Ed. by M. Hakan Yavuz with Peter Sluglett.
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2011. IX+610 p.*
In recent decades, Turkish and Western historiography has been striving for a more thorough and in-depth study and largely rethinking of the process of disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of new state and ethno-political realities in the territories that were part of it. The subject of very close interest and critical analysis is, in particular, the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 and the Berlin Congress of 1878, which formed its results, which undoubtedly formed an important milestone in this process. Suffice it to say that two international conferences on these issues have been held recently - in Ankara in 2005 under the auspices of the Middle Eastern Technical University (Turkey) and Meiji University (Japan)1, and in 2010 in Salt Lake City as part of the Turkish Studies Project at the University of Utah. A particularly significant event was the second conference, which was held with the participation of more than 50 experts on the history of the late Ottoman Empire, the Balkans and the South Caucasus.
The peer-reviewed collective monograph includes 18 articles by participants of this forum, representing a wide range of important and rather controversial issues that go far beyond the chronological and thematic framework of the actual war and post-war diplomacy. In contrast to the traditional view of the results of the "eastern crisis" as a stage in resolving the conflicts that gave rise to it, the book consistently conceptualizes the events of 1877-1878 as the starting point of the collapse of the cosmopolitan Ottoman imperial system, which resulted in mass forced migrations, ethnic and religious cleansing, radicalization of collective identities, and prolonged conflicts in the territory from South-East From Europe to the Middle East as a kind of humanitarian payment for the principle of nation-states implemented in Berlin. At the same time, the authors address a number of legal, economic, social and ethnic problems that often remain out of the field of view of researchers, which had a significant impact on the course of events in the post-Ottoman space and partially retain their influence to this day.
The four articles that make up the first part of the book examine the foreign policy of the European powers in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, generally agreeing that the Berlin Congress, while trying to resolve the complicated socio-political consequences of the war, simultaneously created a complex of equally complex new problems.
* War and diplomacy. Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the Berlin Treatise / Edited by M. Hakan Yavuz together with Peter Sluglstom. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2011. IX+610 s.
1 The materials of this conference are published in a collective monograph: The Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-1878 / Ed. by Ömer Turan. Ankara: Middle East Technical University - Mciji University, 2007. VIII+344 p.
In the volume's opening article, Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah), "Transforming the' Empire ' through Wars and Reforms: Integration versus Suppression, "the Berlin Treatise is described as the trigger for a series of processes that led to the collapse of the Ottoman state by weakening its institutions, undermining its legitimacy, and creating" non-defensive zones" in the Balkans and Eastern Anatolia. According to the author, the treaty, exposing the weaknesses of the empire, stimulated peripheral minorities to use the situation to gain their own statehood, which, in turn, pushed the Muslim population to search for a new source of legitimacy, which became "Islamic nationalism". Another ideological basis for the revanchist forces in Istanbul was the experience and memories of Muslim refugees and deporters from the Balkans and the Caucasus, who radically changed the demographic structure of Ottoman society. As a result, the situation in the country has really acquired the features of a vicious circle. On the one hand, the magnitude of the defeat of the Porte and the accompanying human, material and territorial losses proved fatal for the project of liberal reforms, which began to be perceived as disastrous for the very existence of the empire. On the other hand, the growing reliance of the financially and militarily-politically exhausted state on irregular formations to maintain internal stability led to its irreversible de-legitimization in the eyes of the Christian, primarily Armenian, population.
Feroz Yasemi (University of Manchester) in the article "European Balance or Asian Balance of Power? The Ottoman Search for Security after the Berlin Congress " analyzes the efforts of the Ottoman political class to neutralize the external and internal challenges generated by the catastrophe of 1878. The strategy for the survival of the empire, which Abdul-Hamid II and his entourage developed and tried to consistently implement, was to avoid unilateral alliances with rival powers for the Ottoman inheritance (especially England and Russia) in foreign policy and reliance on the Muslim element and opposition to reforms and decentralization within the country. In the 1880s, this course was naturally supplemented by close relations with Germany, which had no open views of the Ottoman territories and no clientele among the Christian subjects of the Port. The balancing policy certainly allowed the imperial leadership to maintain a certain degree of independence and focus on internal issues, although it did not pay off in the long run.
Article by Sean McMeekin (Yale University) "Benevolent Contempt: the Ottoman Policy of Bismarck" continues to some extent the discussion of the peculiarities of the post-war international order begun in the previous work, highlighting the role of Germany during and after the congress. While recognizing the importance of the German factor for the Ottoman state, the author also reveals a deep discrepancy between Otto von Bismarck's rhetoric and Germany's true goals towards the Ottoman Empire, which was a typical example of Realpolitik in action.
