THE ROLE OF THE OTTOMAN 'OTHER' IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF MODERN TURKISH NATIONAL IDENTITY (1923-1938): AN ONTOLOGICAL (IN)SECURITY PERSPECTIVE

Date

2025-9-29

Author

Kaleoğlu Uçaner, Burcu

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This dissertation investigates the role of the Ottoman 'other' in the construction of modern Turkish national identity from 1923 to 1938 from an ontological insecurity perspective. In the last decades of the Ottoman rule, the prevailing Western representations portrayed Turks as inherently incapable of self-rule, barbaric, inferior, and uncivilized, and these portrayals not only justified but also encouraged European interference, colonial ambitions, and political tutelage in the Ottoman domains that resulted with the actual occupation of the Ottoman territories with the Moudros Armistice. The new Republic was also burdened with the Empire‘s inherited international position and economic liabilities. The tragic consequences of the stigmatization along with the experiences of invasion and defeat instilled a deep ontological insecurity in the Republican elite that shaped the context within which they sought to challenge and overturn the orientalist depiction of Turks as a people unfit for modern statehood and civilization. Thus, in order to survive in a highly precarious international system of states and be an equal, autonomous and sovereign member of European state system, the new Turkish state had to be modern, secular, civilized and unified nation-state in contrast to the 'sick man of Europe'. In that respect, the aspects of the Ottoman past that clashed with this new identity, such as absolutism, dynastic rule, multi-ethnic pluralism, religious bigotry, its subjugation by the West and backwardness, were selectively otherized in the construction of the new Turkish national identity. At the same time, certain elements of the Ottoman past had been selectively appropriated and reinterpreted as integral components of a continuous Turkish nation and historical legacy. Hence, the 'Ottoman past' became a reference point in legitimizing and constructing the new Turkish national identity. By critically engaging with the socio-historical conditions that gave rise to these policies and processes, this study adds an international dimension to the existing scholarship on early Republican Turkey from an ontological insecurity perspective.

Subject Keywords

Turkish National Identity, Ontological (In)security, Selective Otherization, Ottoman Past, Republican Reforms, Turkification

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/116119

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis