” in Plurales Deutsch-
land. Festschrift für Etienne François, eds. Peter Schöttler, Patrice Veit and Michael Werner (Göt-
tingen: Wallstein, 1999), 58 – 65, here 61. On the triangular structure of the cultural exchanges
between France, Turkey and Germany, see also Szurek, “Extraversion et dépendances,” 62 ff.
142 Pascale Roure
started to impose itself economically and militarily in the Ottoman Empire. It

reached its height during the First World War, as we will see later.¹⁸
2.1. The Narrative of “Franco-Turkish friendship” in the Light

of Turkish University Reform
In his untimely travel tale published in 1934, Orient, the French radical-socialist
politician Édouard Herriot (1872– 1957) tells the story of his journey to Moscow,
where he was invited by Stalin in 1933. There he devotes a few chapters to the
“New Turkey,” in which he makes himself the enthusiast propagandist of the
Kemalist revolution. The reforms of language and education aroused his admira-
tion, although he considered the nationalization they induced as being done to
the detriment of the diffusion of French influence.¹⁹ Herriot ends this presenta-
tion by revisiting the diplomatic topos of Franco-Turkish friendship, stating that
“Republican France can still render immense services to its younger sister, the
Turkish Republic,” as soon as “our willingness to help a laborious and probing
country has been felt, with no other desire than to work with it in the common
works of humanity, civilization and peace.”²⁰
As Herriot expresses it, in terms that are not free of Germanophobia, the field
in which the cooperation between France and Turkey seemed most threatened is
that of higher education. In the radiant picture of Turkey he depicts, he only sees
one shadow: the 1933 reform of Istanbul University under the guidance of the
Swiss pedagogue Albert Malche (1876 – 1956).²¹ Herriot, who moreover is of the
opinion that “[g]enerally speaking, it seems useful to train in the East good
 The theme of the rivalry between France and Germany was abundantly described in French
historiography as permanently haunting the Franco-Turkish cultural interactions, sometimes in
an obsessive way. The interpretation of these relations in terms of pure rivalry – or from the point
of view of French interests, as a “threat” – is moreover partial and masks the dimension of ex-
change and encounter that also defines these relations.
 Édouard Herriot, Orient (Paris: Hachette, 1934), 106 ff. and 102 ff.
 Herriot, Orient, 156.
 The Ottoman university, which had become the object of sharp criticism by the new govern-
ment of the Republic of Turkey in the 1920s, was closed in 1933 and Istanbul University was
opened in its place. According to the new law on higher education, the administrative and teach-
ing staff of the newly founded Istanbul University were appointed by the Ministry of Education,
and the chairs were reorganized and filled. Almost all philosophy professors from Dârülfünûn
were dismissed or transferred. Instead, academics who had been dismissed in National Socialist
Germany on the basis of the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” of April 7,
1933, were appointed as ordinarius professors in Istanbul.
craftsmen rather than false intellectuals,”²² deplores in particular the “mass

entry of Germans into the University of Stambul,” mentioning that the teaching
of French literature had been assigned “to Professor Spitzer, from Cologne.”²³ His
only commentary on this situation alludes to the “serious problems” caused by
the reform and pours into malicious rumors about the “favorable conditions” of-
fered to the exiled scholars,²⁴ rumors that he strengthens by adding another in-
sinuating that the German Embassy interfered in this recruitment.²⁵ The compe-
titive relationship with Germany was thus itself split in two, between the official
policy of Nazi Germany and the exiles in dissent from it. As a consolation for the
French national pride, which imbues his propaganda, Herriot concludes by con-
ceding that “the French of first value do not consent very easily to expatriate.”²⁶
To explain this situation, he only makes a quick allusion to the economic crisis
and the budgetary restrictions that followed the years of war.
By exploiting the topos of France’s intellectual influence on Turkey, Herriot
tries to conceal the existence of a crisis in French academic diplomacy, that had
been lately described as a “fool’s bargain” and a policy of permanent bluffing.²⁷
Due to the insufficiency of the means implemented by France, the activity of
French scholars in the Turkish universities in the 1930s was quite insignificant.
It was furthermore subordinated to the French cultural diplomacy, so that at the
end of the 1930s, the French scholars present in Turkish universities had a more
diplomatic than scientific function, a presence intended to act as a rampart
against “German expansion.”²⁸ In spite of the fact that the Ottoman and then
 Herriot, Orient, 154. Herriot is particularly attentive to the German influence in his descrip-
tion of professional education: the material of the “ultra-modern” professional school for girls in
Ankara seems to him to be “of German origin” (108 ff.); he also notes the preference given to the
German language in the Institute of Pedagogy in Ankara (112).
 Herriot, Orient, 155.
 Herriot fails to mention that a difference in treatment between Turkish and foreign profes-
sors existed well before 1933. The salary of foreign Professors (mostly French) at Istanbul Univer-
sity in the 1920s was up to four or three times the salary of the Turks and was gradually reduced
in the years preceding the reform. See Emre Dölen, Türkiye Üniversite Tarihi, vol. 2 (Istanbul:
Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2010), 135. This insistence on the difference in treatment in favor
of the exiled scholars is part of a discourse in the 1930s aimed at provoking indignation against
them and more generally against the reform of the university.
 Herriot, Orient, 155.
 Herriot, Orient, 155.
 See Guillaume Tronchet, “Un bluff perpétuel”: Les dessous de la présence française dans
l’Université turque (années 1930), in: Turcs et Français, 285 – 305, here 286 ff.
 Tronchet, “Un bluff perpétuel,” 305. On the polarity that characterizes the relations of
French academics with the outside world, between “representatives of their discipline or repre-
sentatives of the nation, missionaries of science or missionaries of France”, see Christophe
144 Pascale Roure
Turkish elites were French-speaking and in large part connected to French cul-
ture, the assertion of the French intellectual influence in Turkey was therefore
an element of diplomatic language that hardly corresponds to the reality of
the 1930s, at least not as far as the development of the university is concerned.
The reform of the Turkish university, consecrated by the re-founding of Istan-
bul University in 1933 and the creation of a new University in Ankara, endan-
gered French academic diplomacy, which used to rely on sending to Turkey
young unexperienced lecturers without a permanent academic position, ready
to accept the legal and sometimes financial precariousness of their oncoming
status.²⁹ Meanwhile, the Republic of Turkey, benefiting from the arrival of the
Nazis in power in Germany, was able from 1933 onwards to select academics
who had proven themselves in their country of origin – whether they were exiled
professors or professors sent by the German Embassy in order to counter the lat-
ter’s influence and to extend the German influence on Turkish universities.³⁰ In
its academic ambitions, the new Turkish university promoted the profile of schol-
ars with a PhD, trained in research and having already achieved measurable sci-
entific results in publications. Therefore, the classic French profile of the young
agrégé normalien, better adapted to an educative aim, could not meet this ambi-
tion to professionalize the university, by moving it from a school-based educa-
tion to one oriented towards scientific research.³¹
The only person that Herriot mentions by name, Leo Spitzer (1887– 1960), se-
cured for him and some collaborators a position at Istanbul University, where he
created and directed the Department of Romance Philology from 1933 to 1936 and
Charle, “Ambassadeurs ou chercheurs? Les relations internationales des professeurs de la Sor-

bonne sous la IIIe République,” Genèses 14 (1994): 42– 62, here 61.
 Tronchet, “Un bluff perpétuel,” 287.
 The presence of many exiled professors recruited in 1933 at Istanbul University explains why
academics conforming to the worldview of Nazi Germany were more present at Ankara Univer-
sity, a situation which is evidenced in the late 1930s by the “Scurla report,” see Faruk Şen and
Dirk Halm, eds., Exil unter Halbmond und Stern, Herbert Scurlas Bericht über die Tätigkeit
Deutscher Hochschullehrer in der Türkei während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (Essen: Klar-
text, 2007).
 See in this respect the analysis of the development of the Turkish School of Geography dur-
ing the two world wars in Nicolas Ginsburger, “Entre Obst et Chaput: influences européennes et
création de l’École turque de géographie (1915 – 1943),” in: Turcs et Français, 251– 270. Ginsburger
concludes his comparative analysis by pointing out a “clear domination of the French model,
fought, especially during the World Wars, by Germanic scientists” in the field of geography
(269). However, his remarks on the French influence in “physical geography” at Istanbul Univer-
sity, which does not take into account the attribution in 1933 of the chair of “Human and Eco-
nomic Geography” (Beşeri ve Iktisadi Coğrafya) to Alexander Rüstow (1885 – 1963) at the same
University, cannot be generalized to the entire Faculty of Letters.
founded a Language School attached to the university. Educated in linguistics

and Romance language philology in Vienna, Leipzig and Paris, Spitzer was dis-
missed in 1933 from his position as professor of Romance Philology at the Uni-
versity of Cologne because of the aryanization paragraph of the anti-Semitic Nazi
regulations (“Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums,” Law for the
Restoration of the Professional Civil Service).
Spitzer, whose taste for polemics is well known, responded to Herriot’s insi-
nuations. Herriot’s book inspired him to write an article on the situation of the
French language in Turkey,³² which appeared in the linguistics journal founded
in 1933 by Albert Dauzat, Le français moderne. To the French cultural diplomacy,
of which Herriot is the spokesman, Spitzer opposes the objectivity of science,
which has no assimilationist or civilizing aim. A scientific education does not ne-
cessitate any particular nationality, neither at the level of the teachers nor at the
level of the students:
Either one conceives of an exclusively scientific education – and then I do not see the rea-
son for the exclusion of non-French scholars, who must expose their science, not teaching
the students the elementary language, a task that falls to lecturers preferably chosen
among French nationals – or the education must be tinged with political ideas (French
apostolate), but then it has no place in a Turkish national university, which does not
want to educate French-speaking Turks, but Turks who understand French civilization.
Mr. Herriot still does not seem to be able to shake off the old opinion that working for
France in foreign circles is somehow denationalizing and francizing foreigners – whereas
philology in the ‘German tradition’ has no other goal than to introduce students to a phi-
lology.³³
Spitzer places himself on Herriot’s ground. He reverses the national point of view
– asserting that philology, and in particular Romance philology, is a discipline
“born in Germany” – and ultimately invalidates it. He draws a parallel between
the German Romance philology and the founders of French Germanistics, such
as Henri Lichtenberger (1864 – 1941), Edmond Vermeil (1878 – 1964) and Félix Pi-
quet (1855 – 1942), to affirm that French literature “does not necessarily have to
be taught by a Frenchman and in the French way” because the scientific and
pedagogical value of the philologist does not depend on his or her “birth in a
particular country.” The argument of the German origin of philology is here a re-
active one, directed against Herriot’s chauvinism. It does not express any natio-
nalist standpoint by Spitzer, whose work and teaching practices show in an ex-
emplary manner the intertwining of French and German-speaking scientific
 Leo Spitzer, “Le français en Turquie,” Le français moderne 4, no. 3 (1936): 225 – 237.
 Spitzer, “Le français en Turquie,” 232.
146 Pascale Roure
traditions. What Spitzer refers to as “philology of German tradition” is the ex-

pression of these constant exchanges, not to mention the recurrent evocation,
in his work, of a debt to the “French method” for his own philological practice
of stylistic analysis.³⁴
2.2. “Denationalizing and Francizing” the Turks
Starting from the period of the Tanzimât, French had been not only the language
of communication with Europeans, but also the second language of the Ottoman
administration. It was therefore necessary to master it in order to become a civil
servant of the State.³⁵ The reproach of “denationalizing and francizing” the Otto-
man elite was disseminated mainly by the nationalist discourse following the
Young Turkish Revolution of 1908: the Galatasaray High School, symbol of the
French cultural influence at the Bosphorus, was accused of training cosmopoli-
tan elites, “gorged with French culture, but cut off from their Turkish identity.”³⁶
Beyond its relation to French and French culture, it is probable that it was
also the Ottomanist ideology (Osmanlıcılık) embodied by Galatasaray that was
the target of this nationalistic criticism. Yusuf Akçura, for example, argued
that the francization of the elites can be a factor hindering the Turkish national
awareness. He opposed the Ottoman model defended by the Young Turks as his
approach was based on the idea of a Turkish nationalism extending beyond the
borders of the Ottoman Empire.
Coming from a family of Tatars from Russia, where he had spent his child-
hood before settling with his mother in Istanbul, Yusuf Akçura (1876 – 1935) com-
pleted his training in the Ottoman military schools in Istanbul, further receiving
higher education in Paris during his exile between 1900 and 1903.³⁷ Akçura de-
veloped his critique of the French cosmopolitanism and clarified his own reflec-
tion on Turkish nationalism while studying in France, at the School of Political
 See Leo Spitzer, “Wortkunst und Sprachwissenschaft,” in his Stilstudien, 2nd volume: Stilspra-
chen (Munich: Hueber, 1928), 498 – 536, here 500 and his “Explication linguistique et littéraire de
deux textes français,” Le français moderne 3, no. 4 (1935): 315 – 323, here 315.
 Klaus Kreiser, “Le rôle de la langue française en Turquie et la politique culturelle allemande
au début du XXe siècle,” in: L’Empire ottoman, la République de Turquie et la France, eds. Hâmit
Batu and Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont (Istanbul: Isis, 1986), 405 – 417, here 407.
 François Georgeon, “La formation des élites à la fin de l’Empire ottoman: le cas de Galata-
saray,” Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée no. 72 (1994): 15 – 25, here 22.
 See François Georgeon, Aux origines du nationalisme turc. Yusuf Akçura (1876 – 1935) (Paris:
ADPF, 1980), 20.
Science. The Private School of Political Science or ELSP,³⁸ founded in 1872 on the
basis of a critical comparison between French faculties and the “German univer-
sity model,” provided a historical education that favored a national and nation-
alist approach and gave a central place to the question of Franco-German rela-
tions. According to Georgeon, the study of the nationality questions within the
multinational Habsburg Empire was an important source of reflection for Ak-
çura, who began in this period to reject as a myth the idea of an “Ottoman na-
tion” in favor of an ethnically defined Turkish nationalism.³⁹
After his departure from France to Russia, Akçura wrote a long article pub-
lished under the title Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset” [Three forms of politics] in the Türk Gaz-
etesi [Turkish Gazette] in Cairo in 1904.⁴⁰ He analyzed there three political strat-
egies that he presented as having succeeded one another in an historical
evolution: Ottomanism corresponding to the Tanzimât era and condemned as
unrealistic, Pan-Islamism developed after 1870 and supported by the Sultan Ab-
dulhamid II, and finally Pan-Turkism that aims at establishing a Turkish political
nationality based on race or ethnos (ırk).⁴¹ Whereas Pan-Islamism was limited
from the outside by Europe’s economic domination of Muslim countries, Pan-
Turkism appeared to him as a strategy that could be implemented by developing
national consciousness among the Turks.
Akçura also pleaded for the adoption of the German nation-building model
against the French cosmopolitanism, which he perceived as tending to stifle
Turkish national consciousness. According to Georgeon, Akçura “already at
that time” showed “a mistrust of French political and cultural conceptions,”
and a preference for German rather than French model: His pan-Turkish manifes-
 The ELSP (École Libre de Sciences Politiques) was founded by Émile Boutmy with the aim to
modernize the education of political elites in France. This modernization was largely inspired by
the German academic system and at the same time driven by a spirit of revenge against Germa-
ny. As an expert of German teaching of law, Georges Blondel inspired as an expert the critiques
of the French Faculties by Boutmy, see Georges Blondel, De l’enseignement du droit dans les uni-
versités allemandes (Paris: Soudier, 1885); “La réforme des études juridiques en Allemagne,”
Revue internationale de l’enseignement (15.1.1887). A more detailed engagement with him and
his role, as an inspector, in supervising Ottoman students in France, follows later in this chapter.
 Georgeon, Aux origines du nationalisme turc, 22 ff.
 Georgeon, Aux origines du nationalisme turc, 29: The “pan-turkist manifesto” of Akçura, pub-
lished at the beginning of the Tripolitan war and just before the Balkan wars, found a wider echo
after 1911, in the context of the loss of territories populated by non-Turks. At the same time,
Akçura pleaded against the assimilation of non-Turkish populations, the idea being to refocus
the Empire on its Turkish component.
 I follow here the analysis by François Georgeon of Akçura’s Three Political Systems, see Geor-
geon, Aux origines du nationalisme turc, 24 and 26, where the innovative character of the use of
the term “ırk” to designate a Turkish ethnic group is underlined.
148 Pascale Roure
to marks “the transition from a French conception of the nation to a German or

Slavic conception.” Akçura himself establishes “a link between the development
of nationalist tendencies in Turkey and German influence.”⁴²
The critique of the denationalization of the Ottoman elites shows that the in-
tellectual socialization in French, while massive, does not unequivocally mean
an acceptance of France’s cultural influence. French was also used to conceive
and express the rejection of French cultural influence, mostly among thinkers
who have not always been at the forefront of the history of ideas in Kemalist Tur-
key. Studies devoted to the role of intellectuals who are at the origins of Turkish
nationalism have for example rather highlighted the figure of Ziya Gökalp (1876 –
1924), influenced by French sociology, leaving in the shadow other important fig-
ures of the national movement,⁴³ whose thinking was nourished not only by
French but also other European sources in the elaboration of a racial or ethnic
conception of the nation.
2.3. The German “Kulturmission” at Dârülfünûn (1915 – 1918)
The development of Turkish nationalism after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution
was accompanied by a critique of French cultural and political influence in
the educational system. The university (in Ottoman “Dârülfünûn” that means lit-
erally “the house of sciences”), which was reorganized in 1900 and renamed
“Dârülfünûn-i Şahane,”⁴⁴ contributed to the development of research and teach-
ing devoted to Turkish history and language. The German Reich, in a position of
strength from an economic and military point of view, was able to encourage this
new national awareness. Having noted the impossibility of diffusing German to
 Georgeon, Aux origines du nationalisme turc, 26. On the Pan-German and Pan-Slavic move-
ments in Europe as a source of inspiration for the Turks, see also David Kushner, The Rise of
Turkish Nationalism 1876 – 1908 (London: Frank Cass, 1977), 8. Akçura participated in 1916 at
the Turkish People’s Congress in Berlin with Ali Turan Hüseyinzade (1864– 1942), one of the
founders of the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti). See Hilmi Ziya
Ülken, Türkiye’de Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi (Istanbul: Iş Bankası, 2015[1966]), 571, 387. As President
of the Turkish Historical Society (Türk Tarih Kurumu) from 1932 to 1935, he was at the origin of
the Turkish history congresses that provided a framework for the development of a national phi-
losophy in Turkey.
 See Georgeon, Aux origines du nationalisme turc, 3.
 See Said Özervarlı, “The Position of Philosophy in the Late Ottoman Educational Reforms,”
in Ways of Knowing Muslim Cultures and Societies. Studies in Honour of Gudrun Krämer, eds. Bet-
tina Gräf, Birgit Krawietz, Schirin Amir-Moazami, Ulrike Freitag and Konrad Hirschler (Leiden:
Brill, 2019), 132– 143, here 135.
the point of dethroning French as the language of the interactions with Europe
and unofficial second language of the Ottoman administration, the Germans pre-
sented themselves as those who, unlike the French, could contribute not to the
“Germanization” but to the “Turkification” of the Turks. The German advisor at
the Ottoman Ministry of Education, Friedrich Schmidt[‐Ott] (1860 – 1956), could
therefore assure the Minister of Education Ahmed Şükrü Bey (1875 – 1926) of Ger-
many’s willingness to cooperate in the modernization of the Ottoman university
while respecting its national and cultural specificities. Candidates should be re-
cruited following two criteria – their “mastery of scientific research methods”
and “the ability to adapt to the conditions of Turkish-Islamic teaching culture,
so different from the German one” – “because the purpose of their appointment
must be to train Turkish students to be able to conduct their own scientific re-
search and to enhance their productivity.”⁴⁵
The idea of a scientific cooperation aiming not to “Germanize” but to accom-
pany the development of an Ottoman, Turkish speaking university finds its most
accomplished expression in a speech held in 1916 by the orientalist Carl Heinrich
Becker (1876 – 1933), the year he became the advisor to the Prussian Ministry of
Culture with the support of Friedrich Schmidt. He developed a critique of Fran-
ce’s cultural and language policy abroad as a warning for German academic di-
plomacy: German influence in the East, and a fortiori in a country with a long
educational tradition such as the “multinational State” that he already called
“Turkey” at that time, should not reproduce the errors of French foreign policy.
Cooperation between Germany and the Orient, which has a “high and very
ancient culture,” should not consist in “transposing” or “grafting” from outside
“our modern civilization” (moderne Zivilisation).⁴⁶ Rather than a “schematic re-
vival of Europe’s spiritual values,” Germany should accompany the national
awakening of the peoples of the East, insofar as it was a true sign of their belong-
ing to Europe. For “it is through Europe [orientalist science] that the East has dis-
covered the greatness of its own past.”⁴⁷ He described the effect of the French
 Quoted by Klaus Kreiser, “‘Im Dienste ist der Fes zu tragen’ – Türkische Vorlesungen
deutscher Professoren am Istanbuler Dârülfünûn (1915 – 1918),” in Deutsche Wissenschaftler im
türkischen Exil: Die Wissenschaftsmigration in die Türkei 1933 – 1945, eds. Christopher Kubaseck
and Günter Seufert (Würzburg: Ergon, 2008), 21– 40, here 23: “[…] denn der Zweck ihrer Beru-
fung ist natürlich die Erziehung der türkischen Studenten zu eigener wissenschaftlicher Arbeit
und Leistungsfähigkeit. Bei der Auswahl wurde deshalb einerseits Wert gelegt auf anerkannte
wissenschaftliche Tüchtigkeit und volle Beherrschung der Forschungsmethoden, andererseits
auf die Fähigkeit, sich den von den Grundlagen der deutschen Kultur so völlig verschiedenen
Voraussetzungen des islamisch-türkischen Bildungswesens anzupassen.”
 Carl Heinrich Becker, Das türkische Bildungsproblem (Bonn: Friedrich Cohen, 1916), 8 ff.
 Becker, Das türkische Bildungsproblem, 21.
150 Pascale Roure
“Geist” on education in the Orient in terms of “francizing” (Französierung) and

“wrecking of the national intellectual culture” (Ruin der nationalen Geisteskul-
tur).⁴⁸ The francizing of the Ottoman elites is finally accused of having led to
an identification between France and Europe, to the detriment of other European
influences.
Through the criticism of France and its “colonial political dogma,” Becker’s
remark aims more specifically at the paradoxical importation of a French anti-
clerical posture, coupled in reality with the support for the institutions of the
Catholic Church. The result was to leave intellectuals imprisoned in the same
“superstitions” as their ancestors, while having to “put the calling card of
their atheism under the nose of every European, to attest to their belonging to
European civilization.”⁴⁹ He saw in this “formal intellectual francizing” (formale
intellektuelle Französierung) the risk of a superficial relationship to European cul-
ture and a denationalization (Entnationalisierung) that is responsible for a gap
between the elites and the rest of the population. He mentioned as examples
the literary tastes going “from Fénelon’s Télémaque” to “Maupassant’s short sto-
ries” and the “cheap enlightenment philosophy of the positivist Auguste
Comte.”⁵⁰
2.4. Turkish Student Mobility: Continuities and Breaks from

the Late Ottoman to the Republican Period
The study of the international academic relations often focuses more on the mo-
bility of professors rather than that of the students, which accompanies, and
often precedes and guides it. This is the case with the study of the building of
the Turkish academic system, where student mobility, both in the Ottoman peri-
od and in the Turkish Republic, is still a relatively little studied phenomenon.
This aspect is however inseparable from the history of these academic changes,
which must be understood in a transnational perspective involving a multitude
of actors and different models.
At the end of the 19th century and up until 1914, France had been the main
destination for Ottoman students,⁵¹ who constituted at that time the most impor-
tant group of foreign students hosted in France. At the same time, however, Ger-
many’s economic and military influence in the Ottoman Empire became domi-
 Becker, Das türkische Bildungsproblem, 18.

 Becker, Das türkische Bildungsproblem, 20.
 Becker, Das türkische Bildungsproblem, 19.
 Kreiser, “Étudiants ottomans en France et en Suisse,” 847 ff.
nant and was accompanied by initially unsuccessful attempts to advance its cul-
tural and educational diplomacy in Ottoman territories. But the First World War
marked a complete breakdown in academic relations between France and the Ot-
toman Empire and an intensification of student migration to Germany, which
continued and became institutionalized during the Weimar Republic. Strictly su-
pervised by the Ottoman State through scholarships and student control, this
phenomenon had a central role in the later academic recruitment policies, up
until the first decades of the Republican era. This form of academic globalization
also marks the constitution of an elite that was progressively conceived as na-
tional and legitimized by its studies abroad.
The development of an academic diplomacy aimed at strengthening France’s
cultural influence abroad was part of the French university reforms in the second
half of the 19th century. The German model, in an idealized form and “mytholo-
gized under the name of the Humboldtian model (Charle),” served as a referent
in the critique of the Napoleonian system of the Faculties. It is also in reference
to the German university system, its mobility and its ability to attract foreign stu-
dents, that the French universities would gradually open up to international mo-
bility.⁵² This mobility concerned both the travel abroad of French professors and
the reception of foreign students. The reception of foreign students in France in-
tensified between 1900 and 1930, in particular within the Faculty of Letters. How-
ever, although France was the privileged destination for Ottoman students before
1914, competition with other European countries was felt as early as the begin-
ning of the 20th century. Klaus Kreiser mentions in this respect the concern for-
mulated by Georges Blondel,⁵³ inspector of Ottoman students between 1909 and
1912 of seeing the development of exchanges with Belgium, Switzerland and es-
pecially Germany, exchanges he interprets as being harmful to the French cultur-
al interests abroad.⁵⁴
 This framework is based on Charle, “Jalons pour une histoire transnationale des universi-
tés.”
 Georges Blondel (1856 – 1948) – the brother of the philosophy professor Maurice Blondel –
was a historian who specialized in the German economy and educational system. He accom-
plished several missions in Germany. See Georges Blondel, “De quelques projets de réforme
dans les universités allemandes,” Revue internationale de l’enseignement (15.9.1888). Blondel’s
book on the “German politic after Bismarck” was translated into Ottoman: Bismark’dan Sonra
Alman Siyaseti, trans. by Alemdarzâde Reşid Edhem (Istanbul: Istanbul Cemiyet Kütüphanesi,
Kadser Matbaası, 1916).
 Kreiser, “Étudiants ottomans en France et en Suisse,” 848.
152 Pascale Roure
Blondel’s concerns reflect the fact that starting from the end of the Ottoman
period and especially after the Young Turk revolution,⁵⁵ the cultural diplomacy
of the German Empire was very active and openly developed against French in-
fluence. Parallel to the “Kulturmission” of the German professors sent to the Dâr-
ülfünûn of Istanbul from 1915 to 1918,⁵⁶ more and more Ottoman students were
sent to Germany, attracted by the technical schools but also, albeit to a lesser
extent, to carry out university-level studies with scholarship from the Ottoman
State.⁵⁷ Among them, Ali Haydar Taner (1883 – 1956) studied pedagogy and psy-
chology in Jena before returning to Istanbul in 1910, where he would later assist
Georg Anschütz (1886 – 1953) during his stay at the Dârülfünûn as a Professor for
Psychology during the First World War. Halil Fikret Kanat (1892 – 1974), who
played an important role in the reform of the educational system of the Republic
of Turkey,⁵⁸ studied philosophy and educational psychology in Berlin and Leip-
zig. Cevat Dursunoğlu (1892– 1970) studied sociology and pedagogy in Berlin and
was later on the inspector of the Turkish students sent to Germany in the 1930s to
study philosophy and social sciences. These few cases show that the idea of di-
versifying the sources of cultural supply was already present at the end of the
Ottoman period, although it was during the Republican period that this diversi-
fication would intensify, notably to the benefit of exchanges with Germany.
Moreover, unlike the students who came back from France at best holding a li-
cence (bachelor’s degree), many of the students who went to Germany returned
with a doctorate.⁵⁹ This fact played a major role in the development of philoso-
phy as an academic discipline in Turkey, especially after the introduction of the
doctoral degree in the Faculty of Letters starting from the year 1936/1937.
 See Mustafa Gencer, Jöntürk Modernizmi ve “Alman Ruhu”. 1908 – 1918 Dönemi Türk-Alman
Ilişkileri ve Eğitim (Istanbul: Iletişim, 2003).
 Emre Dölen, Istanbul Darülfünunu’nda Alman Müderrisler (Istanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayın-
ları, 2013), 33, 39 ff.
 Gencer, Jöntürk Modernizmi ve “Alman Ruhu,” 305.
 Hayrünisa Alp, “Halil Fikret Kanat’ın Muallimler Mecmuasında Yayınlanmış Iki Yazısı: Mek-
teplerimizin Yeni Teşkilati Hakkında I-II,” Yakın Dönem Türkiye Araştırmaları 17, no. 34 (2018):
337– 358.
 As Seignobos points out, the French university struggled to attract foreigners at the begin-
ning of the 20th century, whereas one of the reasons for going to Germany was “the ease of ob-
taining a doctorate,” Charles Seignobos, Le régime de l’enseignement supérieur des lettres. Ana-
lyse et critique (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1904), 25.
2.5. The Professor-Interpreter Couple and the Language

School
In his Orient Edouard Herriot reports an anecdote concerning a German profes-
sor who asked for an assistant who truly mastered German. The Minister of Na-
tional Education “Hikmet Bey” – “an alumnus of our Sorbonne” – answered him
that it would always be possible to address his assistant in French.⁶⁰
The policy of welcoming foreign professors required the training of assistant
translators and interpreters, and more generally the development of training for
students to give them an access to the sources in foreign languages. Albert
Malche’s report having highlighted the inadequacy of language teaching in Tur-
key’s high schools – except for elite institutions such as Galatasaray High School
–, the reform provided for the appointment of interpreters and the foundation of
a language school attached to the University.
The Language School was founded in 1934 by Leo Spitzer and it provided
students with a mandatory three-year course (students trained in foreign high
schools could be exempted) and “evening classes with the aim of perfecting
the students in the ‘world languages’ (English, German, French, Italian, Russian)
to the point of being able to read scientific works of their specialty.”⁶¹ In addi-
tion, Latin, Ancient Greek, Arabic and Persian courses were offered to students
in scientific fields. At the end of each academic year, students had to pass writ-
ten and oral exams before taking their specialty exams. The statistics indicated
by Spitzer for the years 1934 to 1936 show a slight decrease in the learning of
French, which remained however majoritarian, to the benefit of the other lan-
guages on offer. Spitzer reported that the best students generally chose to
learn German or English rather than French and explained that French was
still the most popular language by students because of the diffusion of this lan-
guage in Istanbul: French was “chosen by the vast majority, passively, as a better
known and supposedly easier language.”⁶²
In his article, Spitzer provided valuable but imprecise insights into the atti-
tude and difficulties of the German professors in Istanbul towards the languages
of instruction. He mentioned the case of “the philosopher” – presumably Reich-
enbach – who had “divided his ‘seminar’ into three sections according to the
 Herriot, Orient, 155. Herriot refers here to Yusuf Hikmet Bayur (1891– 1980), a graduate from
Galatasaray High School and from the Sorbonne University (1913). He was the Minister of Nation-
al Education in 1933 – 1934 after Reşit Galip (1893 – 1934), who had a very different profile and
was the real artisan of the University reform.
 Spitzer, “Le Français en Turquie,” 233.
 Spitzer, “Le Français en Turquie,” 234.
154 Pascale Roure
three world languages understood by his listeners.”⁶³ Here again, Spitzer re-
sponded to Herriot by implicitly reproaching him of calling for a teaching format
that would be incomprehensible to many listeners, only to “radiate” French
abroad, without any real pedagogical concern:
Needless to say, the language in which he teaches has only been chosen by the foreign pro-
fessor according to the needs of his students, any political concerns being naturally exclud-
ed. The anecdote told by Mr. Herriot […] seems to please the French author, who is con-
cerned about the influence of his language abroad and the mission that all French
people feel in him, but it illustrates a state of affairs that is untenable for a fruitful teaching,
[and which] lasted only a moment: if the teacher cannot make himself understood by his
interpreter, how will his students benefit from his teaching?⁶⁴
Despite the French-speaking socialization of the elites, which was still dominant
in the inter-war period and the early republican era,⁶⁵ the university reform of
1933, with the opening of a language school attached to the university, marked
the end of the exclusive dominance of French in higher education. The develop-
ment of the teaching of foreign languages subordinated to pedagogical and sci-
entific needs facilitated, in the medium term, the learning of German, which
gradually imposed itself on the Department of Philosophy. In what follows, I
will retrace the main stages of this evolution, focusing on the individual trajec-
tories within the Department of Philosophy.
3. The Department of Philosophy (Felsefe

Bölümü) and Academic Mobility
Were philosophy and related disciplines affected by this change of direction, in-
augurated during the First World War, in favor of Germany as a model of academ-
ic and scientific modernization? At first glance, one is tempted to answer nega-
tively. The presence of the philosopher Günther Jacoby (1881– 1969) as part of the
German cultural mission during the First World War and his efforts to establish a
 Spitzer, “Le Français en Turquie,” 231.

 Spitzer, “Le Français en Turquie,” 231.
 Students who graduated from the American College for Girls in Arnavutköy were also fluent
in English. This is notably the case of Neyire Adil-Arda and Matilt Kamber, two students who
assisted Hans Reichenbach in the 1930s. See Pascale Roure, “Logical Empiricism in Turkish
Exile. Hans Reichenbach’s Research and Teaching Activities at Istanbul University (1933 –
1938)” (unpublished manuscript).
German-style Philosophisches Seminar ⁶⁶ at the Dârülfünûn, is considered in the

dominant historiography as a complete failure that left no trace.⁶⁷ Until the 1933
University Reform, most of Dârülfünûn’s philosophy professors had been trained
in France or at least were francophones. The reason for this may well be, as Beck-
er suggested in his speech on “The Turkish Education Problem,” that the Dârül-
fünûn reform plan had initially provided for the arrival of French professors, a
plan that the war would transform to the benefit of German national interests.⁶⁸
I would like, however, to examine here the reading of the German attempt
during the First World War to substitute a preponderant French influence at Is-
tanbul University as a relative failure. The fight against the influence of the
French language did not consist so much in an effort to impose German as in
a reinforcement of the use of the Turkish language. During the First World
War, as well as after 1933,⁶⁹ it was indeed foreseen that the foreign professors
would use their assistants as translators while learning the Turkish language
and rely on their help to consequently start teaching in Turkish. The case of
the Department of Romance Philology, and even more so of the Department of
Philosophy, shows, on the contrary, a true reversal of the situation, which
began before 1933, continuing and intensifying until the 1960s.
3.1. Philosophical Disciplines at the Dârülfünûn of Istanbul

before 1933: A French Interlude?
The presence of French scholars at the Dârülfünûn in the 1920s and the tradition-
al prevalence of French cannot be immediately linked to the question of the pre-
ponderance of French intellectual and cultural influence in the Turkish univer-
sity system in the inter-war period. First, French scholars’ dominance at the
Dârülfünûn should be examined on a department-by-department basis. Among
the 15 French scholars present between 1923 and 1932, only two of them were as-
 See Günther Jacoby, “Aufruf zur Förderung des Philosophischen Seminars der Universität
Konstantinopel,” Kant-Studien. Philosophische Zeitschrift der Kant-Gesellschaft 21, nos. 1– 3
(1917): 348 ff.
 See Ülken, Türkiye’de Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi, 692; Arslan Kaynardağ, “Üniversitelerimizde
Ders veren Alman Felsefe Profesörleri,” in: Türk Felsefe Araştırmalarında ve Üniversite Öğreti-
minde Alman Filozofları, ed. Ioanna Kuçuradi (Ankara: Türkiye Felsefe Kurumu, 1986), 1– 31,
here 1.
 Becker, Das türkische Bildungsproblem, 38. See Kreiser, “Le rôle de la langue française,” 413,
who points out in this article that French remained the indispensable language of communica-
tion for German professors sent to Istanbul during the First World War.
 Dölen, Türkiye Üniversite Tarihi, vol. 3, 465.
156 Pascale Roure
signed to the Faculty of Letters (in the Geography Department), which hosted at
the same time two Austrians and one German in the philological disciplines.⁷⁰ As
far as the philosophical disciplines are concerned, the French presence was
mostly due to the personal investment of individuals who were not officially as-
signed to the Faculty of Letters. Max Bonnafous (1900 – 1975) was primarily the
philosophy teacher at Galatasaray High School between 1926 and 1929 and at
same time gave sociology lessons at the university. Afterwards, from 1929 to
1931, these lessons were given by Georges Dumézil (1898 – 1986) who was initial-
ly assigned to the Faculty of Theology in order to offer a course on the history of
religion.⁷¹ Bonnafous used this teaching load to carry out, with the help of his
students, a study on suicide in Istanbul,⁷² which helped him consequently to ob-
tain a teaching-research position at the University of Bordeaux. The young Du-
mézil, who arrived in Turkey because of the difficulties he had faced in finding
a position in France, was according to some reports more concerned with his re-
search than with making himself understood by his students.⁷³
The importance of a French scholarly presence at the Dârülfünûn should not
therefore be overestimated, at least as far as the philosophical disciplines are
concerned. However, the influence of French philosophy and sociology is clearly
visible in the 1920s. This can be seen, for example, in the publications of philos-
ophy and social sciences in the journal of the Faculty of Letters.⁷⁴
Parallel to the efforts in bringing foreign professors to Istanbul, the training
of Turkish academics abroad was intended to develop the Turkish scientific lan-
guage based on the terminological advances realized in Europe. From this point
of view, the mission of German professors during the First World War did not re-
duce the importance of French in the field of academic philosophy in the 1920s.
Whatever their theoretical and political orientations were, the philosophy profes-
sors at the Dârülfünûn relied on French in order to renew and extend Turkish
philosophical terminology.
 Dölen, Türkiye Üniversite Tarihi, vol. 3, 465.