The central thesis of the article by Mujib Khan (University of California, Berkeley), "The Ottoman Eastern question and the origins of modern Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, and humanitarian interventionism in Europe and the Middle East", is that the norms of the Berlin Congress system actually contributed to the marginalization of Muslim minorities in the former Ottoman territories, sacrificing their rights to the promotion of the Islamic revolution. Western Europe to the idea of civilizational progress. The author focuses on the contradiction between the universal humanistic standards and values declared by Western states, and their real national interests and identities. Considering the policy of the powers in 1877-1878 and later as a veiled continuation of the Christian rejection of the presence of a Muslim "stranger" in Europe, which originated in the Middle Ages, M. Khan argues that the mass expropriations and deportations of Muslims carried out during this period by the young Balkan states with the connivance of Russia and the West served as a model for the purges of Islamic groups in the It is hard not to agree with him that many protracted conflicts in these regions have their roots in the Ottoman era and are sometimes treated with double standards by the international community. At the same time, the author's attempts to interpret the events in the former Yugoslavia, Palestine, Iraq and Chechnya from the perspective of global Christian-Muslim antagonism, as well as the tendency to see the victim exclusively in the Muslim side, do not seem convincing.
The six articles included in the second part raise issues of State and nation-building in the Balkans and show the reaction of some groups of the local population to them.
Mehmed Hadjisalihoglu (Yildiz Technical University), in his article "Muslim and Orthodox opposition to the Berlin Treaty in the Balkans", describes three processes that are seemingly unrelated to each other, but are equally provoked (or activated) by the national-state demarcation process fixed at the congress: protests by Albanians against ignoring the demands for the creation of Shkiptar autonomy, and protests by the Orthodox Slavic population of Macedonia against the preservation of the region under Ottoman rule and less well-known in historiography (with the possible exception of Turkish) armed resistance of Pomaks (Bulgarian-speaking Muslims) to the Christian administration of the autonomous Eastern Rumelia. Following the author, it is quite possible to see in these movements an additional confirmation that the borders established in Berlin were the fruit not so much of a desire to solve the national problems of the Balkans, but of a search for a balance of interests of the powers in this part of Europe. However ,as the fourth part of the volume convincingly shows, a solution to the region's ethno-territorial problems that would suit all peoples could hardly have been possible even if the Congress had been more interested in this task.
The policy of" nationalization "carried out by the Serbian government in the late 1870s and first half of the 1880s in the newly annexed territories is analyzed in the article"Creation of the Serbian local administration in the districts of Nis, Vranje, Toplica and Pirot after the Berlin Congress" by Miroslav Svirčević (Institute of Balkan Studies, Belgrade).
In an article by Edin Dorudovich (University of Sarajevo) "An Ottoman miscalculation? The question of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last phase of the Eastern crisis " traces the transformation of the British position on the status of the Bosnian Vilayet from supporting its preservation as part of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the war to the forced consent to its cession to the Habsburgs after San Stefano and directly in Berlin as a measure aimed at preventing Russian control over Istanbul and the Straits. The subsequent Austro-Hungarian occupation was a turning point in the history of the region, introducing it to a new civilizational trend, but at the same time sowing the seeds of future inter-communal conflicts.
This topic is continued in the article by Aydin Babuna (Bosphorus University) "The Berlin Treatise, Bosnian Muslims and Nationalism", where the emergence of a peculiar confessional nationalism of local Muslim Slavs is considered as a consequence of their loss of their former privileged position and their participation in the mass popular opposition to Austro-Hungarian rule.
Isa Blumi (Georgia State University), in his article "Agents of Post-Ottoman States: The Dubious Nature of Montenegro's Borders Established by the Berlin Congress and how to Define/Limit the People", examines the flexible and pragmatic policy of Prince Nikola I to "gently" push Muslim and Catholic Albanians from the territories acquired by Montenegro in 1878 to neighboring Ottoman provinces, while simultaneously creating a new state. conditions for attracting them to mutually beneficial participation in the economic life of the country.
Gul Tokay's article "Reassessment of the Macedonian question (1878-1908)" in Istanbul substantiates the thesis that the reforms carried out after the congress in the Balkan provinces that remained under Ottoman sovereignty, both on the initiative of the Porte itself and under pressure from the powers, in practice contributed to the aggravation of interethnic and interfaith relations and discredited the Ottoman authorities and international institutions Tokay, however, tends to ignore the fact that even before the war, relations between different communities in Macedonia were very tense, and Istanbul's inability to implement effective reforms in the Balkans was one of the reasons for the "Eastern crisis" of the second half of the 1870s.
