Abstract
Whereas the Young Turks had been politically constrained during the Hamidian era, in the postrevolution period the domestic political atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire was charged initially with an air of optimism. Ironically, that sense of Ottoman unity and cooperation did not last for long in CUP circles or in society at large after the reinstatement of the Ottoman constitution. The Young Turks involved in the secret CUP association had, immediately after the revolution, increasingly claimed political power for themselves, to the exclusion of those whose views did not coincide with theirs.1 The CUP, declared a political party in 1909 but able to control government appointments and policies behind the scenes, alienated many in their midst by seemingly rejecting the Ottomanist conception of empire in favor of a more narrow, secular, elitist, nation-state program of political behavior. Their actions would elicit opposition that was both political and cultural in nature, whether as objections to their monopoly over government positions or to their secularizing orientation as un-Islamic.
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Notes
Bernard Lewis,. The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 214–215.
General Pertev Demirhan, Hayatımın Hatırları: Rus-Japon Harbi 1904–1905 (Birinci Kısım): İstanbul’dan Ayrılıçımdan Port Arthur Muhasarasına Kadar. (İstanbul: Matbaa-ı Ebūzziya, 1943), 7.
In Ottoman Turkish, Rus-Japon Harbinden Alınan Mâddîve Manevî Dersler ve Japonların Esbâb-i Muzafferiyeti: Bir Milletin Tâli’i Kendi Kuvvetindedir! (İstanbul: Kanā’ at Kütüphane ve Matbaası, 1329/1911).
Ayanzâde Birecikli Ekrem, Japonlar (İstanbul: Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete Matbaası, 1904/1906?), 8.
Dr. İçikava, Japonya Tarih-i Siyâsîsi, trans. by Mübâhât (İstanbul: Mesâ’i Matbaası, 1330 [1912]), 29.
Edhem Nejât, “Japonya’da Mektepler,” Sırât-ı Mustakîm 6:137 (4.1327/1911), 107.
Münir, “Dârül-Fünûnun Otuzuncu Sene-yi Devriye Merâsimî,” Sebilürreçât 11:274 (11.1329/1913), 219–220.
Ali Fu’ad, “Aksa-yi Sark Harbinden Ali nan Dersler,” Asker 1324 (1908/9), 168, contrasting the decimation of the Russians and Japan excelling because of military German training.
See Handan Nezir Akmese, “The Japanese Nation in Arms: A Role Model for Militarist Nationalism in the Ottoman Army, 1905–1914,” in AA Worringer (ed.), The Islamic Middle East and Japan: Perceptions, Aspirations, and the Birth of Intra-Asian Modernity. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2007), 63–89 and her The Birth of Modern Turkey: The Ottoman Military and the March to World War I (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2005) for an analysis of Ottoman militarization.
From Abdullah Cevdet, Bir Hutbe Hemşehrilerime (Egypt: Matbaa-yı İçtihâd, 1909), 8. From
Şükrü M. Hanioğlu, Bir Siyasal Düşünü r Olarak: Doktor Cevdet ve Dšnemi (Istanbul: Üçdal Neşriyat, 1981), 189.
Nitobei Inazo’ s Bushido: The Soul of Japan (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905).
Mümtaz Bey Ba Emr-i Sâmî Bahriye Topçu Mektebinde Kaymakam Mümtaz Bey Tarafından Çin-Japon ve İspanya-Amerika Muharebesi hakkında verilen Konferans (İstanbul: Matbaa-yı Bahriye, 1327–1911/12), 2–3. The lecture, held in the Artillery Academy for cadets, began with an overview of the main sea battles between China and Japan. Members of the Erkân-ı Harbiye, including Ottoman War Office Chief-of-Staff İzzet Paşa, attended the lecture.
Vladmir Semenov, Çosima Muharebesi translated by Mustafa Kemal (İstanbul: Matbaa-yı Bahriye, 1328/1912), 2.
M. Nâhid’s Kaptan Vladmir Semenov’in ruznamesi ve Çosima Muharebe-i bahriyesi (published by H. Fevzî. İstanbul: Matbaa-yı Hayriye ve Şirkesi, 1328/1912) is another translation of the same book by a naval engineer.
Ahmed Ismâil, “Düvel-i Mu’azzama Bahriyeleri,” Mecmua-yi Seneviye-yi Bahriye 1:10 (1331/July 1915), 182.
Ibid., 597. He had clearly read the Imperial Recript, which he maintained was “the true, proper education for all times and places. It includes the moral code to which the entire world should be subject.” Compare to official English translation in Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 121.
