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The Last Ottoman Wars: The Human Cost, 1877–1923
by Jeremy Salt[1]
Hardcover – September 30, 2019
Trim: 6 in x 9 in
Pages: 432
The University of Utah Press
Hardback 9781607817048
eBook 9781607817055
During the last half century of its existence, the Ottoman Empire and the lands around its borders were places of constant political turmoil and unceasing military action. The enormous costs of war were paid not only by politicians and soldiers, but by the Ottoman civilian population as well. This book examines the hardships that ordinary people, Muslim and Christian alike, endured during decades of warfare.
Jeremy Salt brings to the surface previously ignored facts that disrupt the conventional narrative of an ethno-religious division between Muslim perpetrators and Christian victims of violence. Salt shows instead that all major ethno-religious groups—including Armenians, Turks, Kurds, and Greeks—were guilty of violent acts. The result is a more balanced picture of European involvement in the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans, one that highlights the destructive role of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and other European leaders grabbing for Ottoman resources up to the end of World War I. The effects of these events are felt to the present day.
This extraordinary story centers not on military campaigns but on ordinary civilians whose lives were disrupted and in many cases destroyed by events over which they had no control. Disease, malnutrition, massacre and inter-communal fighting killed millions of people during the First World War alone. Until now this epic saga of human suffering has remained a story largely untold.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Maps
Introduction
I. Late Ottoman Society
1. Cash-Flow Calamities
2. A Difficult Land
3. Kurds and Armenians
4. The East in Flames
II. Balkan Crusades
5. Ejecting the Muslims
6. The Young Turks
7. Italy Invades Libya
8. “May God Be with You”
9. Massacre and Flight
III. The Last Ottoman War
10. Into the Abyss
11. A Land in Despair
12. Armenians in Arms
13. The “Relocation”
IV. A Questionable Peace
14. Onward to Baku
15. The Road to Izmir
16. End of the Line
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
“This book is especially notable in its detailed coverage. The author brings together much material that has previously only been considered in separate works. He covers a broad range of time and geography, yet remains focused on a central theme-the effect of the end of the Ottoman Empire on the Ottoman peoples. The assertions in the book are balanced and well proven.”
—Justin A. McCarthy, author of The Armenian Rebellion at Van
“Makes a valuable contribution to the crowded field of work on late Ottoman history. The author provides a ground-level survey of the impact of the Ottoman wars between 1877 and 1923 on ordinary people, in everything from inflationary economic turmoil and the destruction of livelihoods, to ethnic violence and forced migrations, to the humanitarian fallout of the Allied blockade in World War I. It is particularly salutary that the author details the oft-neglected plight of Muslim as well as Christian and Jewish victims, and gives substantial attention to conflicts other than World War I, which tends to dominate the literature.”
—Sean McMeekin, author of The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908–1923
[1] Jeremy Salt
Jeremy Salt is a former journalist, turned academic. He is based in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Bilkent University, Ankara where he teaches courses in modern Middle Eastern history and propaganda. His most recent book is The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.)
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The Balkan Reconquista and Turkey's Forgotten Refugee Crisis
by William H. Holt [2]
Hardcover – September 30, 2019
Trim: 6 in x 9 in
Pages: 344
The University of Utah Press
Hardback 9781607816959
eBook 9781607816966
During the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–1878, Russian troops, Cossack auxiliaries, and local Bulgarians participated in what today would be called ethnic cleansing. Tensions in the Balkans between Christians and Muslims ended in disaster when hundreds of thousands of Muslims were massacred, raped, and forced to flee from Bulgaria to Turkey as their villages were sacked and their homes destroyed.
In this book, William H. Holt tells the story of a people and moment in time that has largely been neglected in modern Turkish and Balkan memory. Holt uncovers the reasons for this mass forgetting, finding context both within the development of the modern Turkish state and the workings of collective memory. Bringing together a wide array of eyewitness accounts, the book provides unprecedented detail on the plight of the Muslim refugees in their flight from Bulgaria, in Istanbul, and in their resettlement in Anatolia. In crisp, clear, and engaging prose, Holt offers an insightful analysis of human suffering and social memory.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Twilight in Turkey-in-Europe
2. Bag and Baggage
3. Massacre and Expulsion
4. Refuge and Resettlement
5. Aphasia and Amnesia
Epilogue
Chronology
Notes
Works Cited
Index
[2] William H. Holt received a master’s degree from the University of Utah’s Middle East Studies program in 2014.