 Alexandre Toumarkine, “Dumézil en Turquie (1926 – 1940),” in Turcs et Français, 271– 284,
here 278 – 280.
 See Nazan Maksudyan, “Max Bonnafous and the “female suicide epidemic” in Istanbul in
the 1920s,” Les Études Sociales no. 165 (2017): 157– 181.
 See Toumarkine, “Dumézil en Turquie,” 276.
 See Pascale Roure, “‘Deutsche Philosophie’ im Spiegel türkischer Fachzeitschriften unter be-
sonderer Berücksichtigung des Philosophischen Seminars der Universität Istanbul (1933 – 1945),”
in “Zwischenvölkische Aussprache.” Internationaler Austausch in wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften
1933 – 1945, eds. Andrea Albrecht, Lutz Danneberg, Ralf Klausnitzer and Kristina Mateescu (Ber-
lin: De Gruyter, 2020), 325 – 360, here 331 ff.
The most remarkable example was the lexicological work of Ahmed Naim
Babanzâde (1872– 1934). A graduate of the Galatasaray High School and of the
Mülkiye Mektebi, Babanzâde taught Arabic at Galatasaray and was appointed
at the Dârülfünûn, where he occupied the chair of metaphysics until 1933. His
efforts to renew Turkish philosophical terminology⁷⁵ were based on the works
of French philosophers such as Paul Janet (1823 – 1899) and George Fonsegrive
(1852– 1917). Trying to rehabilitate religion in a philosophical perspective, Ba-
banzâde⁷⁶ was therefore accused of being a conservative thinker hostile to mod-
ernity, although his work represents a genuine effort to achieve a synthesis, with-
in the secularized framework of academic philosophy, between the Islamic
tradition and French philosophy.
In comparison to Babanzâde, the reproach of rejecting “modernity” could
not be applied at all to other two philosophy professors who were dismissed
in 1933, Ismayıl Hakkı and Halil Nimetullah. Both were part of the young gener-
ation trained in France with the official support of the Ottoman Minister of Edu-
cation (Maarif Nâzırı) Emrullâh Efendi (1858 – 1914).⁷⁷
The philosopher and pedagogue Ismayıl Hakkı Baltacıoğlu (1886 – 1978) was
sent to France in 1908 to study at the École Normale d’Instituteurs de Paris, where
he was asked by Emrullâh Efendi to carry out a comparative study on the train-
ing of teachers in Europe.⁷⁸ Created in 1872 as part of the efforts to renovate high-
er education after the French defeat in the war against Germany, the École Nor-
male d’Auteuil was a model institution dedicated to the training of teachers.
Following his stay in Paris, Ismayıl Hakkı traveled in 1911 to England, Belgium,
Switzerland and Germany. He was appointed at the Faculty of Letters in 1913. In
his memoirs written after his dismissal from Istanbul University, Ismayıl Hakkı
described the pedagogical and philosophical orientations encountered in the dif-
ferent European countries he had visited.⁷⁹ Claiming that “the pedagogy of a na-
tion belongs to the national philosophy,”⁸⁰ he retained from Germany the impor-
 See Ismail Kara, Bir Felsefe Dili Kurmak: Modern Felsefe ve Bilim Terimlerinin Türkiye’ye Girişi
(Istanbul: Dergâh, 2001).
 Cüneyt Kaya and Ismail Kara, eds., Babanzâde Ahmet Naim: Hayatı, Eserleri, Fikirleri (Istan-
bul: Zeytinburnu Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2018).
 Mustafa Ergün, “Emrullah Efendi – Hayatı, Görüşleri, Çalışmaları,” Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve
Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi 1– 2 (1982): 7– 36.
 See Kreiser, “Étudiants ottomans en France et en Suisse,” 847.
 See Baltacıoğlu [Ismayıl Hakkı], Hayatım, 99 – 155.
 Baltacıoğlu, Hayatım, 106: “Bence bir milletin pedagojisi, milli felsefesinin dışında kala-
maz.”
158 Pascale Roure
tance of Kant and Schopenhauer, which symbolized according to him the alli-
ance of “iron” discipline and creativity.⁸¹
Halil Nimetullah Öztürk (1880 – 1957) was also sent to Paris in 1906 to gra-
duate in literature and philosophy. He stayed several times at the Sorbonne
and the University of Lille until 1913⁸² and was appointed at the Faculty of Let-
ters, where he first worked as the assistant of Emrullâh Efendi at the chair for
psychology and ethics (Ruhiyât ve Ahlâk Muallim Muavini) from 1915 to 1919.
He pursued his career as a philosophy teacher at the Kabataş High School (Ka-
bataş Erkek Lisesi) and was promoted in 1931 to the rank of professor of logic
(Mantık Müderrisi) at the Faculty of Letters before being dismissed during the
1933 university reform.
Ismayıl Hakkı Baltacıoğlu and Halil Nimetullah Öztürk were recruited at the
Dârülfünûn at the same time, on the eve of the First World War, after having
studied in France. Strongly influenced by Emile Durkheim’s sociology, they
were both promoters of the university and language reforms undertaken in the
1920s and had responsibilities within the Türk Dil Kurumu (Turkish Language As-
sociation) afterwards. Due to their ideological compatibility with the Kemalist re-
gime and their unconditional support for its reform policy, their eviction from the
university has been an inexhaustible source of incomprehension. This is notably
the case of Macit Gökberk, who was appointed assistant before the reform and
thus witnessed the changes that affected the Department of Philosophy in
1933. In an interview conducted by Arslan Kaynardağ, Gökberk recounts on
this subject that the criteria according to which some professors were maintained
and others dismissed were never indicated. He then adds that an expert had
been sent from Switzerland to inspect the philosophy teachers, and that he
asked to see their publications.⁸³
The criteria for the dismissal of scholars were obviously not related to ideo-
logical attitudes towards the Kemalist reforms. It could reflect a certain redun-
dancy within the fields of competence of the professors who emigrated from Ger-
many in 1933: Hans Reichenbach (1891– 1953) obtained the new chair of
 Baltacıoğlu, Hayatım, 150. See Ismayıl Hakkı Baltacıoğlu, “Über das Verschmelzen von Dis-
ziplin und Kreativität in der deutschen Reformpädagogik,” in Türken in Berlin 1871 – 1945. Eine
Metropole in der Erinnerungen osmanischer und türkischer Zeitzeugen, eds. Ingeborg Böer,
Ruth Haerkötter and Petra Kappert (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2002), 101– 106, here 102.
 See Cumhur Aslan, “Positivist, Sekülarist ve Anti-Osmanlıcı Bir Düşünür: Halil Nimetullah
Öztürk,” in Halil Nimetullah, Dârülfünûn’da Felsefe Dersleri, eds. Ali Utku and Uğur Köroğlu
(Konya: Çizgi Kitabevi, 2011), 9 – 65, here 11.
 Arslan Kaynardağ, Felsefecilerle Söyleşiler (Istanbul: Elif, 1986), 19.
Systematic Philosophy and Logic (Umumî Felsefe ve Mantık), which can be seen
as a synthesis of Babanzâde’s Chair of Metaphysics and Öztürk’s Chair of Logic;
the sociologist Gerhard Kessler (1883 – 1963), who would move afterwards to the
Faculty for Economics (Iktisat Fakültesi), took over Ismail Hakkı’s chair of Soci-
ology and Ethics.⁸⁴ The chair of pedagogy (Terbiye) of İsmayıl Hakkı Baltacıoğlu
was merged with that of psychology, attributed to Mustafa Şekip Tunç.
However, the dismissal of Öztürk and Baltacıoğlu also leads us to question
the privilege of French academic culture in the reformed Turkish university sys-
tem. An interesting element that may be read as supporting this thesis is that the
only two philosophers of the Dârülfünûn who were not dismissed in 1933 were
both trained abroad, but not in France. They also belonged to a slightly younger
generation, and unlike their dismissed colleagues they were recruited at the
Dârülfünûn after the First World War. Both were promoted and occupied chairs
on an equal level with the exiles. These observations suggest that the destination
of the student mobility could have played an important role in the career per-
spectives at the Department of Philosophy. This meant that the philosophers
trained in France seem to have lost their privilege in 1933 to the benefit of a
new generation that had graduated from Swiss or German universities.
Who were the two Turkish Professors maintained in the Department of Phi-
losophy in 1933? The first was Mustafa Şekip Tunç (1886 – 1958), known for his
translations into Turkish of Henri Bergson, William James and Sigmund Freud.
Tunç studied Psychology at the University of Geneva and at the Jean-Jacques
Rousseau Pedagogical Institute, where he was the student of Albert Malche.
He was recruited in 1919 as an assistant (müderris muavini) at Istanbul Universi-
ty, where he became, with the support of Baltacıoğlu,⁸⁵ professor of psychology
(ruhiyât). He was promoted to professor ordinarius (ordinaryüs) of psychology
and pedagogy (psikoloji ve terbiye) in 1933.
The second professor is of particular interest because he belongs to the
group of students who went to study in Germany during and immediately after
the First World War. Orhan Sâdeddin (1899 – 1964), an unjustly forgotten figure
of the history of Turkish academic philosophy,⁸⁶ is generally presented as the
 Ismail Hakkı [Izmirli] (1869 – 1946) was transferred in 1933 to the Faculty of Theology. See Ali
Birinci, “Izmirli, İsmail Hakkı,” in TDV Islâm Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: TDV, 1988 ff), 530 – 533,
here 531.
 Ülken, Türkiye’de Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi, 554.
 Abdurrazak Gültekin and Cüneyt M. Kaya, “Istanbul Üniversitesi Felsefe Bölümü’nün Unu-
tulmuş Bir Hocası: Orhan Sadeddin Hayatı, Eserleri ve Felsefe Anlayışı,” Felsefe Arkivi 2
(2016): 1– 31.
160 Pascale Roure
first Turkish philosopher to have held a doctorate (“ilk felsefe doktoru”), long be-
fore this title was introduced in the Istanbul University’s Faculty of Letters. Ac-
cording to his statements in the resumé provided for his doctoral thesis, Sâded-
din interrupted his secondary education in the Robert College at the end of 1914
to learn German and went to Germany in 1916. He started studying commerce in
Dresden and then at the at the Handelshochschule in Munich before turning to
philosophy during the winter semester of 1920/1921 at the University of Gießen.
There he completed his doctoral thesis in 1925 under the supervision of Ernst von
Aster (1880 – 1948).⁸⁷
3.2. Philosophical Exchanges with Germany during the

Weimar Republic
After returning to Turkey, Sâdeddin was appointed assistant to the philosopher
and sociologist Mehmed Izzet (1891– 1930), who had connections with both
France and Germany. Izzet graduated from Galatasaray and was sent on a
state scholarship to complete his education in Paris, first at the Lycée Louis le
Grand and then at the Sorbonne, where he attended classes given by Durkheim
and Lévy-Bruhl.⁸⁸ He was recruited as a History of Philosophy assistant (muallim)
at the Dârülfünûn in 1919 and started studying German in that period.⁸⁹ He also
began to teach sociology in place of Mehmet Emin Erişirgil (1891– 1965).
Suffering from leukemia, Izzet was sent to Paris towards the end of his life as
an inspector (müffetiş) – a function instituted in 1929 by a law concerning Tur-
kish students abroad – and shortly afterwards to Berlin where he would super-
vise the beginning of Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu’s stay in Germany as a scholarship
student of the Turkish state.⁹⁰ Izzet advised him, when he was learning German
 Achmed Orchan Sadeddin, Erlebnis, Erlebniserfahrung und Erlebnisbeschreibung, Inaugural-

Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät der Hessischen Lud-
wige-Universität 1925.
 See Dölen, Türkiye Üniversitesi Tarihi, 273 ff.
 See Ülken, Türkiye’de Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi, 644.
 The letters of the inspector (talebe müfettişi) Izzet to Mengüşoğlu – and other letters from the
“General Inspectorate of Turkish Students in Europe” (General-Inspektion der Türkischen Studie-
renden in Europa) in Berlin Charlottenburg are kept in Mengüşoğlu’s personal archive, which
were deposited at the University of Çukurova in Adana. This documentation mentions as
Chief Inspectors (başmüfettiş) in the 1930s the names of “Cevat” and “Başman,” referring to
Cevat Dursunoğlu (1892– 1970) and Hüseyin Avni Başman (1887– 1965). This collection also con-
tains two notebooks in which Mengüşoğlu kept a diary of his studies in Germany. I am very
grateful for Prof. Dr. Adnan Gümüş for granting me access to this collection.
at the Landesschule Pforta in Schulpforta, to study the first volume of Karl

Vorländer’s Geschichte der Philosophie [History of Philosophy] that he had him-
self translated into Turkish.⁹¹ It was also thanks to the support of Izzet that
the “Berlin Türk Klubu/Türkischer Club” provided Mengüşoğlu with financial sup-
port. Trained at the Sorbonne and a Francophone, Mehmed Izzet later de-
nounced Bergsonism as a fashion destined to pass and encouraged his students
to read Kant, Benedetto Croce and James Mark Baldwin. Ülken also recounts that
during his stay in Berlin, Izzet was interested in phenomenology and particularly
in the work of Max Scheler.⁹²
The appointment of Orhan Sâdeddin as well as the career of Mehmed Izzet
are indices of Turkey’s new openness to German philosophy during the era of
Weimar Germany, a discreet development that went almost unnoticed, but
which is of considerable importance. As I have pointed out elsewhere,⁹³ Sâded-
din’s work is the very first case of a Turkish academic reception of German phi-
losophy that was not mediated by the French reception but that resulted from
direct interactions with German scholars in the 1920s and through direct access
to German sources. Sâdeddin used his mastery of German to render accessible in
Turkish several philosophical innovations developed in Germany, such as the
theories of Gestalt. ⁹⁴ He also wrote an essay, dedicated to von Aster, which con-
siders the vivid debates in Germany on the historiography of philosophy.⁹⁵
Sâdeddin stayed on as a member of the Department of Philosophy after the
1933 reform, occupying the chair of History of Philosophy, with Halil Vehbi Eralp
as his assistant. Unfortunately, he was interned in the same year in a psychiatric
hospital and was never able to fulfill his function.
3.3. Hans Reichenbach’s Assistants
As the head of the department, Reichenbach was directly concerned by the void
left by Orhan Sâdeddin. Reichenbach replaced him by giving himself the lessons
on history of philosophy, while trying actively to get Ernst von Aster hired as pro-
fessor of the history of philosophy. This situation also led Reichenbach to start
 The second volume was translated by Orhan Sâdeddin. Karl Vorländer, Felsefe Tarihi, 2 vols.,
trans. by Mehmed Izzet and Orhan Sâdeddin (Istanbul: Evkafı Islamiye Matbaası, 1928).
 See Ülken, Türkiye’de Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi, 644 ff.
 Roure, “Deutsche Philosophie” im Spiegel türkischer Fachzeitschriften,” 331.
 Orhan Sadeddin, “Şekil nazariyesi: Ruhiyâtta yeni cereyanlar,” Felsefe ve Içtimaiyât Mec-
muası 1 (1927): 31– 35 and “Şekil nazariyesi,” Felsefe ve İçtimaiyât Mecmuası 2 (1927): 116 – 121.
 Orhan Sadeddin, Felsefe Tarihi Usulü: Bir Etud (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1930).
162 Pascale Roure
working with Halil Vehbi Eralp, who translated, from French, Reichenbach’s lec-
tures on Descartes, Kant and Hume, as well as his textbook on symbolic logic.
In order to communicate with his students and assistants, Reichenbach had
to use French and English. The assistants officially assigned to Reichenbach in
1933 were Mehmet Karasan and Macit Gökberk, but Reichenbach did not work
so much with them. Mehmet Karasan (1907– 1974) had studied philosophy and
sociology at the University of Lyon between 1928 and 1932 on a state scholar-
ship.⁹⁶ After his return to Turkey, he was surprised to learn that he had been ap-
pointed assistant during the university reform.⁹⁷ His appointment was to the
chair of Systematic Philosophy and Logic, but Reichenbach terminated his con-
tract. To my knowledge, there are no traces of collaboration between Reichen-
bach and Karasan.
Reichenbach’s second assistant, Macit Gökberk (1908 – 1993), graduated
from Istanbul High School (Istanbul Erkek Lisesi) and was supposed to know Ger-
man. He made the very first Turkish translation of Reichenbach⁹⁸ and had to in-
terpret his lectures. He had however great difficulty in understanding and trans-
lating Reichenbach’s teaching, as his private correspondence shows. There
Gökberk expresses his difficulties and his exhaustion following his work as as-
sistant⁹⁹ and insists on the difficulty of finding an adequate Turkish terminology
to translate the new concepts introduced by Reichenbach in his logic courses. In
order to deal with this situation, Reichenbach proposed to Gökberk to take two
hours a week in order to rehearse together the course that Gökberk had to inter-
pret. Paradoxically, this solution to overcome the difficulties of translation seems
to have pushed Gökberk’s discouragement to the limit.¹⁰⁰ Gökberk decided in
1935 to continue his studies abroad and went to Berlin, a choice he later justified
as resulting from his wish to improve his German and to prepare a doctoral the-
sis while taking advantage of the teachings of Nicolai Hartmann and Eduard
Spranger in Berlin.¹⁰¹
 Muhsin Balakbabalar, “Mehmet Karasan,” Ankara Üniversitesi Ilahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 20,
no. 1 (1972): 23 – 25, here 23.
 See Niyazi Berkes, Unutulan Yıllar (Istanbul: Iletişim, 2014), 107.
 Hans Reichenbach, Yeni Mantık [New Logic], no. 12 (1.1.1934), trans. by Macit Şü krü [Gök-
berk], 178.
 Letter to his wife Zahide (26.11.1933). I thank Prof. Dr. Yusuf Örnek for allowing me to consult
these letters, kept in his private archive in Antalya.
 See Gökberk’s letter to his wife Zahide (15.04.1934), private archive of Y. Örnek (Antalya).
 Kaynardağ, Felsefecilerle Söyleşiler, 24 ff. Gökberk underlines in this interview his incompat-
ibility, due to his lack of a mathematical background, with Reichenbach’s approach to philoso-
phy. He expresses his gratitude to Reichenbach for having welcomed with a “big tolerance” his
Apart from this brief and relatively unsuccessful attempt at cooperation with
Gökberk, Reichenbach worked mainly with Nusret Hızır and Halil Vebhi Eralp.
Nusret Hızır (1889 – 1980) was introduced by Reichenbach himself as his assis-
tant because of his proficiency in German, having studied in Germany. Since
Hızır could not be officially recruited as an assistant, Reichenbach asked him
to register as a student.¹⁰² Hızır started by helping Gökberk in his translations,
and replaced him unofficialy after Gökberk’s departure.¹⁰³ Nusret Hızır obtained
his degree in philosophy after Reichenbach’s departure, with a graduate thesis
on the classification of sciences. He is the only student of Reichenbach who
was able to pursue a philosophy career in Turkey, but at the University of Ankara
Faculty of Language and History – Geography (Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi)
after his habilitation in 1942.
Halil Vehbi Eralp (1907– 1994) was, like Gökberk, a graduate from the Istan-
bul High School (Istanbul Erkek Lisesi), where he attended the philosophy cours-
es of Hilmi Ziya Ülken.¹⁰⁴ He was also appointed assistant before the university
reform, after a stay in France, where he had studied in Bordeaux and then at the
Sorbonne (1929 – 1932). When he was working with Reichenbach, he did not
know German and translated his lectures on history of philosophy from French.
It is also due to his efforts that the only issue of the journal of the Philosophy
Seminar, Felsefe Semineri Dergisi, prepared by Reichenbach, was published in
1939. This publication included a study by Eralp on Descartes,¹⁰⁵ which stems
from a study prepared at the Sorbonne but seems to have been approved as a
doctoral thesis at Istanbul University with its publication in 1939. This publica-
tion and his intense productivity as translator may explain why, unlike other as-
sistants trained like him in France, Eralp was able to pursue a career at the De-
partment of Philosophy, where he became Professor in 1949, taking over the chair
of Ernst von Aster.
After Reichenbach’s departure for the USA in 1938, Eralp was the only one
among his assistants and students able to continue a career at the Department
of Philosophy, where the obtention of a doctorate had indeed become a prereq-
choice to continue his education with philosophers like Nicolai Hartmann and Eduard Spranger,
who were both openly “opposed” to his own philosophical views.
 See Macit Gökberk’s statements in Kaynardağ, Felsefecilerle Söyleşiler, 22.
 Nusret Hizir was never Reichenbach’s official assistant because he got his diploma only
after Reichenbach had left, but Neyire Adil-Arda obtained this status (“Felsefe Disiplini Asista-
ni”), see Edebiyat Fakültesi 1937– 1938 Ders Yılı Talebe Kılavuzu, 69.
 See the interview given by Eralp in Kaynardağ, Felsefecilerle Söyleşiler, 63 – 78, here 65.
 Halil Vehbi Eralp, “Descartes Fiziğinin Metafizik Temelleri,” Felsefe Semineri Dergisi (1939):
87– 152.
164 Pascale Roure
uisite to be recruited as a doçent since the introduction of the doctorate in the

regulations of the Istanbul Faculty of Letters in the year 1936 – 1937.¹⁰⁶ Students
trained in France or even in Istanbul by Reichenbach did not have the title of
doctor but only a bachelor’s degree. With the exception of Eralp¹⁰⁷ who had man-
aged to obtain, with the publication of his study on Descartes, the title of Doctor
of Istanbul University in 1939, the new generation of lecturers (doçent) recruited
from 1938 onwards consisted exclusively of graduates from German universities
with Doktortitel (doctoral degree): Mazhar Şevket Ipşiroğlu, Takiyettin Mengüşoğ-
lu and Macit Gökberk.¹⁰⁸ This new generation, whose careers coincide with the
period of the Second World War, contributed to the reception of currents of phi-
losophy that developed in German universities after 1933, especially German
philosophical anthropology.
3.4. The Turn of 1939 and the Generation of Doctoral

Graduates Trained in Germany
Mazhar Şevket Ipşiroğlu (1908 – 1985) began his studies at the Dârülfünûn and
was sent to Germany in 1928, where he continued his studies of philosophy
and art history in Hamburg, Berlin and Bonn. He wrote his dissertation on Hegels
Ästhetik in ihrem historischen Zusammenhang [Hegel’s Aesthetics in its Historical
Context] (1933) under the supervision of Erich Rothacker (1888 – 1965), a repre-
sentative of German philosophical anthropology and known for his theory of
“cultural anthropology.” His dissertation is dedicated to Yusuf Akçura ¹⁰⁹ who
 See the Ph.D. regulations in the student guide of the Faculty of Letters, Edebiyat Fakültesi
1937 – 1938 Ders Yılı Talebe Kılavuzu (Istanbul: Burhanettin Matbaası, 1937), 16 and 27 ff.
 A comparable exception took place in the field of sociology, which at that time was sepa-
rate from the Department of Philosophie. Gerhard Kessler’s assistant Ziyaeddin Fahri Fındıkoğlu,
who graduated from the University of Strasbourg, returned in 1936 to France to obtain the doc-
toral degree for his thesis on “Ziya Gökalp as a Turkish Sociologist” and also made several so-
journs in Berlin in the 1930s. See Pascale Roure, “Ein internationaler Weg zu einer nationalen
Philosophie.” He also distinguished himself in the 1930s by an intense editorial activity and
founded in 1934 the journal “Iş Mecmuası (Action)” specialized in sociology and philosophy,
where Turkish translations and articles were published in German and French. See Roure,
“‘Deutsche Philosophie’ im Spiegel türkischer Fachzeitschriften,” 336.
 Macit Gökberk, Die Wissenschaft von der Gesellschaft im System Hegels und Auguste Comtes
(Berlin: Emil Ebering, 1940).
 Mazhar Şevket [Ipşiroğlu], Hegels Aesthetik in ihrem historischen Zusammenhang. Inaugural-
Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde genehmigt von der Philosophischen Fakultät der
Rheinischen Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn 1933, [3]: “Herrn Jusuf Akçura bey gewid-
met!”.
was married to Mazhar Şevket’s sister, Selma Akçura (1894– 1938). Back in Istan-
bul, Mazhar Şevket Ipşiroğlu was recruited in 1934 as an assistant before being
appointed doçent in 1939 with a habilitation thesis (doçentlik tezi) on Martin Hei-
degger and Max Scheler’s anthropology.¹¹⁰ Ipşiroğlu was a pioneer in this matter,
and his lecture on Max Scheler was published in 1939 in the Felsefe Semineri Der-
gisi. He was appointed professor in 1943 and left the Department of Philosophy
in 1946 to found the Art History Department.
However, it is Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu (1905 – 1984) who played the major role
in the Turkish reception of philosophical anthropology, from the perspective of
the new or critical ontology developed in Germany by Nicolai Hartmann, the su-
pervisor of his doctoral thesis.¹¹¹ As his unpublished correspondence shows,
Mengüşoğlu tried without success, during the Second World War, to have Hart-
mann appointed to the chair of Reichenbach. He consequently spared no efforts
to impose Nicolai Hartmann’s ontology as the hegemonic current at the Depart-
ment of Philosophy. Mengüşoğlu maintained relations with his former professor
and the latter’s circle¹¹² during and after the war. But especially afterwards it was
these relations that were amplified, giving rise to important academic exchang-
es. The presence of German scholars did not end in 1945, but on the contrary
reinforced in the 1950s with the efforts of Mengüşoğlu, who became the head
of the Department of Philosophy following von Aster’s death in 1948.
Under Mengüşoğlu’s direction, the Department of Philosophy welcomed
until 1960 German professors close to Nicolai Hartmann. Most of them had al-
ready come in the late 1940s and taken part in the intellectual life of the depart-
ment as lecturers and conference speakers during the subsequent decade,¹¹³ in-
 This thesis was not published, but Ipşiroğlu published the very first translation of Heideg-
ger in Turkish, Martin Heidegger, Metafizik nedir, trans. by Mazhar Şevket [Ipşiroğlu] and Suud
Kemal [Yetkin] (Istanbul: Istanbul Üniversitesi yay. 99, 1935) (see also Felsefe Semineri Dergisi
(1939): 187– 202). He also published a “Probeseminar” on Max Scheler, see Mazhar Şevket [Ipşir-
oğlu], “Felsefî Antropoloji (Max Scheler),” Felsefe Semineri Dergisi (Istanbul Üniversitesi yay.
99): 73 – 86.
 Takiyettin Temuralp [Mengüşoğlu], Über die Grenzen der Erkennbarkeit bei Husserl und
Scheler, vol. 2, eds. C.A. Emge and N. Hartmann (Berlin: Verlag für Staatswissenschaften und Ge-
schichte, 1937). See Pascale Roure, “Fenomenolojiden Felsefi Antropolojiye. Takiyettin Mengüşo-
ğlu’nun Almanca Doktora Tezi,” in Düşünceleriyle Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu eds. Ayhan Bıçak and
Egemen Kuşcu (Istanbul: Dergah, forthcoming).
 For a presentation of the participants in Hartmann’s seminars, which incidentally does not
mention Mengüşoğlu, see Joachim Fischer and Gerald Hartung, eds., Nicolai Hartmanns Dialoge
1920 – 1950. Die “Cirkelprotokolle” (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020).
 On the second wave of German academic migration, see Pascale Roure, “Rakip Paradigma-
lar: Alman Felsefesinin Istanbul Üniversitesi’ne Girişi,” Felsefe Arkivi 49 (2018): 37– 51, here 48 ff.
166 Pascale Roure
cluding Hartmann’s former students Hermann Wein and Bruno Baron von Frey-
tag Löringhoff as well as the most eminent representatives of German philosoph-
ical anthropology – Erich Rothacker, Arnold Gehlen and Hans Freyer. This Ger-
man presence also had an institutional dimension: the chair left vacant by
Reichenbach in 1938 was officially awarded to Hartmann’s friend Heinz Heim-
soeth (1886 – 1975) from 1950 to 1952, who was succeeded by Joachim Ritter
(1903 – 1974) from 1953 to 1955.
This migration of representatives of the “German Geist” to the shores of the
Bosphorus in the 1950s was decisive in the formation of the next generation of
academic philosophers at Istanbul University, in a predominantly German-
speaking linguistic environment. These contacts encouraged a new wave of stu-
dent mobility to Germany, especially to universities where these German profes-
sors were active or had connections, such as Heidelberg and Tübingen – where
Mengüşoğlu found refuge after the 1960 coup. All the assistants in charge of the
translation of the courses and lectures given in German by these professors be-
came doçent at the Department of Philosophy. Some of them after having spent
time in Germany in order to prepare the habilitation thesis (doçentlik tezi); others
after having prepared their doctorate in Germany or Austria: Nermi Uygur was in
Cologne before completing his doctoral thesis on Dilthey and Ismail Tunalı com-
pleted his doctoral thesis in Vienna.¹¹⁴ The massive reception in the 1940s and
above all in the 1950s of Nicolai Hartmann’s ontology and of philosophical an-
thropology, through translation but also teaching and research activities, demon-
strates the implantation of the German language in the Department of Philoso-
phy in this period.
Heimsoeth and Ritter respectively supervised the work of the first two
women to obtain a doctorate in philosophy in Turkey – started under the direc-
tion of Ernst von Aster – and a position as professor of philosophy: Kâmuran Bir-
and (1917– 1964) and Bedia Akarsu (1921– 2016). Birand was the assistant of
Ernst von Aster and prepared a doctoral thesis devoted to the concept of state
in Namık Kemal’s thought. Due to the unexpected death of Ernst von Aster in
1948, she obtained her doctorate in the same year of Ülken’s directorate.¹¹⁵ Bir-
and worked afterwards with Heimsoeth, orienting her research in a completely
different direction. She died in 1964, shortly after she was appointed professor
at the Faculty of Theology in Ankara.
 See Pascale Roure, “Güzellik Nedir? Sanat Ontolojisi Kurma Yolunda Ilk Çaba Olarak Ismail
Tunalı’nın Doktora Tezi,” in Ismail Tunalı Düşüncesi, eds. Ayhan Bıçak and Ömür Karslı (Istan-
bul: Dergah, 2019), 52– 66.
 See Ülken’s preface to Kamıran Birand Külliyatı (Istanbul: Akçağ, 1998), v.
Even more than the work of Birand, to whom the reception of German philo-
sophical hermeneutics in Turkey in the 1950s is due,¹¹⁶ the work of Akarsu exem-
plifies this turning point in the reception of German philosophy. After a graduate
thesis on Nietzsche in 1943, Akarsu completed under Ritter’s supervision her
doctoral thesis in 1955 on “The Relationship between Language and Culture in
Wilhelm von Humboldt.”¹¹⁷ In an interview, she recounts that she learned Ger-
man mainly from books and exchanged in German with Ritter, who encouraged
her to improve her German by spending four months in Germany, first at the
Goethe Institute and then at the University of Konstanz.¹¹⁸ Akarsu also translated
into Turkish the lectures given in Istanbul by Hans Freyer (1887– 1969) and Ar-
nold Gehlen (1904 – 1976) and developed strong ties with Gehlen – whose pres-
ence in Istanbul, at the invitation of Gökberk, greatly displeased Ritter.¹¹⁹ From
1956 to 1958, Akarsu continued her studies in Heidelberg, where she could see
Gehlen regularly and attended courses and seminars given by Hans-Georg Ga-
damer (1900 – 2002). Gadamer encouraged her in her choice to work on the ques-
tion of personality by Max Scheler and it is with her work on that question,¹²⁰
which she said she had developed on the basis of the presentation Gadamer
had provided her,¹²¹ that in 1960 she became the first woman to teach in the De-
partment of Philosophy as a doçent, and from 1969 on as a professor.
A very instructive exception to this craze for Germany in the 1950s is the case
of Hüseyin Batuhan (1921– 2003), who preceded Akarsu in Heidelberg. Like Kâ-
muran Birand, Batuhan was von Aster’s student and became his assistant short-
ly before his death. He was appointed doçent at the Department of Philosophy
upon his return from Germany, but he continued his career afterwards in Ankara.
Batuhan’s language skills and interests set him apart from other students of his
generation who were attracted to Germany. He learned French on his own in high
school and English at the beginning of his higher education. He stated that he
also learned German on his own, by attending Ernst von Aster’s lectures, inter-
preted by Macit Gökberk.¹²² He spoke about having followed with pleasure the
art history courses of Ipşiroğlu and during one-year courses on the psychology
 Kâmuran Birand, Mânevi ilimler metodu olarak anlama (Ankara: np, 1960).
 Bedia Akarsu, Wilhelm von Humboldt’da Dil-Kültür Bağlantısı (Istanbul: Istanbul Matbaası,
1955).
 Bedia Akarsu, Felsefe, Eğitim ve Toplum Üzerine (Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 2014), 96.
 Akarsu, Felsefe, Eğitim ve Toplum Üzerine, 97 ff.
 See Bedia Akarsu, Max Scheler’de Kişilik Problemi (Istanbul: IÜ Edebiyat Fakültesi, 1962).
 Akarsu, Felsefe, Eğitim ve Toplum Üzerine, 99, 101.
 See the interview of Hüseyin Batuhan in Kaynardağ’s Felsefecilerle Söyleşiler, 267– 311, here
284 ff.
168 Pascale Roure
of Gestalt given by Mümtaz Turhan.¹²³ However, he did not conceal his distance
from Mengüşoğlu and Gökberk and the German philosophical anthropology
which they were promoting.
After completing his doctoral thesis in 1953 on the concept of irony by Kier-
kegaard, the first version of which he had written in French, he chose Germany
for his studies abroad. He stayed with his wife Turan Pamuk in Heidelberg in the
years 1954– 1957 where Birand visited him in 1956.¹²⁴ Batuhan mainly retained
from Heidelberg the lectures given by Karl Löwith, who according to him, had
tried to make a place for himself in Istanbul but was rejected by Reichenbach,
as he was Heidegger’s student.¹²⁵ From Gadamer’s classes, Batuhan stated he
had only retained one question “Wieso Gegenstände?” He mentioned that he
also chose to take for the purposes of his thesis preparation theology courses,
notably those of Heinrich Bornkamm (1901– 1977).
Unlike Akarsu, who remembered with enthusiasm her interactions with Ger-
man professors in Heidelberg with the exception of “the Jew Karl Löwith” – the
latter having, in her words, been the subject of unmerited admiration due to the
“exaggerated admiration for the Jews” in post-war Germany¹²⁶ –, for Batuhan,
his stay in Heidelberg was a pure waste of time from a philosophical point of
view. Given his lack of interest in the philosophical currents represented in Hei-
delberg by Gehlen and Schelsky (philosophical anthropology) or Gadamer (phil-
osophical hermeneutics), the choice to study in Heidelberg was indeed quite sur-
prising. What he recalled about the reasons for this choice¹²⁷ – one of the great
mistakes of his life in his opinion – was nonetheless very instructive. Batuhan
declared that he did not quite know himself the reasons behind this choice, add-
ing:
 Kaynardağ, Felsefecilerle Söyleşiler, 280. Mümtaz Turhan (1908 – 1969) was trained in Ger-
many between 1928 and 1935, where he defended a doctorate under the direction of Max Wer-
theimer, see Mümtaz Turhan Erzurum, “Über räumliche Wirkungen von Helligkeitsgefällen,”
Psychologische Forschung 21 (1937): 1– 49. He was appointed in 1936 at the Istanbul University’s
Faculty of Letters as the assistant of Wilhelm Peters.
 Kaynardağ, Felsefecilerle Söyleşiler, 279.
 In fact, on a proposal by Reichenbach, two lecturer positions (“Chargé de cours”) were to
be created, one for Löwith, who was supported by Leo Spitzer and Richard von Mises. However,
the Turkish government preferred to open the position of a full professor (“Ordinariat”), which
went to Ernst von Aster. See Reichenbach’s letter to Ernst von Aster dated 28.06.1936 (RP Box 13,
Folder 39).
 Akarsu, Felsefe, Eğitim ve Toplum Üzerine, 101.
 Hüseyin Batuhan, Turan’ın En Mutlu Yılları 1942 – 1958 (Istanbul: Bulut, 2002), 283.
[…] I had to understand later that this time I had made the wrong choice. In fact, I should
have gone to England or to the United States, but in those years, I had no idea what was
going on in the world of philosophy, and since our professors had all been studying in Ger-
many, it did not even occur to me to go anywhere else but Germany. I’m afraid I always
made the wrong decisions on the most important issues in life.¹²⁸
The Department of Philosophy shows in an exemplary way the competition be-

tween French and German academic diplomacies and traditions, but also a dual
relationship with Germany, divided between the exiled professors, on the one
hand, and the philosophers who were able to pursue an academic carreer in
Nazi Germany after 1933, on the other hand. This “German” influence was
strengthened not so much in 1933, with the arrival of exiled scholars from Ger-
many, as for example Reichenbach, whose scientific networks were essentially
turned towards France, England and the United States, but rather in 1938 after
Reichenbach’s departure and at the beginning of the Second World War, with
the predominant recruitment of Turkish PhD graduates from Germany. It finally
reached its peak in the 1950s, when the chair left vacant by Reichenbach was
given to professors who had been compatible with the Nazi regime, and with
the presence as lecturer of thinkers who have openly adhered to National Social-
ism, such as the theorist of cultural anthropology Erich Rothacker and the rep-
resentatives of the German philosophical anthropology Hans Freyer and Arnold
Gehlen. The individual trajectories of the assistants also confirm this trend. Apart
from Eralp and Ülken, who were the closest collaborators of the exiled professors
before the Second World War, the passage through German universities was the
condition for all appointments to the Department of Philosophy from the end of
the 1930s to the end of the 1950s.
4. Conclusion
The history of the Istanbul University Faculty of Letters, since its establishment
in the late Ottoman period, was fully in line with the globalization process of the
European university system. The focus on academic mobility and intellectual cir-
culation between Turkey and Germany in the field of philosophical disciplines
highlighted a constitutive and productive transposition of Franco-German rela-
tions in the Ottoman imperial context and then in the Turkish national one.
The Franco-German rivalry in cultural, linguistic and scientific matters weak-
ened the hegemonic aims of the respective cultural diplomacies of France and
 Kaynardağ, Felsefecilerle Söyleşiler, 286.

170 Pascale Roure
Germany regarding Turkey. More generally, the diversification of the sources of

the intellectual and academic exchange undoubtedly contributed to guarantee
the autonomy of this development even in relation to imported elements
which were adapted to the local context. This is what the second part of this
chapter has shown, by examining the institutionalization of philosophy as an
academic discipline at Istanbul University, a pilot university in the Turkish aca-
demic history, from the point of view of academic international mobility.
In contrast to the approach that has long been dominant and that presup-
poses a linear trajectory of Western influence, I have pointed out, first, that
the roots of the international openness and modernity of the Turkish academic
institution go beyond the 1933 university reform and precede the foundation of
the Republic. The Turkish policy of welcoming professors from Germany – as
part of the military engagement during the First World War, as refugees fleeing
from Nazism after 1933, or in the 1950s’ Cold War context – is therefore only
one aspect of the multiple connections and the networking practices that Turkey
developed beyond its national boundaries. The sending of students from 1920s
onwards to Germany, with the vagaries, deceptions and enthusiasm of personal
trajectories, has played a determining role in the history of the Istanbul Univer-
sity’s Department of Philosophy.
This is the second result of this study, aiming to account for the aspects of
reciprocity and transformation occulted by a unilateral use of the transfer cate-
gory. Without limiting itself to the actions of the European philosophers present
in Turkey, the “intercrossing” or global intellectual history approach made it pos-
sible to highlight the work of Turkish students, assistants and translators as par-
takers of knowledge production, diffusion, appropriation and recreation.
However, the concrete experiences of the philosophers traveling between French
culture and German Geist have contributed to the abstract fixation or idealization
of cultures forming a common world.
On the other hand, at the same time as it has brought national university
systems closer together, internationalization has paradoxically also led to an un-
precedented assertion of national boundaries throughout the world. In contact
with the interconnected French and German traditions of academic philosophy,
the will to establish a national philosophical tradition, resolutely turned towards
Europe and seeking to distance itself from a past stigmatized as oriental or reli-
gious, emerged in the Turkish university. The replacement of a cosmopolitan
identity by a nationalistic self-affirmation in Turkey drove out one model of mod-
ernity in order to replace it with another. However, the feeling of entering moder-
nity remained that of an experience of radical novelty, since modernity is not a

chronological but a crisological¹²⁹ concept.
 For the definition of modernity as a recurrent crisis consciousness rather than as a deter-
mined historical period, see Gérard Raulet, Gehemmte Zukunft. Zur gegenwärtigen Krise der
Emanzipation (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1986) and “From Modernity as One-Way Street to Post-
modernity as Dead End,” (trans. Max Reinhart) New German Critique no. 33 (1984): 155 – 177.
Deniz Kuru
Chapter 6
Globalizing Turkey’s Intellectual Histories
1. Introduction
Global Intellectual History (GIH) is emerging as a substantial subfield, generat-
ing insightful scholarship that connects the focus on the global to an emphasis
on ideas, concepts, and various processes of knowledge production, all the time
allowing also for an interest in agents involved in various related dynamics of
interaction, but also in willing or unwilling moves that further disconnections.
What is the significance of this global turn for studying republican Turkey’s in-
tellectual histories? In this chapter, I aim to present a typology that can be used
when doing GIH in the specific context of Turkey. By elaborating the tempo-spa-
tial features of this polity within an ideas-focused mechanism, the goal is to gen-
erate a more comprehensive understanding of the relevant intellectual historical
contexts, based on a careful differentiation among various agents and structural
levels.
I start the chapter by demonstrating the growing influence of GIH, also in
connection to the broader global turn in history. Consequently, there follows
an explanation of the significant role a focus on Turkish intellectual histories
can play – especially when it comes to expanding the relevant scholarship in
GIH. In this regard, the case of Turkey’s republican context provides us with a
means of contributing to ongoing debates on GIH. In order to clarify the advan-
tages of such an approach, one that would engage directly with the Turkish
cases, the study develops on the basis of a more theoretical elaboration. It pro-
poses both a framework for analysis and a possible roadmap to use in extending
our global understanding of Turkey’s intellectual histories.
First, the chapter starts with a focus on multiple advantages of distinguish-
ing between the Ottoman and Turkish historiographical studies in the realm of
intellectual history. Second, I develop an explanation about how relevant histor-
ical agents, to wit, ideational actors, played roles that were much shaped by their
backgrounds and extant conditions defined by the spatial conditions and rele-
vant temporalities. Therefore, the emerging framework will relate to a number
of temporal orders that co-existed, and at times, conflicted within the republican
setting. Third, the focus shifts to various pivotal points one finds in GIH-related
literature, ranging from issues of (non)globalization to ideational entrepreneur-
ship. Based on these discussions, I present a typology pertaining to the different
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-007
174 Deniz Kuru
levels of doing GIH within the Turkish context. When relevant, I will also provide
short examples that reflect these diverse research agendas as well as varying
strategies one needs to employ, depending on the given spatial and temporal or-
ders. The conclusion reiterates the promises of the Turkish context for an even
more invigorated progress in GIH, simultaneously pinpointing its relevance for
certain other cases, but also referring to various challenges that lie ahead.
2. Ideas, Globally: The Promise of the Global