The third part of the book, consisting of four articles, explores mainly the diplomatic and socio-political context in which the Armenian population of Eastern Anatolia actively struggled for self-determination and responded to the repressive measures of the central authorities in the last quarter of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Brad Dennis (University of Utah), in his article "Patterns of Conflict and Violence in Eastern Anatolia Leading up to the Russo-Turkish War and the Berlin Tract," questions the view that the Berlin Tract initiated the Armenian question, as well as the idea that the tract was directly linked to the massacres of Armenians in the 1890s. Despite
Although article 61 of the treaty has contributed to the polarization of relations between the Armenian and Muslim communities in Eastern Anatolia, many other factors must be taken into account to satisfactorily explain the escalation of violence. In particular, the author focuses on the evolution of economic and social relations between Armenians and Kurds and other local groups since the mid-19th century, offering his own interpretation of the deep roots of the conflict.
Garabet Momjian (University of California, Los Angeles), in his article "From' Loyal Millet ' to 'Rebellious Millet': Abdul Hamid II and the Armenians (1878-1909)", sets out to initiate an objective and unbiased discussion of the Armenian-Ottoman contradictions in the decades preceding their tragic denouement. It should be noted that in comparison with the events of the First World War, the Armenian policy of Abdul Hamid II attracts less interest of researchers, although it was in this era that the prerequisites for the catastrophe of 1915 were largely laid. G. Momjian emphasizes that the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 brought the Armenian issue out of the intra-Ottoman context and turned it into an international problem, which the European powers later manipulated in their own interests. Abdul-Hamid's attitude to the autonomous demands of the Armenians and the demarches of Europeans in support of them was formed largely under the influence of territorial losses in the Balkans: fearing a repeat of such a scenario, the sultan maneuvered, periodically demonstrating readiness for concessions, but his fundamental strategy was invariably aimed at weakening and destroying the Armenian community. Based on Ottoman, Armenian, and Western archival sources, the author reveals the relationship between the politicization of the Armenian population and the internationalization of the Armenian problem after Berlin, giving an ambiguous answer to the question of whether this internationalization contributed or hindered the realization of the national aspirations of Armenians.
The article by Edward Erickson (Marine Corps University, USA) "The Model of Destruction: The Berlin Congress and the Evolution of Ottoman anti-Insurgency practices" explores at first glance purely military and organizational aspects of the state's struggle against partisan movements of non-Turkish peoples, which are important, however, for understanding Ottoman policy on this issue. If in the" classical " era in the Ottoman Empire, popular uprisings were usually generated by socio-economic reasons and developed around an individual leader, tribe, sect, etc., then from the third quarter of the XIX century. The Port was confronted with the actions of clandestine organizations ("committees")that did not have clear leadership with a cellular structure and mass support among the population, on behalf of and in defense of the national rights of which they spoke. The authorities, forced to respond to this shift in the face of resource scarcity and foreign control, have worked out, as E. Erickson, two models for suppressing insurgency. In the Balkan provinces, operations against the "rebels" were carried out by regular units of the army and gendarmerie, who often used very brutal methods, which, however, were quite consistent with the modern counterinsurgency tactics of Western states. On the contrary, in the east of the country, irregular Kurdish and other formations that did not require significant financial expenditures were mainly involved in the "pacification" of the Armenian revolutionaries, who performed their tasks at the cost of large-scale undifferentiated violence against the civilian population, culminating in the events of 1915.
Bayram Kodaman's article "Hamidiye Light Cavalry Units: Abdul-Hamid II and the Tribes of Eastern Anatolia"is somewhat discordant with previous analytical works. In my opinion, the author tries to see the privileged militia of Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen tribes created in 1891 as an effective tool for strengthening state institutions in the region, consolidating the Muslim population, neutralizing "Armenian activity" and deterring a potential Russian threat without sufficient grounds. Although this measure ensured the loyalty of the elite of the tribes included in the Hamidiyya to the Sultan, it also contributed to the aggravation of inter-tribal competition and hostility. In addition, the outrages of these groups against the Armenian population and their impunity only aggravated the antagonism between the state and the Armenian community, strengthening the positions of irreconcilable radicals in it. Finally, the very first months of the World War revealed the failure of tribal regiments in combat operations against Russian troops on the Caucasian front.
The fourth part of the volume includes four articles devoted to the causes and circumstances of ethno-religious cleansing in the territories lost by the Port. The problem of forced migration of Muslims from the former Ottoman possessions to the lands that remained under the rule of Istanbul has attracted increasing interest of specialists in recent decades. This, undoubtedly, contributes to the formation of a more balanced view of the complex course of state and national construction in the Balkans and partly in the South Caucasus as a contradictory and painful process that included not only the liberation and consolidation of Christian peoples, but also the parallel elimination of numerous (and often no less autochthonous) Islamic groups that identified themselves with the former metropolis as well as individual" non-titular " Christian communities. At the same time, by the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Muslim settlers significantly changed the ethno-confessional and socio-economic appearance of the empire and contributed to the crystallization of the ideology of Islamic solidarity, and later of secular Turkish nationalism.