“Holt presents new data, a discourse about the lack of data, and frames the problem within new theories about memory and history. At the same time, the book is very engaging, even when the subject matter is dark and disturbing. Holt has a good writing style that flows and does not become overly technical. It is accessible for the general reader as well as for the college student.”
—Pam Sezgin, professor of anthropology and history, University of North Georgia
“A much-needed account of a forgotten trauma: the massacres, flight and expulsion of Muslims from the Balkans after 1876, focusing on what is now Bulgaria. William Holt’s compelling narrative illuminates the nature of memory and nationalism, as well as the origins of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.”
—Philip Mansel, author of Constantinople, City of the World’s Desire
SEE ALSO:
Conference Program: The Nation-Building Process in the Balkans: Ethnic Cleansing and Massacres of the Ottoman Muslim and Turkish Population (1912-1913)
Hakan Erdagoz's picture Discussion published by Hakan Erdagoz on Wednesday, March 23, 2016 0 Replies
The Nation-Building Process in the Balkans: Ethnic Cleansing and Massacres of the Ottoman Muslim and Turkish Population (1912-1913)
Royal Academy of Belgium, Brussels
March 24-25, 2016
Organized by Royal Academy of Belgium and Turkish Studies Project of University of Utah
In the context of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the new Balkan state-system, warfare played a formative role in both processes of nation and state-building. The Balkan state-system was created as a solution to the Eastern Question and these states eventually evolved into homogeneous nation-states as a result of a series of wars, climaxing in what is known as the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). This was the first total war in the Balkans in terms of removing the frontiers between war-front and home-front by systematically targeting certain identity groups. In fact, for the Ottoman state, World War I (WWI) started in 1912 since it set the tone and the patterns of WWI. Moreover, the founding fathers of the current Republic of Turkey all originated from the Balkans. This war led to the formation of the new state-system in the Balkans in terms of massive ethnic cleansing, population movements and wide spread atrocities.
The theoretical focus of the conference will be on the relationship between national identity formation and ethnic cleansing. In the historical context presented by the Balkan Wars, the key questions are: How did the dialectic relationship between “self” and “other” shape the processes of redefining new Balkan nations through warfare? How did external political power generate influential national narratives in the Balkans? How did the Balkan states frame the Muslim and Turkish communities as “irredeemable”? To what extent the warfare shaped and consolidated national and religious identities, along with the legitimacy of the state?
General commentators and many Western scholars in their discussions of modern ethnic cleansing in Europe have long elided the history of ethnic cleansing and even genocide directed against Ottoman Muslim populations in the Balkans, Crimea, and the Caucasus. This process began with the Eastern Question in Europe concerning the Ottoman Empire and continued with the Balkan Wars on the eve of WWI. In fact, contemporary controversies surrounding double-standards and the discourses of universal human rights and humanitarian interventionism also date from this period. The 1915 events regarding the tragedy of Armenian population in Anatolia should exactly be considered within the context of the ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Muslims in Balkans as a solution to the “Eastern Question” of “Turkey in Europe.” This certainly should not be understood as a ‘natural’ vengeance. Rather the focus is the previously hegemonized pattern of social and political interaction or disengagement amongst different communities. This hegemonization initiated in the Balkans by the western European concepts of “self-identification” and “otherness” consequently effected Anatolia, Caucasus and Middle East. Tragically, the end of the Cold War saw the resurgence of such genocidal ethnic cleansing directed against the few surviving populations of indigenous European Muslims in Bosnia. This International Conference will thus highlight a long overlooked aspect of European history which still continues to shape contemporary conflicts and politics in Europe and the Middle East. The ethnic cleansing and massacres of Turkish communities attested by contemporary historians are often ignored and largely unknown to the general public.
The conference will address questions on the following themes:
How did Orientalism and Islamophobia play a role in shaping European public opinion throughout the nineteenth century and on the eve of WWI? How did ethno-religious identities shape the perceptions of policies and institutions during these wars? How were the Jewish communities affected by the rise of nationalism among Christians in the Balkans?