Turn for Turkey’s Intellectual Histories
The last two decades have seen a growing interest in global history,¹ the impact
of which has by now also reached the domain of intellectual history. It is at the
resulting interstices that the new subfield of Global Intellectual History has
emerged. Triggered by Moyn and Sartori’s co-edited book of 2013,² and empow-
ered by the founding of an eponymous journal,³ the subfield has mostly focused,
notwithstanding its stated aim of a wider engagement with the world’s ideation-
al contexts, on a limited number of regions, giving prominence to Western/Euro-
pean interactions with Asia, often in the confines of Chinese or Indian settings. It
is in this regard that a focal shift to the (Ottoman and) Turkish frames could offer
GIH a means of globalizing both its emphasis as well as a chance to derive novel
insights that are not necessarily present in other contexts.
The focus on a given spatial entity has been gaining ground within the re-
cent global turn in history. Even for a small island such as Singapore, scholars
now offer global(ized) histories that focus on the political, social, and ideational
realms.⁴ These broad interests in providing such a wider historical understand-
ing of a given region, tying in its global entanglements, as well as its agential
roles or even structural contributions, allow us to combine the insights and ap-
proaches of a number of disciplines. Global history is therefore not merely an en-
 For leading explanations, see James Belich, John Darwin, Margret Frenz, and Chris Wickham,
eds., The Prospect of Global History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) and Sebastian Con-
rad, What Is Global History? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).
 Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, eds., Global Intellectual History (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 2013).
 The journal Global Intellectual History, published by Taylor & Francis, appeared with its first
volume in 2016.
 See the volume by Derek Heng and Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied, eds., Singapore in Global
History (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011).
Chapter 6 Globalizing Turkey’s Intellectual Histories 175
terprise of historians, but also of scholars involved in other disciplines, including

political science, sociology, cultural studies, etc.⁵
What GIH-related approaches can offer is a broad tool for the de-parochial-
ization of our politico-historical studies that focus on ideas. Such an opportunity
also paves the way for concomitantly demonstrating GIH’s potential in turning
the local into a self-evident part of the global. For this reason, I emphasize in
this chapter the benefits of choosing a spatially determined and partially reified
research domain: the Turkish context. Such a move could help demonstrate the
relevance of a GIH-based approach even in the case of certain spatially defined
domains, undertaking simultaneously a global and a parochial turn. This means
to incorporate, on the one hand, the Turkish context into global histories of
ideas, while also aiming for a broadening of the former’s ideational horizons
with regard to their “Western”⁶ and “non-Western”/“Eastern” connections.⁷
Throughout this study, “Western” and “non-Western” are used in a consistent
manner, referring to the geo-epistemological spatial dimensions and transmit-
ters of ideas that belong more to one of these realms. This usage should not
be, however, conflated with a reified understanding of these varying domains
of ideas, with all their relations as well as (dis)connections. Notwithstanding
the increase in more interaction and intense communications, the assumption
is that ideas, at times, have certain origins, or that their most intensive emer-
gence and/or development have been affected within a definable geographical
setting. At other times, nevertheless, it also includes an understanding that
ideas’ convergences or divergences were of more prominent influence. It is our
task as scholars to consequently engage with these ideas’ global journeys, in-
cluding the ways in which their meanings shift, change or get challenged.
What matters most is to recognize the multiple pathways for the ideas’ global
travels.⁸ These research aspects are quite broad in their scope, ranging from ex-
pansion to backwardness, from the universal to transfers.⁹
 See Heng and Aljunied, Singapore in Global History, 17 and Omnia El Shakry, “Rethinking
Arab Intellectual History: Epistemology, Historicism, Secularism,” Modern Intellectual History
18, no. 2 (2021): 547– 572, here 550, fn. 16.
 I do not employ inverted commas in the remainder of the chapter, although, as I explain
above in the main text, these are not to be understood as homogeneous categories of analyses
that would easily be juxtaposed to each other, on the basis of supposed hermetically separated
features.
 For a recent example in the broader Islamic contexts, see Cemil Aydın, The Idea of the Muslim
World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).
 Partha Chatterjee, “A Brief History of Subaltern Studies,” in Transnationale Geschichte The-
men, Tendenzen und Theorien, eds. Gunilla-Friederike Budde, Sebastian Conrad and Oliver
Janz (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 94– 104.
176 Deniz Kuru
The position of non-Western intellectual history can be said to present a

rather neglected area of research, for which not many historians, even when
studying broader non-Western contexts, show an interest.¹⁰ Following El Shak-
ry’s recent overview of Arab intellectual history, it becomes clear that Ottoman
and Turkish intellectual histories share many of the difficulties that one finds
in her former case. The predominance of political history and a focus on histories
from below delegate studies on ideas to a lower level of engagement. This prob-
lematique is made further visible when gauging the amount of scholarly publi-
cations in leading journals of the field, ranging from the journal Modern Intellec-
tual History, and the more recently established Global Intellectual History, to The
Journal of the History of Ideas with regard to articles that pertain to the Ottoman
or Turkish cases.¹¹ Their very weak presence becomes evident in comparison to
studies that have distinct Western, Chinese, or Indian foci.¹² The reverse is also
true, as the very idea of GIH has not apparently started to influence scholarship
on Ottoman and Turkish studies. One can find very indicative evidence, for in-
stance, in checking the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association.
In all its volumes, even the idea of global intellectual history becomes visible
in just three book titles mentioned in footnotes, none of them even referring
to the book edited by Moyn and Sartori that has triggered relevant scholarship
on GIH. This by itself demonstrates the continuing lack of involvement by our
scholarship with the useful insights brought about by this novel literature and
historiographical framework for the purposes of studying the Ottoman or Turkish
contexts.
In developing intellectual histories of Turkey that relate to the global turn,
an important step would be to ensure intensive engagements with its regional
worlds as well as geographically more far away parts of the globe. However,
this would first of all require the ability to get involved with non-English lan-
guage primary and secondary sources, not an aspect at which present scholar-
ship succeeds. As is well known, even regarding the Arabic societies in the Mid-
dle Eastern and Mediterranean areas, Turkey lacks a substantial number of
scholars with the ability to do research and communicate in the local language.
 Jürgen Osterhammel, “Global History and Historical Sociology,” in The Prospect of Global His-
tory, 31– 34.
 El Shakry, “Rethinking Arab Intellectual History,” 547.
 Searches for relevant studies resulted in a very limited number of works on these subjects,
testifying to their rather overlooked role in globally shaped intellectual histories, or even in na-
tionally defined approaches.
 For an exception, see Cemil Aydın, “Globalizing the Intellectual History of the Idea of the
‘Muslim World,’ in Global Intellectual History, 159 – 186.
Similar difficulties also exist in looking at the globally pertinent interactions

with Greek, Iranian, or Russian cases through which one could generate some
triangulation that would include broader Western or non-Western ideational dy-
namics. Consequently, this practical difficulty is a major hindrance on the way
toward more Turkey-related undertakings in GIH, and could be more easily over-
come by scholars in the West who have the institutional and financial means at
their disposal to undertake research in multiple languages. Another issue that
weakens the interest in effectively global ideational dynamics concerns the pres-
ence of a campfire mentality so that different groups end up paying attention to
what they perceive as representative Western or non-Western ideas and their dif-
fusions across Turkish intellectual and socio-political spheres.
By approaching the intellectual histories of Turkish republican settings, I
rely on the assumption that there have indeed been some deep disconnections
between the late Ottoman and Turkish contexts. This does not, obviously, signify
that I reject all claims of continuity. The Zürcherian analysis of the political do-
mains of the late Ottoman and early republican eras, as is well known, relies on
the idea that there was a remarkable process of continuity, affecting this sphere
from the early 20th century on, with its consequences reaching into 1950.¹³ More
recently, in her study focusing on the Turkish writer Refik Halid Karay, Christine
Philliou succeeded in showing how what one could call trans-regime opposition-
ality has marked the life of a single public intellectual.¹⁴ His difficulties during
the imperial and republican times reflect concomitantly the general challenges
faced by various individuals, and groups, in both of these periods. Nevertheless,
this chapter focuses on the latter setting, and not on the final decades of the im-
perial era. The overall conditions and prevailing ideational waves not only dif-
fered to some extent, but also combined with a public mood that was different
from the one of the Ottoman years of collapse.
Having explained my approach concerning the subsequent divergence of the
Turkish case in comparison to the broader imperial past, it is important to briefly
elaborate on the GIH-related consequences of such a reframing. First, this makes
researchers attentive to changing circumstances, forcing them to adjust to
changes related to geographical and political transfigurations that emerge.
One could not engage with the ideational world and thinkers of the late Ottoman
period in the same manner one deals with the narrow confines of a nation-state-
in-progress framework of the Turkish Republic. Following on from this, there is
 See Erik Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 4th ed. (London: I. B. Tauris, 2017).
 Christine May Philliou, Turkey: A Past Against History (Oakland: University of California
Press, 2021).
178 Deniz Kuru
not only the aspect of a geographical or political difference, but in fact one of
socio-cultural transformation. In this context, even a prosopographical approach
cannot always easily offer continuity (exceptionally, see the Karay study men-
tioned above), with the imperial-to-republican shifts dramatically altering, and
at times tragically terminating, the life worlds of thinkers, and the novel
national(ist) environment shaping the very concepts and ideas in their continu-
ing diffusion, modification and adaptation. It is difficult to sufficiently reiterate
the dramatic breaks that have marked this era, notwithstanding certain trends of
continuity-based analyses.¹⁵
Third, the ensuing social milieux could not reproduce the earlier environ-
ments of the imperial era, despite the existence of an elite-driven quest for civ-
ilizational levelling, a process whose triggering dynamics could not be fully ex-
plored without a GIH-pertinent framework. This ranges from international
congresses on linguistic and historical topics to educational reforms taking
shape with Western-originating brain-gain. At the end, what emerged was still
an intellectual environment that lacked the plurality of the imperial period.
The political restructuring and socio-cultural remaking of modern Turkey
would change the general conditions under which ideas would travel, and idea-
tional entrepreneurs interact.
The changes that mark the necessity of distinguishing between the late im-
perial and republican intellectual settings also require us to consider the multi-
ple temporalities at play in these periods. This was not merely the case with re-
gard to the separable spheres of the imperial and republican eras but also
marked the times within these two distinct periods. To put it differently, a num-
ber of temporalities were in action in both of them. The republican era witnessed
a decisive engagement with the issue of Westernization, developing a heavily dis-
cussed divergence between the intellectuals nostalgic of the yesteryear, those
eager for more radical breaks with the past, and the ones stuck in the middle.
Each of them tended to come up with, or develop, their own temporalities.
Not least, this was visible in the very way time was counted.¹⁶ This signified
that notions such as progress, reaction, modernity were not necessarily interpret-
ed from a single framework, in fact existing in varying ideational shapes. Even
within the reformist camp of the new state elites, the main question, both polit-
 As seen in Zürcher, Turkey.

 For a scholarly analysis, see Avner Wishnitzer, Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society
in the Late Ottoman Empire (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2015). For a very significant lit-
erary contribution see the novel by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, The Time Regulation Institute, trans-
lated by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe (London: Penguin, 2014 [1954/1961]).
ical and socio-cultural in its implications, concerned the speed of the reforms.
Atatürk and his close circle were at times eager to “reach the level of the contem-
porary civilization” in its famous formulation, while others were more prone to
undertake only gradual steps in modifying the world order. The global interac-
tions could also be employed selectively in this regard, with the former group
being closer to radical French republicanism.¹⁷ What emerged was therefore a di-
vergence that also originated from different approaches to both temporality (the
one that mattered for a certain group) and velocity (the one preferred by this
group).
An important point explaining the reasons for GIH’s more frequent focus on
certain parts of the world in its quest to generate a more comprehensive engage-
ment with ideas and thinkers is the continuing influence of Western-dominated
processes of knowledge-making.¹⁸ In this regard, former colonial connections
and the related basis of knowledge trigger further research that derives from
these sources. At the same time, the colonial-imperial entanglements have gen-
erated a sufficient literature that provides very useful sources for the purposes of
GIH. Under these conditions, cases such as the imperial Ottoman or republican
Turkish settings, by their very nature, would necessitate a substantial amount of
linguistic and already present scholarly interest. The lack, or relative difficulty of
these expectations, in turn, could be seen as a relevant factor that has so far hin-
dered more intensive analysis of these cases. Furthermore, it is even more impor-
tant, and rather more challenging, to emphasize nation-state contexts as possi-
ble settings for extending GIH in comparison to imperial orders with their at
times more default tendencies for transnational or global entanglements. Focus-
ing on the Turkish Republic and its intellectual histories via GIH frameworks
would thus present a significant contribution, but also a more difficult task.
This problem also relates to the ongoing debate about the pertinence of non-
Western ideas and thinkers for Western, or global, dimensions. As shown in the
case of Arab intellectual history, many non-Western regions and thinkers from
these parts of the world are seen as mere imitators, or at best acting as diffusers
of Western-originating ideas.¹⁹ When such an attitude prevails, the focus re-
 See Banu Turnaoğlu, “The Intellectual Origins of Turkish Radical Republicanism,” in Radical
Republicanism: Recovering the Tradition’s Popular Heritage, eds. Bruno Leipold, Karma Nabulsi
and Stuart White (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 197– 214.
 On the general nature of this problem, see the brief takes by Walter Mignolo, “The Geopol-
itics of Knowledge and the Colonial Difference,” The South Atlantic Quarterly 101, no. 1 (2002):
57– 96 and Anibal Quijano, “Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America,” Interna-
tional Sociology 15, no. 2 (2000): 215 – 232.
 El Shakry, “Rethinking Arab Intellectual History,” 550.
180 Deniz Kuru
mains instead on a few individuals whose contributions are more easily analyz-
able within the extant frameworks that one uses for Western intellectual history.
Furthermore, the analytical limits of GIH also relate to the extent of its enmesh-
edness with globalization.²⁰ While some interpret GIH as being only one possible
approach in line with the dynamics of this broad intensification of global inter-
connections, others are eager to pave the way towards a less presentist ap-
proach, which would allow GIH-pertinent studies to also deal with the historical
past that goes beyond the last two or three centuries, preventing thus “a modern-
ist bias.”²¹
While aiming to globalize Turkish intellectual history, it is also of relevance
to keep in mind the cautious analysis developed by Moyn concerning the not-to-
be-ignored possibility of non-globalization.²² This refers to the way ideas or
thinkers fail to have an influence outside their realms of original impact. In
the specific case of republican Turkey, such a development deserves one’s spe-
cial attention, not least due to the much talked about, but less studied, nature
concerning the ideational examples, provided by its early 20th century wars
with the Western powers and the republic’s founding, for the nations of, what
consequently was called, the “Third World,” seeing in it a model for moderniza-
tion.²³ As both secular nationalist and Islamist conservative intellectual circles
tend to focus on the different ways in which their impact is supposed to shape
at least the ideas dimension of other non-Western regions, it is important to
note the limits of such exaggerations by showing the rather weak nature of glob-
al influences that would originate from within the Turkish case.
Many nationalist interpretations of Turkish republican trajectories focus on
the leadership provided by Kemalist Turkey to the nations in the region.²⁴ This
not only refers to the neighboring states, the problematic relationships with
whom are in such analyses rather ignored, but also to states more far away
for whom the young republic’s presumably anti-Western, to wit anti-imperialist
rhetoric, in addition to its reforms (or even revolutionary changes), served as a
 See Frederick Cooper, “How Global Do We Want Our Intellectual History to Be?,” in Global
Intellectual History, 283 – 294.
 See Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History,” in Global
Intellectual History, 3 – 32, here 23.
 Samuel Moyn, “On the Nonglobalization of Ideas,” in Global Intellectual History, 187– 204.
 Suna Kili, The Atatürk Revolution – A Paradigm of Modernization (Istanbul: Türkiye İş
Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2003).
 For an analysis, see Ali Kazancıgil, “Anti-emperyalist Bağımsızlık Ideolojisi ve Üçüncü
Dünya Ulusçuluğu Olarak Kemalizm,” in Kemalizm, ed. Ahmet Insel (Istanbul: Iletisim, 2001),
235 – 246.
model to be adopted.²⁵ The difficulty of this interpretation relates to its lack of

substantial connection that was established in such a framework. The pro-West-
ern attitude of Turkey in 1955 at the Bandung Conference of, mostly newly inde-
pendent, Asian and African states reflects the official political position.²⁶ How-
ever, also at the level of intellectuals there was a lack of considerable
attention on effectively promoting the ideas of the Kemalist regime, even at
the time of Atatürk’s presidency. The rather solitary example of La Turquie Kema-
liste, published in leading West European languages, literally serves as the ex-
ception that proves the rule, even if this interesting publication itself was a
means of promoting/propagating Turkish efforts of Westernization to Western
societies.²⁷ Some separate intellectual efforts coalesced in this period (1930s)
around the journal Kadro, with their tacitly Soviet-pertinent approach. However,
the subsequent closure of the publication, upon the request of the regime, dem-
onstrates the unwillingness of Turkish officials for a deeper engagement with an
intellectually broadly employable Turkish model.²⁸
In the case of Islamist conservative circles, the Kemalist republic was a fur-
ther blow with regard to their connections to like-minded groups in the sur-
rounding regions. The nominal ties that had existed within a shared imperial
structure were now largely lost. The rise of Arab nationalism would generate,
mostly until the 1970s, further disconnections between Arab and Turkish intel-
lectuals. In the early republican years, the regional ties led some principal oppo-
nents of the secular state, at least in the years of Atatürk’s rule, to choose certain
Arab countries for their exile. However, the distance from Turkey would force
 For its impact on Turkish-Soviet relations, see Samuel J. Hirst, “Anti-Westernism on the Euro-
pean Periphery: The Meaning of Soviet-Turkish Convergence in the 1930s,” Slavic Review 72, no. 1
(2013): 32– 53.
 Güral Baba and Senem Ertan, “Turkey at the Bandung Conference: A fully-aligned among
the non-aligned.” Paper presented in ISA Asia-Pacific Conference in Hong Kong, 2016. Accessed
online at http://web.isanet.org/ Web/Conferences/AP%20Hong%20Kong%202016/Archive/
64185d87– 7a01– 44f1-acbc-1566b192398 f.pdf.
 Tanju Inal and Mümtaz Kaya, “La Turquie Kamâliste : voie/voix francophone(s) pour une
Turquie kémaliste,” Documents pour l’histoire du français langue étrangère ou seconde 38/39
(2001), available online at https://journals.openedition.org/dhfles/336.
 On this journal, see Mustafa Türkeş, “Kadro Dergisi.” in Kemalizm, 464– 476. Nevertheless, it
should be emphasized that some political ties to some neighboring countries, including Pahlavi
Iran or the Afghan Kingdom of the era were influenced by ideas of a certain Turkish role model
position in those years, although there was no overall direct and permanent influence due to
changing political circumstances. See Amin Bein’s Kemalist Turkey and the Middle East Interna-
tional Relations in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Tourai Ata-
baki and Erik Jan Zü rcher, eds., Men of order: authoritarian modernization under Atatü rk and
Reza Shah (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004).
182 Deniz Kuru
these individuals to face a relative weakening of their previous influence at

home. The decline and later end of the Khilafat movement²⁹ generated further
disconnections.
Could one find significant instances of Turkish-derived concepts and idea-
tional anchorages in the case of Third World nations at times of decolonization?
The response would be a rather negative one. Internal dynamics, global waves of
sovereignty as well as colonial interactions seem to have played the most signif-
icant role in these processes.³⁰ In this regard, it is also important to underline the
rather disconnected nature of the republican-era Turkish intellectuals when it
came to act as ideational transmitters or diffusers. The intensity of domestic
socio-political changes, coupled with concomitant time-consuming reforms
that had a direct impact on the intellectuals, did not pave the way for an envi-
ronment in which major transnational interactions would emerge. Connections
at the level of various Western experts, promoted and organized at the state-
level notwithstanding, the intellectual scene was quite hermetically sealed off.
As suggested above, the conditions of the novel post-imperial era required either
a repositioning on the side of the new Kemalist state, or a self-imposed domestic
exile, at times even forcing some to leave the country, especially in cases of eth-
nic minorities, and some leftist or Islamist and even a few Turkish nationalist in-
tellectuals. Under such circumstances, the new Kemalist intellectual stratum was
in statu nascendi, whereas the members of the older imperial era constituted a
generation leaving the scene.³¹
From a global perspective, the distinctiveness of the Turkish republican case
was related to the previous experiences of the Ottoman Empire, which had man-
aged to survive into the 20th century as a still nominally independent entity. Such
a condition used to be a rarity of the era, barely shared with a few other non-
Western states such as Japan, Burma, or Ethiopia. All the rest had been directly
colonized or put under various forms of Western control. This did not change
much in the early post-World War I period, which would witness even a de
facto expansion of the British and French imperial structures under the guise
of a newly established mandate system. In this context, a comparison of Turkish
 For details, see Mim Kemal Öke, The Turkish War Of Independence and the Independence
Struggle of the South Asian Muslims ‘The Khilafat Movement’ (1919 – 1924) (Ankara: Republic of
Turkey Ministry of Culture, 1991).
 For a succinct history of decolonization, see Jan C. Jansen and Jürgen Osterhammel, Decolo-
nization: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017).
 On generations’ passing, see Herbert Butterfield, The discontinuities between the generations
in history: their effect on the transmission of political experience (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1971).
intellectual interactions, at least within a non-Western framework, was virtually

limited to colonized polities, with the continuing exceptions of a few independ-
ent states outside the West. In the GIH-related literature, it is especially the In-
dian subcontinent that has gained most of today’s scholarly attention.³²
One last point that I want to explain, before presenting a framework for
“doing GIH” in the Turkish context, concerns the way in which ideas are dealt
with. As the consequent frameworks are mostly on structures and certain agents,
I want at this juncture to explain what is meant by the idea of ideational entre-
preneurs. This is not merely a reference to intellectuals and those people whose
lives are about the generation or diffusion of ideas. There exist many other ac-
tors, both pragmatic and coincidental, whose life paths intersect with the influ-
ence of ideas. This can include state leaders eager to find or develop new insights
for ruling over their polity, as well as bureaucrats who need to ex post facto de-
fend their policies with reference to various ideas, and merchants or travelers
who, willingly or randomly, become transmitters of ideas for their domestic au-
diences as well as abroad. Also, exile communities and migrant groups both in
Turkey and outside could act in these ways, thus geographically extending Tur-
key’s intellectual histories. These all serve, in their differing ways and to varying
extents, as ideational entrepreneurs.
3. A Framework for Turkey’s Intellectual Histories

In GIH, an important aspect that deserves our attention concerns the degree of
connectivity and the intensity of these connections with regard to various actors.
In framing a global(ized) history of ideas and thinkers, one needs to take into
account the differences of agential capacity between various actors. Thanks to
their positions at certain nodal points, it is easier to engage with some actors,
while others remain more in obscurity due to their rather detached geo-epistemic
conditions. A relevant example for the latter would be rural teachers who would
be able to build their insights more as passive agents, with even their periods of
activism being largely lost from the archives. Nevertheless, beyond such circum-
stances that are more easily explainable with regard to the geography and pro-
longed processes of rural connectivity to other regions and the broader world,
socio-political elements need also to be considered. Foremost factors in this re-
 See for example Shruti Kapila, “Global Intellectual History and the Indian Political,” in Re-
thinking Modern European Intellectual History, eds. Darrin M McMahon and Samuel Moyn (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 253 – 274 and Andrew Sartori, Bengal in Global Concept
History. Culturalism in the Age of Capital (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008).
184 Deniz Kuru
gard, in the case of the Turkish republican period would be ethnic, religious, and
ideological features. This signifies that individuals, or groups, which share cer-
tain characteristics, can already in advance carry some benefits when it comes
to act as ideational entrepreneurs. Even when in a ceteris paribus assumption
a similar educational endpoint (that is, in later periods university degrees and
so on) is taken to be a commonly shared element, the above-mentioned socio-
political backgrounds continue to allow these actors to exert a significant influ-
ence that differs from their fellows. This concerns most clearly the intensity of
the existing connections, as the transnational connections or global entangle-
ments differ among ideational entrepreneurs.
Following these premises, it is possible to generate a typology that considers
both geographical connections and socio-cultural backgrounds, in addition to
the ethno-religious and political positions. While not remaining at the level of
binaries, it is important to understand that we can engage with (dis)connections
of Turkey’s intellectual historical frameworks, in many instances, in terms of di-
vergences that emerge from these dynamics and their structuring consequences.
Differences in connectivity and its intensity, which are a consequence of
these divergent developments and features, should make scholars aware of the
pitfalls of taking more visible past channels of communication as natural givens,
also leading us in turn to a more critical focus on long-held ties by deconstruct-
ing these relationships. Such problems are also valid, in different ways, in the
case of republican Turkey, concerning its intellectual history. Due to the new
legal frames as well as social reordering of the republic, non-Muslim minorities
became hugely disadvantaged not only within the bureaucratic apparatus, but
also by having to limit themselves to a few individual positions within the spe-
cific intellectual circles, including the academic world. One distinguishing fea-
ture in all these years was noteworthy: the educationally more Western-social-
ized background of these minorities enabled them more easily to study or
work, that is permanently resettle, abroad. Therefore, such individuals, in
many instances further triggered by Turkey’s intermittent domestic turmoil,
would rather become emigrants, not returning to the country. In recent times,
this brain drain has extended to ethnically Turkish citizens who chose because
of political and/or economic reasons to leave the country. With many of them
highly educated and involved abroad in academic carriers in the realms of social
sciences and humanities, it would be important to take their roles in Turkey’s
prospective intellectual histories into consideration.
By engaging with these aspects, it becomes possible to set the stage for the
inclusion of Turkey-related ideas and thinkers into the GIH agenda. Reflecting on
the conditions of their connectivity and the extent thereof paves the way for a
contextually definable understanding of their ideational milieux and the conse-
quent impact of their ideas. A further point that relates to the presented frame-
work concerns the impact of ideological positionings on ideas’ global trajectories
within the specific cases relevant for Turkey. To put it differently, what is the role
of ideologies? In the proposed framework that follows, these are not given a sep-
arate role, with the preference being on the spatial determiners. However, taking
into consideration the period of the Turkish Republic, following the empower-
ment of non-Kemalist currents that have become influential especially with
the last third of the 20th century, one has to recognize the lack of a nationally
shared Bildungskanon, a list of major works whose impact would be more or
less socially acknowledged and shared as such. Political polarization and ideo-
logical conflicts have already hindered possible literary, ideational or scholarly
frames that could have influence beyond diverse secluded social groups that
do not tend to interact in the realm of ideas.
In this part, I want to emphasize the inherent plurality of ideational realms
and actors in these units, and briefly point to pertinent examples that function
as explanatory factors for the presented framework. While GIH does aim to over-
come the one-way focus on the trans- and international journey of ideas, trying
to go beyond the frequent interest in Western concepts’ or ideas’ travelling to
non-Western localities,³³ it is still possible to say that these processes are an on-
going part of the current research agenda. In this regard, one can study the man-
ner in which different ideas are (mis)translated, adopted, diffused in these parts
of the world, as well as how the impact of Western thinkers takes shape outside
of their (original) surroundings. Some scholars do not agree at all with a GIH
structure in which the focus is on a mere indigenization of Western ideas.³⁴
When it comes to the Turkish Republican era, what can a GIH-based ap-
proach offer? Is it in fact just about attempting to globalize an existing national
framework within which ideas and ideational agents can be located? One cannot
easily provide an affirmative answer as the 20th and 21st centuries present us with
an ongoing formation of such an attempted national framework. Therefore, what
we have to deal with is a framework already detached from the imperial one, but
one not yet settled down in its self-created narrative. It is useful to also provide a
conceptual distinction and clarification. I employ the idea of Turkey’s intellectu-
al histories in order to emphasize how many (ethnically) non-Turkish actors have
 I want to note at this point that Western, non-Western, etc. are not used in the sense of ho-
mogeneous frames, but as a tool to allow some level of geographical pinpointing, while still
being conscious about the immanent problems of such an approach. Yet, this seems to me to
be nevertheless a useful distinction.
 Janaki Bakhle, “Putting Global Intellectual History in Its Place,” in Global Intellectual Histo-
ry, 228 – 253, here 232– 233.
186 Deniz Kuru
contributed, and continue to play a role, in global trajectories of intellectual his-

tory in the case of Turkey. However, due to my call to also pay substantial atten-
tion to individuals and groups located outside of Turkey, it is useful to contem-
plate these intellectual histories as scholarly frames that at different points relate
to Turks or Turkey-pertinent actors. From the 1980s exile groups in Western Eu-
rope to today’s diverse communities in similar localities, what a GIH-based ap-
proach can accomplish is to underline how ideas – that emerge, get altered,
are diffused, and become reinterpreted through varying mechanisms that take
shape outside of the country – are nevertheless part of an intellectual history
of Turkey. The global ramifications of such outside groups matter in order to
more thoughtfully deal with ideas and their relevance for Turkey’s modern expe-
riences. In this way, globalizing the range of Turkey’s intellectual history allows
a better gaze of its overall potential, too.
I suggest employing core-periphery binaries with their well-trodden paths,³⁵
while allowing some hybridizations in the process. Most importantly, it is useful
to have a distinction between metropole cities such as Istanbul and Ankara, and
rural, more conservatively shaped ideational communities across Anatolia. Con-
sidering different standpoints represented by ethno-religious communities and
the way their members engage in producing, processing, diffusing, altering,
translating, or refusing various ideas is another important step. Stated different-
ly, it is helpful to differentiate between local thinkers with regard to their ethno-
religious positions as well as, once again, taking into account the closeness of
these individuals or groups to the center. In this regard, the center, to wit the
core, refers to a few metropolitan cities. It is mostly via these points of access
and interactions that global trajectories of ideas could be more clearly observed
in Turkey’s case. As a consequence, there are a number of binaries through
which to develop this framework that can serve as an effective means of global-
izing Turkey’s intellectual histories. It is also possible to approach Western and
non-Western ideational realms as two discernible domains of engagement when
one deals with non-Turkey-originating ideas and thinkers from without Turkey
with no specific ties to the country. This approach allows us to accomplish
two things simultaneously. On the one hand, it frames the “West” and the
“non-West” not necessarily as reified entities, but as flexible geographies that
are shaped by distinct perceptions of Turkey-based ideational counterparts.
Therefore, we can see in these definitions locally observed ideational domains.
As a second factor, this binary in turn paves the way to emphasize the role of
 For the original take of this position see Şerif Mardin, “Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to
Turkish Politics?” Daedalus 102, no. 1 (1973): 169 – 190.
intra-Turkey actors and processes, as well as those located outside Turkey with
still present connections to Turkish ideational realms, through their roles at the
intersections of global ideational dynamics.
The other point of a possible typology concerns the binary between Turkish
and non-Turkish intellectuals and groups, whose roles in the context of ideation-
al processes of production and transmission are open to divergent interpreta-
tions. In this, one could take into account non-Turks living in Turkey, ranging
from the experiences of Leo Trotsky’s brief stay in Istanbul (on one of its islands
during his early exile period) to today’s journalists or academics working in Is-
tanbul and elsewhere. However, it is also important to consider Turkey’s various
exile or emigrant communities, mostly located in Western Europe and the US.
Under such a perspective, Turkish intellectual histories extend beyond Turkey,
while Turkey’s intellectual histories also become global and/or transnational
by the inclusion of international actors in their research agendas. Furthermore,
non-Turkish ethnic minorities from Turkey, now in European emigration for in-
stance, are also building blocks of a globalized intellectual history that involves
Turkey, in line with the impact they also have on ideas taking shape within Tur-
key proper.
Let us briefly consider this frame in a concrete setting, one that connects Eu-
rope to contemporary Turkey and its exile or migrant communities. Many oppo-
sitional groups were for a long time able to develop their oppositional activities
from within European settings, using freedoms that they could not enjoy in Tur-
key. This included in the Cold War era leftist groups actively trying to engage
with Turkey through their political activities in the exile, be it in the countries
of the Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (including the famous case of
Nazım Hikmet), or the Western European settings especially following the
1980 coup. The already present Turkish migrant community in the latter case
would allow the exile groups to promote their views also locally among West
Germany’s growing Turkish Gastarbeiter. While for some of them, these experien-
ces paved the way for more moderate views in the future, as seen with many left-
ists who would become social democrats, others were prone to keep their hard-
core views intact, organizing themselves not only intellectually but also
politically for violent goals.
What these typologies offer is a more agent-centric approach that allows us
to see the various connections and nodal points at which ideas were able to
reach others. In this regard, the focus remains on ideational entrepreneurs,
while still paying attention to the impact of structural constraints imposed by
spatial and ethno-religious factors. This means that actors’ interconnectedness
and the manner in which ideas were travelling depended, from both points of
view, on these variables. It is for this reason that we should not assume unidir-
188 Deniz Kuru
ectionality, but be open to two-way possibilities inherent to processes of idea-

tional interaction. In this respect, GIH approaches could pave the way for over-
coming a frequent reliance on diffusion, mostly in the sense of assumptions re-
garding ideas’ originating within the West, and providing us with the means to
emphasize contingent dynamics and unforeseen ideational interactions. This
would be a major benefit in studying Turkey’s intellectual histories.
On the basis of these frameworks, some aspects emerge that need further
clarification. First, do the boundaries that appear between the Turkish Republic
and the outside world offer a useful tool for analysis? This can be replied in an
affirmative manner, as such a heuristic device allows us to approach these po-
lities’ and their intellectuals’ engagement with ideas in a way that acknowledges
the role of certain structures in these processes. This does not signify that Turkey
is to be separated from global ideational currents, but that the immanent impact
of the new nation-state and its structures have been of relevance. Taking these
points into consideration, the socio-political conditions have a major impact
on the journeys undertaken by ideas and the relevant ideational entrepreneurs.
Therefore, the framework that emerges derives from both structural and agential
aspects, also showing the constraining influence of the former on the latter, an
aspect that needs to be considered even in GIH-pertinent approaches.
A second question concerns the core and periphery distinctions that were in-
troduced in the typological discussion. The reasoning behind this lies in the
greater connectivity as well as intensity of this connectedness in the former.
The periphery, be it a rural town in Central Anatolia, or provinces with different
ethnic structures that are thus double distanced from the core, had a lower
chance for its thinkers to engage with broader currents in the realm of ideas,
to the extent they were not moving to the core metropolitan cities. Under such
circumstances, the global level can be connected to these localities through
these cities that used to, and still to a significant extent continue to, play the
role of transmitter. Istanbul, and to a lesser extent, Ankara and Izmir serve
thus as hub points through which a more global interaction could take place
at all. With regard to the provinces, they are rather interpretable as backwaters
with only indirect connections to ideas’ broader journeys.
Following this point, I want to emphasize a few potential weaknesses of the
presented framework, starting with the role of diaspora-related journeys of
ideas. Due to the huge increase in Muslim, non-Muslim, Turkish, and non-Turk-
ish migratory waves in the late 19th and throughout the 20th centuries, following
violent ruptures or intermittent crises, a significant amount of diaspora groups
emerged originating from the earlier Ottoman and later Turkish territories. The
intellectuals, who as part of a larger group or via individual trajectories, landed
in these new settings, departing from, or arriving in, Turkey, became indispensa-
ble protagonists of these intellectual landscapes. Therefore, their position can be

seen as one located at the interstices, between the “domestic” and “the old or
new abroad,” carrying ideas in-between their past, present, and future locations.
In this regard, one can easily think of the example of early 20th century thinkers
of Turkish nationalism, whose ideational background was in not a few instances
marked by their Russian imperial experiences.³⁶ Similarly, even temporary dia-
spora experiences, one of the most famous being the case of Young Ottoman
thinkers of the late 19th century, led to new entanglement in the realm of ideas.³⁷
On a related level, there were those who had “gone native/local,” trying to
adjust themselves to their new surroundings by serving as agential transmitters
of those ideas with which they were familiar from their earlier contexts. However,
the most significant challenge to the frameworks provided here could derive
from the well-trodden paths of the critics of Orientalism.³⁸ Importantly, in the
specific case of the Ottoman and Turkish historiography, there already exists a
visible critique of these tendencies.³⁹ In this respect, it is possible to suggest
that a partially geographically framed approach to GIH-pertinent research in
the Turkish case, as the one I have presented above, could lead us to ignore
the multiple ways in which the space as such was overcome when it concerns
the engagements of various intellectuals. In order to engage with this critique,
it is helpful to refer to the aspects of connectivity and its intensity that were ela-
borated in the preceding parts. This means that there always existed, and contin-
ue to exist, ideational entrepreneurs whose connections were less affected by the
spatial realm that surrounded them. It is in this sense that I suggested the usage
of a framework that focuses on the interactions between the West and non-West,
core and periphery, dominant and dominated groups in the Turkish cases. The
multiple trajectories that are enabled by this framework also allow, in turn,
the situations to be considered in which certain individuals or groups would de-
velop more intensive ties, whereas some others would be at times rather cut off.
This approach simultaneously paves the way for giving the relevant thinkers an
 James H. Meyer, Turks Across Empires: Marketing Muslim Identity in the Russian-Ottoman Bor-
derlands, 1856 – 1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
 See M. Sait Özervarlı, “Positivism in the Late Ottoman Empire: The ‘Young Turks’ as Media-
tors and Multipliers,” in The Worlds of Positivism, eds. Johannes Feichtinger, Franz L. Fillafer
and Jan Surman (Cham: Springer International, 2018), 81– 108.
 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978).
 For a recent analysis, see Alp Eren Topal and Einar Wigen, “Ottoman Conceptual History,”
Contributions to the History of Concepts 14, no. 1 (2019): 93 – 114.
190 Deniz Kuru
agential capacity, without making them behave as omnipotent actors totally

aloof from their locality.
A rather neglected aspect in Turkish Republican cases that should be inte-
grated into a GIH-pertinent research agenda concerns the perspectives that
have been elaborately developed in recent years, those related to intersectional-
ity, including aspects of gender, race, and class.⁴⁰ Many transnational dynamics
that accompany the ideational weight of these issues make them into significant
features of a GIH-framed research agenda. Thanks to their nature, these topics
can become more easily diffusible and more frequently modifiable conceptual
tools, opening them to readjustments, and even transmutations. Based on
this, it becomes possible to concomitantly consider approaches shaped by a so-
cial history of intellectuals,⁴¹ with which one could further delve into the details
of processes that influence ideas’ generation, exportation, importation, and syn-
thetizations.
One final aspect that needs to be re-emphasized relates to the essential role
played by overlapping and multiple temporalities. As I suggested in the earlier
part, different temporalities present scholarship with a need for specific caution.
This becomes more relevant in the framework I proposed above, for the multiple
geographies with their differing geo-epistemic shapes also signify that the tem-
porality of émigré intellectuals to Western Europe cannot be the same with their
counterparts within Turkey. Such a position does not mean that one could speak
of progress or regression. However, it clarifies that the emigrant thinkers have to
face different societies and develop their ideas under those conditions, whereas
the normative and socio-cultural standards in the Turkish case differ from those
found abroad. This is not merely valid for Turkish-European cases but also for
instance in Turkish-Middle Eastern ones. Emphasizing these temporal divergen-
ces in our studies, by making it part of our analytical frameworks, could further-
more present a case of GIH’s insights advancing Turkey’s intellectual histories.
In this sense, we would also need to question the concepts’ differing meanings,
from the idea of democracy to the notion of human rights. These different tem-
poralities are also active in cases of direct inter-societal interactions, for instance
when the late 20th century French debates on republicanism and democracy be-
 For a recent exceptional turn to these aspects in the given cases, see Perin Gürel, The Limits
of Westernization: A Cultural History of America in Turkey (New York: Columbia University Press,
2017).
 See Daniel Wickberg, “Intellectual History vs. the Social History of Intellectuals.” Rethinking
History: The Journal of Theory and Practice 5, no. 3 (2001): 383 – 395.
came tools of debate in Turkey, while leaving aside their specific Parisian con-
text.⁴²
4. Conclusion
This chapter aimed to provide a roadmap for the future implementation of GIH-
derived insights into Turkish republican intellectual histories. At the same time, I
tried to point to various contributions that these cases could make to achieve a
better grasp of global interactions in intellectual history. Furthermore, by pre-
senting a framework for this spatially definable as well as extendable, period,
the study offered a tool for globalizing studies on Turkish and intellectual histor-
ies. Explaining the benefits of such a framework, with its multiple binaries as
well as pluralities, it also focused on the potential weakness and limits of these.
At a time when certain non-Western regions have developed as extensive
items on GIH-related research agendas, it would be a timely and noteworthy ef-
fort to focus on the benefits of Turkish cases, from which new insights and a bet-
ter comprehension of the global ideational dynamics could be derived. Their in-
herent transitional periods, which one could also interpret as dramatic ruptures
that nonetheless included significant continuities, make them resemble other
cases of post-imperial and post-colonial reordering. All these periods provide
rich dynamics in ideas, with regard to both their being imported and exported
as well as the possibility of synthesis. The way in which thinkers from within Tur-
key interacted with their counterparts from abroad, and the manner in which
those ideas with outside origins and those from within were transferred, translat-
ed, and at times transformed provide helpful elements for broadening the extant
scope of GIH’s agenda. At the end, looking at all these shifting levels with their
changing degrees of connections, it would even become possible to talk of a real-
ly globally defined intellectual history in which the adjectives such as Turkish or
Turkey-pertinent could lose their meaning. Stated differently, such approaches
would pave the way to ultimately generate in effective terms actual intellectual
histories that geographically and nationally become detached, becoming com-
prehensible as consisting of processes, mechanisms, and actors that are no lon-
ger tied, in different extents, to a spatial or national realm of ideas.
 On the French context of the debate, see Pierre Rosanvallon, Notre histoire intellectuelle et
politique – 1968 – 2018 (Paris: Seuil, 2018), 267– 278, especially 271 ff. The Turkish intellectual de-
bates were focused on using the concepts of democracy and republic without necessarily distin-
guishing the specific French background there during the 1990s.
192 Deniz Kuru
Let me conclude with a brief example that would also illustrate the promises
of “Turkifying” or indeed “Turkeying” GIH. Some ten years ago, a major biogra-
phy of the Republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was published.⁴³ Carrying
the noteworthy subtitle of “an intellectual biography,” it was, to a certain extent,
an example of GIH avant la lettre. In the book, Hanioğlu was able to elaborately
highlight how the ideational world of Atatürk was shaped, taking into account
both the spatial settings and the structures of his youth, as well as the latter en-
gagements with Western and non-Western thinkers. What the study showed was
that even a pragmatic ruler, not fully engaged in the realm of ideas, could make a
selective use of the prevailing, and also no longer dominant, ideas of his era, at
times referring to past thinkers in a fashion that suited his interests and goals.
Although a more limited analysis of these dynamics would refer to these as
mere examples of transfers, a closer look at Atatürk’s ideas, and the socio-polit-
ical impact they would later generate, show that his role as an intellectual entre-
preneur had a wide-ranging legacy within Turkey, and to a more limited extent
abroad. This signifies that the early republican period’s connections to Western
ideas and intellectuals, with at times idiosyncratic intellectual curiosities such as
the so-called Sun-Language Theory or Turkish History Thesis, and the relevant
domestic policies of continued Westernization had global repercussions. What
emerged was not a one-way diffusion, but rather a selective engagement with
certain popular or even passé Western ideas and thinkers by Atatürk, who in
turn paved the way, via the new republican regime’s educational policies (rang-
ing from the broader policies of the new and unified school system to students
sent abroad on state scholarships to study in very specific fields) and the con-
comitant political repositioning for a novel era of, at times rather contingently
emerging, syntheses.
This shows us that a globalized intellectual history can both expand the ho-
rizons of (so far rather) national(ized) histories and also broaden the existing
scholarship that aims to look for different interactions within, between, and be-
yond, what one could still conceive as, Western and non-Western contexts.
Searching for the development of ideas, as well as their consequent trajectories,
and the contingent impacts they have on political, social or other ideational
realms becomes a more accomplishable task if the very geographies, to wit spa-
tial focus, of this research agenda are extended to novel cases. As I tried to dem-
onstrate in this chapter, this also allows us to attain a more comprehensive grasp
of Turkey’s intellectual histories, enabling us in turn to de-parochialize these
 M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

