{"title":"War Tax Law (Tekalif-i Harbiye): An Instrument of Dispossession and Capital Accumulation in the Ottoman Empire during the Great War","authors":"Ayla Ezgi Akyol","doi":"10.1163/18775462-bja10067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-bja10067","url":null,"abstract":"<p>As a total war, World War I constituted a significant historical moment which proved that warfare not only serves to build nations and national identities, but can also create suitable socioeconomic and political conditions that foster the process of capital accumulation. The Ottoman state, like all the belligerents, on the one hand mobilized human power, means of production and subsistence and natural resources on a large scale for fighting and financing the war; on the other hand, it established a war economy based on violence and protectionism that directly favored war profiteers. The present article centers on the implementation of the War Tax Law, adopted on the eve of the war, which paved the way for state policies of dispossession, confiscation, and requisition. It argues that these practices aimed at the redistribution of capital to give birth to a new generation of Turkish-Muslim capitalists.</p>","PeriodicalId":41042,"journal":{"name":"Turkish Historical Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141780341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"U.S. Commercial Diplomacy Toward Turkey: Ambassador George C. McGhee’s Role in the Privatization of the Oil Business in the 1950s","authors":"Murat Iplikci","doi":"10.1163/18775462-bja10066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-bja10066","url":null,"abstract":"<p>American diplomats occupied an important place in Turkish politics in the 1950s. They were not only highly valued by Turkish governments; they also participated in decision-making processes as advisers, especially in matters of commerce and privatization. This article focuses on one of these influential actors, George C. McGhee, who played a significant role in the denationalization of Turkey’s oil operations in March 1954. With a degree and business background in the oil sector and experience in the Turkish mission, McGhee was an effective commercial diplomat. Throughout his short tenure as ambassador, McGhee influenced Turkish leaders to privatize the oil sector. He mediated between the Turkish government and American lawyers specializing in oil bills, alongside American companies as possible investors. Shortly after he left the Turkish post, Turkey passed a law that privatized the oil sector.</p>","PeriodicalId":41042,"journal":{"name":"Turkish Historical Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141502399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Justice of the Peace Courts in the Adjudication of Property Disputes in the Ottoman Countryside (1839–1914)","authors":"A. Kaya","doi":"10.1163/18775462-bja10065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-bja10065","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines the institutionalization of justice of the peace courts in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire on the one hand, and on the other investigates the adjudication of property disputes in the lowest administrative units (villages and communes), within the context of establishing a regime of individual and exclusive property rights. Such an analysis historicizes the transformation that justice of the peace courts underwent in the 19th century. It therefore seeks to free these courts from being regarded as an ahistorical extrajudicial and/or judicial dispute settlement mechanism (sulh).","PeriodicalId":41042,"journal":{"name":"Turkish Historical Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141128290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Christian Population of 16th-Century Ottoman Anatolia: An Overview and Preliminary Observations on Its Location and Numbers in the 1520s","authors":"Konstantinos Moustakas, Aikaterini Konstantina Kontopanagou, Petros Kastrinakis","doi":"10.1163/18775462-bja10064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-bja10064","url":null,"abstract":"By the 15th century, the transformation of Anatolia into a region with a large Muslim majority had been completed. By then the Christian population in most of Anatolia was either small—in absolute numbers as well as in comparison to Muslims—or non-existent. This general picture has long been known to scholarship, yet no effort has been made to date to provide a systematic overall perspective of the Christian presence in Ottoman Anatolia. This article offers a preliminary overview of the location and relative strength or weakness of that presence in the different parts of Anatolia, based on data from Ottoman fiscal registers that reflect the situation in the 1520s.","PeriodicalId":41042,"journal":{"name":"Turkish Historical Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140571939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Diplomacy Within the Security Framework in Turkey and Romania During the Interwar Period","authors":"Berk Emek, Dilek Barlas","doi":"10.1163/18775462-bja10063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-bja10063","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article aims to highlight shifting diplomatic positions in Turkey and Romania and their stances towards the League of Nations collective security network during the interwar period. It takes a comparative approach to demonstrate the diplomatic activity and strategic decision-making mechanism employed by two strategically important Balkan and Black Sea countries vis-à-vis the fragile international system from the 1920s onwards. The rising threat of revisionism and declining belief in the League’s sanctioning power gradually led these countries to set their differences in foreign policy aside and strengthened the idea of joint regional action in the 1930s. Supported by primary sources from different archives, this comparative study proposes a new outlook, by demonstrating the contribution made by the notions of external threat and common aggressor to changing foreign policy perspectives in both countries.