What patterns of imperial disintegration and the emerging ethnic based self-identification, if any, might explain the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans? How can one de ne the interplay between foreign power, nationalist rebellion, and weakened state in the last days of the Ottoman Empire? How does this triangle relate to modern-day cases of failing states? Is there a particular pattern of nation-state formation in the Balkans? What were the particular repertoires of action that the Balkan revolutionaries followed and learned from one another? To what extent were the Comitadjis different from their European counterparts?
How did the Balkan Wars impact the demographic structure of the Balkan states, as well as in Anatolia? How did the war transform the region’s social, political, and economic life? What considerations and options were disregarded or underestimated following the War? What characterizes the alliances that were formed between the major powers and local forces?
What is the role of external actors and discourses such as the “Terrible Turk” in the process of ethnic cleansing against the Muslim? How did the local and international press convey these mass atrocities? How did the creation of national identities in the Balkans serve British imperialist goals?
How is the legacy of the Balkan Wars remembered and utilized in today’s Balkans? How have perceptions of the Ottoman Empire changed over the years?
What is the role of nationalist teleological approaches in writing the histories of the late imperial settings? How is the writing of history affected by the vantage point of modern nation-states that emerged after the collapse of imperial orders—that is, in anticipation of the birth of nation-state structures?
Program
Jeudi/Thursday, 24 Mars-March
9h30 : Accueil des participants
10H00 : Ouverture par Baudouin Decharneux (Académie royale de Belgique) et Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah)
Panel I : Sous la présidence de Hervé Hasquin (Secrétaire Perpétuel de l’Académie royale de Belgique et Baudouin Decharneux (Membre de l’Académie royale de Belgique)
Keynote Lecture
Raymond Taras (Tulane University, New Orleans)
“Islamophobia never rests in the Balkans: South Slavs, Muslim communities, and the legacy of exclusionary nationalisms and identities”
“L’islamophobie ne sommeille jamais dans les Balkans : Slaves du Sud, communautés musulmanes, et la légalisation de l’exclusion des nationalismes et des identities”.
Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah) “War-Making as Nation-Building: The Case of Balkans.” “Faire la guerre pour construire une nation: le cas des Balkans”
12H30 Buffet
Panel II : Sous la présidence de Hakan Yavuz (Univ. Utah)
13H30 : Justin McCarthy (University of Louisville)
“An Overview of the Demography of Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans.”
“Survol de la démographie des nettoyages ethniques dans les Balkans”.
14H00 : Dimitris Stamatopoulos (Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
“Against Orientalism? The Ottoman Empire and the Turks in Balkan historiographical deviations of the 19th and the 20th c.”
“Contre l’Orientalisme? L’Empire Ottoman et les Turques dans les variations historiographiques des 19ème et 20ème siècles”.
14H30 : Mujeeb R. Khan (Dept. of Political Science, UC Berkeley) “The Ottoman Eastern Question and International Relations: Identity and Norms vs. Realpolitik in the Destruction of ‘Turkey in Europe’.”
“La question ottomane à l’Ouest et les relations internationales: Identité et normes contre la Real Politik dans le contexte de la destruction de la Turquie en Europe”.
15H00 : Perparim Gutaj (University of Utah)
“Ethnic Cleansing: The Method for Nation-Building.”
“Le nettoyage ethnique : la méthode pour créer la nation”.
15H30 Pause café
Panel III : Sous la présidence de Xavier Luf n (ULB)
16H00 : Ayten Kılıç (Honorary Fellow, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
“Creating the Bulgarian state through “a war of race and extermination”: the 1877-78 Russo-Ottoman War as a mode of state making.”
“La création de l’Etat bulgare comme une guerre de race et d’extermination : entre 1877 et 1878”.
16H30 : Hakan Erdogoz, (University of Utah)
“Reading the Eastern Question through the Prism of Orientalism: Hubris, Founding Genealogy and James Bryce”
17H00 : Pamela Dorn Sezgin (Professor of Anthropology and History, University of North Georgia, USA).
“Balkan Jews between Pluralistic Empires and Christian Nation-States (1820 – 1913).”
18H00 Brad Dennis (University of Utah), “The Influence of the Balkan Wars on the Ideas and Tactics of Armenian Revolutionaries.”