2011).
studies. In that regard, this approach also belongs to the critical task of provin-
cializing the West.⁴⁴ This step can be more easily accomplished if we also suc-
ceed in globalizing the separately studied intellectual histories of the non-
West. Turkey’s liminal position in-between these two epistemic geographies
could serve as further proof of the multiple benefits to be realized for novel
scholarly approaches associated with insights derived from GIH.
 Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe – Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
Section III. Interaction with the Global:
Formation and Propagation of Ideas
and Ideologies in Turkey
Hazal Papuççular
Chapter 7
The Wilsonian Ideas of the Ottoman
Turkish Intelligentsia in Post-World War I
Turkey
1. Introduction
The Turkish National Movement which started after the end of the First World
War has been mostly analyzed from “national” lenses leading to a historiography
devoid of global currents. Lately, this historiography which even explored the
foreign policy of the movement within a traditional perspective of bilateral rela-
tions in an isolated manner has increasingly been challenged by fresh ap-
proaches that were supported by the rise of global and transnational history.
In a recent article, the renowned researcher of modern Turkey, Erik J. Zürcher,
highlighted that the Turkish National Movement has almost never been dis-
cussed with regard to global developments of the time despite its important
place as the first upheaval of the post-war period, and emphasized that the
movement had ideological bases related to global politics.¹ According to him,
these ideologies were rising nationalism, socialism and anti-imperialism, nas-
cent revisionism and Wilsonianism mostly in the shape of self-determination.²
In this chapter, I attempt to scrutinize the last point that Zürcher indicated in
terms of Wilsonianism, broadening the scope from the Turkish National Move-
ment to the postwar Turkey in general. In this respect, I will analyze the impact
of Wilsonianism in postwar Turkey and its various dynamics that took shape
based on the perceived national interests of the Ottoman-Turkish intelligentsia.
That corresponded to the “Wilsonian moment” of the Ottoman Turkish intelli-
gentsia, who seemed very enthusiastic about the ideas of the US president not
being very different from the politicians and intellectuals of other colonial coun-
tries, as Erez Manela has discussed some of them in his groundbreaking book.³
The Wilsonian idea as a global phenomenon waned in a relatively short period of
 Erik Jan Zürcher, “Contextualizing the Ideology of the Turkish National Resistance Move-
ment,” Middle Eastern Studies 57, no. 2 (2021): 265 – 278, here 265.
 Zürcher, “Contextualizing the Ideology.”
 For Manela’s work, see Erez Manela, Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the Interna-
tional Origins of the Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-008
198 Hazal Papuççular
time, but in the meantime its excitement had reached different parts of the
world. In the Ottoman Turkish context, the Wilsonian principles became a com-
mon ground for people with different ideological backgrounds. On the one hand,
it was utilized by Ottoman statesmen in Istanbul who went to Paris in 1919 in
order to explain their position regarding the hopeless Ottoman peace treaty.
On the other hand, it was also used by the Kemalists, who were organizing
the Turkish resistance in Anatolia and positioning themselves against most of
the above-mentioned politicians.
This situation also applies to the intellectuals of the time, who even consti-
tuted a political organization named Wilson Prensipleri Cemiyeti (Wilsonian Prin-
ciples League) in Istanbul, in order to find a future for the country based on the
ideas of Wilson. The founders and members of this League, most of them re-
nowned intellectuals of the time, had very different backgrounds and ideological
orientations. Indeed, it is very surprising to see some characters from modern
Turkish history in the same organization, for instance Yunus Nadi (Abalıoğlu)
who would become an ardent Kemalist during the course of the Turkish National
Movement and Ali Kemal who keenly opposed this movement. Actually, neither
the Wilsonian Principles League nor the intelligentsia that established this asso-
ciation in postwar Turkey were the only examples of Wilsonian understanding.
On the contrary, many intellectuals and politicians as well as associations found-
ed in this era debated the principles with respect to Turkey. Thus, in this chapter
I aim to show the character of the “Wilsonian moment” of Turkey, by shedding
light upon what the Turkish intelligentsia understood from these principles and
what they really advocated by their reliance on Wilson’s principles.
In this regard, this chapter is in close contact with several historiographies.
First, it points out the interconnectedness of the world as the Global Intellectual
History framework has in recent years successfully conceptualized. Moyn and
Sartori have emphasized in their groundbreaking volume that this interconnect-
edness can be shown not only in terms of circulation of ideas through translation
of the texts, book markets, or intellectual networks, but can also be theorized by
constructing an international system.⁴ In the case of postwar Turkey, how the
Wilsonian idea was diffused, comprehended, evaluated and shaped by the intel-
ligentsia in an assumed process of changing international order can exemplify
such a global intellectual approach to history. In addition to this, this chapter
 Samul Moyn and Andrew Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History,” in Global Intel-
lectual History, eds. Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (New York: Columbia University Press,
2013), 14– 15.
Chapter 7 The Wilsonian Ideas of the Ottoman Turkish Intelligentsia 199
also refers to the post-1990s notion that international history got closer – again –
to intellectual history and/or international political thought as argued by David
Armitage.⁵ In recent decades, international historians have become more inter-
ested in culture, ideas and international institutions and systems, while intellec-
tual historians have been more inclined to deal with the interaction between
peoples, states and institutions, specifically with respect to international politi-
cal thought.⁶ Therefore, the history of the international system constructed after
the end of the First World War, and relatedly the idea of Wilsonianism regarding
self-determination and the formation the League of Nations with an understand-
ing of collective security, emphasizes this orientation. Last but not least, this
chapter is also linked with Turkish historiography, in which Wilsonianism and
Wilsonian Principles League have been analyzed through the lenses of the his-
tory of postwar Turkey, lacking any emphasis on the global and/or transnational
character of it. However, as I aim to show, not only politicians but also intellec-
tuals who tried to utilize these principles were actually as much part of a global
phenomenon as a national one.
2. Wilsonianism: Conflicting Principles of the

Postwar International Order
The US President Woodrow Wilson’s ideas about international relations affected
the whole world during and after the First World War. While his ideas concerning
the League of Nations and collective security were regarded as a strong moment
of liberal internationalism in world politics, his emphasis on self-determination
turned into a movement for many ethnic groups, which competed with each
other in petitioning the president during the Paris Peace Conference to realize
statehood. His ideas were criticized inside his own country given that he had
too extensively involved the US in European politics. However, he was definitely
praised by many in the world, at least for one year between 1918 and 1919. In
order to understand what brought Wilson to the forefront within this one year,
it is necessary to analyze his viewpoints on postwar politics.
Wilsonianism is actually a vague concept in the sense that not only could
academics not agree upon the common assumptions of the term but also the ma-
 David Armitage, “The International Turn in Intellectual History,” in Rethinking Modern Euro-
pean Intellectual History, eds. Darrin MacMahon and Samuel Moyn (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2014), 236.
 Armitage, “The International Turn in Intellectual History.”
jority of the US presidents after Wilson claimed that they were pursuing Wilso-
nian foreign policy despite their different ideological orientations.⁷ In addition to
the ambiguity of these assumptions, the abstract evaluation of Wilson’s princi-
ples, regardless of his personal character, belief system and education etc.,
sometimes generates shock among researchers or readers since the principles
of the President mostly conflict with his actions, leading to remarks about hypoc-
risy. For instance, Wilson supported self-determination, yet at the same time he
held some racist convictions that not all nations were equally deserving demo-
cratic governance.⁸ With regard to Turkey, he defended the Greek occupation
of Izmir although he had foreseen Turkish sovereignty in the areas predominant-
ly inhabited by ethnic Turks. Likewise, he was an ardent defender of collective
security, but as Menchik has argued, his understanding of this notion was heav-
ily influenced by his religious beliefs, turning this notion more in the direction of
a Christian alliance.⁹ Therefore, Wilsonian Principles offer a couple of perplexi-
ties to the reader especially when considered together with the disappointment
that the postwar settlements and international system had brought with them.
Nevertheless, there was excitement on a global scale before the aforementioned
disappointment, despite the conflictual relationship between the theory and
practice of Wilsonianism.
It is quite ironic that Wilson is remembered mostly by his vision concerning
international affairs instead of domestic politics, although he had himself ac-
knowledged that internal affairs provided his focal point.¹⁰ However, since his
first term in the office coincided with the First World War, which could not be
ignored, Wilson took a necessary interest in international affairs, long before
the American belligerence that was declared in 1917. The ideas of the President
that took eventual shape with the declaration of the famous Fourteen Points
in 1918 had evolved through time and reflected not only theoretical and convic-
tion-related orientations but also practical necessities of the war.
 John A. Thompson, “Wilsonianism: The Dynamics of a Conflicted Concept,” International Af-

fairs 86, no. 1 (2010): 29.
 Jeremy Menchik, “Woodrow Wilson and the Spirit of Liberal Internationalism,” Politics, Reli-
gion & Ideology 22, no. 2 (2021): 252.
 Menchik, “Woodrow Wilson and the Spirit of Liberal Internationalism,” 251.
 William Keylor quotes “[i]t would be the irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly
with foreign affairs.” William R. Keylor, “Wilson’s Project for a New World Order of Permanent
Peace and Security,” in A Companian to Woodrow Wilson, ed. Ross A. Kennedy (New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 2013), 470.
The ideological leanings of Wilson that were also in direct relationship with
his upbringing, education and his studies before his presidency were preceded
by the First World War. For example, Wilson had been eminently influenced
by the classical liberalism of Adam Smith as well as Gladstonian liberalism, pav-
ing the way for his support for international free trade,¹¹ as also concretized by
the Fourteen Points. Likewise, his belief in the Enlightenment idea of progress
could be regarded as a background for his reliance on the reform of the political
apparatus towards democracy, while his religious upbringing mostly based on
Calvinism indicated an orientation towards self-determination which was sup-
posed to stem from the idea of “equal opportunity.”¹² This ideational backdrop
that unequivocally affected future Wilsonianism can be elaborated more. Yet, it
should be emphasized that it was the First World War that became a principal
spark to turn these sporadic personal dispositions into a set of principles for
the future of international order.
During the war, the two – most important – issues that Wilson dealt with
pertaining to the postwar order was the notion of self-determination on the
one hand, and the understanding of collective security on the other. These two
foundations made Wilsonianism both nationalist and internationalist at the
same time.¹³ The idea of self-determination had already started to occupy polit-
ical agendas and discussions when the war broke out. In 1914 and 1915, not only
politicians such as French Prime Minister Briand but also Peace Societies that
were formed in Europe and in the United States were favoring border changes
based on the understanding of self-determination.¹⁴ Wilson had also made sev-
eral comments on self-determination and concomitantly on the future of Europe-
an countries in these years. However, the breakthrough for the idea of self-deter-
mination arrived in 1917, both with American belligerency and with the Bolshevik
Revolution.
The notion of self-determination had already been discussed and formulated
by Lenin, who tried to reconcile revolutionary socialism with the question of na-
tionalism, turning the idea into official policy after the Bolshevik Revolution.¹⁵
According to Chernev, the peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk witnessed the ac-
 Derek Heater, National Self-Determination, Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy (London: Mac-
millan, 1994), 22.
 Heater, National Self-Determination, 23.
 Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Re-
lations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 21.
 Heater, National Self-Determination, 29.
 Borislav Chernev, “The Brest-Litovsk Moment: Self-Determination Discourse in Eastern Eu-
rope before Wilsonianism,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 22, no. 3 (2011): 370 – 371.
ceptance of self-determination policy by both the revolutionary government in

Russia and the Central Powers, making the gathering a “Wilsonian moment be-
fore Wilson.”¹⁶ It is highly debatable whether Lenin and Wilson had understood
similar things from self-determination as a policy, but it should be emphasized
that the Bolshevik Revolution prompted Wilson to advance his own postwar pro-
gram. After all, the US had entered the war in 1917 and were in need of a pro-
gram. The President had explained the war rationale as a fight “for democracy,
for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own gov-
ernments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion
of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all
nations and make the world itself at last free.”¹⁷
After several months of work undertaken by a group of experts, named the
Inquiry, the renowned Fourteen Points were finalized in 1918. The wording of the
Fourteen Points reflected a nuance with regard to the concept of self-determina-
tion, employing the word “autonomous development” instead of “self-determi-
nation” specifically for the nationalities of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman
Empire. Throntveit argues that the main standard for the Fourteen Points had be-
come the civic understanding of self-government embodied in the concept of au-
tonomous development instead of the ethno-nationalist program of Bolsheviks
who supported the quest of all ethnic groups for independence under the banner
of self-determination.¹⁸ Even if this difference between the understanding of Wil-
son and Lenin over its definition played a role in the wording of the Fourteen
Points, the practical necessities of the situation also needs to be taken into con-
sideration. There was an exigency to reconcile contradictory national aspirations
especially in Eastern Europe, leading Wilson gradually to articulate some reser-
vations about the implementation of the concept.¹⁹ Understanding this nuance
in wording also constitutes a key to understand Wilson’s occasional conflictual
attitude during the peace talks in Paris. However, despite its ambiguity, it was
this principle, associated with Wilson, that became a slogan for the people in
search of self-determination all over the world, including the Ottomans.
 Chernev, “The Brest-Litovsk Moment.”

 For the full speech of Wilson, see Woodrow Wilson, Americanism: Woodrow Wilson’s
Speeches on the War—Why He Made Them—and—What They Have Done, ed. Oliver Marble
Gale (Chicago: Baldwin, 1918), 36 – 44.
 Trygve Throntveit, Power without Victory: Woodrow Wilson and the American Internationalist
Experiment (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), 249.
 Allen Lynch, “Woodrow Wilson and the Principle of ‘National Self-Determination’: A Recon-
sideration,” Review of International Studies 28, no. 2 (2002): 425 – 429.
The second matter that Wilson ambitiously worked to realize was the forma-
tion of an international institution that would enhance collective security, thus
supposedly prevent bloody wars in the future. The idea was based on – not par-
ticularly American – 19th-century internationalism that theorized a society of na-
tions that would function through the ideas of free trade, international law and
conflict resolution.²⁰ The First World War created an environment for a new
world order to be formulated. Thus, the last clause of the Fourteen Points fore-
saw the formation of the League of Nations to protect the integrity of great
and small nations in an equal manner. Yet, this “equality” understanding,
even associated with the upbringing of the US president as mentioned above,
faced one of its first challenges from the European powers represented in
Paris, who wanted the great powers to rule the League.²¹ That was not the
only difference of viewpoint given that the European victors did not want to
leave their colonial dreams. The mandate system that was established under
the responsibility of the League for the former German colonies and Ottoman ter-
ritories was also a compromise between Wilsonianism and European imperial
aims.²² When the League was formed, according to Ikenberry, it reflected a con-
servative approach to internationalism since it challenged neither the European
understanding of empire nor racial hierarchies.²³ Despite this, it constituted one
of the two most important pillars of Wilsonianism. Yet it was of secondary impor-
tance to the Ottoman Turkish intelligentsia since the main matter for them con-
cerned decisions about the future borders.
3. The “Wilsonian Moment” of the Ottoman

Turkish Intelligentsia
The dissemination of the Wilsonian idea over the Ottoman Turkish intelligentsia
has been handled in Turkish historiography from a highly restricted perspective.
It is mostly based on the Wilsonian Principles League and focuses on the ques-
tion of who had (or had not) favored the solution of an American mandate dur-
ing the time of the Turkish National Movement. Therefore, it tries to make a clear
 G. John Ikenberry, A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crises of
Global Order (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), 103.
 Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the
United Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 44.
 Mazower, No Enchanted Palace, 45.
 Ikenberry, A World Safe for Democracy, 102.
distinction between the supporters of the mandate system in the face of those
who tried to reach full independence via resistance.²⁴ This constitutes one of
the important discussion points in Turkish historiography, symbolizing a specific
division among the political elites of the time that would leave a mark on Turkish
politics in the 1920s. The mandate question undeniably forms a significant part
of the debates around Wilsonianism since some leading figures, such as Halide
Edib (Adıvar), an important name in Turkish intelligentsia questioned the matter
from 1918 to late 1919 as a possible solution to the future of Turkey, which did not
seem promising when observed from Paris or Istanbul. In other words, the delib-
erations around an American mandate in a possible post-Ottoman Turkey are
somehow intrinsic to the Wilsonian understanding in Turkey. However, the en-
gagement of the Ottoman Turkish intelligentsia with Wilsonianism transcends
both this debate and the Wilsonian Principles League, which was merely a
short-lived experience. The problematization of the Wilsonian principles was a
reaction of the Ottoman Turks to a changing international system in relation
to a century old question about the future of their own country in an emerging
new world structure. In this sense, that was not different from the rest of the
world, making this engagement a global phenomenon.
In the postwar world, for many societies, Wilson had turned into a kind of
“prophet,” who would change the dynamics of the international system in
which the notion of self-determination and equality of the nations would sup-
posedly open a new path for the colonized, marginalized and oppressed peo-
ple.²⁵ As Manela showed through the cases of Egypt, India, China and Korea, sev-
eral segments of these societies, from politicians to intellectuals, from women’s
associations to student groups organized themselves in order to reach their aims
based on the promises of President Wilson.²⁶ In a similar vein, in the postwar
reorganization of Eastern/Central European borders, different ethnic groups tu-
multuously appealed to the Wilsonian principles and Wilson himself, although
these could not prevent the formation of new boundaries with major minorities
 There are two valuable academic studies in this manner, which give the reader rich data
about the Wilsonian Principles League founded in Turkey, but that also prefer to analyze the rel-
evant data through the lenses of the mandate debate in Turkey. For these two studies, see Fethi
Tevetoğlu, Millî Mücadele Yıllarındaki Kuruluşlar (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1988)
and Mine Erol, Türkiye’de Amerikan Mandası Meselesi, 1919 – 1920 (Giresun: Ileri Basımevi, 1972).
 Manela, Wilsonian Moment, 3 – 6.
 One of the means that these groups used in order to explain their causes to the US President
was to send immense amount of petitions, letters etc. to the Paris Peace Conference. See Manela,
Wilsonian Moment, ix.
in the end.²⁷ This global reach was so effective that some socialist groups also
sympathized with the postwar project of Wilson alongside that of Lenin despite
the extant ideological distinction between two views yet with a common ground
for anti-colonialism.²⁸ All of these ideas favoring Wilsonianism vanished globally
after 1919, in other words, after it was well understood that Wilsonian principles
were not a panacea for the existing international order. Therefore, neither the
rise nor decline of Wilsonianism in Turkey can be analyzed without taking
these currents into consideration.
In this sense, when Wilson declared his Fourteen Points, its twelfth clause
stated that
the Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty,
but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an un-
doubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous develop-
ment, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships
and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.²⁹
This was seen by many (both statesmen and the public) as a means of keeping
the Ottoman Empire intact. In 1918, the Ottoman government, with other states
belonging to the Central Powers, demanded armistice based on these principles
as they were considered a possibly softer way out of the war, providing the hope
for some form of continuing Ottoman territorial integrity. Thereafter, the Ottoman
intelligentsia started to write about and discuss Wilsonianism from different
point of views. However, despite their varying opinions and aims, it was clear
that Wilsonianism had turned into a common keyword for nearly all of the Otto-
mans.
 Transylvania was a major case in this respect. For more information about the formation of
Romania’s new borders and the position of Hungarians, see Wesley J. Reisser, “Self‐Determina-
tion and the Difficulty of Creating Nation‐States: the Transylvania Case,” Geographical Review
99, no. 2 (2009): 231– 247.
 The reformist wing of the Italian Socialist Party in Europe provides a good example to this
situation. For more information on how they considered liberal internationalism, see Jacopo Per-
azzoli, “Woodrow Wilson, Italian Socialists, and the Self-determination Principle during the
Paris Conference,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 25, no. 5 (2020): 508 – 527.
 “President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points”, 8 January 1918, available online at https://
avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp
3.1. The Wilsonian Ideas of the Ottoman Turkish

Intelligentsia for the Future of Turkey
Very similar to the rest of the world, Ottoman Turkish intellectuals were expect-
ing new dynamics in the international order by 1918. The renowned journalist of
the era, Celal Nuri (İleri), as one the founders of the newspapers Âti (Future) and
İleri (Forward) and a future member of the Wilsonian Principles League empha-
sized this point in his writings during the war. He stated that international pol-
itics was changing in such a way that the center of the world was moving toward
America and Japan from Europe.³⁰ This expected change in the international bal-
ance together with the rise of Wilsonianism symbolized a positive transformation
for many Ottoman Turkish intellectuals such as Celal Nuri, as this new system
provided them with an exit strategy from the injustices of the old imperial sys-
tem.³¹ Cemil Aydın explains clearly how Celal Nuri could easily reconcile his
views with those of Wilson, offering an alternative vision to the existing interna-
tional order.³² Nuri was actually a practical Panislamist mostly due to the per-
ceived injustices that the Ottoman Empire faced at the hands of the Europeans,
and additionally he was an intellectual who had already written on international
law supporting the views about the equal natural rights of the states in interna-
tional relations.³³ Therefore, it can be argued that the change in the international
order based on Wilsonianism also created an alternative new West (mostly sym-
bolized by the US) for a short period of time for some of the Ottoman intellectu-
als as exemplified by Celal Nuri, instead of the old one associated mostly with
discrimination.
What kind of a polity could be realized in this changing international order?
This was also related to a long-standing question of the Ottoman Empire that had
been answered with different formulations and ideologies by the intelligentsia
since the 19th century. The title of the famous book written by Yusuf Akçura,
Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset (Three Ways of Politics) corresponds to the attempted imple-
mentation of the three ideologies from the 19th century to the end of the First
World War: Ottomanism, Islamism and Turkism.³⁴ The imagination of the de-
 For instance, see “Merkez-i Alem Değişiyor,” Âti, 24 September 1918, 2, quoted by Sırrı Emrah
Üçer, “Mütareke Döneminde Osmanlı Kamuoyunda Amerikan İmgesi ve Tesiri (Eylül 1918-Mayıs
1919),” Unpublished MA Thesis, Istanbul University, 2008, 88.
 Cemil Aydın, Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and
Pan-Asian Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 128 – 129.
 Aydın, Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia.
 Aydın, Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia.
 For the book, see Yusuf Akçura, Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1976).
mography and the boundaries of the empire were surely different according to
these three ideologies. Therefore, it was quite understandable that the above-
mentioned twelfth principle of Wilson was analyzed from different perspectives
under the conditions prevailing in 1918, at a time when the Turkish National
Movement was not yet ripe and the Ottoman Turkish intelligentsia were waiting
for peace negotiations, which would be a turning point, especially with regard to
the interpretation of the twelfth point. In this sense, for example, Celal Nuri was
still supporting the Ottoman unity and blaming the Turkist policies of the Com-
mittee of Union and Progress implemented during the war.³⁵ Wilson’s twelfth
point still made Ottoman integrity an option for many Ottoman Turkish intellec-
tuals, at least for the areas where they had a claim of both a Muslim and a Turk-
ish majority, including Eastern and Western Anatolia that planned to be later
given to Armenians and Greeks.
This understanding in relation to the twelfth point could also be seen at the
level of the Ottoman government. An important document published by the Otto-
man Embassy in Switzerland in November 1918, with the title of “Turkish Inter-
pretation of the President’s Fourteen Points,” which evaluated the principles one
by one mentions “Ottoman federalism” concerning the twelfth point, by empha-
sizing that autonomous development it mentions would be the developed ver-
sion of the traditional autonomy that the Ottoman Empire had provided to its
Christian population.³⁶ Moving the discussion from the ancien régime to Tanzi-
mat, the Ottoman discourse emphasized the same point by suggesting that the
reforms in this era could not be implemented because the sovereignty and the
integrity of the empire were being continuously challenged.³⁷ This document
demonstrates that the Ottoman government did not have any doubts about Mes-
opotamia or Syria’s desire to be included in this federal structure of the Ottoman
Empire.³⁸ A similar understanding was reiterated by Grand Vizier Damat Ferit
Paşa at the Paris Peace Conference in June 1919, through which the Ottoman rep-
resentative demanded keeping not only Thrace and Izmir, which were occupied
by the Greeks at that time, based on the self-determination principle, but also
the Arab populated regions that were regarded as “linked with Constantinople
 Ebru Boyar, “The Impact of the Balkan Wars on Ottoman History Writing: Searching for a
Soul,” Middle East Critique 23, no. 2 (2014): 149.
 “Turkish Interpretation of the President’s Fourteen Points,” 7 November 1918, Mandell House
Archive quoted by Erol, “Türkiye’de Amerikan Mandası Meselesi,” 115 – 118.
 Erol, “Türkiye’de Amerikan Mandası Meselesi.”.
 Erol, “Türkiye’de Amerikan Mandası Meselesi.”
by feelings which are deeper than the principle of nationality.”³⁹ According to

the grand vizier, all of these demands were compatible with the Wilsonian Prin-
ciples based on which the Ottoman government had requested an armistice.⁴⁰
However, the conditions of the time when Ferit Paşa made this speech in Paris
were very different from that of 1918, given that Izmir had already been occupied,
the Greater Armenia comprising Eastern Anatolia was being formulated, the fu-
ture of Istanbul, as the capital of the Ottomans was being discussed by the En-
tente powers, and Britain and France were determined to share the sovereignty
of the Near East.
This broader conceptualization of the Ottoman Empire was challenged by
several intellectuals, on the other hand, who supported Turkish nationalism
again based on the Wilsonian principles, mostly related to the notion of self-de-
termination. One of them was Mehmet Fuat (Köprülü), a well-known Turcologist
who would also serve as the chairman of the Turkish Historical Society and be-
come a Minister of Education and also Foreign Affairs during the Republican pe-
riod. In one of his articles, he replied to the abovementioned essay supporting an
Ottomanist vision by Celal Nuri. Mehmet Fuat suggested that Turks should have
asserted their own nation in order to survive in an international order in which
only nations had a right to self-determination.⁴¹ A similar understanding was
also supported in Istanbul by other groups, like Milli Türk Fırkası (Turkish Na-
tional Party) that was formed by the members of the Türk Ocakları (Turkish
Hearths) such as Mehmed Emin (Yurdakul) and Ahmet Ferit (Tek). That party
was ascribed to the support of Turkish nationalism, defining Turkish identity
with regard to Wilsonian self-determination either on the basis of ethnicity or
in connection to the Turkish language and customs.⁴² This was an important dis-
cussion showing how existing ideologies in the empire were positioned accord-
ing to the necessities of Wilsonianism as well as the visions of the intelligentsia
concerning the postwar borders and demography of the future shape of Turkey.
However, these ideas also had their anti-theses when the issue was consid-
ered with respect to Anatolia, including issues such as the self-determination of
the Kurds. In 1919, Şerif Paşa, a politician and the son of a Kurdish notable who
 Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, (FRUS), The Paris Peace Con-
ference, 1919, Volume IV, Paris Peace Conf. 180.03101/69, BC–62, 17 June 1919, 509 – 511, available
online at https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv04/d30
 Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, (FRUS), The Paris Peace Con-
ference, 1919, Volume IV, Paris Peace Conf. 180.03101/69, BC–62, 17 June 1919, 509 – 511.
 Boyar, “The Impact of the Balkan Wars,” 149.
 Tarık Zafer Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, vol. 2, (Istanbul: Hürriyet Vakfı Yayınları,
1986), 534.
was a former Ottoman minister, went to the Paris Peace Conference in order to
claim a Kurdish state based on self-determination. Hakan Özoğlu suggests that
the collaboration between Şerif Paşa and Armenians with regard to borders in
the peace process led to the Kurdish tribal leaders supporting the Turkish Na-
tional Movement in the end, due to conflicting claims of Kurds and Armenians.⁴³
In the meantime, the future of the Kurds in the context of the Wilsonian Princi-
ples were being discussed on various platforms. Abdullah Cevdet, one of the
founders of the Committee of Union and Progress and a renowned intellectual
of the Second Constitutional Period wrote intensively about the issue of Kurdish
independence after the Mudros armistice. According to him, the Wilsonian Prin-
ciples should not have been supported only in cases favorable for Turks. The
focus on self-determination should not only have been employed while protest-
ing the Greek occupation of Izmir, but also when it concerned the founding of a
Kurdish state in areas that were predominantly Kurdish.⁴⁴ As an advocate of Ot-
toman unity during the Second Constitutional Period, Abdullah Cevdet turned
into a Kurdish nationalist in the postwar era, during which several intellectuals
started to perceive Ottoman rule over different ethnicities as imperialism,⁴⁵ em-
bracing the idea of self-determination as a panacea.
This problem concerning the ideas of self-determination of Turks as Mehmet
Fuat argued and the future of Anatolia was solved by the Misak-ı Millî (National
Pact) that employed the term “Ottoman Muslims.”⁴⁶ This pact, which became the
document underlining the territorial aims of the Turkish National Movement,
also reflected the understanding of the Wilsonian Principles. On the one hand,
it emphasized self-determination, and demanded plebiscites in Arab populated
regions of the empire, in addition, on the other hand, to Batum, Kars, Ardahan
(Elviye-i Selâse) and Western Thrace in conformity with the practice of the day to
prove sovereignty. Therefore, the National Pact limited itself to Anatolia in a way
that could include the Kurds as well. Yet, the subject of the Ottoman Muslims
would continue to be a topic of discussion in international politics until the
end of the Lausanne Conference. In the new international regime established
for the protection of minorities, led by the League of Nations, Turkey would ac-
 Hakan Özoğlu, Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loy-
alties, and Shifting Boundaries (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004), 112.
 Quoted by Şükrü Hanioğlu, Bir Siyasal Düşünür Olarak Dr. Abdullah Cevdet ve Dönemi (Istan-
bul: Üçdal Neşriyat, 1981), 321.
 Hanioğlu, Bir Siyasal Düşünür Olarak Dr. Abdullah Cevdet, 319 – 320.
 “Osmanlı Islam Ekseriyetiyle Meskun” was the term used in the document.
cept only “religious” minorities resisting the notion of “ethnic” minorities, em-
phasizing the unity between Kurds and Turks.⁴⁷
3.2. An Effort to Utilize Wilsonianism: Political Organizations

in Postwar Turkey
The circulation of the Wilsonian ideas was not restricted to discussions about
different opinions and positions of intellectuals and politicians on the future
of the Ottoman Empire or Turkey. Many political organizations (or parties)
were also founded by the intelligentsia during the postwar period, mostly em-
phasizing the key term of “Wilsonian principles” in their programs. As can be
anticipated, both the aims of these organizations and the ways in which they em-
ployed the Wilsonian ideology differed substantively from each other. However,
the majority of them believed that these principles could give the most favorable
result for Turkey from their own standpoints. In order to achieve this, these
groups used tactics similar to organizations and groups of other countries:
they petitioned President Wilson, sometimes sent protest notes, and organized
meetings both in and outside of Turkey. Although the Wilsonian Principles Lea-
gue represents an apogee of Wilsonian excitement in Turkey, there were also
other organizations that tried to utilize these principles through the means men-
tioned above.
For instance, an association called the Millî Kongre (National Congress)
which was formed in 1918 in Istanbul by a group of intellectuals and politicians,
aimed to act as an umbrella organization for many political parties as well as in-
stitutions, such as the Faculty of Letters, the Medical School, the Society for the
Employment of the Ottoman Muslim Women, and the Turkish Hearths.⁴⁸ The Na-
tional Congress tried to prove the existence of a Turkish majority in Thrace and
Anatolia by providing statistics based on the understanding of self-determina-
tion. It also published books in French such as La Turquie Devant le Tribunal
Mondial in order to challenge the anti-Turkish propaganda abroad.⁴⁹
Similar to the National Congress, Vahdet-i Milliye Heyeti, (the Committee of
National Unity) was founded in Istanbul in March 1919 under the leadership
of Ahmed Rıza, the renowned intellectual of the Young Turk movement during
 For more information about these discussions in the Turkish Grand National Assembly, see
Taha Akyol and Sefa Kaplan, eds., Açık ve Gizli Oturumlarda Lozan Tartışmaları, TBMM’de Lozan
Müzakereleri Tutanakları (Istanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2014).
 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 145 – 156.
 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 151.
the Hamidian era. The Committee’s statement started with a comparison that
was obviously written by Ahmet Rıza himself. According to the document,
while the French Revolution had given rights to the humankind through the Uni-
versal Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen, the revolution that the
First World War brought was the Wilsonian Principles that aspired to provide
the nations with their sovereignty rights.⁵⁰ In this sense, Ahmed Rıza explains
in his memoirs the aim of the Committee as showing Turks’ national capacity
to the international public and unifying the national forces (kuvva-yı milliye),
counting on the fair implementation of the Wilsonian Principles.⁵¹ When this
was not realized, as exemplified by the occupation of Izmir by Greeks, he sent
protest telegrams to President Wilson.⁵² The Ottoman government in Istanbul,
specifically the Grand Vizier Damat Ferit Paşa, thought that the Committee of Na-
tional Unity was composed of the Unionists, thus increasing its pressure on the
Committee and Ahmet Rıza. In May 1919, he moved to Paris, continuing to work
there extensively on the promotion of the Turkish National Movement with which
he was in contact.⁵³ It is important to note that Ahmed Rıza was also active in
setting other associations into motion. He had requested that other organizations
send some delegates to Europe in order to work on the proper implementation of
the Wilsonian Principles. For example, the Social Democratic Party (Sosyal De-
mokrat Fırkası), which considered itself linked with the Second International,
was one of these organizations that accepted the demand of Ahmet Rıza.⁵⁴
This example demonstrates two important aspects. First, the Wilsonianism
was a matter on which different organizations were cooperating with each
other. Second, in a very similar fashion to the aforementioned case of Italian so-
cialists, a political party in Turkey highly influenced by the Bolshevik Revolution
could determine one of the aims in the foundational documents as “to enable
the country catch up with the necessities of the time under the guidance of
the Wilsonian Principles.”⁵⁵ These initiatives that were initiated by the Otto-
man/Turkish intelligentsia disclose that Wilsonian understanding had a greater
influence on Turkey than has been apprehended until now in the relevant schol-
arly literature. This brings us to the case most frequently emphasized of Wilso-
 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 446 – 447.

 Ahmed Rıza, Anılar (Istanbul: Yeni Gün, 2001), 101.
 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 441.
 Malkoç states that Ahmed Rıza moved to Europe at the request of Mustafa Kemal Paşa. Emi-
nalp Malkoç, “Doğu-Batı Ekseninde bir Osmanlı Aydını: Ahmet Rıza Yaşamı ve Düşünce
Dünyası,” Yakın Dönem Türkiye Araştırmaları no. 11 (2007): 124.
 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 230 – 231.
 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 232.
nianism in Turkish historiography: The Wilsonian Principles League, which had

been founded in December 1918, closed within two months. Tevetoğlu argues
that although the life of the League was quite short, its impact was extensive,
mostly referring to the discussions concerning 1919 and the demand of the Amer-
ican mandate by the former members of the League.⁵⁶ However, as this chapter
has demonstrated so far, Wilsonianism was debated by broad segments of the
intelligentsia, independent of the mandate matter.
The most influential members of the League included well-known intellectu-
als of the late Ottoman/early Republican Turkey: Halide Edib, Celal Nuri, Ahmed
Emin (Yalman), Refik Halid (Karay), Yunus Nadi, Necmettin Sadık (Sadak), and
Ali Kemal. These members were journalists, writers, and politicians, with distinct
political orientations. Apart from their ideologies, their leanings toward the Turk-
ish National Movement were distinct from each other as well. Yet, it should be
noted that some of the influential members of the League had a cultural affinity
with the United States. For example, while Halide Edib had graduated from the
American College for Girls in Istanbul, Ahmed Emin had received his PhD degree
at Columbia University. Likewise, Refik Halid was at the time of the formation of
the Wilsonian Principles League a resident fellow at Robert College in Istanbul.
This connection gives a good explanation for the reliance of the former two spe-
cifically on both Wilson and the US as it is visible in their writings of the period.
The main aims of the Wilsonian Principles League were set in its foundation-
al documents as the realization of political and economic independence, earning
the trust of the Entente powers as well as the US which was distrustful of the Ot-
toman Empire. Additionally, it aimed to come forward with a program that would
be both acceptable to the Entente powers and the US and suitable to the self-es-
teem of Turkey.⁵⁷ This program would also include an invitation of an American
committee to Turkey for radical reforms in the administration.⁵⁸ Parallel to these
aims, the Wilsonian Principles League sent a letter to Wilson, demanding help
from the Americans in order to reform the country. The letter included details
on the type of help that was expected. One of these referred to the desire for
American presence in Turkey for some 15 to 25 years so that necessary reforms
in the areas of administration, justice system, financial and agricultural struc-
tures could be realized via American consultants.⁵⁹ Halide Edib, in her book Tur-
 Tevetoğlu, Millî Mücadele Yıllarındaki Kuruluşlar, 190.

 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 250.
 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 250; Erol, “Türkiye’de Amerikan Mandası Meselesi,”
36 – 37.
 “Wilson Prensipleri Cemiyeti’nin Itilaf Devletlerine Gönderdikleri Muhtıra,” Yale University
Mendell House Archive, 31/237, quoted by Erol, “Türkiye’de Amerikan Mandası Meselesi,” 121.
key Faces West, writes that since the US was the only power with no territorial
ambitions on Turkey and that President Wilson showed a degree of justice to
the defeated powers, most of the “enlightened” Turks were thinking that the
US could help Turkey, explaining her rationale behind the Wilsonian Principles
League and the letter sent to Wilson, who did not respond.⁶⁰
This letter triggered a debate in newspapers concerning the nature of the aid
to be expected. Two lecturers from Darülfünun, Mehmed Emin (Erişirgil) and
Ahmed Cevad (Emre) asked about the responsibilities of these American advi-
sors in Söz (Statement). Through many questions, they were drawing attention
to a paradox between the concept of self-determination presented by Wilson
and the demand of the Wilsonian Principles League for American advisors to
stay in the country for a long time.⁶¹ Ahmed Emin wrote an answer to the ques-
tions posed by Mehmet Emin and Ahmet Cevat in Vakit (Time). According to him,
this invitation was not against the sovereignty of the state, but rather a means to
enable it because sustaining sovereignty and hoping for equality in the interna-
tional system without a certain level of development in terms of demography,
capital and governance was not realistic at all.⁶² This discussion did not come
to an end quickly. On the contrary, it continued for a while in 1919, transcending
the intellectual battle of words that took place in newspapers or the Wilsonian
Principles League, since the League had already been dissolved. According to Tu-
naya, it was impossible from the very start to keep these people with different
ideological leanings together.⁶³
This was the period during which the Turkish National Movement gained
pace in Anatolia. Under these new circumstances, the issue of the American
mandate had turned into a discussion on a political basis. Halide Edib, in her
later accounts, suggests that the initiative about American assistance had
come to an end because the US was favoring Armenians in Eastern Anatolia,
with the Muslims living in the region opposing such a scheme.⁶⁴ She also em-
phasized that Turks had understood that no help could be expected from any
power when they witnessed the occupation of Izmir supported by the Allied
powers, including also the US.⁶⁵ Indeed, since Wilson had also voted in Paris
 Halide Edib, Turkey Faces West: A Turkish View of Recent Changes and Their Origin (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1930), 174.
 Söz, 20 December 1918, quoted by Tevetoğlu, Millî Mücadele Yıllarındaki Kuruluşlar, 176.
 Vakit, 21 December 1918, quoted by Tevetoğlu, Millî Mücadele Yıllarındaki Kuruluşlar, 177–
179.
 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 248.
 Halide Edib, Turkey Faces West, 175.
 Halide Edib, Turkey Faces West, 175.
in favor of the city’s occupation by the Greek army, May 1919 became a turning
point regarding the Wilsonian hopes in Anatolia. Actually, Wilson had inconsis-
tently supported the idea that Greeks should seize extensive areas in Anatolia
even if they did not compose an ethnic majority in those regions.⁶⁶ As a result,
the intelligentsia started to express their disappointment through meetings and
newspapers, stressing that the promises made at the end of the war based on the
twelfth point of Wilson’s Fourteen Points speech, were being destroyed by the
victors.⁶⁷ This also coincides with the global decline of Wilsonianism after the
gradual realization that the negotiations in Paris presented more or less the con-
tinuation of the old order instead of the development of a new one.
However, despite the dissolution of the Wilsonian Principles League, and
Halide Edib’s claim about the downfall of the initiative as a result of the occupa-
tion of Izmir, and the decline of Wilsonianism all over the world, both Halide
Edib and Ahmed Emin continued to theorize and write about the necessity of re-
ceiving help from the Americans. Ahmed Emin quotes in his memoirs his earlier
piece from June 1919 in Vakit. He wrote then that Turkey could not give up on its
sovereignty and be subject to the mandate system that the League of Nations es-
tablished, but could outdistance neighboring countries through a reform pro-
gram that would utilize American specialists.⁶⁸ In a similar vein, Halide Edib, be-
fore later joining the Turkish National Movement in Ankara in 1920, wrote several
letters to Anatolia, mostly to Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) Paşa explaining the logic
of American help.
In 1919, the Turkish National Movement was organizing itself in Anatolia
against the occupations that had taken place after the Mudros Armistice, through
congresses under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Paşa. This period that drew
on the scope and aims of the movement when the Western powers were still dis-
cussing the fate of the Ottoman Empire and the government was either ineffec-
tive for the occupations or against the resistance in Anatolia, was complicated
due to the discussions on the best possible way to follow. The American mandate
was also an option that was heatedly debated. It should be noted that around
this time the British representatives in Paris were offering the US a mandate in
Turkey in order to establish a buffer zone between its main enemy, the Bolshe-
 Paul C. Helmreich, From Paris to Sevres: The Partition of the Ottoman Empire at the Peace
Conference of 1919 – 1920 (Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1974), 125.
 For more examples of such discussions, see Mehmet Şahingöz and Vahdet Keleşyılmaz,
“Millî Mücadele Dönemi Türk Basınında Wilson Prensipleri,” Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi
12, no. 35 (1996): 357– 378.
 Ahmed Emin Yalman, Yakın Tarihte Gördüklerim ve Geçirdiklerim (Istanbul: Pera, 1997), 438 –
439.
viks and its area of interest, the Near East.⁶⁹ Thus, in that period, Halide Edib
sent letters to Anatolia, suggesting that the only way to protect Turkey from
the imperialistic ambitions of the Europeans was to secure the option of an
American mandate that could ensure Turkey’s territorial integrity.⁷⁰ According
to Edib, Turkey would have non-Muslim minorities under all circumstances.
Therefore, the American system, which did not depend on religion or nation,
could keep the people together.⁷¹
These ideas were not specific to Halide Edib, given the fact that a group of
intellectuals and politicians in Istanbul were sending such letters to Anatolia es-
pecially before and during the national congress in Sivas that would be held in
September 1919. However, the nature of these discussions was different from
those of the preceding year, this time mostly emphasizing the American mandate
in Anatolia. All of them would end within a short period of time, not only be-
cause the Turkish National Movement would exert its power as an anti-imperia-
list movement, but also because it would be obvious for these intellectuals that
the main interest of Wilson concerned only a possible mandate for the US in Ar-
menia, while the US Senate anyway opposed to all such moves.
3.3. Another Side of Wilsonianism: The League of Nations for

the Turkish Intelligentsia
These discussions that were made and organizations that were founded by the
Ottoman Turkish intelligentsia focused more on the future of their country.
This is not surprising for a defeated power that was occupied by the Entente ar-
mies just after the signing of the armistice. Therefore, it was the notion of self-
determination and also the twelfth point of Wilson’s Fourteen Points that drew
the attention of intellectuals and politicians from a pragmatic point of view.
However, one of the most significant components of the Wilsonianism that Wil-
son was more interested in than the other points concerned the formation of an
international organization, namely the future League of Nations. This liberal in-
ternationalist project of the American president remained in the background in
postwar Turkey. However, when it was problematized, the emphasis was made
on the notion of equality regarding the League of Nations.
 Margaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (New York: Random
House, 2002), 379.
 For the letter, see Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Nutuk (Istanbul: Alfa Yayınları, 2005), 74– 77.
 Atatürk, Nutuk, 74– 77.
In this sense, the Wilsonian Principles League highlighted in its statute that
one aim of the organization was to reach an advanced level of governance in
order for the state to become an equal member of the League of Nations and
a principal element in the international struggle.⁷² However, Ahmed Emin
wrote a pessimistic article in which he stated that even if Turkey were invited
to become a member of the League of Nations, it would not be realistic to expect
equality within this institution as the country was not ready for the membership
given its terrible condition.⁷³ The tone of the article was compatible with the
overall understanding of Ahmed Emin, who used to underline the underdevelop-
ment of Turkey.
Political parties founded in postwar Turkey also put similar clauses on
equality (müsavat) in their programs regarding the League of Nations. One of
them, Osmanlı Hürriyetperver Avam Fırkası (Ottoman Liberal People’s Party),
which was founded by Ali Fethi (Okyar), a former member of the Committee
of Union and Progress and a friend of Mustafa Kemal Paşa, had defined its
aims as working with other nations for peace and civilization. Furthermore, he
regarded the participation in the League of Nations and international arbitration
as means to reach this aspiration.⁷⁴ This was a direct embracing of the Wilsonian
liberal internationalist project, which was largely of secondary importance for
the majority of the Ottoman Turkish intelligentsia of the era.
In fact, the most important initiative with regard to the League of Nations –
even if not to Wilsonianism – was the formation of the association Cemiyet-i Ak-
vam’a Müzaharet Cemiyeti (Committee of the Support to the League of Nations) in
early 1922, just before the Turkish National Movement was victorious. Its found-
ers were mostly university professors, such as Hasan Tahsin (Ayni) and Cemil
(Bilsel), well-known writers like Yakup Kadri (Karaosmanoğlu), and women
like Selma Rıza (Feraceli). The latter was among the first women journalists in
Turkey and the sister of Ahmed Rıza. The majority of the members of this organ-
ization were linked with the Turkish National Movement – some of them also
participated in the Lausanne Conference – although it was established in Istan-
bul. It was one of many associations supporting the League that had been found-
ed in different countries across the world, making Turkey part of an international
undertaking. The committee’s aims were set as both national and international.
 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, 249.