For discussion of Kurd ‘Alī’s ideas, see Samir M. Seikaly “Damascene Intellectual Life in the Opening Years of the 20th Century: Muhammad Kurd ‘Ali and al-Muqtabas,” in Marwan Buheiry (ed.), Intellectual Life in the Arab East 1890–1939 (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1981), 125–153.
Muhammad Kurd Alī, “al-Yābān al-Hadītha,” Majallat al-Muqtabas 3:6 (1911), 226.
Samizâde Süreyya, “Japonya’da Alinacak Dersler,” Resimli Kitap 46 (December 1912), 758–767. Sureyya selected excerpts of an article from an unnamed English journal suggesting that the British nation follow Japan’s example; he translated them and occasionally added his own commentary. There is reference to “Dr. Nitob” in a paragraph of this article that would suggest Sureyya was quoting from the Japanese intellectual Nitobei Inazo’s Bushido: The Soul of Japan. Süreyya also published a book entitled Dai-Nippon Büyük Japonya in Istanbul in 1917.
Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004), 11.
Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume II: Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey 1808–1975 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 280. Sultan Abdülhamid II did not appear to support the society.
Serif Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediüzzaman Said Nûrsi (New York: State University of New York Press, 1989), 74. See also 8.
Sükran Vahide, Bediüzzaman Said Nursi: The Author of the Risale-i Nur (Istanbul: Sözler Publications, 1992), 58. Mardin, Religion and Social Change 85–86 includes excerpts also: “If a nation uses freedom as a guide, this will enable it to progress. Freedom also demands us to love our nation; it has opened the doors of progress and civilization. The time has come when social bonds and the need for sustenance have increased to such an extent that the nation can only be governed by a national assembly.… Science should be gladly accepted from the foreigners, but this must be done in such a way as to preserve our national customs. This is what the Japanese have done, and they should be an example to the Ottomans.”
Derviş. Vahdetî, “Şûra-yı Ümmet,” Volkan 1:44 (31 Kanun Sani 1324/February 13, 1909), 2. In another debate shortly thereafter, Volkan responded to the Grand Vezir’s statement that constitutions and institutions of other nations would be examined in order to borrow the appropriate aspects of them for the Ottoman Empire. Derviş Vahdetî countered with an argument that the Şeriat was already in existence and was the tradition of law suited to an Islamic state. His use of non-Muslim Japan here was contrary to most other representations found in the Ottoman press that presented Japanese national development as appropriate for Eastern peoples to reach modernity with the usual anti-Western, anti-imperialist tone, arguing “… we respond [to the Sadrazam’s statement] with the ‘Society of Islamic Unity.’ Because we, a community of Muslims and Ottomans, are not a lawless nation like the Japanese, so why would we require the constitutions of other nations. Our Islamic libraries were once referred to as the treasures of knowledge, having been the authoritative sources for a lot of nations; now to consider resorting to [those nations] is to say we do not know our own selves.” From
Derviş Vahdetî, “Şeyhülislâm Hazretlerine,” Volkan 1:50 (6 Şubat 1324/February 19, 1909), 1. Vahdetî perceived Japan as a barbaric nation in need of a set of foreign laws and thus unworthy of imitation. Other comments printed in Volk ā n indicated that those holding the reins of power, including Ottoman military officers and even the Grand Vezir himself, disagreed.
Fârukî Ömer, “Hüküm Gâlibindir,” Volkan 1:4 (1 Kanun Sani 1324/December 14, 1908), 2–3.
See Rashid Khalidi, “The 1912 Election Campaign in the Cities of Bilad al-Sham,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 16 (1984), 461–474 for Fikri’s association with provincial Ottoman Arab deputies Shukrī al Asalī, ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd al-Zahrāwī, and Kāmil al-As’ad.
Ömer Lütfi Fikri,. Dersim Mebusu, Lütfi Fikri Bey’in Günlügu: “Daima Muhâlefet,” Yücel Demirel (ed.), (İstanbul: Arma Yayınları, 1991), 38.
Corinne Blake, Training Arab-Ottoman Bureaucrats: Syrian Graduates of the Mülkiye Mektebî, 1890–1920 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Dissertation, 1991), 239–240. See also
Hasan Kayali, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1918 (California: University of California Press, 1997), 48–50. This school was the site of tensions between sons of high-level officials living in Istanbul and sons of provincial families from more humble backgrounds, as they were often treated differently. At times favoritism took on ethnic overtones as well.
See Neville J. Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism before World War I (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 129.
Ami Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 71.
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© 2014 Renée Worringer
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Worringer, R. (2014). The Young Turk Regime and the Japanese Model after 1908: “Eastern” Essence, “Western” Science, Ottoman Notions of “Terakkî” and “Medeniyet” (Progress and Civilization). In: Ottomans Imagining Japan. Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384607_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384607_6
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