“L’in uence de la Guerre des Balkans dans les idées et tactiques des révolutionnaires arméniens”.
18H30 Christopher Gunn, (Coastal Carolina University) “Taking Back ‘Europe’: Western Support for Christian Militias in the Balkans and Western Anatolia, 1912-1923.”
“« Taking Back Europe » : le soutien occidental aux milices chrétiennes dans les Balkans et l’Anatolie occidentale, de 1912 à 1923”.
Vendredi 25 mars 2016
Panel IV : Sous la présidence de Robert Anciaux (ULB)
10H00 Amir Duranovic (University of Sarajevo)
“Uncertainty for “People without Ideals? South Slav Muslims and Yugoslav state.”
“Incertitude pour personne sans idéaux ? Les musulmans slaves du sud et l’Etat yougoslave”.
10H30 Senadin Musabegovic (University of Sarajevo)
“Nationalism and its dark Consequences in the Balkans.”
“Le nationalism et ses sombres conséquences dans les Balkans”.
11H00 Aliye F. Mataracı (International University of Sarajevo)
“Consuming a Memorial Site: the Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Genocide against Bosniaks in “UN Safe Haven” Srebrenica.”
“Exploiter d’un site de mémoire (mémorial) : la commémoration du 20ème anniversaire du génocide contre les musulmans de Bosnie dans « l’ONU Safe Haven » de Srebrenica”.
11H30 Pause café
Panel V : sous la présidence de Baudouin Decharneux (Académie royale de Belgique)
12H00 Olsi Jazexhi (chercheur independent)
The Balkan Wars and the de-Turkification of the Western Balkans.”
“Les guerres balkaniques et le “déturqui cation” des Balkans occidentaux”.
12H30 William Holt (Turkish Studies, Istanbul)
“Hagia Sophia as a Refugee Shelter: an Unknown Facet in One of the World’s Most Important Architectural Monuments.”
“Sainte-Sophie comme lieu de refuge : une facette ignorée d’un des plus importants sites architecturaux du monde”.
13H00 Buffet
14H00 : Panel VI : sous la présidence de Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah)
14H00 Tamara Scheer (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Social Science History/ Institute for East European History at the University of Vienna)
“The Habsburg Presence in Sanjak Novipazar and the Question of Muslim Migrants and Refugees (1879-1908)”
«La présence des Habsbourgs à Sanjak Novipazar et la question des migrants musulmans et des réfugiés (1879-1908)»
14H30 Carl Betke (University of Tubingen)
“From peace keeping to combat mission: The Skutari Detachment in Berlin’s symbol politics, 1913-14.”
15H00 Isa Blumi (Associate Professor of Middle East History, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA).
“Harnessing the World’s Economic Transformation: The Rise of Finance Capitalism and Emerging Role of Balkan Muslims in the larger Islamic World, 1900-1919.”
“Exploiter la transformation économique du monde: l’essor de la nance capitaliste et le rôle émergent des musulmans balkaniques dans le monde islamique élargi, 1900-1919”.
16H00 Pause café
Panel VII : sous la présidence de Raymond Taras (Tulane University, New Orleans)
16H30 Igor Despot, (Independent Historian, Zagreb)
“The Balkan wars - liberation or occupation?” “Les guerres balkaniques – libération ou occupation?”.
17H00 Umut Uzer (chercheur independent)
“Ömer Seyfettin, the Balkan Wars, WWI and his criticisms of Ottomanism and minority nationalisms.”
“Ömer Seyfettin, les guerres balkaniques, la première guerre mondiale et ses critiques de l’Ottomanisme et des minorities nationalists”.
17H30 Mehmet Arisan, (Istanbul University)
“Nationalism as a New Means of Imperial Control: The Origins of Modern Genocides and Ex-Western Nationalism in the Case of Balkans (1890-1913).”
“Le nationalisme comme un nouveau moyen de contrôle imperial : les origines des genocides modernes et l’ex nationalisme de l’ouest dans le cas des Balkans (1890-1913)”.
18H00 Ahmet Seyhun, (University of Winnipig)
“The Balkan Question in the writings of Namik Kemal and Ali Suavi.” “La question des Balkans dans les écrits de Namik Kemal et Ali Suavi”.