 “Cemiyet-i Akvam ve Biz,” Vakit, 17 February 1919, quoted by Cabir Doğan, “Cemiyet-i Akva-
m’ın Kuruluşunun Istanbul Basınına Yansımaları,” Osmanlı Medeniyeti Araştırmaları Dergisi 2,
no. 3 (2016): 43.
 Üçer, “Mütareke Döneminde Osmanlı Kamuoyunda Amerikan İmgesi ve Tesiri,” 128.
On the one hand, it wanted to enable the sovereignty and independence of Tur-
key and challenge anti-Turkish propaganda in the world. On the other hand, it
aimed to play a role in the reorganization of the League, and express national
opinions about the peaceful resolution of conflicts to an international audi-
ence.⁷⁵ It seems that the initiative was more about strengthening the Turkish po-
sition before a global audience, just prior to the last episode of the Turkish War
of Independence, rather than supporting a liberal internationalist project that
had already paved the way for peace treaties such as the Treaty of Sevres.
After all, it would take Turkey approximately ten more years to join the League
of Nations after the war’s end, since Turkey in particular continued to feel ostra-
cized in international relations throughout the 1920s.⁷⁶
4. Conclusion
In this chapter, I pointed out that there was a Wilsonian excitement in post-
World War I Turkey very similar to other countries facing their own postwar cri-
ses, making the Ottoman Turkish intelligentsia part of a global phenomenon. I
emphasized that Wilsonianism appealed to many intellectuals with different
ideologies, indicating a broader engagement than the existing scholarly litera-
ture has demonstrated. Both the intellectuals and politicians in postwar Turkey
interpreted Wilsonianism through the articles that they wrote, and set up their
political aims and organizations in relation to Wilson’s principles. These actors
used methods such as petitioning the US president in order to succeed in their
endeavors. It was quite understandable that they undertook most of these
steps on the basis of a political and practical agenda instead of a totally intellec-
tual one, given that the Ottoman Empire had been occupied by the Entente pow-
ers after the Mudros armistice.
However, while being engaged mostly for practical political purposes, the Ot-
toman Turkish intelligentsia that related to Wilsonianism through their actions
or writings were also actively circulating an idea concerning a new international
order. In addition, they evaluated, they shaped the ideas according to the neces-
sities of their own polity. It was in this sense that the present actors allow us to
connect the subject of Wilsonianism’s Ottoman Turkish trajectory with the
 For more information about the Committee, see Serpil Sürmeli, “Cemiyet-i Akvam’a Müza-
heret Cemiyeti: Türkiye’de Kuruluşu ve Prag Konferansı,” Atatürk Yolu Dergisi 7, no. 25 (2000):
181– 200.
 Dilek Barlas, “Milletler Cemiyeti’nde Türkiye: Iyimserlik ve Kuşku Arasında,” Uluslararası
Ilişkiler Dergisi 14, no. 55 (2017): 98.
frameworks of Global Intellectual History. As discussions about the self-determi-

nation in postwar Turkey showed in this chapter, the very concept paved the way
for the intelligentsia to develop, and think about, their visions concerning the
future country to take shape amid the ruins of the empire. For example, ques-
tions about who would and could be included within the future borders of the
country were connected not only to Wilsonian self-determination but also to
the ideological currents of the late Ottoman Empire, just prior to the emergence
of the Turkish nation-state. This shows the intersection of a global idea with the
long-lasting local questions. At the same time, it exemplifies the restructuring of
these questions with a new and global wording. Therefore, the analysis of Wilso-
nianism’s Turkish connection serves at the same time as an instructive example
that highlights how some ideas and ideologies in different contexts may create a
fruitful discussion about both the global and the local.
Doğan Gürpɪnar
Chapter 8
Turkish Anticlericalism, Republicanism, and
the Left: Intersections and Departures
1. Introduction
The horizons of global intellectual history invite us to reappraise the Turkish 20th
century political and ideological landscape by revisiting and reframing concepts
and ideas in a comparative light. Thanks to the new intellectual history, ideolo-
gies are no longer analyzed for what they argue but seen as maps and structures
of mental sets. Turkish intellectual history has so far taken the Turkish field as
insulated, peculiar and remote from the global milieu, overlooking the overlaps,
interactions and resemblances. For example, Kemalism has been treated as an
idiosyncratic ideology that had emerged over the idiosyncratic Turkish intellec-
tual milieu.¹ Likewise, Turkish socialism has been interpreted as a departure/di-
version from Western socialist currents, due to its supposed exceptionalism.
These approaches not only lack comparative vistas but also fail to contextualize
ideas, concepts and ideologies. Another tendency is to confine Turkish intellec-
tual history to the Middle Eastern and non-Western contexts and associate it with
non-Western trajectories. This chapter, on the other hand, argues that semblan-
ces with Western historical contingency are worth examining as these interpre-
tations will provide fresh insights into Turkish intellectual history and broaden
our horizons.
This chapter deliberates on the intersections between Turkish anticlerical-
ism, republicanism, socialism and Kemalism by offering an international compa-
rative approach. It aims to display the associations, overlaps and linkages be-
tween them. Turkish anticlericalism (as well as republicanism) has
conventionally been associated with 19th-century French anticlerical and Jacobin
traditions.² I argue that, being different historical constructs, these associations
misrepresent the Turkish historical trajectory. Rising over a disparate historical
setting and ideological edifice, Turkish anticlericalism and republicanism dis-
 For a pioneering exception, see Nathalie Clayer, Fabio Giomi, Emmanuel Szurek, eds., Kemal-
ism: Transnational Politics in the Post-Ottoman World (London: Bloomsbury, 2018).
 For a study that treats Kemalism in comparison with French Jacobinism, see Emrah Gülsunar,
Jakobenizm ve Kemalizm: Eleştirel Bir Karşılaştırma (Istanbul: Yordam Kitap, 2015).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-009
220 Doğan Gürpɪnar
play different build ups from their European counterparts. Yet these differences
notwithstanding, commonalities are also vast. This chapter distinguishes differ-
ent Turkish anticlerical discourses changing over time and attests their idiosyn-
crasies. To develop comparative vistas, it firstly overviews the historical evolu-
tions of European republican and socialist anti-clericalisms. Subsequently, it
moves to discuss cultures of Turkish anti-clericalism including its Kemalist,
neo-Kemalist and Marxist types. Positing Kemalism within global intellectual
history, I offer a disclaimer to the revisionist approach (or post-Kemalism as de-
fined by Ilker Aytürk inspired from post-Zionist school in Israel in his article that
also shows their failures as an epistemic community³) that juxtaposes socialism
and Kemalism as irreconcilable antagonists. In this regard, I criticize the reduc-
tionist view that dismisses the Turkish left’s affinities in its early stages as a false
start. This chapter argues that there are ontological and meta-political reasons
for this affinity and overlaps. Therefore, rather than being a national anomaly,
the Kemalist affinities of Turkish socialism stemmed from a universal pattern
as shown in a comparative light.⁴
2. Monarchy vs. Republic

One thriving field of intellectual history relates to the early modern ideas of mon-
archy, republic and sources of authority. This new interest took seriously early
modern debates on liberty, authority and legitimacy, looking at the early modern
sources of the republic. The ideas that clashed during the English civil war were
of particular interest. Monarchy implicates not merely a mode of governance. It
is the political organization of the pre-modern moral order and the ordering of
an entire society upon these moral imperatives. Whereas organized religions
(the Church as an institution in Europe) constituted the anchor of this moral cos-
mology, monarchical authority denoted its political power. It is the institutional-
ization of this hierarchical moral and social order. Republican idea, on the other
 Ilker Aytürk, “Post-post-Kemalizm: Yeni Bir Paradigmayı Beklerken,” Birikim no. 319 (Novem-
ber 2015): 34– 48. For a critical assesment of this cohort of intellectuals, see Doğan Gürpınar,
Türkiye’de Liberalizm ve Demokratlık (1980 – 2010) (Istanbul: Etkileşim Yayınları, 2013).
 For a recent study that treats the inherent association between national liberation as a secular
nationalist ideology and progressivism and the inherent authoritarian turn of this national pro-
gressivism as a universal pattern and therefore expedient to posit Kemalism in comparative per-
spective, see Michael Walzer, The Paradox of Liberation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).
Chapter 8 Turkish Anticlericalism, Republicanism, and the Left 221
hand, envisioned an alternative and contrasting moral and social order.⁵ There-
by, since the revolutionary tide in 1789 in France, for conservatives, a republic
was tantamount to a transgression of the morals and a denunciation of the pil-
lars of Christian faith as well as the codes of social order. The 19th century’s re-
lentless struggle between republicans and monarchists of different sorts revolved
around these contrasting social and moral codes.
In Turkey, conspicuously, the idea of the republic did not acquire such con-
notations. This was partially because the Ottoman dynasty failed to erect an
ideological bulwark unlike the Bourbons (and also the Romanovs⁶) despite Ab-
dulhamid II’s crafting of an imperial scenario mimicking the Romanov, Hohen-
zollern and Meiji dynasties as shown succinctly by Selim Deringil in his ground-
breaking study.⁷ The lack of an aristocracy also impeded the building of an
ideological edifice. The non-existence of an autonomous clergy was another rea-
son. The Ottoman clergy did not operate as an organic component of the monar-
chical moral order as in the cases of Russian czardom and Prussia. Not operating
as an institutional body, the clergy could not marshal an ideological defiance to
the republic. On the contrary, it submitted to the political authority without any
substantial protest.⁸ Thereby, Islamists were no less republican despite their
aversion to secularism. They sought an Islamic political and social order impos-
ing Islamic morals antithetical to the republican one. Yet they did not aspire to
the restoration of the moribund monarchical order. There was no extensive Re-
storation movement in Turkey,⁹ nor was there an ontologically grounded con-
frontation between the republic and monarchy, as there was between republi-
cans and monarchists in 19th century France until monarchism succumbed at
the very end of the 19th century.¹⁰
Kemalism deviated from the French and 19th-century European republican
type. It was not grounded on the French republic’s ideals of liberty and equality
and did not envision a political order rising over virtue. It did not correspond
 Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990); François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1981).
 Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
 Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimization of Power in the
Ottoman Empire 1876 – 1909 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 1998).
 Amit Bein, Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic: Agents of Change and Guardians of Tradition
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).
 Hakan Özoğlu, Cumhuriyetin Kuruluşunda Iktidar Kavgası (Istanbul: Kitap Yayınları, 2016);
Amit Bein, Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic.
 For a discussion of Turkish republicanism before Kemalism, see Banu Turnaoğlu, The For-
mation of Turkish Republicanism (Stanford: University of Stanford Press, 2017).
with the political visions articulated by Abbé Sieyès in his What is the Third Es-
tate?. Kemalist republicanism was primarily a nation-statist project aiming to re-
place Islam and dynasty with nation as the main source of allegiance to the po-
litical authority (state).¹¹ Yet the moral order it envisaged was not entirely
severed from European republicanisms. It sought to eradicate the institutions
of the ancien régime and cleanse religion from public sphere and supplant it
with a nationalized, profane and secular space. Thereby, although Kemalist re-
publicanism varied from the European archetype and placed the nation at the
very center of secular modernity, there are commonalities between the two.
These commonalities enabled passages from Kemalist republicanism to social-
ism (via radical and left-leaning interpretations of Kemalism) reminiscent of
the European pattern. Such linkages were already visible by the late 1930s
when the European showdown between the left and the right was acutely felt
among the Turkish intellectuals and political elite. These caveats are necessary
also to reappraise the Turkish left.
3. From 19th-century Anticlericalism to

20th-century Irreligiosity
Anticlericalism is a post-French Revolution current that had arisen firstly in rev-
olutionary France and subsequently disseminated to Italy, Spain, Belgium, etc.¹²
In France, it is a “guerre des deux Frances, or ‘war of the two Frances’ […] fought
not just between a bourgeois intelligentsia (republican and Catholic) in the
forum of parliament and the national press but also involved ordinary people,
both villagers and priests, in obscure corners of provincial France.”¹³ In Belgium,
the tension between anticlericals and Catholics “encompassed not only the pub-
lic at large but also private relations between individuals.”¹⁴ The tone and forms
of anticlericalism varied from one country to another but its core remained the
same.
 For an analysis of the Kemalist ideology, see Taha Parla and Andrew Davison, Corporatist
Ideology in Kemalist Turkey (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2004).
 Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser, eds., Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nine-
teenth-Century Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
 James McMillan, “‘Priest Hits Girl’: On the Front Line in the ‘War of the two Frances,’” in
Culture Wars, 77.
 Els Witte, “The Battle for Monasteries, Cemeteries and Schools: Belgium,” in Culture Wars,
103.
Anticlericalism was primarily a corollary of the republican creed. It was most

pervasive in Catholic countries where the Church had been organized as a deeply
rooted and firmly hierarchical institution, seeking to order life by imposing its
values and codes. The republican anticlericalism of the 19th century targeted
this institutional colossus seeing it as a bulwark against free will, human con-
sciousness and also the nation. Anticlericalism thus impugned the Catholic es-
tablishment not only as obscurantist but also profoundly corrupt and treacher-
ous. The Jesuits and conspiracy theories revolving around them were a
prevailing anticlerical theme.¹⁵ Nuns, monks and convents were all assailed
for cultivating indolence, obscurantism but also obscenity.¹⁶ The most outra-
geous account of this discourse was contained in Awful Disclosures of Maria
Monk, published in 1836 as the alleged confessions of a nun exposed to system-
atic sexual abuse revealing the hypocrisy and perversion of the Christian ascet-
ics. In Germany, anticlericalism and anti-Catholicism were intricately amalga-
mated and deeply enmeshed with Protestant German nationalism. Catholic
clergy was persistently depicted as sinisterly plotting against free-minded Ger-
man souls and obstinately and servilely taking orders from the Papacy. The alle-
giance to the Papacy also proved the uprootedness of the Catholic clergy.¹⁷ The
Kulturkampf justified and reinforced these condemnations. Ultramontanism was
a continent-wide scare among Protestants, states, liberals and all anti-Catholic
forces.
In 19th century Italy, anticlericalism, republicanism and nationalism rein-
forced and complemented each other. Papacy, Austria and the dynastic Italian
principalities as well as the Kingdom of Two Sicilies were all perceived as defy-
ing the emergent unified and liberal Italian republic. Against this ‘united reac-
tion,’ liberalism, nationalism and secular republicanism constituted a bulwark
of progress. This stand displayed anti-clericalism rather than outright anti-Chris-
tianism. Count Pietro Guicciardini (1808 – 1886), a descendant of the 16th-century
historian, converted to Protestantism in an effort “to emancipate Italy from pre-
tismo (priestism).”¹⁸ Likewise Lord Cavour, one of the architects of Italian unifi-
cation, believed in a religion of liberty upholding his animosity toward the Pa-
 Geoffrey Cubitt, The Jesuit Myth: Conspiracy Theoy and Politics in Nineteenth Century France
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
 Michael B. Gross, The War Against Catholicism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
2004), 136 – 184.
 Helmut Walser Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics
1870 – 1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
 Maurizio Viroli, As If God Existed: Religion and Liberty in the History of Italy (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2012), 119.
pacy intact and resolute: “After having read Guizot and Benjamin Constant, it is
impossible for me not to open my eyes. And believing in the pope’s infallibility is
as difficult for me as believing that two plus two equals three,” rejecting not
Christianity but a religion of “monks of hypocritical religiosity.”¹⁹ Spain did
not present a narrative of national unification. Yet its 19th century was also ridden
with the inherent tension between liberals and conservatives, which prompted
one failed republic (before the fall of the second one in 1939), military coups
and civil wars. The same pattern was also observed in Belgium where secular lib-
erals and Catholics established two mutually exclusive constellations of institu-
tions the former establishing Université libre de Bruxelles and the latter educat-
ing their sons at Université catholique de Louvain.
This was the world of liberal nationalism of the 19th century. Jacobinism had
also envisaged a religion of humanity rising over the deist legacy of the Enlight-
enment.²⁰ Jansenism had provided a leeway for those who exclusively targeted
Jesuits and “Popery.” This republican anti-clericalism, however, gradually
evolved into socialist irreligiosity by the late 19th century. The Catholic response
to the modern age and its ills also simultaneously hardened. Catholicism’s timid
efforts to adapt to the changing times was truncated with Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus
of Errors in 1864, and with Vatican I’s, held in 1869 – 1870, proclamation of papal
infallibility.²¹ The liberal Catholic current had been severely demolished in Vat-
ican I. The late 19th century also featured new Catholic revivals in France and
Germany. The building of Montmartre in the northern hills of Paris was a phys-
ical demonstration of the new virility of the Catholic faith and its defiance of
French republicanism. In Italy, the Pope shunned secular authority over Rome
and thereby the authority of the Italian state. It assembled a moral resistance
against the Italian republic demanding that Catholics abstain from voting and
partaking in republican politics.²²
Yet, World War I decimated the aristocratic order and its institutions. Fas-
cism and communism arose over this corpse, both seeking to eradicate the
very pillars of the old order. Anticlericalism was supplanted by open irreligiosity
that viewed not just the clergy, but religion itself and the idea of God as the arch
enemies of progress. This new stand was not confined to Marxism and emergent
 Maurizio Viroli, As If God Existed, 148.

 Dale K. Van Cley, Religious Origins of the French Revolution (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1996); Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1991).
 John W. O’Malley, Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018).
 David I. Kertzer, The Pope Who Would be King (New York: Random House, 2018).
communism. The republicans also adamantly shifted gears amid an entirely new
moral, intellectual and cultural climate. In the turbulent 1930s, republicanism
was radicalized as a response to fascism, the increasingly violent right-wing rad-
icalism and their project to undo liberal republican social and political order.
The Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939) demonstrated well the coalescence of social-
ism, communism and republicanism united against the common enemy. The pre-
liminary defense of the Spanish republic led by moderate liberal republicans
against General Franco’s onslaught gave way to a new republican bulwark led
and championed by the steadfast communists, socialists and anarchists. The
hostility of the radicalized republicans toward the Catholic clergy was outright,
massacring them in churches in numbers.²³ Popular fronts of the 1930s, as pro-
gressive alignments to respond and counter the rise of fascistic right and its
daunting pursuit of power, crystallized the coalescence of socialist and non-so-
cialist progressivisms. These political alignments showcased the inherent affinity
between republicanism and socialism. The united front strategy of the Comintern
also aimed to steer the anti-fascist tide and take over the command of the anti-
fascist front.
The ensuing Cold War, however, drastically alleviated and transformed the
political scene. The eradication of fascism and the radical right by the end of
the Second World War left republicanism deemed a politically trivial project.
The subsequent McCarthy era envisioned a Cold War consensus in the US in
which Christianity reigned as the moral anchor of the nation. Yet this emphasis
on religiosity and conservatism aimed to build a conservative center rather than
making religion the fulcrum of a political divide. The McCarthyite craze did not
stem from coldly calculated political agendas but was a manifestation of an
ideological panic entrenched in the social and the political culture of post-
World War II US. As noted by Whitfield, the “nation’s crusade against commu-
nism [was not] an isolated historical happening, one that affected only diplomat-
ic and military policies of the Cold War. On the contrary, that struggle deeply
scarred the nation’s social order as well.”²⁴ Communism was perceived as tanta-
mount to an assault against the moral values of society.²⁵ In the United States,
 Paul Preston, Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain

(New York: Norton, 2012), 19, 233 – 238. For the ideological roots of the staunch animosity against
religion, church and the priests of the Spanish republicans, see Enrique Sanabria, Republicanism
and Anticlerical Nationalism in Spain (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009).
 Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1996), vii.
 For some studies on McCarthyism, see Ellen Schrecker, Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in
America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998); Ellen Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the
Universities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); David Caute, The Great Fear: The Anti-
the 1950s was the conservative decade par excellence symbolized by the presi-
dency of “everybody’s president” Dwight Eisenhower (or “Ike”). This moral
order was upheld against the subversive Communist threat that disrupted the so-
cial and moral order. The Christian attributes of the Cold War front were ubiqui-
tous in the United States. Seen primarily as a moral threat, anti-communism was
immersed with religious/Christian overtones (which were hardly distinguishable
from civil religion as demonstrated by Robert Bellah in the early 1960s). This all
changed by the 1960s, which brought the end to the conservative 1950s and as
religion abruptly declined as a social force. It thus ceased to operate as the
pivot of the social and political divide.²⁶ The decline of religion as a political
force also brought with it the erosion of the affinity between republicanism
and socialism. Likewise, Christian Democracy in Europe as a post-Second
World War phenomenon transformed religion as a political component and ren-
dered Catholicism and Protestantism as democratizing forces rather than allies
of the political fascistic right as it used to be in the interwar era. Christian De-
mocracy (in the premierships of Adenauer, De Gasperi and others) institutional-
ized a functioning democracy in Europe and disconnected religion from the re-
actionary right.²⁷
This brief overview of the European and Transatlantic trajectory of anticleri-
calism and its transformations sheds light on the Turkish path as Turkish anti-
clericalism attests an analogous pattern. In Turkey, pre-1960 approaches to
Islam correspond to the national(ist) republican anticlericalism in which clergy,
Arabs and reactionary Ottoman sultans were interchangeably blamed for the cor-
ruption of Islam. Before the 1960s, Turkish republicanism was unfettered from
socialist influence. The new radicalism that had grown after the military coup
in 1960, however, ushered in a new encounter with religion, replicating the Euro-
pean interwar radicalism. Marxist texts deemed religion merely as a façade that
needed to be eradicated. This presented a new intellectual and political horizon.
The keyword that encompassed and bridged the elements of this socialist dis-
course was Reaction. The Kemalist phrase reaction (irtica) acquired new conno-
tations.
Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978); Robert
Griffith, The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate (Lexington: University Press
of Kentucky, 1970).
 Hugh McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Cal-
lum G. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain (London: Routledge, 2009).
 Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press), 1996.
4. Reappraisals of the Turkish Left: Entangled

Between Socialism, Kemalism and Secularism
The Kemalist regime (1923 – 1950) attested religiosity and Islam as a major cause
of national backwardness vis-à-vis the West. Yet strategies to overcome it varied.
Furthermore, confronting Islam and Islamic practices posed a dangerous chal-
lenge. The safest strategy was to dissociate pure Islam from a corrupted Islam
and to call for a reform of Islam in the name of purifying it. Thereby, the de-
bauched qualities were attributed to obscurantists’ and clergy’s misappropria-
tion of Islam. A nationalistic dimension was also added to this anticlericalism,
accusing Arabs of distorting pure Islam and thereby delivering a pretext for “na-
tionalizing” it.²⁸ Concepts such as Reaction, and obscurantism were employed to
dissociate Islam from negative connotations.²⁹ After failing to reform and nation-
alize Islam (between the years 1930 to 1933), however, the Kemalist regime
moved to eliminate Islam from the public space. This strategy did not openly
challenge Islam but sought to displace it from the public sphere and make it al-
most invisible. Another strategy was to blame the “clergy” and “reaction” for
contaminating an otherwise pure and genuine Islam. Thus, Kemalist encounters
with Islam carefully evaded irreligiosity. Yet in some versions Islam is targeted
forthrightly. The Kemalist history textbooks, for example, offered a “natural his-
tory” of humankind adapted from H. G. Wells’ The Outline of History and inter-
preted the birth of Islam along these lines.³⁰ Thus, there was no single, coherent
and consistent approach to Islam and religion. Different modalities operated
side by side in constant tension within RPP (Republican People’s Party, the Kem-
alist regime’s governing party) until the end of the Kemalist regime and the com-
ing of multi-party democracy in 1950.
These nuances implied ideological departures under the guise of Kemalism
as an ostensibly overarching and comprehensive ideology. By the late 1930s, the
divide between right-wing and left-wing versions of Kemalism became more ag-
grandizing, concurrent with the dawn of the European showdown between fas-
cism and anti-fascist popular fronts affecting the Turkish intellectual and polit-
ical scene. Niyazi Berkes (1908 – 1988) experienced an epiphany in the
 M. Brett Wilson, Translating the Qur’an in an Age of Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2014).
 Onur Atalay, Türk’e Tapmak: Seküler Din ve İki Savaş Arası Kemalizm (Istanbul: Iletişim
Yayınları, 2018).
 Şükrü Hanioğlu, Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2011), 161– 162.
momentous year 1939 while he was pursuing a post in academia: “While I was
rushing to the Ministry; all of a sudden I realized that there existed two opposing
parties [in Turkey]. Contrary to the semblance of one-party regime, I grasped that
I was too naïve not to fathom the coexistence of two opposing or even contrast-
ing political powerhouses.”³¹
By the second half of 1940s with the onset of Cold War, a conservative drive
within the Kemalist RPP became predominant. This faction closed down Village
Institutes seeing them as a project serving communism although the institutes
were founded as a major Kemalist initiative (for more, see below) and purged
leftist professors appointed by Hasan Âli Yücel, the dismissed Minister of Educa-
tion.³² This tendency indicated a conservative strand of republicanism relatively
at peace with Islam, seeking a governable social order fearful of subversion. Fol-
lowing the first free elections, the Democrat Party (DP), founded by disgruntled
economic liberal RPP deputies, took over. The new governing party’s sympathetic
approaches to Islam and its close relations with religious brotherhoods infuriat-
ed those concerned to uphold the values, reforms and achievements of the Kem-
alist republic. The overthrow of the DP in 1960 by the “young officers,” however,
caused the university youth, intellectuals and concerned bureaucrats to rejoice,
overcome with passion and optimism. The 1960 coup promised a neo-Kemalist
restoration.
Turkish socialism as a mass movement evolved out of the ascendant Kemal-
ist radicalism among the youth subsequent to this coup that then sought to re-
store Kemalism. This instilled optimism for a better future among the urban uni-
versity youth after years of repression under DP rule that was also seen as
favorable to the Islamic reaction. This new youth radicalism reframed Kemalism
as “national progressivism.” This national progressivism perceived Kemalist re-
storation as the panacea for social injustices, inequalities and other ills. Attrib-
uting a socially progressive mission to Kemalism was a new tendency beginning
from the timid reframing of RPP as a social democratic party in the late 1950s.
The post-1960 youth came to see Kemalism as a progressive ideology on the
path to socialism.
The youth as a politically conscious and active social force was implicitly in-
corporated into the post-1960 progressive pact. The junta extolled the youth and
the universities as “healthy forces” standing up for, and safeguarding, republi-
can values. This national pact was conceived as firmly non-ideological. It was
 Niyazi Berkes, Unutulan Yıllar (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 1997), 146.

 Mete Çetik, 1948 DTCF Tasfiyesi ve Pertev Naili Boratav’ın Müdafaası (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı
Yurt Yayınları, 1998); Metin Çınar, Anadoluculuk ve Tek Parti CHP’de Sağ Kanat (Istanbul: Iletişim
Yayınları, 2013).
to be inherently progressive and patriotic and this self-styled progressivism was

to usher in a national revival and progress. The youth was to be the ultimate
guarantor of the republic and its principles.³³ This radicalism, however, had
evolved into socialism out of this Kemalist cocoon by the second half of the
1960s.
Nevertheless, the rise of socialism and its appeal among university students
and intellectuals in this decade remained inextricably connected to its erstwhile
Kemalist premises. Seeing themselves as the guardians of the spirit of the 1960
coup (which they deliberately called the Revolution), they came to be disillu-
sioned with RPP’s consecutive coalition governments and efforts to negotiate
with the post-1960 center-right parties. Though sympathizing with Kemalism’s
radical appeal before and after the military coup, students gradually gravitated
to radical and socialist politics in the second half of the 1960s.³⁴ Kemalist pro-
gressivism gradually evolved into socialist progressivism without necessarily
contradicting or rescinding the former.
The influential journal Yön (Direction), which began in 1961 with a manifesto
signed by prominent intellectuals and academics, became one of the leading ex-
ponents of the post-1960 socialist ascendancy and euphoria. It was poised to
fuse Kemalism and socialism.³⁵ In its founding manifesto, Yön circumspectly
avoided using the word “class.” It called on intellectuals to rally around a pro-
gressive-patriotic platform. The manifesto presented the ideal of a closely knit
nation without any reference to class-based divisions. The common national in-
terest would be realized through the imposition of a state-led developmentalist
economic program. The journal was socialist leaning but aimed to transcend
the boundaries between different walks of “progressivism.” It became a forum
where progressive intellectuals with different political and ideological disposi-
tions gathered and debated. Yön was the venue that best demonstrated the affin-
ities of (early) Turkish socialism with Kemalism.
 For the construction of the youth as the vigilant guardians of the national pledge in the Kem-
alist era, see Emin Alper, Jakobenlerden Devrimcilere (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2018),
90. Alper emphasizes that this mythologisation is not unique to Turkey but rife throughout de-
veloping countries.
 For an autobiographical account of a prominent student leader during this period, see Harun
Karadeniz, Olaylı Yıllar ve Gençlik (Istanbul: May Yayınları, 1975), 9 – 13.
 For the journal Yön, see Ergun Aydınoğlu, Türk Solu (1960 – 1971) (Istanbul: Belge Yayınları,
2007), 38 – 46; Igor P. Lipovsky, The Socialist Movement in Turkey, 1960 – 1980 (Leiden: Brill,
1992), 85 – 108; Hikmet Özdemir, Kalkınmada Bir Strateji Arayışı: Yön Hareketi (Ankara: Bilgi Yayı-
nevi, 1986); Gökhan Atılgan, Yön-Devrim Hareketi (Istanbul: TÜSTAV, 2002).
Doğan Avcıoğlu (1926 – 1983), the founder and editor of the journal and the
author of the manifesto, articulated the most erudite formulation of neo-Kemal-
ism. His major work was the two-volume Türkiye’nin Düzeni (The Order of Tur-
key: Past, Present, and Future), published in 1968.³⁶ The work, informed by
his Marxist and French-language readings (and his intellectual formation shaped
during his studies in France) and amalgamating his Kemalist and socialist com-
mitments, can legitimately be dubbed the Turkish Das Kapital for its theoretical
rigor, grasp of history and society, and overall impact in determining the con-
tours of neo-Kemalist historiography. Yet in the late 1960s Avcıoğlu changed
gears. Declaring Yön’s mission accomplished, he closed the journal and
launched a new one, aptly named Revolution (Devrim), poising to steer a leftist
military coup.³⁷ This venture failed severely, marking the end of the marriage be-
tween Kemalism and the left. From then on, Marxism-Leninism (and later Mao-
ism) transcended and overshadowed Kemalism. Yet the intersections between
Kemalism and socialism continued to be visible in many niches.
5. “Enlightenmentism”: The Intersections of

Kemalism and Socialism
“Enlightenmentism” (Aydınlanmacılık) is a trope that thrilled enthusiasts tran-
scending a broad range from Marxist left to moderate center-leftists. Enlighten-
mentism was a component of Kemalism, though contested and not shared by
all the Kemalist factions. It was a left-leaning interpretation of Kemalism. The
translation movement of the 1940s (translating Western classics so as to stimu-
late a new intellectual and cultural environment) undertaken by the Ministry of
Education was celebrated as one showcasing of “Kemalist humanism” and there-
by Enlightenment.³⁸ Not unexpectedly, this translation movement had been de-
nounced as subversive and communist-friendly by the right-winger Kemalists
and halted after persistent protests.³⁹ Hasan Âli Yücel, the patron of the ambi-
 Doğan Avcıoğlu, Türkiye’nin Düzeni. 2 vols (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 1968). Also see Doğan Av-
cıoğlu, Milli Kurtuluş Tarihi, 4 vols (Istanbul: Tekin Yayınevi, 1974).
 Özgür Mutlu Ulus, The Army and the Radical Left in Turkey (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010), 51.
 Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar, The Politics and Poetics of Translation in Turkey, 1923 – 1960 (Amster-
dam: Brill, 2008), 64– 73.
 For example, see Ibrahim Kafesoğlu, Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Meseleleri (Ankara: TKAE, 1966),
192– 199. For an account of the battle in the 1940s between the “humanist movement” champ-
ioned by the Ministry of Education and the right-wing backlash, see Niyazi Berkes, Unutulan Yıl-
lar, 143 – 176.
tious project aiming to undertake a cultural revolution, was lionized as the ulti-
mate Kemalist Enlightenment figure whose political personality was heavily con-
tested as he stood for ethnic nationalism, civic patriotism and acted as the pa-
tron of liberals and socialists. Many saw his legacy as the consummate
synthesis of the left as an Enlightenment project and Kemalism, although
these wishful presumptions were far-fetched and the mythology of Yücel did
not necessarily coincide with his actual political record and intellectual forma-
tion.⁴⁰
Enlightenmentism is also a socialist trope. Whereas the orthodox interpreta-
tion of dialectic materialism dismisses every literary and philosophical output
prior to Marx as worthless and futile, for some, Marxism had risen on the should-
ers of the achievements and everlasting march of humanity.⁴¹ Fellow-travelers in
the turbulent 1930s such as Romain Rolland, Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb (and
later Jean-Paul Sartre) affirmed socialism as the ultimate terminus in the prog-
ress of humanity as best proven by its belligerence against fascism.
In Paris…in June 1935, the first International Writers’ Congress for the Defence of Culture
took place, chaired by André Malraux and André Gide and masterminded by Ilya Ehren-
burg…The common goal that united this motley band of writers and essayists was not rev-
olution; it was the defence of culture and civilization.⁴²
Likewise for George Lukács, the eminent pro-Soviet Marxist interwar cultural crit-
ic:
The really great traditions of European humanism were […] revolutionary […] the struggle
against fanaticism and for tolerance has always stood at the center of humanist ideology
both in the Renaissance and particularly in the Enlightenment […]. In Soviet rhetoric,
and in that of the antifascists, ‘culture,’ or ‘humanism,’ an ism particularly associated
with a textual culture, provided one side of an overarching binary that structured their con-
 For a recent intellectual biography of Yücel and a balanced review of postmortem percep-
tions of Yücel and his mythology among the Enlightenmentist left, see Tanıl Bora, Hasan Âli
Yücel (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 2021).
 Coming from a liberal romantic youth background and a passionate literature lover, Marx
himself also perceived literature as man’s self-actualization in Hegelian-Feuerbachian passion:
“From Paris Manuscrips onwards he sees all the arts as part of that universal creative activity
through which man ‘transforms and creates his World and himself.’” S. S. Prawer, Karl Marx
and World Literature (London: Verso, 2011).
 Enzo Traverso, Revolution: An Intellectual History (London: Verso, 2021), 308, 310.
trast between Nazi Germany and, variously, the Soviet Union, true Europe, or a true repre-
sentative of humankind.”⁴³
Server Tanilli (1931– 2011) was a foremost proponent of this predisposition in

Turkey. Although a professor of constitutional law at Istanbul University, he
self-styled himself as a historian of ideas and historian of civilization and con-
fined his prolific publications overwhelmingly to history and history of thought.
He wrote a number of monographs mainly revolving around the French Revolu-
tion and the Enlightenment. Tanilli also published hagiographic biographies of
Diderot, Voltaire, Victor Hugo and French revolutionaries (Robespierre, Danton,
Babeuf and others).⁴⁴ Although a socialist, Tanilli’s socialism operated as a reli-
gion of humanity. He perceived socialism as the ultimate phase of the progres-
sive march of reason. His thick volume Uygarlık Tarihi (History of Civilization,
1979) composed out of lecture notes tutored the self-ascribed progressives in
their passionate quest to learn about the rudiments of human history and eternal
confrontation between Reason and Reaction. It continues to be a phenomenal
book printed numerously by different publishers because it serves as a guide af-
firming its readers’ pledge to reason, science and progress.⁴⁵ His preference for
using Uygarlık and not its synonym Medeniyet also demonstrates his vision.
Whereas the latter is of Arabic origin, uygarlık is a neologism invented in the
1930s to substitute medeniyet and therefore is loaded with a secular-progres-
sive-socialist tinge. He introduced the revised and enlarged version of the
book maintaining that
the reader will not come across litanies of hollow military victories and meaningless con-
quests in this book. He/she will rather see the struggle of the oppressed people for a better
world throughout ages that underlies the entire historical process. Then he/she will con-
ceive that this historical struggle concerns his very own life. He/she will grasp that history
is not about the past that was already over but extends to today and the future.⁴⁶
 Katerina Clark, Moscow; The Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of
Soviet Culture, 1931 – 1941 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 323, 152.
 Server Tanilli, Diderot: Çağı, Yaşamı ve Eseri (Istanbul: De Kitabevi, 1984); Server Tanilli, Vol-
taire ve Aydınlanma (Istanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1994); Server Tanilli, Victor Hugo: Bir Dehanın
Romanı (Ankara: Say Yayınları, 1985); Server Tanilli, Fransız Devriminden Portreler (Istanbul:
Say Yayınları, 1989).
 Server Tanilli, Uygarlık Tarihi (Istanbul: Yalkın, 1979).
 Server Tanilli, Yüzyılların Gerçeği ve Miras (Istanbul: Adam Yayınları, 1999), 10. All transla-
tions from Turkish are mine.
This is an epic historical imagination. It transcended and coalesced Kemalist, so-

cialist and Marxist variants of the progressive discursive universe, with all of
them seeing themselves as bulwarks against darkness and oppression. For
him “Enlightenment began with the life’s revolutionary turn to nature, history
and society.”⁴⁷ Tanilli also framed the Turkish republican project primarily as
an Enlightenment project,⁴⁸ accusing those who misinterpreted it superficially
as merely Westernization of missing its progressive and Enlightenment core.
He even criticized those oblivious socialist intellectuals who thought in meta-
physical terms and thus failed to comprehend the pillars of dialectic material-
ism.⁴⁹ Nevertheless, an admirable task had been undertaken by Turkish progres-
sive intellectuals for over a century: “The intellectuals’ main agendas had been
belief in reason, progress and science and defiance to despotism, obscurantism
and ignorance [both in Europe since the Enlightenment and in Turkey since the
19th century].”⁵⁰ The myth of the intellectual as the consciousness of humanity is
another theme Tanilli endorses in the wake of Emile Zola. Humanity progresses
in leaps thanks to the contributions of such audacious and valiant intellectuals.
Tanilli has also been lionized in this Zolaesque inspiration as Zola epitomized
the quintessential intellectual archetype. The fact that he was tragically bound
to a wheelchair after surviving an assassination attempt in 1978 by right-wing mi-
litia further demonstrated his intellectual and political valor in paying a price for
taking his stand against reaction.
Other socialist academics penned volumes on history of Western political
thought introducing it to the Turkish progressive audience. These were paeans
to the pioneers of the accumulated wealth of human reason.⁵¹ Thomas Campa-
nella, Thomas More, Voltaire, Hypatia, Lucretius and many others were seen as
precocious progressives who contributed to the march of humanity and reason.
They were, thereby, hailed as precursors to socialism and Marxism. Scientific
Revolution, a tag coined in the 1930s by Alexandre Koyré, was popularized by
Herbert Butterfield, and reflected the intellectual worlds of the eminent Belgian
historian of science George Sarton. It offered the foremost narrative that inter-
preted history as a permanent struggle between Reason and obscurantism.
 Server Tanilli, “Bir Kaç Söz”, in his Türkiye’de Aydınlanma Hareketi (Istanbul: Alkım Yayın-
ları, 2006), 7.
 Server Tanilli, “Bir Kaç Söz 7.
 Server Tanilli, Uygarlık Tarihi (Istanbul: Kitap Pazarlama, 1981), 358.
 Server Tanilli, “Bir Kaç Söz”, 7.
 Alâedddin Şenel, Siyasal Düşünceler Tarihi (Ankara: Teori Yayınları, 1986); Çetin Yetkin and
Kıvanç Ertop, Sosyo-Ekonomik Temelleriyle Siyasal Düşünceler Tarihi (Istanbul: Say Yayınları,
1985).
Whereas Reason promised liberty, obscurantism was in the service of oppres-

sion, kings and religions. Science was the steadfast engine of progress and hu-
manity.
This paradigm would later be challenged in Western academia by an array of
critics including postmodernists, poststructuralists and those inspired by Fou-
cault, Derrida and others. “The reification of the Revolution” was rebuked by
“a number of historians [who] have argued that the very concept of a revolution
in early modern science, with its implication of a radical break with the past, is
misplaced or misconceived.”⁵² Students of history of science such as Steven Sha-
pin and Simon Schaffer offered revisionist approaches to the Enlightenment and
the Scientific Revolution, which were in turn also sharply criticized as going to
the other extreme in reaction against the Enlightenment paradigm.⁵³
The new historicism and thriving new intellectual history spearheaded by
Quentin Skinner and J. G. A. Pocock reappraised the Enlightenment and rejected
irreconcilable dichotomies between the modern and non-modern. “The scientific
dimension of [the Jesuits’] intellectual contribution, independent of its religious
mission” in contrast to “the stereotypes that surrounded the Society of Jesus dur-
ing the first 200 years of its existence” was demonstrated.⁵⁴ The impact of this
paradigmatic shift on Turkish scholarship came to be felt by the 1980s. The En-
lightenmentist discourse was abandoned within academia and parts of the so-
cialist intelligentsia, especially among those most open to Anglo-American cur-
rents, and treated as “outmoded.” The postmodernist and poststructuralist turn
also ushered in a new appraisal of Marxism and Kemalism, seeing them as prone
to authoritarianism. Slating the Old Left as inherently Kemalist was a mainstay
of the revisionist left. The New Left, influenced firstly by Western Marxism in the
second half of the 1970s and then by neo-Marxism, critical theory and non-Marx-
ist socialist pursuits, sought to reinvent socialism free from authoritarian tenden-
cies by drawing an insurmountable rift between the two.
Especially upon encountering the brutality of the military coup in 1980, the
main emphasis of the New Left became denunciation and aversion to authoritar-
ianism, state power and political violence, and a concomitant espousal of de-
mocratization and civil society. Thus, criticism of Kemalism, seen as the root
 John Henry, The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science (Basingstoke: Pal-
grave, 2002), 2.
 Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1993); Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1996).
 Mordechai Feingold, “Jesuit Savants”, in Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters, ed. Mor-
dechai Feingold (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003), 2.
cause of the all-powerful state in Turkey, and therefore the main bulwark against
the rise of the left, became the prerequisite of the New Left. Yet, as will be argued
below, this revisionist approach was also replete with flaws, failing to acknowl-
edge the inextricable affinity between socialism and republicanism even in the
latter’s authoritarian molds. This affinity derived from a shared moral and epis-
temological universe, both being challenged by conservativism’s moral order.
6. Land Reform, Rural Exploitation and Reaction

