Writing under the Same Banner?

Abstract

This article explores the motivations behind the creation and preservation of ego-doc- uments written by late Ottoman participants in World War I. Focusing on three distinct but linked narratives found among the papers of Kuşçubaşı Eşref, it investigates the authors’ impulse to write “ego-documents” in this volatile period and among this par- ticular group of individuals. The discussion focuses on three texts: first, the diary writ- ten by Süleyman Askerî, Eşref’s close friend and colleague, during the Italian-Ottoman War in Tripolitania (Trablusgarb) of 1911–12, which was later hand-copied by Eşref; secondly, fragments from Eşref’s own massive but ultimately lost memoir; and thirdly, Eşref’s wife Pervin Hanım’s own memoir. In assessing these three interrelated but dis- tinct pieces of writing, the contribution sheds light on the different contexts in which memoirs from the war years were conceived and written as well as the factors contrib- uting to their preservation or loss. It also considers the different personalities involved and the motivations, stated or unstated, that informed the task of putting pen to paper.