1. Modern Revolutions in Comparative Perspective
Jan Plamper

2. Please fill in a course evaluation by the deadline tomorrow!

3. Week 10: The Turkish Revolutions
Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
Atatürk and Kemalism
Turkish ‘Revolution’ today? Gezi Park

4. (1) Turkish ‘Revolution’?
No single event or set of events (e.g. storming of the Bastille, Terror) associated with Turkish Revolution
Turkish Revolutions in the plural
Term refers to period that encompasses Young Turk rebellion of 1908, dissolution of Ottoman Empire and Turkish War of Independence,

5. (2) Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
Ottoman Empire,

6. (2) Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
Ottoman Empire (including dependent territories) at outbreak of WW1 in 1914

7. (2) Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
many national movements in multinational empire (e.g. in Bulgaria  pan-Slavism  Russia)
mid-19th c.: Ottoman Empire = ‘sick man of Europe’; constitution of 1876 suspended in 1878 by Sultan Abdul Hamid II who ruled like absolute monarch for next 30 years
Young Turk movement: students in Paris etc., influenced by Western European scientism and spirit of nationalism; secret society (later: party) Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)

8. (2) Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
one (of several) catalysts for 1908 Young Turk Revolution: Japan’s victory over Russia in Russo-Japanese War  ‘Eastern’ power (Japan) can beat ‘Western’ power (Russia)
Young Turk Revolution was a successful revolt by officers; July 1908: Sultan restores constitution of 1876 and parliament

9. (2) Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
Second Constitutional Period, :
constitutional monarchy with Sultan
various setbacks, cataclysms etc., e.g. April 1909 counterrevolution by more conservative and religious old Ottoman government officials
power not only concentrated in legislative branch (parliament) or executive (Sultan), but also army  pattern for Modern Turkey: military coups d’état in 1960, 1971, 1980
from : almost continuous warfare ( Balkan War, WW1, War of Independence)  enormous casualties

10. (2) Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
Second Constitutional Period, : spring-summer 1915: Armenian genocide: Armenian nationalist movement in Eastern Anatolia; ‘relocations’ (= deportations) by Ottoman troops, in the end 600, ,000 dead (some Turkish historians: 200,000; some Armenian historians: 1.5 million)  could only take place in conditions of war; some Social Darwinist rhetoric, but no Nazi-type ethnobiological racism and no industrialised extermination; Turkey claims this was inter-communal warfare, not intentional genocide  foretaste of consequences of nationalism applied in revolution-cum-war situation in 20th century

11. (2) Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
Second Constitutional Period, : January 1913: coup d’état by CUP, other parties suppressed  single-party rule, social, administrative, economic and cultural reforms (e.g. family law partly secularised: right to divorce introduced; this coexists with sharia law)  rights of women advanced in following years  typical general pattern: women engaged in WW1 home fronts, demands for expanded postwar franchise lent credibility  ultimately, birth of mass politics with ‘one person, one vote’ as Archimedean point

12. (2) Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
Second Constitutional Period, :
4 ideological currents/-isms:
Ottomanism, i.e. union of different communities around Ottoman throne
Pan-Islamism: regenerate empire on basis of Islamic practices
Pan-Turkism: union of Turkic peoples under Ottoman flag
Westernism: adopt Western practices

13. (2) Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
Second Constitutional Period, :  many Young Turks actually supported several of these, even though independent, post-1923 Turkey claimed to have only supported Turkish nationalism (not Ottomanism, the official ideology of the post-1908 constitutional monarchy, and not pan-Turkism)

14. (2) Causes and Course of Turkish Revolutions
War of Independence, :
October 1918: Ottoman capitulation, strong interference of Entente powers
National independence movement led by Mustafa Kemal ( ), granted title ‘Atatürk’ (=‘Father of Turks’) in 1934; personality cult
Founder of modern Republic of Turkey, 1923

15. (3) Atatürk and Kemalism
(1:04:30)

16. (3) Atatürk and Kemalism
Six pillars (‘arrows’) of Kemalism:
republicanism: representative parliamentary democracy (parliament: Grand National Assembly)
populism: siding with people  modernisation and gender equality
nationalism: rather than multinational (Ottoman) empire
secularism
statism: state’s strong involvement in economy
reformism: adapt European modern institutions/practices to local conditions

17. (3) Atatürk and Kemalism
Also = logo of Republican People's Party, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP)

18. (4) Turkish ‘Revolution’ today? Gezi Park
Recep Erdogan elected Prime Minister of Turkey in Also Chairman of conservative, Islamist, neo-Ottoman Justice and Development Party (AKP). Was Erdogan’s election ‘revolutionary’? Can conservatism ‘revolutionise’ a country built on revolution?

19. (4) Turkish ‘Revolution’ today? Gezi Park
(Noam Chomsky, until 2:00)

20. Please fill in a course evaluation by the deadline tomorrow!