</p>","PeriodicalId":41042,"journal":{"name":"Turkish Historical Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139978107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"New Critical Approaches to the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange","authors":"Onur Yildirim","doi":"10.1163/18775462-14020001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-14020001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41042,"journal":{"name":"Turkish Historical Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139156988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Loss of the Greek Literary Society in Constantinople: The Dismantling of an Institution, Displacement of a Library, and Dissolution of an Intellectual Hub","authors":"Firuzan Melike Sümertaş","doi":"10.1163/18775462-bja10062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-bja10062","url":null,"abstract":"The conditions that paved the way for the population exchange, the unrest created by rising nationalism in Turkey and Greece, and the subsequent search for a homogeneous population on both sides of the Aegean had a direct impact on Istanbul’s intellectual environment, its artistic and literary production, and its architecture, in which Greeks had played a significant role. This article examines the main physical and intellectual properties of the Greek Literary Society in Constantinople, its headquarters in Pera, its library and archive, and their afterlives following their confiscation by Turkish officials. By focusing on the effects of the departure of renowned scholars from Istanbul, particularly those who had conducted archeological research, it discusses the extent of the knowledge and property accumulated within the Greek Literary Society’s circles and evaluates their loss, transportation, and transformation as “cultural (material and human) and social capital” and “brain drain.”","PeriodicalId":41042,"journal":{"name":"Turkish Historical Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138561389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Armenians in 1920s Greece: Turkey’s Unwanted Minority, the League of Nations’ Burden, Greece’s “Other” Refugees","authors":"Merih Erol","doi":"10.1163/18775462-bja10061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-bja10061","url":null,"abstract":"This article sheds light upon the history of an underresearched group of refugees who settled in Greece in the 1920s. It focuses on Armenians from Anatolia who fled to Greece in 1921–22, during and after the Greek-Turkish War of 1919–22. The article examines how the Greek government and international humanitarian organizations (Near East Relief, American Red Cross, etc.) approached the Armenian refugees, including orphans. The study further highlights practices such as transfers of Armenians within Greece, repatriation programs supported by Greece to send the Armenian refugees to Soviet Armenia, and citizenship policies regarding them.","PeriodicalId":41042,"journal":{"name":"Turkish Historical Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138535990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Roles of Refugee and Exchangee Associations in Greek and Turkish Civil Society","authors":"Doruk Işıkçı","doi":"10.1163/18775462-bja10057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-bja10057","url":null,"abstract":"Established by the descendants of those impacted by the 1922–23 forced migration/population exchange in Greece and Turkey, refugee and exchangee associations have become increasingly visible in both countries in recent decades. However, these associations have been the subject of surprisingly few studies from the perspectives of civil society and identity. Through a comparative examination backed up by fieldwork, this article suggests a reconsideration of the associations as dynamic and fluid units in dialogue with the past, present, and future. Furthermore, it argues that despite the similarity of the mechanisms through which refugee and exchangee identities were institutionalized and nationalized, they actually play different roles in Greek and Turkish civil society and should not be viewed as organizations with similar structures and experiences or as exact counterparts to one another. Their motivations, positions, and aspirations differ, as do the effects they have on the formation of refugee and exchangee identities.","PeriodicalId":41042,"journal":{"name":"Turkish Historical Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138536013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Before the War: Orthodox Christians in Anatolia, 1880s–1914","authors":"Ayşe Ozil","doi":"10.1163/18775462-bja10058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-bja10058","url":null,"abstract":"Orthodox Christians in Anatolia engaged in a widespread effort to establish churches, schools, and cultural associations in the late Ottoman period. This effort lasted roughly from the 1880s until the Great War, marking these few decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a period of intense institutionalization. This article historicizes the Orthodox Christian presence in Anatolia by exploring the moment of emergence of modern institutions, which would later provide our most direct and visual knowledge (real or remembered) of Orthodox Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire. Focusing on a diverse range of local, imperial and international actors in provincial space in western Anatolia, the study delineates the contexts and processes of institutionalization. It shows a modern community in the making, and demonstrates how Orthodox Christians consolidated themselves before being forced to leave as a result of the Greek-Turkish War of 1919–22 and the ensuing population exchange.","PeriodicalId":41042,"journal":{"name":"Turkish Historical Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138536016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}