18H30 Conclusions : M. Hakan Yavuz (Univ. Utah)
The Last Ottoman Wars: The Human Cost, 1877–1923by Jeremy Salt[1]
Hardcover – September 30, 2019
Trim: 6 in x 9 in
Pages: 432
The University of Utah Press
Hardback 9781607817048
eBook 9781607817055
During the last half century of its existence, the Ottoman Empire and the lands around its borders were places of constant political turmoil and unceasing military action. The enormous costs of war were paid not only by politicians and soldiers, but by the Ottoman civilian population as well. This book examines the hardships that ordinary people, Muslim and Christian alike, endured during decades of warfare.
Jeremy Salt brings to the surface previously ignored facts that disrupt the conventional narrative of an ethno-religious division between Muslim perpetrators and Christian victims of violence. Salt shows instead that all major ethno-religious groups—including Armenians, Turks, Kurds, and Greeks—were guilty of violent acts. The result is a more balanced picture of European involvement in the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans, one that highlights the destructive role of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and other European leaders grabbing for Ottoman resources up to the end of World War I. The effects of these events are felt to the present day.
This extraordinary story centers not on military campaigns but on ordinary civilians whose lives were disrupted and in many cases destroyed by events over which they had no control. Disease, malnutrition, massacre and inter-communal fighting killed millions of people during the First World War alone. Until now this epic saga of human suffering has remained a story largely untold.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Maps
Introduction
I. Late Ottoman Society
1. Cash-Flow Calamities
2. A Difficult Land
3. Kurds and Armenians
4. The East in Flames
II. Balkan Crusades
5. Ejecting the Muslims
6. The Young Turks
7. Italy Invades Libya
8. “May God Be with You”
9. Massacre and Flight
III. The Last Ottoman War
10. Into the Abyss
11. A Land in Despair
12. Armenians in Arms
13. The “Relocation”
IV. A Questionable Peace
14. Onward to Baku
15. The Road to Izmir
16. End of the Line
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
“This book is especially notable in its detailed coverage. The author brings together much material that has previously only been considered in separate works. He covers a broad range of time and geography, yet remains focused on a central theme-the effect of the end of the Ottoman Empire on the Ottoman peoples. The assertions in the book are balanced and well proven.”
—Justin A. McCarthy, author of The Armenian Rebellion at Van
“Makes a valuable contribution to the crowded field of work on late Ottoman history. The author provides a ground-level survey of the impact of the Ottoman wars between 1877 and 1923 on ordinary people, in everything from inflationary economic turmoil and the destruction of livelihoods, to ethnic violence and forced migrations, to the humanitarian fallout of the Allied blockade in World War I. It is particularly salutary that the author details the oft-neglected plight of Muslim as well as Christian and Jewish victims, and gives substantial attention to conflicts other than World War I, which tends to dominate the literature.”
—Sean McMeekin, author of The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908–1923
[1] Jeremy Salt
Jeremy Salt is a former journalist, turned academic. He is based in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Bilkent University, Ankara where he teaches courses in modern Middle Eastern history and propaganda. His most recent book is The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.)
The Balkan Reconquista and Turkey's Forgotten Refugee Crisis by William H. Holt [2]
Hardcover – September 30, 2019
Trim: 6 in x 9 in
Pages: 344
The University of Utah Press
Hardback 9781607816959
eBook 9781607816966
During the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–1878, Russian troops, Cossack auxiliaries, and local Bulgarians participated in what today would be called ethnic cleansing. Tensions in the Balkans between Christians and Muslims ended in disaster when hundreds of thousands of Muslims were massacred, raped, and forced to flee from Bulgaria to Turkey as their villages were sacked and their homes destroyed.
In this book, William H. Holt tells the story of a people and moment in time that has largely been neglected in modern Turkish and Balkan memory. Holt uncovers the reasons for this mass forgetting, finding context both within the development of the modern Turkish state and the workings of collective memory. Bringing together a wide array of eyewitness accounts, the book provides unprecedented detail on the plight of the Muslim refugees in their flight from Bulgaria, in Istanbul, and in their resettlement in Anatolia. In crisp, clear, and engaging prose, Holt offers an insightful analysis of human suffering and social memory.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Twilight in Turkey-in-Europe
2. Bag and Baggage
3. Massacre and Expulsion
4. Refuge and Resettlement
5. Aphasia and Amnesia
Epilogue
Chronology
Notes
Works Cited
Index
[2] William H. Holt received a master’s degree from the University of Utah’s Middle East Studies program in 2014.