One of the most prominent proponents of this trend, Justin McCarthy (University of Louisville), in his article "Ignoring the people: the consequences of the Berlin Congress", rightly notes that due to the extremely complex and confusing nature of the ethnic and religious map of Ottoman Rumelia, the demarcation between nation states in the region could not in practice do without significant population exchanges, which even in the case of Their orderly implementation would inevitably involve serious humanitarian costs. However, the Congress member States ' disregard for demographic realities when drawing new borders and their inability to ensure respect for the rights of minorities (including war refugees) by the Balkan countries, which pursued a policy of forced ethno-confessional homogenization, caused the problem of the Muslim "alien" in South-Eastern Europe to be resolved in the most dramatic way, implying not only forced assimilation, but also the deprivation of property, deportation and death of hundreds of thousands of people.
The reasons and consequences of the emigration of the Muslim population from the Kars, Ardakhani and Batumi districts that were ceded to Russia are considered in the article by Mustafa Tanryverdi (Caucasus University, Kare) "The Berlin Treatise and the tragedy of immigrants from the Three Cities". The settlement of at least 80,000 immigrants from the region in Central and Western Anatolia became another link in the migration flow from the former Ottoman periphery, which left a visible mark on the Turkish public consciousness.
The last two works in the book are devoted to two special cases of interethnic and inter-confessional confrontation in the Bulgarian lands, which had considerable international resonance. Tetsuya Sahara (Meiji University) in his article "Two different pictures: Bulgarian and English sources on the Batak massacre" draws attention to the fact that the tragedy of the Bulgarian village of Batak, destroyed by Muslim (mainly Pomak) irregular forces during the April uprising of 1876, received significantly more unfavorable coverage for the Ottomans in the modern British press rather than in the testimonies of Bulgarians who directly participated in the speech or sympathized with it. This distinction is not without interest, given the fact that it was the journalistic reports describing the "Turkish atrocities" in this episode (which undoubtedly took place) exclusively from the perspective of the victims of the bloodshed that inspired William Gladstone to write the famous pamphlet "Bulgarian Horrors and the Eastern Question", which marked the launch of the anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim campaign in England and in general, Europe in the run-up to the war.
The article by Omer Turan (Middle Eastern Technical University) "The Rhodope Resistance and the 1878 Commission" provides a detailed report on the activities of the special commission created by the Berlin Congress to study the situation of Muslim refugees who had accumulated in the Rhodope Mountains by the end of the war. The Commission also tried to find out the reasons for the armed opposition of local Pomaks to the establishment of control over the region by the Russian occupation authorities and the Bulgarian administration. Despite the collected evidence of the plight of the refugees and their terrorization by Bulgarian militias, European diplomats were powerless to work out concrete measures to help them. O. Turan sees the reason for this in the Russian side's obstruction of the return of Muslims to their pre-war settlement sites and the lack of perseverance of other powers. It is clear, however, that in the past Batak and war Bulgaria, ensuring cohabitation and complementary relationships between antagonistic communities was an international priority.-
It is hardly a more feasible task than solving similar problems in today's conflicts in the former Yugoslavia or Transcaucasia.
Written by Frederick Anscombe (University of London), the rather provocative conclusion "On the Way back from Berlin" does not so much sum up the previous discussion, but rather offers alternative visions of the subjects discussed. F. Anscombe thoroughly reviews many of the provisions and arguments contained in the volume, including the thesis itself about the turning point of the events of 1877-1878 for the fate of the Ottoman reforms and empire in general, thereby encouraging further scientific research in this area.
The reviewed monograph, which analyzes the short-and long-term consequences of the crisis of the second half of the 1870s for the Ottoman Empire and some post-Ottoman territories, offers a key to a deeper and more comprehensive assessment, and to some extent a revision of the usual views on such issues as the ideological and social roots of pan-Islamism, the essence of the Hamid regime, -the state system, Armenian and Macedonian problems in the late Ottoman Empire, Muslim immigration to Anatolia, etc. Despite the controversial nature of a number of points and conclusions, the book is undoubtedly a serious contribution to Ottoman studies and partly Balkan and Caucasian studies, and the articles published in it allow us to better understand the trends in the development of modern foreign historiography of international relations, wars, social and national movements in the era under consideration.
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