Turkish anticlericalism generated its own terminology that catered to the local
context, realities and the inherited political discourse. The Kemalist portrayal
of feudal reaction and the power network of feudal lords (aghas, “ağas”) and
sheiks was taken over by the incipient socialism of the 1960s. A cause célèbre
of the neo-Kemalist restoration in the 1960s was the promised “land reform”
that was to redistribute land from the aghas to the poor and landless peasants.
This scheme was shared by the Kemalist intellectuals and the emerging socialist
intelligentsia.⁵⁵
The first half of 1960s witnessed the rise of (Italian) neorealism in Turkish
cinema inspired by the Italian masters belonging to the first generation of social-
ist directors.⁵⁶ The film Susuz Yaz (Dry Summer) was awarded the Golden Bear in
the 1964 International Berlin Film Festival. This internationally acclaimed Turk-
ish film, directed by Metin Erksan, took this socialist cause to the screen from his
neorealist perspective. The film conveyed the story of an agha who dams the
spring and appropriates irrigation water in an extremely dry summer. Demon-
strating the outlandishness and viciousness of forcefully rendering water private
property, it is an allegory about the right to land that should belong to those who
toil on it. With the lack of robust organized labor in the 1960s, rural exploitation
by aghas and injustices prevailing in the villages were major agendas for the so-
cialist intellectuals. These themes overlapped with neo-Kemalist radicalism of
the era.
These rural themes were ubiquitous in the village novels genre that dominat-
ed the 1960s’ socialist literary scene, beginning with Yaşar Kemal’s Ince Mehmed
(Memed, My Hawk in English) published in 1955. His epic novel prompted many
to mimic its plot, making it the prototypical Turkish novel standard. It was also
 Doğan Gürpınar, Türkiye’de Aydının Kısa Tarihi (Istanbul: Liberplus, 2020), 287– 289.
 Aslı Daldal, 1960 Darbesi ve Türk Sinemasında Toplumsal Gerçekçilik (Istanbul: Homer Kita-
bevi, 2005).
no coincidence that many socialist realist novelists (first and foremost Fakir Bay-
kurt, Mehmet Başaran, Mahmut Makal and Talip Apaydın) depicting Turkish vil-
lages in the clutches of reaction and oppression came from the cohort of gradu-
ates of Village Institutes launched by the Kemalist regime to train village boys
and girls as teachers.⁵⁷ Whereas the Kemalist tutors hoped their pupils would be-
come zealous Kemalists, many of them moved further left. Yet, their leftism was a
profound derivative of Kemalist progressivism and moral order. The canon of
Turkish village novels featured another intersection of Kemalism and the left.⁵⁸
This genre displayed an Enlightenmentist vision that established a clear-cut
and irreconcilable antagonism between forces of Reaction and agents of progress
(first and foremost the teacher) in rural settings.⁵⁹ The heyday of village novels as
a genre was the 1960s, before losing its appeal by the 1970s as the urban setting
became more appropriate for the socialist (and non-socialist) literature. The so-
cialist literature in the 1970s came to experiment with new literary styles and
prose, abandoning the socialist realist genre, and focusing on the worlds of ur-
banites and intellectuals themselves.
These themes constituted the patches of a discursive amalgam that was not
necessarily atheistic in the sense that religion was not specifically targeted be-
cause Reaction was seen as an architecture of social and political power that
ran deeper than religion. As the ultimate Enlightenmentist premise postulated,
religion was an institution in the service of Reaction and played an operational
role in its maintenance. The subsuming of religion under Reaction framed reli-
gion as a social institution and not a metaphysical belief and/or collection of su-
perstitions. According to this framing, religion posed a threat because it serves
earthly powers, political power and holders of means of production. Imperialism
was also seen as being behind the reaction (as puppet master) using religion as
an instrument to encounter and confront the progressive and patriotic intelli-
gentsia. Reaction was the keyword in this socialist social imaginary hegemonic
in the 1960s. It allegedly drew the operative function of religion within the social
 Erdağ Göknar, “The Novel in Turkish: Narrative Tradition to Nobel Prize,” in The Cambridge
History of Turkey, vol. IV, ed. Reşat Kasaba (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 488.
M. Asım Karaömerlioğlu, “The Village Institutes Experience in Turkey,” British Journal of Middle
Eastern Studies 21, no. 1 (1998): 47– 73; Beş Romancı Köy Romanı Üzerinde Tartışıyor (Istanbul:
Düşün Yayınevi, 1960).
 Erkan Irmak, Eski Köye Yeni Roman: Köy Romanının Tarihi, Kökeni ve Sonu (1950 – 1980) (Is-
tanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 2018).
 Also see for the depiction of the village life and its politics in the non-Village Institutes grad-
uate novelists, Ülkü Ayşe Oğuzhan Börekçi, Muhalif Aydın; Romanlar Üzerinden Zihniyet Oku-
ması (Ankara: Imge Kitabevi, 2014), 248 – 267.
order. This paradigm conceived religion as a social institution inherently reac-

tionary in the hands of predatory classes both in rural and urban settings. As ob-
served by Wolfram Kaiser:
[In the second half of the 19th century] whereas the liberals, particularly in the less eco-
nomically developed states of southern Europe, were convinced that the Catholic church,
as a conservative force, was blocking the breakthrough to a modern industrial society,
the socialists denounced it as ‘the fifth column of international capitalism’, because it
made common cause with the ruling classes of the large landowners and captains of indus-
try in hindering the necessary resistance of rural and industrial labourers against their eco-
nomic exploitation.⁶⁰
The affinities between Kemalism and Turkish socialism would wear out by the
1970s. With increasing urbanization and industrialization, organized labor was
to become a steady force. Following clashes with industrialists, this working
class came to the forefront of socialist politics. The Turkish state would take a
side as an ally of the industrialists, crushing labor unrest violently when neces-
sary.⁶¹ Upon the promulgation of martial law in 1971, the military arrested and
persecuted socialists, terminating any hope for a progressive alliance of the mili-
tary and the intellectuals. Religion and modernization remained side issues for
the left as the social conflicts and class politics became more acute and real. Ten
years of visible socialist ascendancy in the streets, intellectual arena and polit-
ical scene was, however, smashed after the military coup in 1980. The demise
of class politics and socialism’s decline by the 1980s ushered in new political vis-
tas. The Turkish revisionist historiographical school rose in this intellectual and
political climate out of intra-socialist polemics that offered a new and critical ret-
rospective reading of the legacy of Turkish socialism.
7. Historiography on Kemalism, Turkish Left and

Politics of Secularism
Turkish scholarship and historiography are inextricably fraught with political
and ideological agendas. Since its emergence, Turkish scholarship was very
much molded by political and ideological passions, commitments and drives.
 Wolfram Kaiser, “‘Clericalism – That is Our Enemy!’: European Anticlericalism and the Cul-
ture Wars,” in Culture Wars, 59.
 Suavi Aydın and Yüksel Taşkın, 1960’tan Günümüze Türkiye Tarihi (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayın-
ları, 2014), 191– 193.
The academic engagement with Kemalism, and the history of Turkish secular-
ism, was introduced by those who ardently endorsed its very premises. Suna
Kili (1929 – 2015) (who had studied in elite colleges, American College for Girls,
Bryn Mawr and Berkeley), was a pioneer in the scholarly study of Kemalism, in-
troducing to this field the rigor of political science.⁶² Her perspective, however,
merely tailored Kemalism to the post-World War II paradigm of the moderniza-
tion school. For Kili and her generation, Kemalism amounted first and foremost
to modernization. They embodied the non-ideological bent of Kemalism and per-
ceived it primarily as a nationalist modernization project. For others, the republic
marked the restoration of the national self, liberated from centuries of Islamic
and reactionary oppression that had chained the Turkish self.
This was followed by a left-leaning historical interpretation of Kemalism.
Originally a professor of public and constitutional law, Tarık Zafer Tunaya
(1916 – 1991) was, for many, the founder of political science as an academic dis-
cipline in Turkey. He was also influential in the scholarly framing of Kemalism in
the 1960s.⁶³ As a member of the generation that reconciled the Kemalist creed
with the post-World War II liberal democratic and welfare state consensus
upon the transition to democracy in 1950, Tunaya was also involved in drafting
the new constitution in 1960 to 1961 that was based on neo-Kemalist progressiv-
ism. The gradual liberalization of the 1960s boosted the prospects of socialism,
ascendant both in the street and among the academia and intellectuals. As a par-
agon of neo-Kemalism, Tunaya sympathized with the progressivism of the 1960s,
and passionately supported the expansion of freedom of speech and rights and
liberties. He would resign from his position as dean of the Faculty of Law of Is-
tanbul University over disagreements on about how to respond to growing stu-
dent militancy in 1969 because he favored a milder reaction to this unrest.⁶⁴
Mete Tunçay recalled in 1981 that “[w]e, that is my generation of scholars
and those younger than us, all came out of Tunaya’s overcoat,” paraphrasing
the metaphor used by Turgenev to explicate the impact of Gogol on 19th century
Russian literature.⁶⁵ Enumerating his colleagues, Tuncay added that “our ideo-
logical proclivities are obviously different,” gauging that Tunaya’s influence
 Suna Kili, Turkey: A Case Study of Political Development (Istanbul: Robert College, 1968);
Suna Kili, Kemalism (Istanbul: Robert College, 1969).
 Erdoğan Teziç, “Nerede Kalmıştık?,” in Tarık Zafer Tunaya’ya Armağan (Istanbul: Istanbul
Barosu Yayınları, 1992), 15.
 Funda Selçuk Şirin, “Türkiye’de Cumhuriyet Tarihçiliği ve Tarık Zafer Tunaya,” in Türk Tar-
ihçileri, ed. Ahmet Şimşek (Ankara: Pegem, 2017), 193.
 Mehmet Ö. Alkan, “Gogol’un Paltosu: Tarık Zafer Tunaya ve ‘Siyasi Partiler,’” Türkiye Araş-
tırmaları Literatür Dergisi 2, no. 1 (2004): 475.
and stature were super-ideological, more interested in archiving the historical re-
cord for posterity.
Positing the Kemalist era as a necessary phase in this trajectory (as “tutelary
regime”), Tunaya historicized it as a phase that was progressive in its time.
Thereby, he fine-tuned Kemalism, interpreting it as playing its role in the prog-
ress of history.⁶⁶ Once acknowledging the transient progressivism of Kemalism
but historicizing this progressivism, for him, as eras change, so do ideologies.
This paradigm also complied with his insertion of the “human” into the course
of history and politics. By outlining a scheme of the course of Westernization, he
also sought to decouple Turkish Westernization from cultural attributes. He pos-
ited the course of Turkish modernization and the core of republican ideal as the
expansion of rights and liberties and the emergence and development of a con-
stitutional idea. For him, republic and Turkish modernization stemmed from En-
lightenment Weltanschauung. Rather than attributing cultural essentialism, Tu-
naya argued that Turkish Westernization was a course of constitutional
developmentalism that had already begun in the 19th century. Whereas Marxists
saw political, social and cultural changes as merely the superstructure of eco-
nomic changes and took economic change to be the motor of change and history,
Tunaya interpreted Westernization primarily as a process of legal adaptation that
also instigated social and cultural after-effects. Yet for him law was not a collec-
tivity of texts codified by legists, but an organic entity reflecting the social and
cultural worlds and ideas. Tunaya synthesized his left-leaning affinities with his
faith in Kemalism as progressivism. Whereas Turkish republicanism was, for Kili,
a non-ideological modernization drive run by the state authority, Tunaya saw the
republic as a progressive project, not necessarily socialist but open to it. His nar-
rative came to establish the hegemonic paradigm in accordance with the post-
1960 political and ideological milieu.
The 1980s brought a reappraisal of Kemalism. It was a decade of breakdown
for the socialist left – not only organizationally due to the brutal suppression by
the military junta (1980 – 1983), but also intellectually and ideologically. After
the gradual relaxation of controls on leftist publishing, new agendas, debated
heatedly in journals and forums that were not strictly political, emerged within
the left. These concerned environmentalism, feminism, homosexuality and advo-
cacy of minority rights, especially thanks to periodicals such as Yeni Gündem and
Nokta. A tilt towards a paradigmatic shift within the left was visible throughout
 Tarık Zafer Tunaya, Türkiye’nin Siyasi Hayatında Batılılaşma Hareketleri (Istanbul: Yedigün
Matbaası, 1960). Also see, Tarık Zafer Tunaya, Hürriyetin Ilanı (Istanbul: Baha Matbaası,
1959); Tarık Zafer Tunaya, Devrim Hareketleri İçinde Atatürk ve Atatürkçülük (Istanbul: Baha Mat-
baası, 1964).
the 1980s.⁶⁷ The agendas and themes of the Western 1968 and the “New Left” fi-
nally reached the Turkish left.⁶⁸ The new political agendas which were conspic-
uously absent in the 1970s included feminism and gender,⁶⁹ Kurdish ethnicity,⁷⁰
homosexuality (not yet LGBT) and non-Muslim minorities. The outright re-
nouncement of accession to the European Economic Community (EEC), which
used to be regarded as a bastion of imperialism, was now questioned. Some fac-
tions in the left came to espouse EEC accession in the name of democratization
and enhancement of civil and political rights and liberties.⁷¹
Whereas Tunaya had outlined a progressive Kemalism, the emerging social-
ist historiography in the 1970s benefited from the Marxist historical materialist
scheme and framed Kemalism as a transiently progressive ideology that was
transcended in the age of socialist ascendancy. These affinities with Kemalism
were later sharply criticized by the revisionist left who implicated the ’68 gener-
ation as mistaking Kemalism for socialism and overlooking its authoritarian and
nationalist aspects. The Third-Worldist impulses of the incipient Turkish left, for
sure, had facilitated the coalescing of socialism and Kemalism. Kemalist nation-
alism was perceived as a progressive force to be aligned with against imperial-
ism.
Accordingly, the socialist interpretation of modern Turkish history overlap-
ped with many Kemalist premises. The Kemalist portrayal of modern Turkish his-
tory, positing an irreconcilable struggle between reaction and progress, well suit-
ed the Marxist paradigm. These socialist interpretations adapted and tilted the
Kemalist historical vistas. This synthesis dominated the socialist scholarly liter-
ature in the two decades spanning from 1960 to 1980. By the 1980s, however, this
legacy would be challenged by a new generation of socialists and Marxists who
viewed this 19th-century positivistic paradigm as distorting Marxism. The revi-
sionist left and later liberals denounced the Old Left, seeing it as completely
 “TKP’nin Öyküsü: 67 Yıllık Efsane,” Nokta 5, no. 41 (18 October 1987). Haydar Kutlu (Nabi
Yağcı), the chairman of the Communist Party of Turkey in exile argued that their political pro-
gram was drastically different from their earlier political programs. See there 14.
 For a comparison between the Turkish ’68 events and the European ’68 events, see Murat
Belge, “‘68 ve Sonrasında Sol Hareket,” Toplum ve Bilim no. 41 (Spring 1988): 153 – 166; Kürşat
Bumin, “68 Türkiye’de Yaşandı mı?” Birikim no. 109 (May 1998): 61– 63; Şahin Alpay, “68
Kuşağı’ Üzerine,” Toplum ve Bilim no. 41 (Spring 1988): 187– 192.
 See Şirin Tekeli, “‘80’lerde Türkiye’de Kadınların Kurtuluşu Hareketinin Gelişimi,” Birikim
no. 3 (July 1989).
 For an overview of the views of the opinion leaders of the Turkish Left on the Kurdish issue,
see “Kürt Sorununa Çözüm: Kritik Karar,” Ikibin’e Doğru 1, no. 32 (9 August 1987): 20 – 25.
 “Solda AT Tartışması: Değişen ve Değişmeyen…,” Ikibin’e Doğru 1, no. 19 (10 May 1987):
20 – 23.
out of the socialist discursive universe and a historical error that needed to be
rectified.
As the 1960 to 1980 intellectual consensus began to crumble, the critique of
this paradigm was powerfully raised. Mete Tunçay (b. 1934), hitherto renowned
for his pioneering studies on the beginnings of Turkish/Ottoman socialism, and
himself a socialist based in Mülkiye (the colloquial name of Ankara University’s
prestigious Faculty of Political Science that has for a long time functioned as a
Turkish version of the French ENA) before being purged by the 1980 junta, pub-
lished a book in 1981 on the consolidation and institutionalization of Kemalist
authoritarianism. This followed his return from a sabbatical in the Hoover library
in Stanford.⁷² The book became a milestone in the nascent Turkish revisionism.
Demonstrating Kemalism’s proneness to authoritarianism, the volume denied it
any room for progressivism. Tunçay and his Doktorsohn Cemil Koçak (b. 1956)⁷³
argued that RPP conceived one-party rule not as a transitory phase but as a per-
manent mode of governance. They argued that the “tutelage” frame served to le-
gitimize Kemalist autocracy by distortingly drawing an inextricable continuity
from the 1930s to the progressivism of the 1960s.⁷⁴ They laid bare the political
undertones of the tutelage discourse. Their anti-Kemalist postures, however,
also inferred political stands, despite these scholars’ claim to speak in the
name of historical objectivity and post-partisanship. They were no less politically
engaged than left-revisionists aiming at challenging the Turkish left’s Kemalist
residue who sought a new direction for the Turkish left that should abandon Sta-
linism, Maoism, Third Worldism, and Kemalism as a form of Third Worldist na-
tionalism.
The positivist and linear narrative of modernization could hold no more. The
revisionist narrative inspired by the linguistic and cultural turns in Western aca-
demia in the 1970s, and the new critical engagement with the modern nation-
states and nationalism, questioned the Kemalist self-portrayal as the only possi-
ble road to Turkish modernization. On top of this, it also argued that Kemalism
 Mete Tunçay, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde Tek-Parti Yönetimi’nin Kurulması (1923 – 1931) (Ankara:
Yurt Yayınları, 1981).
 Koçak is the most prolific scholar of Kemalism from the revisionist perspective. For some of
his prominent works, see Cemil Koçak, Türkiye’de Milli Şef Dönemi:1938 – 1945 (Ankara: Yurt
Yayınları, 1986); Cemil Koçak, Umumi Müfettişlikler (1927 – 1952) (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları,
2003); Cemil Koçak, Belgelerle Iktidar ve Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları,
2006).
 For an assesment of Tunaya’s “constitutionalism” and his reading of modern Turkish/Otto-
man history and history of ideas see Bülent Tanör, one of his foremost protégés, “Prof. Dr. Tarık
Zafer Tunaya’nın ‘Anayasal Gelişme’ Tezi,” Tarık Zafer Tunaya’ya Armağan, 19 – 24.
authoritarianism impeded alternative (and possibly more democratic, progres-

sive and benign) paths of modernization.⁷⁵ Tunçay commenced his groundbreak-
ing book by offering a historiographical take on Tunaya, showing that Tunaya’s
conclusions were deeply embedded in a certain historicity.⁷⁶ Historicizing history
writing itself was a novel approach. Tunçay also trained a new generation of his-
torians of the early Turkish republic who had brought fresh insights. The newly
founded Atatürk Institute at the prestigious Bosphorus University dedicated to
the study of modern Turkish history became a new haven for the revisionist
school where many dissertations critically examined Kemalism, its ideological
core and practices written within this paradigm.
The leftist/revisionist criticism of Kemalism set the mainstays of Turkish
scholarly literature on modern Turkey.⁷⁷ The historians demonstrated the fatal
toll of Kemalism on non-Muslims, Kurds, Alevis, Islamic brotherhoods and all
of those who were excluded from the grace of the new nation-state. Contributing
to delineating the nature of the Kemalist regime and its historical record, these
academic pursuits aimed to dissociate Kemalism from the left in reaction to the
hitherto leftist apologetics of Kemalism. A prospective post-revisionism, howev-
er, needs to reconcile these two paradigms. Recognizing the affinity of the left
and Kemalism, Kemalism can be framed as a path-dependent “national progres-
sive” ideology notwithstanding its authoritarianism and ethnic nationalism.
The new revisionist historiography took the Kemalist propensity of the Turk-
ish left as a historical mistake that needed to be rectified. This was also shown as
a reason for the failure of the Turkish left to garner popular support because this
Kemalist proclivity alienated the larger masses. This chapter, however, argues
that calling this propensity Kemalist may be a misnomer. Such attributions fail
to recognize the resemblances to Western trajectories. Socialism in 19th-century
Europe evolved out of the radicalization of the republican ideology. It repudiated
the moderate, liberal and compromising republican strands. The left and social-
 For Turkish revisionism, see Doğan Gürpınar, “Historical Revisionism vs. Conspiracy Theo-
ries: Transformations of Turkish Historical Scholarship and Conspiracy Theories as a Constitu-
tive Element in Transforming Turkish Nationalism,” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies
14, no. 4 (2013): 412– 433.
 Mete Tunçay, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde Tek-Parti Yönetimi’nin Kurulması, 1– 21.
 Ahmet Demirel, Birinci Meclis’te Muhalefet: Ikinci Grup (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 1994);
Ahmet Demirel, Ali Şükrü Bey’in Tan Gazetesi (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 1996); Ayhan Aktar,
Varlık Vergisi ve “Türkleştirme” Politikaları (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 2000); Ayhan Aktar,
Türk Milliyetçiliği, Gayrımüslimler ve Ekonomik Dönüşüm (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 2006);
Soner Çagaptay, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk? (London:
Routledge, 2006); Rıfat Bali, Cumhuriyet Yıllarında Türkiye Yahudileri: Bir Türkleştirme Serüveni
(1923 – 1945) (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 1999).
ism’s ontological core required secularism and solid anticlericalism as prerequi-

sites. Thus, passages from republicanism to socialism present a recurrent pat-
tern. The difference between the Western and Turkish tracks lay at the substance
of secular republicanism. The fact that Kemalist republicanism put the Turkish
nation at the very center of the republican ontology complicated the picture.
There is apparently a path-dependency, and Turkish socialism shrewdly displays
a Third Worldist pattern. Yet it would still be mistaken to completely disengage
the Turkish path from the European pattern. Turkish socialism could only have
emerged upon the secular and anticlerical republican ontology. The left bore dif-
ferent trajectories in different historical and spatial settings. The Turkish trajec-
tory displays (authoritarian and anti-imperialist nationalist) Third Worldist traits
and patterns. Yet these do not contradict the fact that it leans on a republican
ethos (as Marxism and socialism derived from the radicalization of French re-
publicanism) that blossomed out of Enlightenment commitments, demonstrating
the universality of the Turkish trajectory with path-dependent local nuances.
The Turkish left’s alleged coup-mongering, as best crystallized and constant-
ly recalled in the Yön-Devrim movement of Doğan Avcıoğlu, and its efforts to use
military agency for revolutionary change was shown as another Kemalist affinity
of the Turkish left by the anti-Kemalist revisionist school. Yet this bent is less an
ideological fixation and more a pragmatic, natural and sensible choice when re-
alistic prospects of a socialist takeover relied not on the ballot box but on brute
force. As early as the 1950s, the Free Officers in Egypt included Muslim Brother-
hood members and communist officers. Both of these groups were purged only a
few years after Nasser’s taking of power when he felt capable of eradicating po-
tential threats.
The communist infiltration, maneuvering and organization in the military
was also very robust in the 1960s in the Iraqi army insofar as President
Qasim, being pro-communist, allied with the communist secret cells within
the military to check Baathist penetration within the army.⁷⁸ The communist in-
filtration was most pervasive in the air force. The communist contingent failed in
an attempted coup. Baathists purged the communist contingent once they came
to power. The same was true for Sudan where the Sudanese Communist Party
was the second strongest Arab communist party after their Iraqi comrades.
The communist cells attempted a coup that failed in 1971. Islamist and commu-
nist factions in the Sudanese army rivalled in the next two decades as the Islam-
 Johan Franzen, Red Star Over Iraq: Iraqi Communism Before Saddam (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2011), 126; Tareq Y. Ismael, The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Iraq
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 74– 75.
ists imitated the communists and brought about the Islamist military takeover in
1989 led by Omar al-Bashir.⁷⁹ In Afghanistan, Daoud Khan’s coup terminating
the Afghan monarchy was helped by the communist People’s Democratic
Party of Afghanistan’s (PDPA) military organization, which later took control of
the country eliminating Daoud Khan. In Iran, at the time of Mosaddeq’s short
tenure, allied with him, the secretive Tudeh (Iran’s communist party) command-
ed a contingent in the army ready to take action as nationalist cells were also
organized under the surveillance of the military top brass.⁸⁰ In Somalia and
Ethiopia, communist regimes came to power via coups and military means. Al-
though the extent of involvement of the strong Indonesian Communist Party ben-
efiting from the favorable stance of President Sukarno is contested, in Indonesia,
the aborted coup attempt by the communist-friendly “30th of September Move-
ment” that assassinated six top generals prompted the counter-coup by General
Suharto. This counter move saw the genocidal eradication of communists from
all political and social life including the military in one of the “worst bloodbaths
of the twentieth century.”⁸¹
Thus, this predisposition was not merely opportunism smacking of an au-
thoritarian inclination. It conformed to the communist strategy of organizing
and mobilizing fronts by allying with the progressive and “healthy” forces. Ally-
ing with the progressive forces was not pragmatism and lack of principle but a
deliberate act of building hegemony by “taking over from below” as a time-hon-
ored communist tactic. Indeed, the Soviet Union supported “progressive alli-
ances” as part of the global strategy drafted by the International Department
of the Central Committee of the Soviet communist era at the onset of Khrush-
chev’s tenure.⁸² Therefore, attributing anomaly to the Turkish socialist move-
ment and dissociating it from the socialist movement’s mainstream is inaccurate.
This should also be a caveat when assessing the Turkish left’s approaches to re-
ligion, irreligion and secularism. The intersections, affinities and transitions be-
tween the socialist left and Third Worldist modernizing nationalisms were not
anomalies. So is the Turkish left’s strained relation with Kemalism. Republican-
ism as a moral cosmology, obstinately opposed to the traditional cosmology of
 Willow Berridge, Hasan al-Turabi: Islamist Politics and Democracy in Sudan (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2017), 84.
 Hazem Kandil, The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2016), 48.
 John Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder, The September 30th Movement & Suharto’s Coup D’état
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 4.
 Galia Golan, The Soviet Union and National Liberation Movements in the Third World (Boston:
Unwin Hyman, 1988).
order that fed conservative visions based on hierarchy and authority, was the de-
nominator of this affinity.
8. Conclusion
It is a deep-rooted debate whether anticlericalism and atheism mark a political
stance by themselves. The Turkish conservatives and Islamists, as a strategy to
denounce, mock and disparage Kemalism, seculars and the left, persistently
argue that seculars are mistaking irreligiosity/atheism for a political stance
and ideology. Whereas atheism and irreligiosity are personal convictions, they
argue that, due to their immature political consciousness, seculars, Kemalists
and leftists mistook it as a political stand. Likewise, the revisionist and anti-Kem-
alist historiography that rose after the 1980s denounced Kemalism as an author-
itarian nation-statist ideology that was also assertively secular and did not see
its secularism as a progressive/leftist attribute. Yet, as shown in a historical
and comparative light from the anticlericalism of the 19th century to republican
and communist atheisms of the interwar era, these perspectives failed to grasp
the intricacy of the historical track.
Although socialism had primarily been a project to deliver social and eco-
nomic justice, the left as a political project leaned on a republican ontology
and moral cosmology. Socialism was a derivative of 19th-century radicalism
that was a project to break from the chains of the social, moral and political
order of the ancien régime. Thus, it presented the radicalization of republicanism.
Therefore, it is impossible to dissociate the republican and socialist projects from
each other. The stands against religion and their anticlericalism established the
common denominator crosscutting socialism and republicanism. This chapter of-
fered an overview of some of the intersections of these two ideologies, including
the Enlightenment trope as articulated by intellectuals such as Server Tanilli,
Turkish village novels genre and Tunaya’s reappraisal of Kemalism. These inter-
sections are still relevant for understanding the contemporary reality in an age of
“culture wars.” Benefiting from the morphological approach of Michael Freeden
that “profoundly challenges the notion of clear or fixed boundaries among ideol-
ogies” and goes against “excessive rigidity of structure and conceptual fixity”⁸³
in ideologies, we can further deliberate on the intersections that transgress the
 Michael Freeden, “The Morphological Analysis of Ideology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Po-
litical Ideologies, eds. Michael Freeden, Lyman Tower Sargent and Marc Stears (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013), 115 – 137.
boundaries of socialism and Kemalism as strictly defined ideologies. Future re-

search within global intellectual history perspectives will help us further elabo-
rate on these themes of Turkish intellectual history.
Jan-Markus Vömel
Chapter 9
Global Intellectual Transfers and the
Making of Turkish High Islamism,
c. 1960 – 1995
1. Introduction
From roughly the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, the Muslim world witnessed a rise
in global interconnectedness driven by the upsurge of Islamist politics. Turkish
Islamists also felt encouraged by the global reach of Islamist politics at the
time and took part in all transnational efforts that spanned an imagined Islamist
ummah. Transnational strands of Islamist thought came to Turkey from the early
1960s via translations and magazines like Hilal. ¹ It took another decade, howev-
er, until thinkers like Sayyid Qutb or Abul A’la Mawdudi critically influenced a
younger generation of Islamist thinkers in Turkey. Yet another decade later, the
Iranian Revolution and the Afghan Jihad’s intellectual impact was felt in Turkey.
Saudi-Arabian efforts in transnational Islamist organizing and the Muslim Broth-
erhood’s outreach beyond its home countries were perpetual during all these de-
cades. Key events and global Islamist activities like these had major repercus-
sions in Turkish Islamist intellectual circles.
This chapter, however, argues that strands of globalized Islamism struggled
to gain a foothold in the Turkish Islamist mainstream because the well-establish-
ed local mukaddesatçı Islamist tradition proved to be persistent. These self-con-
tained, indigenous strands of Islamist thought had already come to the fore in
Turkey from the 1950s onwards. The influx of such ideas was consequential nev-
ertheless: Transnational thought transformed the native Islamist tradition, form-
ing a glocalized, specifically Turkish Islamist vernacular during the long 1980s
which I call High Islamism. This study thus argues that global intellectual trans-
fers of Islamism materialized on the ground after undergoing a process of ver-
nacularization and hybridization.
 Alperen Gençosmanoğlu, “Hilal Dergisi ve Hilal Yayınları: Yerli Bir Neşriyat Harekâtı Olarak
Çeviri Faaliyetleri,” in 1960 – 1980 Arası Islamcı Dergiler. Toparlanma ve Çeşitlenme, eds. Vahdet-
tin Işık, Ahmet Köroğlu, and Yusuf Enes Sezgin (Ankara: Nobel Kitap, 2016), 293 – 313.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-010
248 Jan-Markus Vömel
The chapter outlines the main intellectual traits of Turkish mukaddesatçı Is-
lamism, traces how transnational Islamist thought found its way into Turkey and
glances at the impact the new ideas had in Turkish Islamist intellectual circles.
Turkish High Islamism, I argue, emerged from the specifics created in this merger
between locally rooted Islamism and global impulses. High Islamism marked a
phase that was climactic for Islamism in several ways: Islamist self-confidence,
emboldened by the global upsurge of Islamist movements, was at a height; Is-
lamist intellectuals, driven by idealist imagination, created a steady intellectual
output in the form of books, magazines, literature, poetry, or public talks; re-
cruitment and organizational development ramified widely; Islamist media
could reach wide sections of the population. Islamists were certain that tomor-
row was theirs.
The first political successes in the mid-1990s and the rise of a new Islamic-
conservative middle class then ushered in another transformation, ultimately
paving the way to a break from High Islamist dogmas. Islamist thought and in-
tellectual transfers in this era reflected the new outlook. While this transforma-
tion is outside of this chapter’s scope, it underlines once more how Turkish par-
ticipation in the manifold intellectual transfers within transnational Islamism
took shape in the form of creative adaptation of elements that fitted Turkish Is-
lamists’ own intellectual trajectory. The chapter in this way also shows that glob-
al intellectual transfers intensified at times when local paradigmatic shifts in
Turkish Islamism occurred.
Relating to studies of global intellectual history, this chapter provides a per-
spective on the complexity of global patterns on the ground. In both its empirical
foundations and its core argument, the chapter follows recent calls for a global
intellectual history decentered in terms of geographical focus as well as intellec-
tual traditions.² The emergence and intensification of global interconnectedness
was not a simple linear process but materialized on the ground only in interplay
with local factors that often put their own stamp on global intellectual transfers.
Attending to this reciprocal triggering or interplay of local determinants and
global interconnectedness is a key guard against simplistic narrations of global
uniformity. This chapter, in this sense, advocates analytically grasping multiple
 See Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History,” in Global
Intellectual History, eds. Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2013), 3 – 30; Dominic Sachsenmaier and Andrew Sartori, “The Challenge of the Global
in Intellectual History,” in Global History, Globally. Research and Practice around the World,
eds. Sven Beckert and Dominic Sachsenmaier (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 215 – 232; Sanjay
Subrahmanyam, “Global Intellectual History Beyond Hegel and Marx,” History and Theory 54
(2015): 126 – 137.
Chapter 9 Global Intellectual Transfers and the Making of Turkish High Islamism 249
localized Islamisms even at the stage of the highest globality of Islamist intellec-
tual transfers. Ismail Kara, a prominent historian of Turkish Islamism, has noted
that Turkey generally stood on the receiving end of global intellectual transfers
in Islamism.³ My argument outlined on the following pages suggests that one
reason why Turkey did not produce Islamist thought with an impact beyond
its own borders was its specific genealogy from which the local vernacular of
Turkish High Islamism emerged.
2. Intellectual Transfers and Turkish

Mukaddesatçı Islamism
The intellectual formation of Turkish mukaddesatçı Islamism took place between
the 1940s and the 1960s and bore a noticeable imprint of this historical context.
With the boundaries set by the Demokrat Parti’s liberalization in the sphere of
religion, Islamists could thrive in a small sector of the public sphere.⁴ Within
the early Cold War setting, rampant anti-communism offered a discursive avenue
towards basic legitimacy and acceptance of Islamist positions in the public
sphere. Organizations like the Associations for the Struggle Against Communism
(Komünizmle Mücadele Dernekleri) ⁵ provided the first routes for the spread of
ideas outside of small circles. Meanwhile, Islamist intellectuals established
their own means and networks of communication more assertively. These figures
developed a new style of public intellectual activism; mainly in a budding print
sector, but also via public oratory and via gathering a loyal following. For the
Islamist intellectual sphere, the media of choice at the time were magazines
that could be easily distributed, easily printed without much capital, and easily
redeployed in times of conflict with authorities. A first social base was mainly
formed in provincial capitals, which were then toured by mukaddesatçı thinkers.
Islamist intellectuals like Necip Fazıl Kısakürek (1904– 1983), Nureddin
Topçu (1909 – 1975), and later, Sezai Karakoç (1933‐), erected the main pillars
of an idiosyncratic ideology that went far beyond the political sphere into fields
 Ismail Kara, “A Few Notes on Islamist Thoughts and Movements in Turkey,” Sophia Journal of
Asian, African, and Middle Eastern Studies 35 (2017): 131– 159.
 For a general overview of this phase, see Ceren Lord, Religious Politics in Turkey. From the
Birth of the Republic to the AKP (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 163 – 208.
 Ertuğrul Meşe, Komünizmle Mücadele Dernekleri. Türk Sağında Antikomünizmin Inşası (Istan-
bul: Iletişim, 2016).
that concerned cultural foundations and subjectivity of the Turkish Muslim.⁶ At

the core of the intellectual venture of these thinkers lay the creation of a new self
in an individual and collective sense; and, by this means, a civilizational renais-
sance of Turkish-Islamic culture. Turkish mukaddesatçı Islamism was an intellec-
tual undertaking that found in Bergsonism and other currents of European anti-
modernist thought an appropriate means to design a new foundation of a re-
founded Turkish Islamic modernity and subjectivity. Kısakürek and Topçu, the
intellectual prototypes of the era, conducted the intellectual transfers on their
personal initiative and later emerged as the main arbiters of the worldviews
they developed with these transfers.
I use a self-designation to describe both the phase and the characteristics of
Turkish Islamism that first took shape during the 1940s and continued to evolve
until the mid-1970s: mukaddesatçı Islamism. “Mukaddesatçı,” derived from mu-
kaddes (from Arabic, “holy/sacred”) with the suffix for occupation or affiliation,
roughly translates to “someone loyal to the holy and sacred.” “Mukaddesatçı”
was the most popular self-referential term during this period, while “Islamist”
(İslamcı) was only used occasionally. Mukaddesatçı featured prominently in
the discourse of the Islamist parties in the Milli Görüş (“National View”) tradition
with key documents with titles such as “Declaration to the Mukaddesatçı Turk”
(Mukaddesatçı Türk’e Beyanname)⁷ as well in the writings of Necip Fazıl Kısakü-
rek in his typical invocations such as of the “Mukaddesatçı Türk!” or the “mukad-
desatçı ve milliyetçi gençlik” (mukaddesatçı and nationalist youth).
Mukaddesatçı thinkers set out to build the intellectual foundations of their
vision with elements concerning four general interrelated fields: 1) critique of
modernity and especially secularist-rationalist aspects of it; 2) cultural pessi-
mism and theories of (Western) cultural decline; 3) spiritualism, mysticism, in-
tuitionism and metaphysics; and 4) civilizational thought. From this stemmed
a deep interest in Western anti-modernist and anti-rationalist thought of the
early 20th century and the interwar period. Just as in the schools of thought
that Islamists had identified as their main adversaries – positivism, rationalism,
and materialism – intellectual borrowings in emergent Turkish Islamism over-
whelmingly originated from French thought. In the works of both Kısakürek
and Topçu, the two most prominent influences are French philosophers Henri
 For an overview of the two main figures’ life, thought, and activism, see Michelangelo Guida,
“The Founders of Islamism in Republican Turkey: Kısakürek and Topçu,” in The Social Role of
Intellectuals in the Middle East, ed. Mohammed A. Bamyeh (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012), 111– 133.
 Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, “Mukaddesatçı Türk’e Beyanname,” Büyük Doğu 14, no. 6 (November
1969): 8 – 11. Later an altered version appeared under the name of Milli Görüş leader Necmettin
Erbakan in Salname 1390 – 1970, (Istanbul: Aba Neşriyat, 1970), 195 – 204.
Bergson (1859 – 1941) and Maurice Blondel (1861– 1949). Both offered ideas that
seemed appealing within the Islamist project of a reformed Muslim-Turkish self.
Turkish Islamists were not alone with their readings of Western anti-modernist
thought. According to Rashid al-Ghannushi, leader of the Tunisian section of
the Muslim Brotherhood and himself a movement intellectual, Alexis Carrel’s
Man the Unknown,⁸ Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West,⁹ and Arnold Toynbee’s
grand civilizational theories in A Study of History ¹⁰ were popular readings in Is-
lamist circles during the 1960s.¹¹
Both Kısakürek and Topçu spent parts of their young adulthood in Paris –
Kısakürek having a rather troubled time on a government stipend to the Sor-
bonne; Topçu an academically highly productive time in Strasbourg and other
cities. Of the two, Topçu was an adept of Bergson in a more systematic sense,
fitting his more scholarly persona. Kısakürek’s approach in turn was more eclec-
tic, fitting his more effervescent persona. The later role of the two in the Turkish
Islamist movement resembled their intellectual personas. While Kısakürek ap-
pealed to an emotional streak and political practice, Topçu, in turn, appealed
to an intellectualist streak and theoretical thinking.
When Kısakürek and Topçu developed their programs, they could revert to a
long tradition of interest in Bergson going back to the immediate pre-war period
and the foundational years of the republic. Late Ottoman and republican adepts
perceived Bergsonian thought as an answer to materialism, positivism, and ra-
tionalism, against which it offered spiritualism, mysticism, and romanticism.
Bergson, one of his contemporary interpreters in the United States held, had de-
veloped a philosophical system that one would either have to convert to and be-
lieve in like a faith or reject it altogether.¹² Especially Bergson’s attempt to sal-
 On the appropriation of Carrel in Islamist thought, mainly by Sayyid Qutb, see, Frédéric Volpi,
“Understanding the rationale of the Islamic fundamentalists’ political strategies: A pragmatic
reading of their conceptual schemes during the modern era,” Totalitarian Movements and Polit-
ical Religions 1, no. 3 (2000): 73 – 96, here 80 – 85; Youssef Choueiri, Islamic Fundamentalism: The
Story of Islamist Movements, 3rd ed. (London: Continuum, 2010), 186 – 196.
 On an older generation of Islamist thinkers’ contact with Spengler’s work, see Uriya Shavit,
Islamism and the West: From “Cultural Attack” to “Missionary Migrant” (London: Routledge,
2014), 103 – 105, 114– 118.
 On the career of Toynbee’s civilizational thought in the Muslim world and its appropriation
in Islamism, see Cemil Aydın, The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), 192– 199.
 Azzam S. Tamimi, Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat Within Islamism (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2001), 18.
 G. N. Dolson, “The Philosophy of Henri Bergson,” The Philosophical Review 19, no. 6 (Novem-
ber 1910): 579 – 596.
vage the metaphysical against the onslaught of the rationalist-positivist thought

of his day became a point of attraction to non-European intellectuals. Only intu-
ition, not the intellect, would be able to sense a higher truth in the metaphysical
sphere.¹³
Prominent figures in late Ottoman intellectual life like Rıza Tevfik and even
Ziya Gökalp introduced Bergsonian ideas to intellectual circles hitherto dominat-
ed by positivist thought.¹⁴ The small circle of Bergsonists forming at that time
later went on to publish the journal Dergâh, which became a crystallizing
point for nascent conservative republicanism with thinkers like Ismail Hakkı Bal-
tacıoğlu and Peyami Safa.¹⁵ Hilmi Ziya Ülken, in his classic study on the history
of ideas in Turkey, notes that already at this time intellectuals saw congenial
characteristics in Bergsonism and “halk sufiliği” as an expression of a pure
and original expression of national spirit¹⁶ – an important connection that
later reappeared as a foundational motif in both Kısakürek’s and Topçu’s
thought.
Another common element in the thought of Kısakürek and Topçu was their
interest in another French philosopher of the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
Maurice Blondel. In his main work, Blondel developed what was to be called
a “philosophy of action,” motifs of which reappeared frequently in Kısakürek’s
and Topçu’s writings. Similar to Bergson, Blondel contended that a world of posi-
tivism and rationalism must be an empty void. Positive science and the work of
the human intellect, both based on limited human observation of certain phe-
nomena, would always remain piecemeal. As a counterbalance to positivistic
natural sciences, Blondel proposed a science of subjectivity, a science of action.
 On Bergson and his philosophical work, see Vladimir Jankélévitch, Henri Bergson (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2015); Alexandre Lefebvre and Melanie White, eds., Bergson, Politics, and
Religion (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012); Keith Ansell Pearson, Bergson: Thinking Beyond
the Human Condition (London: Bloomsbury, 2018).
 On the general competition of ideas in the late Ottoman period, see M. Sait Özervarlı, “Al-
ternative Approaches to Modernization in the late Ottoman Period: Izmirli Ismail Hakkı’s Reli-
gious Thought Against Materialist Scientism,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 39,
no. 1 (2007): 77– 102; M. Sait Özervarlı, “Intellectual Foundations and Transformations in an Im-
perial City: Istanbul from the Late Ottoman to the Early Republican Periods,” Muslim World 103,
no. 4 (2013): 518 – 534.
 Nazım Irem, “Undercurrents of European Modernity and the Foundations of Modern Turkish
Conservatism: Bergsonism in Retrospect,” Middle Eastern Studies 40, no. 4 (July 2004): 79 – 112;
Nazım Irem, “Bergson and Politics: Ottoman-Turkish Encounters with Innovation,” The Europe-
an Legacy 16, no. 7 (2011): 873 – 882; and Nazım Irem, “Turkish Conservative Modernism: Birth of
a Nationalist Quest for Cultural Renewal,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 1
(February 2002): 87– 112.
 Hilmi Ziya Ülken, Türkiye’de Çagdaş Düşünce Tarihi (Konya: Selçuk Yayınları, 1966), 615 – 627.
In his conception of action, Blondel saw a concretion of abstract metaphysics.

