The transformation of Turkey : redefining state and society from the Ottoman Empire to the modern era / Fatma Müge Göçek
- Author:
- Göçek, Fatma Müge
- Published:
- London ; New York : I.B. Tauris, 2011.
- Physical Description:
- viii, 310 pages ; 23 cm.
- Series:
- Contents:
- Introduction. Turkish Transformation: From Empire to Republic -- and Back?; 1. Surveying Contemporary Turkey: A Country of Social Tensions Rooted in the Past; 2. Ottoman Origins of the Armenian, Greek and Kurdish Challenges to Turkish Foreign Policy; 3. The Legacy of the Young Turk Revolution in Contemporary Turksih Politics; 4. Why is There Still a 'Sevres Syndrome'? An Analysis of Turkey's Uneasy Association with the West; 5. Silences in the Turkish Republican Past: An Analysis of Contemporary Turkish-Armenian Literature. 6. Remembering the Past: How to Commemorate 24 April 1915; 7. In Search of Just Turks in the Collective Violence Committed Against the Armenians.
- Summary:
- In 1923, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatnrk, the modern Turkish Republic rose from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, proclaiming a new era in the Middle East. However, many of the contemporary issues affecting Turkish state and society today have their roots not only in the history of the republic, but also in the memory of the state's imperial history and decline. Here Fatma Mnge G[÷]tek draws on Turkey's Ottoman history to explore current concerns of religion and ethnicity alongside its international position. --
At the end of World War I, the Great Powers at the time (mainly Great Britain, France and Italy), divided the Ottoman Empire up into their respective spheres of influence in the Treaty of SFvres. For the defeated Ottoman state, this treaty represented the final attempt of the West to divide and destroy the empire. In The Transformation of Turkey, G[÷]tek explores how the historical memory of the Sevres Treaty has survived, impacting both state and society and penetrating national strategic culture, and in the process institutionalising itself in Turkey's foreign and defence policies. --
The transformation of this history of defeat into modern political myth, the efforts to create a cohesive nation state and the rapid efforts to Westernise have all shaped ideas and concepts of nationalism and 'Turkishness'. It is within this context of Western intervention in the fate of the Ottoman Empire that G[÷]tek analyses attitudes to religion, Turkish relations with Armenian, Greek and Kurdish communities in and around Turkey, and attitudes to the EU and the West. --
This new perspective on history's influence on contemporary tensions will contribute to the ongoing debate surrounding Turkey's accession to the EU, and offers insight into the social transformations in the transition from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Nation-State. This analysis will be vital to those involved in the study of Middle East Imperial History and Turkey's relations with the West. --Book Jacket. - Subject(s):
- ISBN:
- 9781848856110 (hbk.)
1848856113 (hbk.) - Bibliography Note:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [283]-302) and index.
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