“Holt presents new data, a discourse about the lack of data, and frames the problem within new theories about memory and history. At the same time, the book is very engaging, even when the subject matter is dark and disturbing. Holt has a good writing style that flows and does not become overly technical. It is accessible for the general reader as well as for the college student.”
—Pam Sezgin, professor of anthropology and history, University of North Georgia
“A much-needed account of a forgotten trauma: the massacres, flight and expulsion of Muslims from the Balkans after 1876, focusing on what is now Bulgaria. William Holt’s compelling narrative illuminates the nature of memory and nationalism, as well as the origins of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.”
—Philip Mansel, author of Constantinople, City of the World’s Desire
SEE ALSO:
Conference Program: The Nation-Building Process in the Balkans: Ethnic Cleansing and Massacres of the Ottoman Muslim and Turkish Population (1912-1913)
Hakan Erdagoz's picture Discussion published by Hakan Erdagoz on Wednesday, March 23, 2016 0 Replies
The Nation-Building Process in the Balkans: Ethnic Cleansing and Massacres of the Ottoman Muslim and Turkish Population (1912-1913)
Royal Academy of Belgium, Brussels
March 24-25, 2016
Organized by Royal Academy of Belgium and Turkish Studies Project of University of Utah
In the context of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the new Balkan state-system, warfare played a formative role in both processes of nation and state-building. The Balkan state-system was created as a solution to the Eastern Question and these states eventually evolved into homogeneous nation-states as a result of a series of wars, climaxing in what is known as the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). This was the first total war in the Balkans in terms of removing the frontiers between war-front and home-front by systematically targeting certain identity groups. In fact, for the Ottoman state, World War I (WWI) started in 1912 since it set the tone and the patterns of WWI. Moreover, the founding fathers of the current Republic of Turkey all originated from the Balkans. This war led to the formation of the new state-system in the Balkans in terms of massive ethnic cleansing, population movements and wide spread atrocities.
The theoretical focus of the conference will be on the relationship between national identity formation and ethnic cleansing. In the historical context presented by the Balkan Wars, the key questions are: How did the dialectic relationship between “self” and “other” shape the processes of redefining new Balkan nations through warfare? How did external political power generate influential national narratives in the Balkans? How did the Balkan states frame the Muslim and Turkish communities as “irredeemable”? To what extent the warfare shaped and consolidated national and religious identities, along with the legitimacy of the state?
General commentators and many Western scholars in their discussions of modern ethnic cleansing in Europe have long elided the history of ethnic cleansing and even genocide directed against Ottoman Muslim populations in the Balkans, Crimea, and the Caucasus. This process began with the Eastern Question in Europe concerning the Ottoman Empire and continued with the Balkan Wars on the eve of WWI. In fact, contemporary controversies surrounding double-standards and the discourses of universal human rights and humanitarian interventionism also date from this period. The 1915 events regarding the tragedy of Armenian population in Anatolia should exactly be considered within the context of the ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Muslims in Balkans as a solution to the “Eastern Question” of “Turkey in Europe.” This certainly should not be understood as a ‘natural’ vengeance. Rather the focus is the previously hegemonized pattern of social and political interaction or disengagement amongst different communities. This hegemonization initiated in the Balkans by the western European concepts of “self-identification” and “otherness” consequently effected Anatolia, Caucasus and Middle East. Tragically, the end of the Cold War saw the resurgence of such genocidal ethnic cleansing directed against the few surviving populations of indigenous European Muslims in Bosnia. This International Conference will thus highlight a long overlooked aspect of European history which still continues to shape contemporary conflicts and politics in Europe and the Middle East. The ethnic cleansing and massacres of Turkish communities attested by contemporary historians are often ignored and largely unknown to the general public.
The conference will address questions on the following themes:
How did Orientalism and Islamophobia play a role in shaping European public opinion throughout the nineteenth century and on the eve of WWI? How did ethno-religious identities shape the perceptions of policies and institutions during these wars? How were the Jewish communities affected by the rise of nationalism among Christians in the Balkans?