Within action lay a deep, mystic force, driven by will, which brought together ra-
tional comprehension and spiritual-religious experience and thus stood above
intellect.¹⁷
Blondel had not received nearly as much interest in Turkey as Bergson until
Topçu introduced the term and the ideas behind it. Nureddin Topçu’s Hareket
magazine, which he would publish over more than 30 years, in its very first
issue in February 1939, contained Topçu’s own summary of Blondel’s opus mag-
num L’Action under the title Hareket Felsefesi (Philosophy of Movement/Ac-
tion).¹⁸ Hareket was meant as a direct translation of “action.” More than two de-
cades later, Kısakürek began to tour the entire country with a series of speeches
called Iman ve Aksiyon (Faith and Action), which also appeared in print a year
later.¹⁹ Topçu favored a more reclusive style of actionist intellectual intervention
with writing, publishing his magazine, and gathering a small group of younger
adepts, who would also write for the magazine.
Kısakürek, in turn, spoke to large crowds, literally trying to spread the gos-
pel all over Anatolia, gathered a loyal circle of followers for whom he acted as a
prophetic, charismatic guide, while he also utilized his gift as a poet for the mis-
sion. In a section of his Poetika, a key document expounding his vision for ac-
tionist poetry, entitled Poetry and Positive Sciences, Kısakürek stated:
As long as poetry and, together with poetry, pure thought, is not able to accomplish guard-
ianship of the great and eternal unknown (büyük ve ebedi meçhûl) […] in every area that
positivism seized, the imbalance (muvazenesizlik) in people and in the community will
deepen a bit more every moment.²⁰
 On Blondel and his philosophy of action see Michael Sutton, Nationalism, Positivism, and
Catholicism. The Politics of Charles Maurras and French Catholics, 1890 – 1914 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1982), 123 – 162. Ulrich Hommes, Transzendenz und Personalität: Zum Be-
griff der Action bei Maurice Blondel (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1972); Peter Henrici, “Maurice Blon-
del (1861– 1949) und die ‘Philosophie der Aktion’,” in Christliche Philosophie im katholischen
Denken des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1, ed. Emerich Coreth (Graz: Verlag Styria, 1987):
543 – 584.
 Nureddin Topçu, “Hareket Felsefesi,” Hareket. Fikir – Sanat 1, no. 1 (February 1939): 22– 28.
 Recordings of the Iman ve Aksiyon speeches in the audio collection Necip Fazıl Kısakürek,
Kendi Sesinden Konferanslar ve Hitabeler (Istanbul: Büyük Doğu Yayınları, 2011). The first
print edition is Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Iman ve Aksiyon (Istanbul: Bedir Yayınevi, 1964).
 See the section “Şiir ve Müsbet Ilimler” in Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, “Poetika” in his Çile, 19th ed.
(Istanbul: Büyük Doğu Yayınları, 1992 [orig. Bedir Yayınları, 1962]), 471– 499, here 495.
Striving for a purely spiritual experience and arousing emotions via poetry was
thus part and parcel of a larger intellectual mission to counterbalance the prev-
alence of a positivist-rationalist perception of the world. Kısakürek also extended
“action” as an attribute to the great men whom he saw as the makers of world
history. In men of action (aksiyon adamı), he saw greatness in idea and spirit co-
alescing with action – merging to a primordial driving force he wanted to instill
the Turkish nation with.
Given this common background, the intellectual projects of the two men re-
sembled each other in their core themes, besides the difference in style and
methods to proselytize. Both elevated into a central position a true self, a mys-
tic-spiritual essence of the Turkish-Muslim nation that was to be rediscovered,
claimed, and put into political practice. An interrelated semantic field delineated
the basic traits: öz (true self), maneviyat (the spiritual, non-profane, non-world-
ly), ruh (spirit / Geist), şahsiyet (personality), mukaddes (the holy and sacred),
şuur (consciousness), and yet more. Both thinkers located in Anatolian Sufism
the true Turkish-Muslim self; and in Abdülhakim Arvasi and Abdülaziz Bekkine
both met spiritual guides from Nakşibendi Sufi tarikats.
In the thought of Kısakürek and Topçu, Sufism appeared as a means to cre-
ate a mental state fit for noble tasks: A source for mystic inspiration, for personal
discipline, and for şahsiyet – an imagery of an ideal man with upright morals
and firm character. This ideal şahsiyet would be unapologetic, determined,
self-assured, content, resting in one’s self, self-sacrificing if need be, with strict
codes of bodily expression, behavior, and morals founded upon Islam. Only a
new generation of şahsiyetli Muslim Turks (which was often invocated in texts
by the two thinkers) would then be able to muster the strength to lead the nation
back to lost greatness. Reconnecting with a mystic essence and enforcing disci-
plinary elements like Sufi nefs terbiyesi (education of the self) would be instru-
mental to the resurrection as a nation and a civilization.
Mukaddesatçı Islamism, especially its manifestation in the Milli Görüş par-
ties, combined enthusiasm for industrial development and an embrace of polit-
ical ideology with a strong push to roll back other elements of modernity it
viewed as degenerate. It strongly rejected rationalism and ‘cosmopolitan’ politi-
cal ideas alien to the national spirit. Mukaddesatçı thinkers insisted on cultural
essentialisms: Turkish-Islamic culture and the morally bankrupt, spiritually hol-
lowed-out West along with the materialistic communist sphere were ontological-
ly different and opposed by nature. Discipline, order, and the return to the essen-
tial true self culminated in a palingenetic myth of national resurrection. All these
core elements in the mukaddesatçı worldview bear resemblance to what Jeffrey
Herf referred to as reactionary modernism, the central term in his classic inter-
pretation of Weimar right-wing thought.²¹
3. The Turkish Side of Global Islamist

Intellectual Transfers
From the mid-1960s onwards, the impact of transnational Islamism’s main works
flowing into Turkey and the intellectual reverberations of global Islamism’s
eventful upsurge changed the Islamist intellectual milieu in Turkey profoundly.
Its intellectual intake shifted from Europe to the Muslim world and new ideas
came to dominate the intellectual agenda. Additionally, a range of inner-Turkish
factors contributed to change: The political chaos of the 1970s with a situation
resembling a low-intensity civil war pitting warring leftist and far-right factions
against each other; recurring phases of economic instability; and a liberal cultur-
al climate that facilitated questioning the predominant republican postulates.
Widespread politicization had engaged large sections of the population with
the political struggles of the era and their coercion towards ideological affilia-
tion. Global Islamist thought made its first inroads in the hotbeds of urban stu-
dent activism and the contentious street politics it took part in. During the 1970s,
many younger Islamist intellectuals initiated in mukaddesatçı thought went
through a reorientation of their intellectual outlook in a phase dominated by left-
ist discourse. The 1970s thus represented a transformative decade for Turkish Is-
lamism. At its end stood the emergence of a new and transformed Turkish Islam-
ism that was neither the mukaddesatçı traditionalism of the decades before nor
the incoming transnational radicalism.
From the early 1960s until the mid-1970s, a translation effort – partly the out-
come of transnational Islamist networks, partly independent ventures of younger
Turkish Islamists – brought the key texts of transnational Islamism into Turkish.
The first major work appearing in a Turkish translation was Sayyid Qutb’s
(1906 – 1966)²² 1949 book Social Justice in Islam. ²³ Turkish Islamists claimed
that this first translation was encouraged by the Turkish intelligence agency
 Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism. Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the
Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
 The most useful of a large body of works on Qutb is John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins
of Radical Islamism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
 Seyyid Kutub, Islâm’da Sosyal Adalet (Istanbul: Cağaloğlu Yayınları, 1962).
with the intention to counterbalance communist sympathies among university

students.²⁴ An ensuing series of translations in the 1960s of all his major
works introduced Qutb, an Egyptian educator and author, often considered the
most important thinker of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and a mentor of transna-
tional Islamism, to Turkish audiences. His main ideological manifesto Signs on
the Path (Yoldaki İşaretler – closer to the Arabic original Ma’alim fi al-Tariq
than the English titles Signposts or Milestones) appeared in 1966, only two
years after the Arabic original, and saw many editions with different publish-
ers.²⁵ Qutb’s sixteen volume tafsir (Qur’anic commentary) Fî Zılâli’l-Kur’ân (In
the Shadow of the Quran) appeared between 1966 and 1970.²⁶
In the mid-1960s as well, Pakistani Islamist thinker Abu’l-A’la Mawdudi
(1903 – 1979, Turkish Mevdudi),²⁷ whose full oeuvre was available in Turkey with-
in a few years, started to become a similarly influential figure.²⁸ The most suc-
cessful, Four Quranic Terms (1972), was a basic ideological manifesto along
four terms standing for: A monistic, one God-centered worldview (tauhid); an Is-
lamic state; organization of social life according to religious principles; and faith
in a totalizing conception that renders all modern, worldly ideologies obsolete
(ilah, rabb, ’ibadah, and din).²⁹ Mawdudi’s tasfir work Tefhîmu’l-Kur’ân (The
Meaning of the Quran) appeared in 1986.³⁰
Along with the two most influential figures, the thought of other Islamist
thinkers, mainly of Egyptian and Indo-Pakistani origin, found its way to Turkey.
Most prominently, Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna (1906 – 1949);³¹
Muhammad Qutb, who had followed his older brother’s footsteps after Sayyid
was executed; and Muslim Brotherhood ideologue ‘Abd al-Qadir ‘Awda (Turkish:
 Hamza Türkmen, “Seyyid Kutup Türkiye’de Nasıl Algılandı?,” in Türkiye’de Islâmcılık Düşün-
cesi ve Hareketi Sempozyum tebliğleri, eds. Ismail Kara and Asım Öz (Istanbul: Zeytinburnu Be-
lediyesi, 2013), 369 – 378.
 Yücel Bulut, “Türkiye’de Islâmcılık ve Tercüme Faaliyetleri,” in Türkiye’de Islâmcılık Düşün-
cesi ve Hareketi Sempozyum tebliğleri, 339 – 368, here 361.
 Seyyid Kutub, Fi Zilali’l-Kur’an (Istanbul: Hikmet Neşriyat, 1966 – 1970), 16 vols.
 On Mawdudi, see Vali Nasr, Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996) and Roy Jackson, Mawlana Mawdudi and Political Islam: Authority and
the Islamic State (London: Routledge, 2011).
 Bulut, “Türkiye’de Islâmcılık ve Tercüme Faaliyetleri,” 358 – 359.
 Mevdudi [ Mawdudi], Kur’an’a Göre Dört Terim: Ilah, Rab, İbadet ve Din (Konya: Oku Neşriyat
Yurdu, 1972); also published in other editions (Istanbul: Düşünçe Yayınları, 1979; and Istanbul:
Beyan Yayınları 1982).
 Mevdudi [Mawdudi], Tefhimu’l-Kur’an: Kur’an’ın Anlamı ve Tefsiri (Istanbul: Insan Yayınları,
1986), 7 vols.
 Bulut, “Türkiye’de Islâmcılık ve Tercüme Faaliyetleri,” 360 – 361.
Adbulkadir Udeh); British-Indian poet and Muslim-revivalist thinker Muhammad

Iqbal; Muhammad Hamidullah, an erudite in Islamic history known for his con-
cept of an Islamic state³²; and Abu’l Hassan ‘Ali Nadwi, an Indian Ulama-intel-
lectual whose work linked Arab and Indo-Pakistani Islamism.
With these texts, the core body of transnational Islamist thought was avail-
able in Turkish by the end of the 1970s. Hilal Yayınları (Crescent Publishers), a
prolific publishing house with close links to the Saudi-financed Rabitat al-
Alam al-Islami (Muslim World League), was behind the first wave of publication
activity for transnational Islamism in Turkey.³³ Salih Özcan, its founder, also
published Hilal Dergisi (Crescent Magazine), an influential monthly that often
featured shorter writings of the main figures in transnational Islamist thought.³⁴
After this, only one major group of Islamist works followed. With the 1979
Islamic revolution in Iran, interest in Iranian Islamism rose. Khomeini’s works
entered the Turkish canon along with Ali Shariati, who differed from the Islamist
mainstream with his revolutionary, Shiite brand of Islamism and socialist Third-
Worldist leanings.³⁵ In the 1980s and 1990s, the program of Islamist publishers
diversified and Islamist thought in more intellectually inclined varieties found its
way to Turkey.
The Islamist canon that reached Turkey from the 1960s onwards had com-
mon characteristics. Leaving the differences in ideology and method aside, the
most important works all stipulated outlines of a holistic worldview, formulated
guidelines for activism, and cultivated critiques of Western modernity and cur-
rent Muslim politics, culture, and economy, mostly in relation to the Western mir-
ror image. First Mawdudi, Nadwi, and later Qutb originated a concept called Ja-
hiliyya that likened the current state of Muslim countries to the period prior to
the coming of Islam, which ended ignorance and idolatry. With this link, resis-
tance against the governments of Muslim countries became an obligation for
every Muslim as the second coming of Islam would bring salvation and usher
in a new golden age of Islamic civilization. Especially Mawdudi and Qutb’s
 On Hamidullah’s The Muslim Conduct of State, see Bassam Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamen-
talism. Political Islam and the New World Disorder (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2002), 138 – 178.
 Behlül Özkan, “The Cold War-era Origins of Islamism in Turkey and its Rise to Power,” Cur-
rent Trends in Islamist Ideology,” 11/5/2017; available online at https://www.hudson.org/re-
search/13807-the-cold-war-era-origins-of-islamism-in-turkey-and-its-rise-to-power.
 Ahmet Özer, Seyyid Salih Ozcan – Bediuzzaman’in Hariciye Vekili (Istanbul: Işık Yayınları,
2011).
 On Shariati and his thought, see Ali Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian. A Political Biography of
Ali Shariati (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998). Ali Gheissari, Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Cen-
tury (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998).
main tractates had an easy, accessible style and were intended as ideological
guidelines for the nascent Islamist movements in their respective countries,
sometimes even as practical field manuals for these movements.
Transnational Islamist thought claimed that Islam was a system that extend-
ed to politics, the economy, society, and all possible aspects of culture. This can
be traced to the earliest works in the genealogy of Islamist thought and was ela-
borated more and more by following generations. Hasan al-Banna, who was ac-
tive from the mid-1930s to his assassination in 1949, had never published a larger
ideological work, but his speeches and articles already formulated an idea of
Islam as a holistic system. In his Collected Tracts, he wrote “We believe that
Islam is an all-embracing concept which regulates all aspects of life, providing
for every one of its concerns and prescribing for it a fixed and detailed
order.”³⁶ The key proposition of later Islamist thought was there already: Islam
was not just a religion but a comprehensive, all-embracing order, regulating
all aspects of life. Al-Banna also used the term Nizam for this order.³⁷ So did
Mawdudi, who spoke of the Revival of the Islamic Order (Ihya’-i Nizam-i Islami),³⁸
and later Qutb, who also used Nizam to delineate an “‘integrated system’ or
‘closed order’ encompassing the realms of society, the economy, and politics”³⁹
as Qutb-biographer John Calvert put it. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, in a classical cri-
tique of religious studies, had already pointed out that Nizam was not a Quranic
term but a more recent one and that the idea of Islam providing a system which
orders life was also a modern one.⁴⁰
All major thinkers of Islamism advanced a similar holistic view of Islam, al-
though Mawdudi was probably the one who was conceptually the most elabo-
rate. As Veli Nasr and Jan-Peter Hartung in their studies of Mawdudi’s thought
write, the totalizing conception of din (religion/faith) Mawdudi developed in
his work was a synonym for Islam as a system.⁴¹ In this view, Islam was not
just a normal religion, but a din, an all-encompassing, universal order of life
that is sanctioned by divine revelation and perfectly fits human nature. For Maw-
dudi, this was true Islam, not just another characteristic of it, but the very es-
 After Gudrun Krämer, Hasan al-Banna (Oxford: Oneworld, 2010), 107.

 Krämer, Hasan al-Banna 107.
 Nasr, Mawdudi, 56.
 Calvert, Sayyid Qutb, 130. Also, William E. Shepard, “Islam as a ‘System’ in the Later Writings
of Sayyid Qutb,” Middle East Studies 25, no. 1 (1989): 31– 50.
 Calvert, Sayyid Qutb, 130 citing Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion
(New York: Mentor Books, 1964), 105 – 107.
 Jan-Peter Hartung, A System of Life: Mawdudi and the Ideologisation of Islam (London: Hurst,
2013).
sence, setting apart Islam from all other religions that were just religions, not
din. Even though this drew a lot of criticism as neglecting the spiritual and salva-
tional dimensions of Islam, the concept remained influential and diffused into
common Islamist usage, often without knowledge of its originator.⁴² Many Islam-
ists directly stated that Islam was their ideology. Other adepts gave it another
twist and claimed theirs was a “non-ideology ideology” because Islam as
God’s revelation supersedes all man-made ideologies.
However, the new thinking was by no means uncontroversial. When transla-
tions of the great work of transnational Islamism appeared in Turkey, mukadde-
satçı ideologues were unimpressed. Kısakürek lambasted Mawdudi as a “dwarf-
minded thinker” who would envision an Islam just for “the lower tier and the
ragtag” and Qutb as “a miserable” who had too much of an interest in socialism
and dared to malign the Third Caliph Uthman.⁴³ Ahmet Davudoğlu (1912– 1983),
an Islamic scholar, rallied against all reformist schools, of which he also counted
Mawdudi and some Turkish figures.⁴⁴ Mukaddesatçı Islamists complained that
Qutb and Mawdudi disregarded the traditional schools of Islamic learning
(madhhab) and wanted to create a new meta-madhhab of their own. Transnation-
al Islamism disregarded Sufism, abjured traditional authorities like Sufi sheiks,
and did not appreciate the spiritual-mystic dimensions of Islam that had been so
crucial to mukaddesatçı Islamism. In the mukaddesatçı verdict, this amounted to
rootless, baseless innovation and usurpation of faith.
In turn, the adepts of Qutb and Mawdudi blamed the other side for clinging
to overcome traditions that were not able to provide answers to the modern
world and had no Quranic authority.⁴⁵ For them, many of their fellow Turkish Is-
lamists remained in a state of underdeveloped Islamic consciousness and would
inevitably fail to realize the full potential of Islam. Besides this, some possible
feelings of rivalry for sovereignty in the Islamist sphere might have played in.
Yet another, most critical disagreement was not voiced openly: Qutbist thought
saw the nation and all its manifestations as part of the modern Jahilliya, which
 Nasr, Mawdudi, 64; Jackson, Mawlana Mawdudi, 114– 115.

 Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Doğru Yolun Sapık Kolları (Istanbul: Büyük Doğu Yayınları, 1996),
153– 155.
 Ahmet Davudoğlu, Dini Tamir Davasında Din Tahripçileri (Istanbul: Yaylacık Yayınları, 1974 –
with many other editions and reprints).
 Hamza Türkmen, “Seyyid Kutup Türkiye’de Nasıl Algılandı?” and Abdulhamit Birişik,
“Mevdûdî Islâmcılığının Türkiye’ye Giriş Biçimi ve Türkiye Islâmcılığına Etkisi,” both in Tür-
kiye’de Islâmcılık Düşüncesi ve Hareketi Sempozyum tebliğleri, 369 – 378 and 379 – 403, respective-
ly.
had to be overcome, while the Turkish traditionalist school had constructed a

Turkish-Islamic vision with nationalist undertones.
4. A Vernacular of Global Islamism: Turkish High

Islamism
The attraction of transnational Islamism was strongly felt in Turkey during the
period from the 1970s to roughly the mid-1990s. It made inroads among groups
of university students, intellectual circles around a bookstore or a magazine, and
parts of the religious establishment. However, purist interpretations of Qutb and
Mawdudi’s thought always remained marginal and confined to small circles. I
argue that the impact of the transformative 1970s was crucial nevertheless – it
transformed the Turkish tradition of mukaddesatçı Islamism. The merger be-
tween the two seemed unlikely at first but proved significant in hindsight: Mu-
kaddesatçı Islamism provided flesh to the bone of the idealist transnational cur-
rent with its Turkist appeal and its organizational and intellectual rootedness;
the transnational current, in turn, provided Turkish Islamism with universalism,
a broader scope and outlook, and social disciplinary tools. Transnational Islam-
ism was localized in Turkey via its interaction with older Turkish Islamism,
which took some of the explosive potentials out of transnational radicalism
pushing for radical social and political change, as the mukaddesatçı mainstream
had always been a non-revolutionary blend with conservative nationalism.
Indeed, nationalism had been a crucial question that also marked dividing
lines in the new High Islamist vernacular. Semantical demarcations like Müslü-
man Türk (Muslim Turk) or Türkiyeli Müslümanlar (Turkish Muslims) could serve
as internal codes within High Islamism that showed allegiance to either the older
“national” Turkish school or a more refined global outlook.⁴⁶ Consequentially,
the Kurdish question was a litmus test for different allegiances. The mainstream
mostly steered clear of the issue, speaking in veiled references of Islamic broth-
erhood within Turkey while hoping that their relatively toned-down nationalism
would still retain their electability for Kurdish voters. In contrast, smaller intel-
lectually inclined or internationalist groups could engage with pro-Kurdish posi-
tions and even adopt them. In this way, transnational Islamist thought could
function locally as a discursive tool in an inner-Turkish reckoning with statist or-
thodoxies and overarching nationalism.
 Hamza Türkmen, Türkiye’de Islamcılık ve Özeleştiri (Istanbul: Ekin Yayınları, 2012), 103.
This new Islamism marked in several regards a climax of Islamism in Tur-

key: social mobilization, political success, but also intellectual activity was at
a height that was not reached before and never again thereafter. Islamism, dur-
ing the long 1980s, was arguably the most dynamic cultural, social, and political
force in Turkey. A unique Turkish Islamist vernacular marked this phase of High
Islamism: Without ever fully renouncing the intellectual heritage of its mukadda-
satçı traditions, mainstream Turkish Islamists took part in the global transfer of
Islamist ideas and its interconnected movements.
From the 1970s onwards, intensified interactions in Muslim world politics
were felt in Turkey as well. The Iranian Revolution of 1979; the Afghan Jihad
against the Soviet invasion beginning in 1979 and continuing through the entire
1980s; the 1982 Hama uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria; the Gulf War
of 1991; the Bosnia and Balkan Civil Wars starting in 1992; and the Chechen Wars
in the mid-1990s all had catalyzing effects on Muslim world politics in Turkey.
Three main actors in Islamist internationalism contributed to expanding trans-
national Islamist networks: Saudi transnational activities with a height during
the reign of King Faisal (1964 – 1975) and continuing ever since; the Iranian rev-
olutionary internationalism that had won a small but influential following with
Turkish Islamist intellectuals during the 1980s but lost influence rapidly there-
after; and – the least investigated of the three – Turkish connections to the Mus-
lim Brotherhood and its networks outside of its home countries. All of this con-
stituted an intellectual gravitational field for Turkish Islamists, but also
emerging personal networks facilitated intellectual transfers. Turkish Islamists
began to observe Islamist movements worldwide with increasing closeness
over time and drew more and more self-confidence from their self-perception
as part of a global movement.
The setting inside Turkey had changed considerably, too. Abrupt urbaniza-
tion created new sections of urban poor and upwardly mobile soon-to-be middle
classes. Among these strata, Islamists could make substantial inroads.⁴⁷ The po-
litical climate in the post-coup setting was favorable as well. The September 1980
coup had targeted grassroots politics and crippled mainly the left. Within the
new state-sanctioned ideological guideline of the Türk-Islam Sentezi, the state
adopted the most lenient stance towards Islamist publications and organizing
in republican history. At the same time, access to all kinds of media increased
sharply – manifest in a flourishing Islamist print sector and attempts to move
into other media as well.
 This transformation was analyzed most prominently in Cihan Tuğal’s Passive Revolution: Ab-
sorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009).
Mainstream Islamism in Turkey developed its own internationalism in the

1980s and 1990s. The Milli Gazete, mukaddesatçı Islamism’s main press organ,
celebrated the few Turkish Islamists who participated in the global struggles
of the Islamist ummah with lengthy eulogies. Erdem Bayazıt, a poet-activist
from an Islamist literary circle influenced by the late Kısakürek, traveled to Af-
ghanistan with a group of documentary filmmakers and later published a
book, poems, and articles on it.⁴⁸ Turkish Islamists began to fantasize about
founding an alternative Muslim United Nations or an alternative European
Union. During the short-lived Milli Görüş-led coalition government (1996 –
1997), Prime Minister Erbakan pushed for an organization for economic cooper-
ation between Muslim developing nations, which was later founded as the D-8
(Developing Eight) organization.⁴⁹ Islamist publications at the time overflowed
with news and reports on other parts of the Muslim world – interest in interna-
tional Muslim affairs was at a height.
Particular elements in Turkish Islamist intellectual life could bridge mukad-
desatçı thought and the new internationalism and thus serve as a transitional
and interconnecting motif. Civilizational thinking was one of those elements. Al-
most single-handedly introduced by Sezai Karakoç, who dwelled on the theme
for decades, it became standard currency in Islamist intellectual discourse dur-
ing the 1970s and 1980s. As Cemil Aydın and Burhanettin Duran suggested, Kar-
akoç creatively adopted Toynbeean civilizationalism. He argued that Western civ-
ilization was built on shaky ground because it neglects metaphysical
foundations that human nature inevitably seeks to instill meaning in its own ex-
istence. Islamic civilization offered a more well-balanced model and was, there-
fore, able to experience a renaissance (diriliş) if it learned to think on its own
terms again.⁵⁰ The palingenetic myth of resurgence was not imagined in national
terms anymore, but rather as a resurgence of the Muslim world with Turkey tak-
ing a leading role in the process.
Karakoç stood between two generations of Islamists in Turkey and can be
seen as a mediating figure: Personally close to mukadessatçı thinkers, he offered
 Erdem Bayazıt, Ipek Yolundan Afganistan’a (Istanbul: Akabe Yayınları, 1985).

 “D8 nedir? D8’lerin fikir babası Erbakan Hoca anlatıyor,” Milli Gazete, 20 October 2017, avail-
able online at https://www.milligazete.com.tr/haber/1276611/d8-nedir-d8lerin-fikir-babasi-erba-
kan-hoca-anlatiyor.
 Cemil Aydın and Burhanettin Duran, “Arnold J. Toynbee and Islamism in Cold War–Era Tur-
key: Civilizationism in the Writings of Sezai Karakoç,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa
and the Middle East 35, no. 2 (2015): 310 – 323; Cemil Aydın, “Between Occidentalism and the
Global Left: Islamist Critiques of the West in Turkey,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa
and the Middle East 26, no. 3 (2006): 446 – 461.
a much more universalist message in his very own idiosyncratic intellectual proj-
ect that appealed to many younger Islamist activists in the 1970s. His ideas ulti-
mately aimed at a broader Muslim civilizational unit and advocated developing a
discrete Islamic worldview via Islamic sciences (ilim) and intellectual activity.
Few translated works fitted this vision, perhaps except for Bosnian leader and
philosopher Alija Izetbegović’s “Islam between East and West” (Doğu ve Batı
Arasında İslam), in which he argued that of the world’s great civilizations only
Islam offered an equilibrium between materialism and spirituality that fitted
human nature.⁵¹ Civilizationalism remained a distinct current in Turkish Islamist
thought.
A typical intellectual transfer linking Turkey to international currents of Is-
lamist thought was behind the emergence of Islamic economics. Mukaddesatçı
thought had contended itself with deliberations on whether socialism or capital-
ism was closer to Islam. Later on, the holistic approach of transnational Islam-
ism assumed that Islam as a perfect system also included its own economic sys-
tem. Muhammad Hamidullah’s pioneering work in the field along with few
others had appeared in Turkish already with the first wave of translations in
the early 1960s.⁵² At the end of the decade, Hamidullah held several lectures
in Istanbul that inspired a core group of Turkish activists to engage with the
topic.⁵³ From among the listeners emerged a small group of adepts who later
authored the most important works on Islamic economics in Turkish.⁵⁴ Among
them were economist Beşir Hamitoğulları, economic historian Ahmet Tabakoğlu,
theologian Hamdi Döndüren, and Sabahattin Zaim, a professor of labor econom-
ics. Zaim represented Turkey in the international networking efforts that had
taken up the mission to collectively develop the intellectual foundations for
the Islamic economy.⁵⁵ During the era of High Islamism, the economy had
then become a primary concern for Islamists.
In general terms, Turkish Islamism in this era devoted more intellectual en-
ergies to the holistic framework that was purported by transnational Islamist
 Ali Izzetbegoviç [Alija Izetbegović], Doğu ve Batı Arasında Islam (Istanbul: Nehir Yayınları,
1987).
 Muhammed Hamidullah, Modern Iktisat ve Islam (Istanbul: Yağmur Yayınları, 1963); Ebu-l-
A’la-El-Mevdudi, Islam’da İktisat Nizamı (Insanlığın Iktisadi Meselesi ve Islamda Çözüm Şekli) (Is-
tanbul: Hilal Yayınları, 1966).
 Sabahattin Zaim, Hayatım ve Türkiye (Istanbul: Timaş Yayınları, 2015), 81 ff.
 M. Ömer Çapra, Islam’da Iktisadi Nizam (Istanbul: Sebil Yayınevi, 1977); Sabahaddin Zaim,
Islam ve Iktisadi Nizam (Istanbul: Teknik Elemanlar Birliği, 1979); Ahmet Debbağoğlu, Islam Ik-
tisadına Giriş (Istanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 1979).
 Zaim, Hayatım, 81 ff.
thought. After stating that Islam was a “perfect system,” containing provisions
for cultural, economic, social, and political order, Islamists often felt the need
to undergird their own expansive claims. Mukaddesatçı Islamists had based
their political views on Islam as well, but their outlook needed to maintain a
pristine mystic-spiritual sphere. Transnational Islamism’s conception of Islam
was oriented on the need to provide a holistic general order. In Turkish High Is-
lamism too, drier, rule-based, functionalistic takes on religion became more
common than before.
Another distinct feature of High Islamism lay in its heightened interest in so-
cial disciplinary functions of Islamic provisions aiming at the subject. Islamists
at the time were busy with constructing a micro-regulatory web based on Islamic
scripture and took great pains to make this web all-encompassing, dense, and
universally applicable. No aspect of human life, no bodily activity should be
left uncovered by this web. Interaction between the genders saw the utmost at-
tention. A curious sideline of this was the obsessive treatment of sexual behav-
ior. Undertakings of this sort could cause some scandal as happened when Ali
Rıza Demircan in the mid-1980s published his two-volume compendium “Sexual
Life According to Islam” (Islam’a Göre Cinsel Hayat), which was fiercely attacked
by both conservatives and secularists but accepted in Islamist circles. Material
that provided guidance and/or disciplinary content had high currency: Religious
scholars affiliated with the Islamist movement during High Islamism released
more Quranic commentary, fatwa collections, and ilmihal catechisms than be-
fore.
During the phase of High Islamism, mainstream Islamist organizations like
the Milli Görüş parties emancipated themselves from the Sufi contexts from
which they had emerged. Earlier half-clandestine organizing based on Sufi lead-
ership had a functional role in the formative period while stronger pressure by
the authorities had become superfluous with the new possibilities of the post-
1980 setting. With the new ideas coming in via transnational Islamism, Turkish
Islamism’s strong reliance on Sufism was also fading intellectually. However,
given its genealogy, the Turkish Islamist mainstream also never adopted the ag-
gressive anti-Sufi impulse of transnational Islamism. Similarly, mukaddesatçı Is-
lamism’s pro-Ottoman and Turkey-centric stances also faded without ever fully
disappearing.
Turkish High Islamism was furthermore accompanied by the rise of a new
type of Islamist intellectual. Unlike the urban elite figures who had led mukad-
desatçı thought, these intellectuals mostly were young men who had recently
emigrated from the provinces to study in one of the main cities. They were ini-
tiated in mukaddesatçı Islamist thought and activism either in their provincial
homes or after arriving in the metropoles but had then also engaged with the
transnational currents in a more uninhibited way. In terms of personal style, the

leadership model of charismatic towering figures in Islamism was passé and a
much broader and more equal intellectual scene emerged. Reading circles, sym-
posia, and associations for intellectual activities replaced the earlier small avant-
gardist circles modeled after the Sufi mürşit-mürit model (leader-disciple). In this
new intellectual milieu, several female Islamist activists and intellectuals like
Emine Şenlikoğlu, Fatma Barbarosoğlu, Cihan Aktaş, and more occupied a
broader space as well, unlike earlier singular figures like Şule Yüksel Şenler.⁵⁶
Typical intellectuals shaped by this development were Sedat Yenigün, Ali
Bulaç, or the circle around the literary magazine Mavera (Cahit Zarifoğlu, Meh-
met Akif Inan, Erdem Bayazıt, Rasim and Alâeddin Özdenören, Nuri Pakdil).
These new intellectuals often combined mukaddesatçı spiritualism and its incli-
nation for poetry with internationalist sensitivity. Unlike dominant figures in
other countries, the typical Turkish Islamist thinker was not a religious scholar
or jurist but a man of letters. These new intellectuals produced a broad and
steady intellectual output.
During the years of High Islamism, mukadessatçı-isms did not disappear,
neither did reverence for their intellectual originators. At times, Turkish High Is-
lamist intellectuals invoked Islam in relation to earlier elements like national
unity and identity, sense of mission, more rarely, spiritual upliftment, and mystic
experience, just like mukadessatçı leaders had done. Without feeling any contra-
diction, Turkish Islamists saw themselves as part of a global Islamist upsurge
and tried to keep pace with transnational Islamist thought, often echoing ideals
stemming from there. Turkish High Islamism thus represented an ideal-typical
case of hybridization and vernacularization taking place at the local end of glob-
al intellectual transfers. Investigations into the intricacies of transfer processes
corroborate this view. In practice, even those Islamist publications with the high-
est emphasis on transnational thought embedded translations in local content as
a vernacularization strategy.⁵⁷
Islamist intellectuals of the High Islamist era developed a unique discourse
that neither featured the older mukaddesatçı themes nor resembled the exegeti-
cal style of influential works in global Islamism. With these works, it only shared
a more abstract, dislocated, ahistorical understanding of Islam. Its core impetus
was in an Islamization of life, thought, and perception. From mukaddesatçı
 Ipek Merçil, “Les Intellectuelles Islamistes en Turquie Contemporaine,” PhD thesis, Ecole
des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris 2001; Ipek Merçil, “Islâmcı Kadın Aydınlar,”
Tarih ve Toplum 37, no. 219 (2002): 61– 65.
 Sema Üstün Külünk, “Recontextualizing Turkish Islamist Discourse: Hilal (1958– 1980) as a
Site of Translational Repertoire Construction,” PhD thesis, Boğaziçi University, 2019.
thought, it had inhered a focus on constructing an authentic Muslim subjectivity,

but it approached the field in a more refined ontological stance. Before building
a new identity or determination, etc. it was essential to first think and feel like a
Muslim. The prominent role of poetry went from establishing mystical intuition
to creating Islamic sensibilities (Islami hassasiyetler) as a basis for a general Is-
lamic perception of the world. This intellectual outlook was as committed to uni-
versalism as it was embedded in the Turkish context.
Transformations within the Islamic milieu like the rise of an Islamic-conser-
vative bourgeoisie, along with political impasses led parts of the political main-
stream in Turkish High Islamism on a path of integration with the system and a
move towards established positions of the republican center-right. Along with
more mundane stances of the Milli Görüş ideology, the emerging post-Islamist
model broke with the main dogmatic premises of High Islamism – most impor-
tantly, holistic notions of Islam as a perfect system. The ensuing search for an
intellectual foundation led to reformist, undogmatic writings of thinkers like Ira-
nian Abdolkarim Soroush and Pakistani Fazlur Rahman. From the beginning of
the 1990s until the end of the decade, a series of works by both Soroush⁵⁸ and
Rahman⁵⁹ were translated into Turkish. Particularly important for challenging
the idea of an Islamic state was Sudanese Abdelwahab El-Affendi’s ‘Who
Needs an Islamic State?’ (Nasɪl bir Devlet?)⁶⁰ that appeared in a Turkish transla-
tion in 1994.⁶¹ The Moroccan philosopher Mohammad Abed al-Jabiri’s critique of
the paralysis of Muslim thought appeared in Turkish during the late 1990s.⁶²
 Turkish translations of Abdolkarim Soroush [tr. Abdulkerim Suruş / Abdülkerim Süruş] up to

the year 2000: Evrenin Yatışmaz Yapısı (Ihsan Yay. 1984); Biz Hangi Dünyada Yaşıyoruz (Seçkin
Yayıncılık, 1986); Kim Savaşım Verebilir (Seçkin Yayıncılık, 1988); Dini Düşüncenin Yeniden Kur-
ulması ve Dr. Ali Şeriati (Kıyam Yayıncılık, 1989); Ilim Ve Felsefeye Giriş (Endişe Yayınları, 1990);
Ilerici Gericilik (Kıyam Yayıncılık, 1990); Aydın’lık ve Dindarlık (Ruşenfikrî ve Dindarî) (Kıyam
Yayıncılık, 1990); Peygamberler Aydınların Önderleri (Kıyam Yayıncılık, 1990).
 Turkish translations of Fazlur Rahman up to the year 2000: Islam, Selçuk Yayınları, 1980;
Ana Konularıyla Kur’an, Fecr Yayınevi, 1987; Islam ve Çağdaşlık, Fecr Yayınları, 1990; Tarih Boy-
unca Islami Metodoloji Sorunu, Ankara Okulu Yayınları, 1995; Allahın Elçisi ve Mesajı, Ankara
Okulu Yayınları, 1997; Islami Yenilenme Makaleler II, Ankara Okulu Yayınları, 1999.
 On this influential text, see Halil Ibrahim Yenigün, “The new antinomies of the Islamic
movement in post-Gezi Turkey: Islamism vs. Muslimism,” Turkish Studies 18, no 2 (2017): 229 –
250.
 Abdulvahhab el Efendi, Turabi Devrimi: Sudan’da Islam ve Iktidar (Istanbul: Ilke, 1993); Nasıl
Bir Devlet (Istanbul: Ilke Yayıncılık, 1994).
 Muhammed Abid El-Cabiri, Arap Aklının Oluşumu (Istanbul: Iz Yayıncılık, 1997); Arap Islam
Kültürünün Akıl Yapısı / Arap-Islam Kültüründeki Bilgi Sistemlerinin Eleştirel Bir Analizi (Istanbul:
Kitabevi, 1999).
It fitted the intellectual agenda of the day as a challenge to older ideological,

dogmatic stances of all kinds. While maintaining the primacy of religion and rev-
elation in their world view, this line of thought did so in a non-ideological, non-
textual, historicist, and intellectualist way. Participants on the Turkish side of
this intellectual transfer included prominent figures that would later emerge
as the intellectual backbone of the Milli Görüş breakaway Adalet ve Kalkınma
Partisi (AKP, Justice and Development Party).⁶³ Yalçın Akdoğan, the main theorist
of the AKP’s muhafazakar demokrasi (conservative democracy) edited Turkish
editions of Abdolkarim Soroush.⁶⁴ In 1997, the Istanbul municipality organized
a large conference on Fazlur Rahman. The conference featured several speakers
who would later end up in AKP ranks as members of parliament, ministers, or in
its wider sphere as intellectuals and academics supportive of the AKP. Proceed-
ings of the conference appeared soon after with a foreword by the then Istanbul
mayor Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.⁶⁵
While the works of yet more reformist thinkers flowed into Turkey after
2000,⁶⁶ the search for intellectual foundations seemed to have faded quickly
in circles affiliated with the soon-to-be governing party AKP. Islamist intellectu-
alism continued in much more marginal fashion outside those ranks, at times
bringing about altogether new currents, like the Antikapitalist Müslümanlar for
which writer Ihsan Eliaçık gained some notoriety.
5. Conclusion
A glance at intellectual borrowings shaping Turkish Islamism after 1950 reveals a
general pattern: Global intellectual searches intensified in times of transforma-
 On Post-Islamist as an analytical concept see Asef Bayat, “The Coming of a Post-Islamist So-
ciety,” Critique: Critical Middle East Studies 5, no. 9 (1996): 43 – 52 and Asef Bayat, ed., Post-Is-
lamism. The Many Faces of Political Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); along with
Cihan Tuğal’s contribution to that volume, “Islam and the Retrenchment of Turkish Conserva-
tism,” 109 – 133. Neslihan Çevik and Halil Ibrahim Yenigün argued along similar lines but pro-
posed the alternative term ‘Muslimism.’ See Neslihan Çevik, Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond
(Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Yenigün, “The new antinomies of the Islamic
movement.”
 Yalçın Akdoğan and Kenan Çamurcu, Modern Durum ve Dini Bilginin Evrimi (Istanbul: Pen-
dik Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 1995).
 Islam ve Modernizm “Fazlur Rahman Tecrübesi” (Istanbul: Istanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi,
1997).
 Works of other reformist thinkers like Abd al-Salam Yasin (Abdusselam Yasin) or Nasr Hamid
Ebu Zeyd came to Turkey only after 2000.
tion when a local need for new intellectual foundation and self-placement was
felt. Intellectual borrowings occurred exactly at those transformative stages
and occasionally helped to induce those transformations as well. As outlined
in this chapter, these transformative stages were: First, when a group of thinkers
inspired by Sufi leaders took on the mission to establish a new Islamism in the
republican context; second, when a global wave of Islamist thought and Muslim
world politics hit Turkey, resulting in a glocal vernacular; and third, when a fac-
tion of Turkey’s High Islamist activists in the mid-1990s began to prepare the
ground for a new pragmatic model of Islamist thought and practice.
As initially mentioned, during all periods and transformations Turkish Is-
lamism underwent, a striking fact can be observed: Turkish Islamism was almost
exclusively on the receiving end of the global transfer of Islamist ideas. The cru-
cial works of global Islamist thought were read and discussed in Turkey, but no
Turkish Islamist thinker, no matter how popular in Turkey, found an echo in
other parts of the Muslim world. International audiences remained oblivious
to Turkish Islamist thought and later research on transnational Islamism repro-
duced this blind spot. The arguments in this chapter, especially the Turkey-spe-
cific genealogy of Islamist thought from Turkish mukaddesatçı Islamism and the
later merger between mukaddesatçı-ism and transnational Islamism, present a
clue as to why that was: Turkish mukaddesatçı thought had developed in a rather
self-contained way with selective borrowings from European, mainly French,
anti-modernist thought. At the time when Turkish Islamists connected with
transnational currents, other Islamisms, native and non-native, had come to
take root in other regions of the Muslim world. Axiomatic differences, mainly
the harsh stance of transnational Islamism against Sufism and traditional
forms of Islam and Islamic authority then created barriers against Turkish intel-
lectual products of both mukaddesatçı Islamism and the High Islamist merger.
Regardless, global intellectual history can profit in several ways by engaging
with the Turkish side of intellectual transfers within different Islamisms. First, it
contributes particularly to histories of ‘other modernities,’ specifically, spiritual,
mystic, anti-rationalistic alternative visions of modernity which often proved
more consequential in other parts of the world than amongst the European
schools of philosophy they originated from. Bergson, in particular, seems to
have enjoyed attention in many corners of the world. The careers of Bergson’s
thought in China, Japan, and the Muslim world are examples that point to
such interest outside of Europe.⁶⁷ Muhammad Iqbal incorporated Bergson’s con-
 Gilles Campagnolo, “Three Influent Western Philosophers in the Break-Up Period in China:
R. Eucken, H. Bergson and J. Dewey in China,” in Thoughts on Development in China, eds. Ma
cepts of the metaphysical and time into his attempt to revitalize Muslim
thought.⁶⁸ In Iran, traces of interest in Bergsonian ideas lead to intellectuals
Ahmad Fardid (1909 – 1994) and Jalal Al-e Ahmad (1923 – 1969), originators of
the influential Gharbzadegi (‘Westoxification’/‘Occidentosis’) concept.⁶⁹ Second,
it contributes to intellectual histories of global Islamism and the many vernacu-
larizations it saw all over the Muslim world, thus understanding Islamism in
both its global intellectual currents and its localizations with which it became
effective in practice. Later histories of post-Islamism then belong to yet another
transformation (in which Turkey itself for a certain period would become a prac-
tical model drawing much interest from other parts of the Muslim world) that is
beyond the scope of this chapter.
With the empirical material presented in this chapter, some general trends in
intellectual transfers become visible: An earlier generation of mukaddesatçı
ideologues took it upon themselves to individually import ideas that would
serve to build their own Turkish-Islamist outlook. In the High Islamist era, how-
ever, more organized transfers with institutional backing took place and brokers
of the intellectual transfer appeared along with a new model of the Islamist in-
tellectual in Turkey. The spatial movement of ideas also changed characteristi-
cally: While the mukaddesatçı ideologues disseminated and appropriated
thought from the West, High Islamist transfers took place via decentered flows
and networks in the Muslim world. The move from a Western-centric intellectual
transfer to a transfer without any Western participation took place within one
generation. This story of (re‐)embeddedness in intellectual spheres outside of
the West and (re‐)entanglement in networks, circulations, etc. replacing a situa-
tion in which several regions independently engaged with the West is a story of
universal significance for the global intellectual history of the later 20th century.
Ying and Hans-Michael Trautwein (London: Routledge, 2013), 101– 136; Christopher S. Jones, “A
Lost Tradition: Nishida Kitarō, Henri Bergson and Intuition in Political Philosophy,” Social Sci-
ence Japan Journal 5, no. 1 (2002): 55 – 70.
 H. C. Hillier, “Iqbal, Bergson and the Reconstruction of the Divine Nexus in Political
Thought,” in Muhammad Iqbal. Essays on the Reconstruction of Modern Muslim Thought, eds.
H.C. Hillier and Basit Bilal Koshul (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 167– 200.
 Ali Mirsepassi, Iran’s Troubled Modernity: Debating Ahmad Fardid’s Legacy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Conclusion
Having elaborated in the introductory chapter on the multiple contributions to
late Ottoman and Turkish republican settings that could be derived from per-
spectives connected to the recently emerging subfield of global intellectual his-
tory, there followed nine chapters with their differing regional, temporal and the-
matic emphases. In their totality, they aimed at generating one of the first
contours of intellectual histories of these two related contexts in using global ap-
proaches with their varying frameworks. This conclusion serves to emphasize
our main goals and briefly discuss possible prospective research agendas for
the late Ottoman and Turkish republican settings that frame this volume and de-
fine its focus.
In order to offer examples of globally-shaped studies to the broadest extent
possible, our goal has been to include analyses that extend beyond focusing on
merely certain individuals or some localities. The alternative framing has aimed
to underline indeed how global intellectual history allows us widening our
scholarly vistas by concomitantly overcoming national(istical)ly-defined scholar-
ly realms regarding ideas and their histories as well as by re-centering the late
Ottoman and Turkish republican experiences through the employment of a
more global framework.
Based on these premises, the chapters not only served separate and differing
takes regarding novel engagements with global perspectives, but also each by it-
self presented distinct involvements with the Ottoman and Turkish settings by, to
different extents, de-centering these in order to make them also open to novel
approaches. It is in this regard that we hope the present volume will open up
new pathways through which to (re)discover original and less nationally (or
even imperially) shaped historiographies. To some degree, the aim is therefore
to “take outside in” via different globalizing methods. At times, the chapters
are literally global by comparing and considering non-Western and Western dy-
namics (see the chapter by Doğan Gürpınar for example). At other instances, a
globally influential political and ideational dynamic is analyzed in its distinct
instantiations, demonstrating how the local and the global interacted (see the
chapter by Hazal Papuççular). Still other approaches permit connecting the sup-
posed peripheries of the Ottoman imperial order to the political and cultural
events taking place at the capital (see the chapters by Harun Buljina and
Barış Zeren). At the same time, we aimed to gauge the impact of some Western
European dynamics, specifically in the realm of philosophical moods and move-
ments, both academically and publicly, during their distinct interactions with
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-011
late Ottoman and Turkish republican settings. This allowed a demonstration of

how ideas’ trajectories were in many cases defined and developed by contingent
moves that emerged at these intersections (see the chapters by Sait Özervarlı and
Pascale Roure). In other cases, the goal was to globalize the geographical extent
by connecting Hamidian era’s prestige policies to transnational ideational entre-
preneurs who participated at Chicago universal exposition of 1893 as representa-
tives of the Ottoman Empire as well as to engage with the aspect of gender (see
the chapter by Berrak Burçak). We also aimed to offer possible frameworks for
engaging with multiple intellectual histories through more globally conscious
lenses, presenting an example regarding the Turkish republican setting in a
transnational way that goes beyond narrow tempo-spatial contexts (see the
chapter by Deniz Kuru). In addition, the volume focused, when possible, on
the limits of the global entanglements, showing for example how Islamist glob-
alism did not manage to totally shape the domestic religious movements and
moods in 20th-century Turkish society but rather created a vernacular ideology
(see the chapter by Jan-Markus Vömel).
As stated in the introduction, the overall aim has been to globalize late Otto-
man and Turkish republican intellectual histories – in various ways. This ranged,
as remarked in the brief exemplifications above, from geographically broader an-
alytical realms to comparative insights, from inter-regional interactions in the
sphere of ideas to transnational ideational entrepreneurs who would connect
varying ideational waves in their personality and actions. In our short formula,
de-nationalizing was followed by re-centerings, paving the way for less parochial
takes of ideas’ diverse trajectories. In this sense, relying on recent developments
from within global history and the more specific subfield of global intellectual
history, we wanted to go beyond national, or intra-Ottoman imperial, frame-
works, pointing in multiple ways to the advantages of these new vistas for his-
tories of ideas.
Importantly, even the global turn in history has not significantly affected the
historiography in Turkey. While the French have to a visible degree led the efforts
in developing a new type of scholarship that engages with a nation’s or country’s
history on a global level, and thus triggered similar projects elsewhere,¹ there
has been no similar Turkish (or Turkey-pertinent) undertaking yet, notwithstand-
 See the essential contribution by Patrick Boucheron’s edited volume L’Histoire mondiale de la
France (Paris: Seuil, 2017) that triggered similar projects elsewhere, including Andreas Fahr-
meir’s edited volume Deutschland: Globalgeschichte einer Nation (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2020)
and Andrea Giardina’s edited volume Storia mondiale dell’Italia (Bari: Laterza, 2017). Others fol-
lowed in the Netherlands, Spain, and Greece, with many other books to be published in due time
for other countries.
Conclusion 273
ing the country’s/nation’s/society’s close immersion in global engagements at

various levels, which would have made it a most relevant study. In this regard,
the present volume tries to offer the first detailed and broadly conceived study on
the Turkish setting (and the late Ottoman one) through its distinct focus on the
level of ideas and their past trajectories.
An element that could make it more difficult to expect comprehensive ad-
vances regarding prospective globalized intellectual histories of Turkey concerns
the continuing ways in which national(istically) framed historiographical ap-
proaches, be it in their neo-Ottomanist imperial guise, be it in the shape of a re-
publican-nationalist variant, continue to exert significant influence. It is useful,
in this respect, to take into account the heavy emphasis by the current Turkish
president on the importance, and expectation, of being “native and national”
(the original wording in Turkish is “yerli ve millî,” whereby the former could
also be translated as homegrown, indigenous, or local). This formula is em-
ployed for a range of subject areas, including not only expectations regarding
national educational programs, but also ideational debates, the realm of arts
and culture, or even the opposition. Under such circumstances, pointing to the
late Ottomans’ and republican Turkey’s multiple and diverse entanglements
that belong to domains beyond the imperial or national settings could be seen
as a rather unwelcome step. However, a strong engagement with global intellec-
tual history and its novel insights could in fact permit us overcoming these
rather default expectations concerning the local’s self-explanatory, and self-suf-
ficient, as well as self-aggrandizing frames, paving the way thereby for a re-cen-
tering of these ideational settings within a more globally deparochialized schol-
arly approach. It is important to emphasize that such narrow frames are also
being advocated elsewhere, pointing to some possible difficulties for global in-
tellectual histories at a time of populist nationalisms, with cosmopolitanism
again being used in a pejorative and denigrating manner in not a few places
across the globe.²
At this juncture, it becomes useful to consider what kind of paths could be
followed in the future when further engaging with these intellectual histories
through diverse globally pertinent lenses. Let us refer to some significant aspects
that could be of relevance in prospective research at this front. First of all, there
is a need for more studies on global interconnections that go beyond a two-way
 For a helpful discussion on how diverging national scholarly frames and structure co-shape
the development of local scholarship influenced by global intellectual history, see Dominic
Sachsenmaier and Andrew Sartori, “The Challenge of the Global in Intellectual History,” in Glob-
al History, Globally: Research and Practice around the World, eds. Sven Beckert and Dominic
Sachsenmaier (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 215 – 232.
relationship/interaction. This means that we would be well placed to delve more

into trilateral or broader dynamics in the context of ideas’ cross-regional, trans-
national or even universal trails. It would be important to consider, for instance,
how the Turkish experience with modernity had repercussions for other con-
texts. In this regard, from politics to law, from economics to agriculture, there
are many spheres at which “Western” and Turkish interactions could be merely
used as the starting point for Turkish actors’ consequent activities elsewhere. It
is well known that certain leading Turkish legal experts such as the late Mümtaz
Soysal contributed to constitution-making processes in the countries of the
“Third World.” It would thus be noteworthy to research how his own ideational
background, connections to Western-based constitutional scholarship and prac-
tices, the specific context of the Turkish experience (at which he was also per-
sonally involved) and the circumstances of the developing states came together
in these processes. Another germane case would be to study the manner in
which different ideologies reach and enrich Turkish ideational scene, generating
broader consequences for other settings following this interaction. In these proc-
esses, it would be essential not to overlook the distinct roles played by specific
individuals or collectivities that act as ideational entrepreneurs in adjusting,
(mis)translating, co-shaping, and exporting the ideas with which they have
been in touch. We could look, in this regard, after future studies that deal
with the impact of Third Worldism in the last third of the 20th century in Turkey
or Islamist dynamics in the first decades of the 21st century, as a Turkish-defined
version of Islamism seems to be playing a more active global role, both political-
ly and intellectually.
A second aspect that we find very intriguing to further the prospective re-
search agenda of late Ottoman and Turkish intellectual histories under the im-
pact of global intellectual history concerns the role of agency. This was already
an essential part of our discussion in the introduction. Yet, there is an additional
element that deserves to be discussed. This relates to the question of what we
could call local forms of agency, which, however, should not be the guiding
path in developing our approach to intellectual histories. Stated differently, it
could be the case that intellectual histories of Turkey could also be developed
in ways that do not prioritize the Turkish agency per se, but ideational actors
who connect to the relevant Turkish setting. This signifies that our de-national-
izing and re-centering approaches that prevailed in this volume could be ad-
vanced by additional attempts for de-centering the role of Turkish agency per
se. In a concrete example, this would pertain to transnational actors whose geo-
graphical locality is at a given time shaped by Turkey. This includes exile groups
in Turkey, migrant communities or others whose ideational engagements would
be co-shaped by their backgrounds, histories, possible regional and internation-
Conclusion 275
al horizons and the like. It is possible to contemplate the future of some “East-
ern” intellectual histories, such as the Syrian one, to be at the time of this writing
taking shape within Turkey. Like historical precedents across the globe,³ one
would witness here novel ideas and thought patterns emerging via the experien-
ces of these refugees in their temporary or permanent stays in Turkey. A different
take could be to geographically leave Turkey, while focusing on Turkish exiles,
from a communist poet in the Soviet Union (Nazım Hikmet) to an Islamist one
in Egypt (Mehmet Akif Ersoy). In these instances, the agency lies with these
strong men of letters instead of the Turkish state or the moods of a given
time. In a similar vein, the majority of the non-Muslim populations of the Otto-
man Empire, and of Turkey, had to emigrate from their homes in the 20th century.
Their intellectual histories may constitute another “Turkish connection” as per-
sonal or communal experiences would reflect, albeit indirectly, in their ideation-
al worlds. In these approaches, the center shifts from Turkey to the individual life
trajectories of these intellectuals or émigré groups, only to influence Turkish so-
ciety in the subsequent periods by the power of their cultural output and ideo-
logical impact.
A third point that deserves more attention in the future would be to look into
tempo-spatial conditions that enable or prevent the emergence of more global
interactions. What are the circumstances that bring about more intensive periods
of ideational intersections for the late Ottoman or Turkish republican settings?
Would it suffice merely to focus on the political aspects? Important to remember
is that even at times of increased domestic surveillance or a more oppressive cli-
mate, ideas and their carriers do not stop at borders. In the shape of exile, em-
igration or other types of transnational interaction, such periods do not necessa-
rily constrain new ideational trajectories outside and beyond the national
confines. This means, in turn, that politics alone could not explain the weaken-
ing of these dynamics. Therefore, we would need to take into account also socio-
cultural and economic elements as well as regional or global developments that
play a role in explaining a given time’s intellectual historical legacy. This more
theoretical elaboration could be empowered by structuring the research itself
through a global lens, at least in order to facilitate the broader dynamics that af-
fect ideas’ (re)birth, development, alterations, or modifications via interactions.
In the present volume, we aimed to cover as broadly as possible the temporal
and spatial focus. The nine thematic chapters were able to jointly provide evi-
 Considering an intra-“Western” example, there is the case of Jewish refugee scholars to the US
who contributed to the emergence of novel intellectual horizons along transatlantic settings. In a
similar case, the transnational lives of Russian exiles in the 20th century across the European and
other regions led to distinct ideational pathways.
dence for the role played by various global dynamics. In this way, it was possible
to reject a teleological narrative whose main assumption would be that more
globalization would generate more potential for global intellectual histories. At
the same time, even if global moods were less in favor of going beyond the na-
tional, it was frequently possible to find different settings (of regional variations)
that demonstrate the continuing possibility of more global ideational develop-
ments. Therefore, our expectation would be to aim for more contextualization
when analyzing times and frames that make it easier or more difficult for global
interactions to emerge.
A similar issue can also be stressed specifically on the geographic connec-
tion of this volume. In this book, we aimed to comprise the country-specific tem-
poral framework in a balanced manner with respect to the Ottoman Empire and
the Turkish Republic. For the latter, we not only highlighted the early republican
period, but also included cases from different time scales within this era. The
emphasis on this structure is significant given that the bourgeoning scholarly
works with regard to the global or transnational history’s connection to Turkey
have mostly been on the Ottoman Empire, instead of republican Turkey. In fact,
this imbalance is not just related to global or transnational history but rather to
broader historical scholarship in its international scope. Parallel to the afore-
mentioned assumption about the potential (as well as limits) of globalization
for global intellectual history, the Ottoman Empire, which was a multi-ethnic en-
tity composed of geographically and culturally distinct territories even on the eve
of its collapse, has been regarded by scholars as prone to provide an extensive
pool of subjects. Although this approach has a kernel of truth as we are compar-
ing the empire with a nation-state, to wit, a more parochial structure, the repub-
lican Turkish setting also has potential to offer valuable subjects to academics
interested to advance their research agenda concerning global/transnational his-
tory or global intellectual history. There are many subjects that could be analyzed
through the lenses of the “global” in the republican era. Two relevant examples
may be the history of feminist and leftist movements in the 20th century of Tur-
key, which are still predominantly discussed within the confines of the local dis-
cussions yet are actually strongly attached to global intellectual history. Much
remains to be discovered in these areas.
That connects us to the fourth point that specifically concerns the historiog-
raphy in Turkey or in Turkish. We have already emphasized in the introduction to
this volume that the number of works about political thought in Turkey as well
as Ottoman and Turkish intellectuals tended to increase in recent years. This is
actually an important development as for a long time political history has been a
very dominant research area at the universities in Turkey compared to social and
cultural history. Nevertheless, the majority of studies on intellectual history have
Conclusion 277
still been written through the lenses of the national. In fact, political thought,
ideologies, and biographies of the intellectuals in Turkey carry a tremendous po-
tential with respect to their connections to the global. This may seem a huge un-
dertaking in the reorganization of the intellectual history field yet even a small
scale of empirical contribution related to global connections or reconstitution of
already existing empirical knowledge with a touch of theoretical look would cre-
ate a real difference. Keeping a thorough analysis of “western” or “eastern” sour-
ces for the history of political thought in Turkey aside, highlighting global en-
counters that took place in the personal lives of intellectuals, translations that
were published in Turkish journals as well as closer examinations of references
used in magna opera would globalize Turkish intellectual history. In this respect,
the frameworks that this volume has presented also constitute practical strat-
egies for future studies.
Last but not least, global intellectual history’s connection to local contexts
does not necessarily have to depend wholly on extremely explicit debates.
While working on this volume, we realized that global intellectual history
could be realized in relation to numerous (sub)fields. One could see an opportu-
nity for writing a piece on Ottoman and/or Turkish modernization from the per-
spective of global intellectual history through the story of Yirmisekiz Mehmet
Çelebi, an Ottoman statesman who served the empire as an ambassador in
France, observing there various novelties and reporting on them for his own
country. At the same time, another narrative on modernization can be written
through the story of the Turkish Five in republican Turkey, the famous composers
who studied Western musical forms in Europe. The former constitutes a more di-
rect approach with regard to the discussion, but the account on the latter is
equally important for research conducted in global intellectual history, when
going beyond mere emphases on diffusions or transfers. This signifies that global
intellectual history and its connection to Turkey would (and also should) utilize
histories of art, music, architecture, urban planning and many other disciplines
without limiting itself to accounts directly engaging with philosophy or politics.
We look forward to seeing even broader engagements that would advance the
agenda of global intellectual history and “the Turkish connection.” Ideas matter.
Their roles and impact across the broadest realm of fields thus await to be stud-
ied. We hope that future work can rely in this respect at least on some of the
analyses and frameworks discussed in this volume.
Index
‘Abduh, Muhammad 37 f. Čaušević, Mehmed Džemaludin 37 – 40,

Abdulhamid II 11, 17, 21, 51, 57, 71, 79, 82, 42 f., 45 f.
87, 89 f., 93 – 96, 99, 102 f., 147, 221 Cemiyet-i Akvam’a Müzaharet Cemiyeti (Com-
Abdullah Cevdet 209 mittee for the Support of the League of
academic diplomacy 141, 143 f., 149, 151 Nations) 216
Adıvar, Halide Edib 204, 212 – 215 constitutionalism 20, 41, 44, 49 – 51, 54,
Ahmed Rıza 110, 210 f., 216 64, 74, 77, 241
Ahmet Midhat 83, 85 f. creative evolution 116 f., 121, 124, 126, 129,
Akarsu, Bedia 166 – 168 133
Akçura, Yusuf 5, 45, 146 – 148, 164 f., 206
Al-Banna, Hasan 25, 256, 258 Dârülfünûn 19 f, 22, 37, 40, 43, 57, 114,
anticlericalism 24, 219, 222 – 224, 226 f., 119, 123 f, 129, 141 f, 148, 152, 155 – 160,
235, 237, 243, 245 164, 213
Atatürk Institute (Bosphorus University) Dorev, Atse 61, 73
242 Dorev, Pancho 20, 49, 52 f., 55, 57 – 61,
Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal (Pasha) 5, 12 f., 42, 65 f., 73, 76 f.
53, 104 f., 129, 179 – 181, 192, 214 f., 217, duration 121, 131 – 133
227, 239 Durkheim, Émile 110, 114 f., 118, 127 – 130,
atheism 150, 245 158, 160
Âti (Newspaper) 206
Austria-Hungary 3, 31, 35, 39 f., 46, 63, École Libre des Sciences Politiques (ELSP)
202 147
Avcıoğlu, Doğan 230, 243 Edhem, Subhi 3, 33, 110, 119, 122 f., 151
Enlightenment 35, 150, 201, 224, 230 –
Baltacıoğlu, Ismayıl Hakkı 137, 157 – 159, 234, 239, 243, 245
252 Erişirgil, Mehmet Emin 110, 129, 160, 213
Bandung Conference (1955) 181 Ersoy, Mehmet Akif 43, 275
Batuhan, Hüseyin 167 f. Esmeralda Cervantes Clotilde Cerda i Bosch
Becker, Carl Heinrich 149 f., 155 21, 79, 84, 86 – 103, 105
Bergson, Henri 7, 109 – 111, 114 – 136, 159, Exarchate, the 55 f., 58 – 60, 63 f., 67 – 70
251 – 253, 268 f.
Bergsonism 22, 109 – 112, 116 – 118, 120, Faculty of Letters / Department of Philosophy
123 f., 128 f., 131, 135 f., 161, 250, 252 (Istanbul University) 139 f., 144, 151 f.,
Berkes, Niyazi 49, 162, 227 f., 230 156 – 158, 160, 164, 168 f., 210
Birand, Kâmuran 166 – 168 Fatma Aliye 21, 82 – 87, 90 f., 94 f., 99 –
Bitola (Manastır) 52, 55 – 59, 61 f., 64 f., 67, 101, 104 f.
73, 75 Ferid Pasha 11 f.
Blondel, Georges 147, 151 – 153
Blondel, Maurice 151, 251 – 253 Galatasaray High School 141, 146, 153,
Bulgarian Constitutional Clubs (BCC) 52, 156 f., 160
64 – 66, 69, 72 f. Gökalp, Ziya 22, 110, 114 f., 126 – 130, 148,
164, 252
Gökberk, Macit 158, 162 – 164, 167 f.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-012
280 Index
Gruev, Dame 56 – 58, 60 f. Law of churches and schools (Kiliseler ve

Guarraçino 90, 93 f., 97, 103 Mektepler Kanunu) 66
Law on brigandage (Çeteler Kanunu) 66,
Herriot, Édouard 142 – 145, 153 f. 73 f.
Hilal (magazine) 247, 257, 263, 265 Liberal internationalism 199 f., 203, 205
historicism 9, 80, 96, 175, 234
historiography 24 f., 34, 36, 49, 56, 86, Marxism 9, 25, 109, 224, 230 f., 233 f.,
138, 142, 155, 161, 189, 197, 199, 203 f., 240, 243
212, 230, 237, 240, 242, 245, 272, 276 Mawdudi, Abu’l-A’la 247, 256 – 260
Huseyin Hilmi (Pasha) 53, 58, 67 f., 73 Mehmed Izzet 160 f.
Hüseyin Nazım (Pasha) 90 f., 93 f., 97 Mengüşoğlu, Takiyettin 160 f., 164 – 166,
168
Ileri, Celal Nuri 204, 238, 259 migration 2, 111, 151, 165 f.
Ileri (Newspaper) 206 Milli Görüş (Turkish Islamist movement)
Ilinden Uprising 57, 59 f., 68 250, 254, 262, 264, 266 f.
Islamic World 31, 39 f., 43 f., 84 Mülkiye (Faculty of Political Sciences, Ankara
Istanbul (Constantinople) 6, 18, 19, 21, 24, University) 30, 124, 157, 241
29, 34, 36 f., 40 – 46, 52 f., 57 f., 62, Muslim Brotherhood 243, 247, 251, 256,
70 f., 83, 86 – 91, 93 – 95, 98, 102 – 104, 261
124, 137 f., 141, 146, 153, 155 f., 164 f.,
167 f., 186 – 188, 198, 204, 208, 210 – nationalism 33, 35 f., 38, 45, 51, 54, 59,
212, 215 f., 263, 267 64, 67, 146 – 148, 181, 189, 197, 201,
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organiza- 208, 223 f., 231, 240 – 242, 244, 260,
tion (IMRO, also as Internal Organiza- 273
tion) 57, 61, 64, 68, 74 Nisvan-ı Islam (magazine) 85 f.
intuitionism 21, 109, 117, 124, 130, 250 Non-Muslim 12, 39, 50 f., 62, 72, 91, 141,
Ipşiroğlu, Mazhar Şevket 164 f., 167 184, 188, 215, 240, 242, 275
Islamic economics 263
Islamism 11, 19, 24 – 26, 39, 45, 82, 84, Orhan Sâdeddin 159, 161
89, 147, 206, 247 – 251, 254 – 269, 274 Ottomanism 24, 36, 45, 66 f., 147, 206
Ottoman women 21, 83, 85, 101, 103
Jacoby, F. Günther 119, 154 f. Öztürk, Halil Nimetullah 158 f.
Kadro (magazine) 117, 181 Positivism 21, 109 f., 114 – 116, 124, 128,
Karakoç, Sezai 249, 262 132, 134 – 136, 189, 250 – 253
Karay, Refik Halid 177 f., 212 Proust, Marcel 134
Kemalism 13, 25, 219 – 222, 227 – 231, 234,
236 – 242, 244 – 246 Qutb, Sayyid 25, 247, 251, 255 – 260
Kemal, Yaşar 235
Kili, Suna 180, 238 f. Ran, Nazım Hikmet 166, 236
Kısakürek, Necip Fazıl 123, 249 – 254, 259, republicanism 10, 24 f., 179, 190, 219,
262 221 – 226, 228, 235, 239, 243 – 245, 252
Köprülü, Fuat 119, 208
Sarajevo 12, 29, 32 – 34, 37 – 40, 42 – 44
La Turquie Kemaliste (magazine) 181 Sandanski/Sandanskists 61
Law of associations (Cemiyetler Kanunu) secularism 9, 25, 175, 221, 227, 237 f.,
66 242 – 245
Index 281
self-determination 24, 197, 199 – 202, Turkish National Movement 197 f., 203,
204 f., 207 – 210, 213, 215, 218 207, 209, 211 – 216
Sırat-ı Müstakim / Sebilürreşad (journal) Turkish University Reform (1933) 138, 142
19, 42 – 45
socialism 24 f., 137, 141, 169, 197, 201, ulema 33, 35 – 40, 42 – 47
219 f., 222, 225 – 235, 237 f., 240 – 243,
245 f., 259, 263 Vakit (newspaper) 60, 69, 213 f., 216
Soysal, Mümtaz 274 Verkhovist Committee 57
Spitzer, Leo 138 f., 143 – 146, 153 f., 168
student mobility (Turkey, France, Germany) Wilsonianism 24, 197, 199 – 201, 203 – 206,
23, 150, 159, 166 208, 210 – 212, 214 – 218
Sufism 254, 259, 264, 268 Wilsonian Principles League (Wilson Prensi-
pleri Cemiyeti) 24, 198 f., 203 f., 206,
Tanilli, Server 232 f., 245 210, 212 – 214, 216
Tanpınar, Ahmet Hamdi 22, 114, 116 – 118, Wilson, Woodrow 15, 24, 198 – 207, 210 –
123, 131 – 135, 178 215, 217, 227
Tanzimat 33 f., 36, 38, 92, 99 f., 133, 207 World’s Columbian Exposition 21, 79, 83 f.,
Tevfik, Rıza 22, 82, 101, 110, 114, 119 – 122, 87 f., 90, 104 f.
135, 252
Third Worldism 241, 274 Yalman, Ahmet Emin 212, 214
Topçu, Nureddin 131, 249 – 254 Yön (magazine) 229 f., 243
Tunaya, Tarık Zafer 208, 210 – 213, 216, Young Turk Revolution 20, 30 f., 40 f., 44,
238 – 242, 245 61, 148, 152
Tunçay, Mete 238, 241 f. Young Turks 17, 30, 38, 75, 146
Tunç, Mustafa Şekip 22, 115, 123 – 128, 159
Zühdü Pasha 90 – 93
List of Contributors
Harun Buljina is a historian of the late Ottoman and modern Balkans, with a focus on Muslim
intellectual and socio-political networks in this region. He received his Ph.D. in History from
Columbia University in May 2019, defending a dissertation on the Pan-Islamist reform move-
ment in late 19th and early 20th century Bosnia-Herzegovina. An independent scholar, he
was most recently a Research Associate at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies for
the 2020 – 2021 academic year, during which he wrote his contribution to this volume.
Berrak Burçak is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Ad-
ministration, Bilkent University, Ankara. Her research focuses on late Ottoman modernization
with special reference to modern science, women and medicine. Her most recent publications
include “Hygienic Beauty: Discussing Ottoman Muslim Female Beauty, Health and Hygiene in
the Hamidian era” (Middle Eastern Studies, 2018) and “‘The Question of the Corset’: Fashion,
Health and Identity in late Ottoman History” (British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2021).
Doğan Gürpınar is an associate professor at the Istanbul Technical University (ITÜ). He is a

historian specialized in the late Ottoman and contemporary Turkish historiography, thought,
and ideas. His research work includes three books published in English: Ottoman Imperial
Diplomacy (2014), Ottoman/Turkish Visions of the Nation, 1860 – 1950 (2013), and Conspiracy
Nation: Conspiracy Theories in Turkey (2019).
Deniz Kuru is a lecturer and research fellow at the Department of Political Science, Goethe-
University Frankfurt. He received his Ph.D. from University of Southern California. His current
focus is on (Global) International Relations, and connections between Global Intellectual His-
tory and International Relations. Recently, he co-edited A Transnational Account of Turkish
Foreign Policy (with Hazal Papuccular, 2020) and published “Dialogue of the ‘Globals’: Con-
necting Global IR to Global Intellectual History” (All Azimuth, 2020) and “Not International Re-
lations’ ‘mare nostrum’: On the divergence between the Mediterranean and the discipline of
International Relations” (Mediterranean Politics, 2021).
M. Sait Özervarlı teaches intellectual history as a professor at Yıldız Technical University in

Istanbul. He received his Ph.D. from Marmara University, did post-doctoral research at Harvard
University and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His work focus-
es on Ottoman thought, East-West interactions, modernization theories, and revitalization
projects via an interdisciplinary global approach. Among his publications are Aspects of Otto-
man Intellectual History: From Classical Period to Modern Discussions (2009) as well as many
other scholarly works. The most recent one is “Philosophie in dem osmanisch-türkischen
Raum,” in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Geschichte der Philosophie in der islam-
ischen Welt 19. – 20. Jahrhundert, vol. 4/2, ed. Anke von Kügelgen (2021).
Hazal Papuççular is an assistant professor at the Department of International Relations, Is-

tanbul Kültür University. She received her Ph.D. degree from Boğaziçi University’s Atatürk In-
stitute for Modern Turkish History. Her research focuses on Turkish foreign policy, (New) Dip-
lomatic History and International/Transnational History. Her recent books include A
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757293-013
284 List of Contributors
Transnational Account of Turkish Foreign Policy (co-edited with Deniz Kuru, 2020) and the
monography on the Dodecanese, titled Türkiye ve Oniki Ada (1912 – 1947) (first published in
2019, now in its third edition).
Pascale Roure studied philosophy and Germanistics in Paris and Berlin and received her
Ph.D. with a dissertation on Fritz Mauthner’s Sprachkritik (2015). She worked as a philosophy
and sociology teacher at Galatasaray High School in Istanbul (2014 – 2018). Since 2018, she
is a research associate at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal (Department of Philosophy)
and was a visiting DFG fellow at Istanbul University (2018 – 2021) with her project “German
Geist on the Bosphorus. On the Reception of Ontology and Philosophical Anthropology at Is-
tanbul University (1933 – 1960)” (DFG project no. 394062667). Her research interests and pub-
lications focus on Sprachkritik and historical semantics, historiography of science, philology
and philosophy during the Nazi era.
Jan-Markus Vömel is a global historian who specializes in the history of modern Turkey and
global religious movements. He recently finished his Ph.D. on Islamist movements in Turkey
at Konstanz University on “Order and the Visceral Self: The Inner Culture of Turkish Islamism,
c. 1950 – 2000.” He taught Global History and Turkish Studies at the universities of Konstanz
and Freiburg, Germany. His forthcoming publications include “Pathos and Discipline: Islamist
Masculinities in Turkey, 1950 – 2000,” in Männlichkeiten, Zeithistorische Forschungen, eds.
Cornelia Brink, Olmo Götz and Nina Verheyen.
Barış Zeren is an associate member of EHESS-CETOBAC. He completed his Ph.D. degree with
a dissertation on legal politics and problems of transition to the constitutional regime in the
late Ottoman Empire (1908 – 1913). He gave courses at Işık and Boğaziçi University on the
late Ottoman history, history of the Turkish Republic as well as on Russia and the Soviet
Union. His latest recent agenda involves trans-imperial and underground networks that
played a role in the development of the culture of constitutionalism from 1848 through 1914,
between Russian and Ottoman empires with a particular interest in Eastern Europe and the
Balkans.

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Deniz Kuru / Hazal Papuççular

The Turkish Connection

Global Intellectual Histories of the

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021951720

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Deniz Kuru and Hazal Papuççular

Section I. Inside Out: Global Intellectual Trajectories of the

Section II. From Empire to Republic: The Transformation of

Section III. Interaction with the Global: Formation and

Deniz Kuru and Hazal Papuççular

List of Contributors 283

framed. Overall, an essential shift is underway by dealing with intellectual his-

national(ized) frameworks. In order to overcome this problem, we explore in turn

1. “The Turkish connection”

zenships, or ideational connections. This is a major point that we want to em-

history’s search after interactions and deparochialization toward a geography,

to a homogeneous “Western” or “Eastern” setting? Instead of constraining our

2. Overcoming Binaries, Underlining Pluralities

spective, Atatürk’s attempts in spheres such as nation building, and an emphasis

3. Locating Global Intellectual Histories of the

proach allows, consequently, engaging with migrant or exile communities and

with increasing attention.⁴² Our aim in this volume is to contribute to a gradual

4. Frames of the Late Ottoman and Turkish

Berrak Burçak in her chapter, “Deconstructing ‘Orientalism’ at the 1893

Turkey-pertinent global intellectual histories should engage in detail with ques-

 Osman A. Sokolović, Pregled štampanih djela na srpskohrvatskom jeziku Muslimana BiH od

aissance.”⁴ In many ways, this revisionist line recaptured important aspects of

 For an overview of this institutionalization of Muslim nationhood in socialist Yugoslavia, see

In fact, members of early 20th-century Bosnia’s nascent Muslim intelligent-

fessional schools in particular as a vehicle for Serb nationalism; state elementary

professionals in their home province. Concentrated in Sarajevo, they would

 Muhsin Rizvić, Behar: književnoistorijska monografija. (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1971).

 Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, 161– 163, here 162.

 Ahmed Mehmedović, Leksikon bošnjačke uleme (Sarajevo: Gazi Husrev-begova biblioteka,

lamic reform movement, with a new generation of young theological students

Attitudes toward the Ottoman Empire represented another important divid-

4. The Revolution and Its Aftermath

Yusuf Akçura famously described as a struggle between multi-confessional Otto-

students in Vienna to organize a new student organization in the Habsburg cap-

Still, traces of the above-mentioned boundaries seem to dominate the re-

2. The Background of an Ottoman Bulgarian

comprising Bitola along with its villages, the Macedo-Bulgarianist movement

 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 14.

agenda of Hungary.³⁴ The Austria-Hungarian Empire – the status of Hungary in

3. Dorev’s Ottoman loyalty

 See his foreword in Pancho Dorev, Ungariya-Madjarite v Politichesko, Kulturno i Stopansko

4. Rise of Evolutionary Ideas within the

 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 17.

 Dorev, Spomeni, Fakti i Dokumenti, 18.

gime into a fully parliamentarian system, guaranteeing national and individual

5. Dorev in the Ottoman Parliament: The

An emblematic debate for demonstrating the relation of these communities

que : 1908 – 1910,” Cahiers balkaniques, no. 40 (January 9, 2012), https://doi.org/10.4000/

 See Dalchev’s speech in MMZC, Term 1, Session 20, 375.

It is worth elaborating en passant on Dorev’s reference to the concept of sol-

 See M. Diroux, De La Solidarité Sociale (Orléans: Imprimérie Orléanaise, 1902). Solidarism

ity with “inalienable rights (neotemlemitye prava) of a young and uncorrupted

6. In Defense of Constitutional Rights

successful. He criticized the central government for letting outlawed people be

7. Return of the Revolutionary Struggle and

constituted a significant moment in late Ottoman “world-making”⁴ within a

In the above passage, Midhat problematizes representation by juxtaposing an