What patterns of imperial disintegration and the emerging ethnic based self-identification, if any, might explain the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans? How can one de ne the interplay between foreign power, nationalist rebellion, and weakened state in the last days of the Ottoman Empire? How does this triangle relate to modern-day cases of failing states? Is there a particular pattern of nation-state formation in the Balkans? What were the particular repertoires of action that the Balkan revolutionaries followed and learned from one another? To what extent were the Comitadjis different from their European counterparts?
How did the Balkan Wars impact the demographic structure of the Balkan states, as well as in Anatolia? How did the war transform the region’s social, political, and economic life? What considerations and options were disregarded or underestimated following the War? What characterizes the alliances that were formed between the major powers and local forces?
What is the role of external actors and discourses such as the “Terrible Turk” in the process of ethnic cleansing against the Muslim? How did the local and international press convey these mass atrocities? How did the creation of national identities in the Balkans serve British imperialist goals?
How is the legacy of the Balkan Wars remembered and utilized in today’s Balkans? How have perceptions of the Ottoman Empire changed over the years?
What is the role of nationalist teleological approaches in writing the histories of the late imperial settings? How is the writing of history affected by the vantage point of modern nation-states that emerged after the collapse of imperial orders—that is, in anticipation of the birth of nation-state structures?
Program
Jeudi/Thursday, 24 Mars-March
9h30 : Accueil des participants
10H00 : Ouverture par Baudouin Decharneux (Académie royale de Belgique) et Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah)
Panel I : Sous la présidence de Hervé Hasquin (Secrétaire Perpétuel de l’Académie royale de Belgique et Baudouin Decharneux (Membre de l’Académie royale de Belgique)
Keynote Lecture
Raymond Taras (Tulane University, New Orleans)
“Islamophobia never rests in the Balkans: South Slavs, Muslim communities, and the legacy of exclusionary nationalisms and identities”
“L’islamophobie ne sommeille jamais dans les Balkans : Slaves du Sud, communautés musulmanes, et la légalisation de l’exclusion des nationalismes et des identities”.
Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah) “War-Making as Nation-Building: The Case of Balkans.” “Faire la guerre pour construire une nation: le cas des Balkans”
12H30 Buffet
Panel II : Sous la présidence de Hakan Yavuz (Univ. Utah)
13H30 : Justin McCarthy (University of Louisville)
“An Overview of the Demography of Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans.”
“Survol de la démographie des nettoyages ethniques dans les Balkans”.
14H00 : Dimitris Stamatopoulos (Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
“Against Orientalism? The Ottoman Empire and the Turks in Balkan historiographical deviations of the 19th and the 20th c.”
“Contre l’Orientalisme? L’Empire Ottoman et les Turques dans les variations historiographiques des 19ème et 20ème siècles”.
14H30 : Mujeeb R. Khan (Dept. of Political Science, UC Berkeley) “The Ottoman Eastern Question and International Relations: Identity and Norms vs. Realpolitik in the Destruction of ‘Turkey in Europe’.”
“La question ottomane à l’Ouest et les relations internationales: Identité et normes contre la Real Politik dans le contexte de la destruction de la Turquie en Europe”.
15H00 : Perparim Gutaj (University of Utah)
“Ethnic Cleansing: The Method for Nation-Building.”
“Le nettoyage ethnique : la méthode pour créer la nation”.
15H30 Pause café
Panel III : Sous la présidence de Xavier Luf n (ULB)
16H00 : Ayten Kılıç (Honorary Fellow, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
“Creating the Bulgarian state through “a war of race and extermination”: the 1877-78 Russo-Ottoman War as a mode of state making.”
“La création de l’Etat bulgare comme une guerre de race et d’extermination : entre 1877 et 1878”.
16H30 : Hakan Erdogoz, (University of Utah)
“Reading the Eastern Question through the Prism of Orientalism: Hubris, Founding Genealogy and James Bryce”
17H00 : Pamela Dorn Sezgin (Professor of Anthropology and History, University of North Georgia, USA).
“Balkan Jews between Pluralistic Empires and Christian Nation-States (1820 – 1913).”
18H00 Brad Dennis (University of Utah), “The Influence of the Balkan Wars on the Ideas and Tactics of Armenian Revolutionaries.”
“L’in uence de la Guerre des Balkans dans les idées et tactiques des révolutionnaires arméniens”.
18H30 Christopher Gunn, (Coastal Carolina University) “Taking Back ‘Europe’: Western Support for Christian Militias in the Balkans and Western Anatolia, 1912-1923.”
“« Taking Back Europe » : le soutien occidental aux milices chrétiennes dans les Balkans et l’Anatolie occidentale, de 1912 à 1923”.
Vendredi 25 mars 2016
Panel IV : Sous la présidence de Robert Anciaux (ULB)
10H00 Amir Duranovic (University of Sarajevo)
“Uncertainty for “People without Ideals? South Slav Muslims and Yugoslav state.”
“Incertitude pour personne sans idéaux ? Les musulmans slaves du sud et l’Etat yougoslave”.
10H30 Senadin Musabegovic (University of Sarajevo)
“Nationalism and its dark Consequences in the Balkans.”
“Le nationalism et ses sombres conséquences dans les Balkans”.
11H00 Aliye F. Mataracı (International University of Sarajevo)
“Consuming a Memorial Site: the Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Genocide against Bosniaks in “UN Safe Haven” Srebrenica.”
“Exploiter d’un site de mémoire (mémorial) : la commémoration du 20ème anniversaire du génocide contre les musulmans de Bosnie dans « l’ONU Safe Haven » de Srebrenica”.
11H30 Pause café
Panel V : sous la présidence de Baudouin Decharneux (Académie royale de Belgique)
12H00 Olsi Jazexhi (chercheur independent)
The Balkan Wars and the de-Turkification of the Western Balkans.”
“Les guerres balkaniques et le “déturqui cation” des Balkans occidentaux”.
12H30 William Holt (Turkish Studies, Istanbul)
“Hagia Sophia as a Refugee Shelter: an Unknown Facet in One of the World’s Most Important Architectural Monuments.”
“Sainte-Sophie comme lieu de refuge : une facette ignorée d’un des plus importants sites architecturaux du monde”.
13H00 Buffet
14H00 : Panel VI : sous la présidence de Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah)
14H00 Tamara Scheer (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Social Science History/ Institute for East European History at the University of Vienna)
“The Habsburg Presence in Sanjak Novipazar and the Question of Muslim Migrants and Refugees (1879-1908)”
«La présence des Habsbourgs à Sanjak Novipazar et la question des migrants musulmans et des réfugiés (1879-1908)»
14H30 Carl Betke (University of Tubingen)
“From peace keeping to combat mission: The Skutari Detachment in Berlin’s symbol politics, 1913-14.”
15H00 Isa Blumi (Associate Professor of Middle East History, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA).
“Harnessing the World’s Economic Transformation: The Rise of Finance Capitalism and Emerging Role of Balkan Muslims in the larger Islamic World, 1900-1919.”
“Exploiter la transformation économique du monde: l’essor de la nance capitaliste et le rôle émergent des musulmans balkaniques dans le monde islamique élargi, 1900-1919”.
16H00 Pause café
Panel VII : sous la présidence de Raymond Taras (Tulane University, New Orleans)
16H30 Igor Despot, (Independent Historian, Zagreb)
“The Balkan wars - liberation or occupation?” “Les guerres balkaniques – libération ou occupation?”.
17H00 Umut Uzer (chercheur independent)
“Ömer Seyfettin, the Balkan Wars, WWI and his criticisms of Ottomanism and minority nationalisms.”
“Ömer Seyfettin, les guerres balkaniques, la première guerre mondiale et ses critiques de l’Ottomanisme et des minorities nationalists”.
17H30 Mehmet Arisan, (Istanbul University)
“Nationalism as a New Means of Imperial Control: The Origins of Modern Genocides and Ex-Western Nationalism in the Case of Balkans (1890-1913).”
“Le nationalisme comme un nouveau moyen de contrôle imperial : les origines des genocides modernes et l’ex nationalisme de l’ouest dans le cas des Balkans (1890-1913)”.
18H00 Ahmet Seyhun, (University of Winnipig)
“The Balkan Question in the writings of Namik Kemal and Ali Suavi.” “La question des Balkans dans les écrits de Namik Kemal et Ali Suavi”.
18H30 Conclusions : M. Hakan Yavuz (Univ. Utah)