Histoire

Journée d'études - Arabicities of Istanbul: Setting the Research Agenda
En collaboration avec le Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII)

le 14 février au SWEDISH RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN ISTANBUL (SRII)
le 15 février à l'IFEA

Prof. Dr. Faruk Bilici [Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO), Paris]

17 novembre 1869 : le canal de Suez est inauguré en grandes pompes, en présence de l’impératrice Eugénie. Mais la construction du canal, débutée en 1859, ne s’est pas faite sans heurts. Ferdinand de Lesseps et la France ont en effet bataillé durant de longues décennies avant de convaincre l’Empire ottoman, dont l’Égypte n’était qu’une province, de son bien-fondé.Accusée d’être un instrument de colonisation de l’Égypte au profit de la France, la Compagnie universelle du canal de Suez, « État dans l’État », est très critiquée par l’Empire ottoman. Celui-ci craint qu’un canal maritime séparant matériellement l’Égypte du reste de l’Empire rende illusoire la souveraineté du sultan sur ce territoire, et ouvre la porte à une domination occidentale inacceptable. Cet ouvrage ne propose pas une énième histoire du canal de Suez ni sur le plan technique, ni sur le plan diplomatique, mais il entend combler une lacune considérable : l’étude de cette histoire du point de vue ottoman, des projets à l’exploitation en passant par la construction du canal. Procès, arbitrages, polémiques : bien avant la « crise de Suez » de 1956 liée à sa nationalisation, le canal était déjà au coeur d’un jeu de puissances entre Orient et Occident.

Historien, spécialiste de l’Empire ottoman et de la Turquie contemporaine, Faruk Bilici est professeur émérite des universités à l’Inalco. Il travaille essentiellement sur l’histoire des institutions islamiques, les relations franco-ottomanes (xvie-xxe siècles) et l’histoire de l’Égypte ottomane. Il a dirigé la collection Bibliothèque turque chez Actes-Sud/Sindbad et a co-dirigé La Turquie : d’une révolution à l’autre (2013). Son dernier ouvrage porte sur L’expédition d’Égypte, Alexandrie et les Ottomans (2017).

Intervention en français

The paper sheds light on the politics of language (Turkish, Arabic, and Persian) and literary patronage in Safavid Iran in the first few decades of the eighteenth century, offering parallels to the attitude to the hierarchy of literary languages in the Ottoman and Safavid cultural spheres, with a subject matter related to the confrontation between Iran and the Ottomans in the 1720s. It focuses on a short collection of poetry written by a hitherto largely unknown physician and litterateur by the name of Masih of Tabriz (fl. late 1720s), who was active during the last years of centralized Safavid rule and saw the demise of the dynasty in 1722 with the fall of Isfahan to the Afghans, and that of Tabriz to the Ottomans, and died probably towards the end of Nadir Shah’s (r. 1736-47) reign. The bulk of the poems is made up of elaborate forms of acrostics written in the aforesaid three languages and interconnected with each other in graphic, metalinguistic and translinguistic ways. I will argue that this poetic experimentation, the peculiar attitude to the question of language in Masih’s collection and the mutual prestige relations between literary languages that Masih displays, might perhaps be best seen against the background of changing literary patronage in the post-Safavid and Afsharid periods. Masih’s short collection of poetry illustrates how these languages were conceptualized and spatially represented in the manuscript, as both connecting and separating the Ottoman and Iranian cultural enterprises.

Ferenc Csirkés is an Assistant Professor of History at Sabancı University. He read Turkic and Persian at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, and received his PhD at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on the politics of language in the late medieval and early modern Islamic world, especially Iran, Central Asia, and the Ottoman Empire. 

The talk will be about Yonca Köksal’s recent book The Ottoman Empire in the Tanzimat Era: Provincial Perspectives from Ankara to Edirne (Routledge, 2019). It will explain the Ottoman reforms and their variation across the two provinces and the crucial role of local intermediaries such as notables, tribal leaders, and merchants. It attempts to understand the Tanzimat as a process of negotiation and transformation between the state and local actors. The author argues that the same reform policies produced different results in Edirne and Ankara. The talk will explain how factors such as socioeconomic conditions and historical developments played a role in shaping local networks, which influenced the outcome and variation in reform outcome. Therefore, it invites audience to rethink taken for granted concepts such as centralization, decentralization, state control, and imperial decay.

Yonca Köksal is an Associate Professor of History at Koç University. She has a PhD from Columbia University. Her research focuses on three areas:  social networks and provincial reform in the Tanzimat period, Muslim minorities in Bulgaria and Romania during the Interwar era, and animal trade in Anatolia and meat provisioning of Istanbul. Her publications include three books (The Ottoman Empire in the Tanzimat Era, Avrupa Arşivlerinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu and Kıbrıslı Mehmet Emin Paşa’nın Rumeli Teftişi) and several articles in international journals including American Behavioral Scientist, Middle Eastern Studies,  New Perspectives on Turkey, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, and Turkish Studies.

How millet became the nation. A conceptual history of the word millet in the longue durée of ottoman history

Nikos Sigalas (CETOBAC)

This conference aims at outlining the history of the word millet (Arabic millah) in Turkish-Ottoman texts from the 15^th century up to the beginning of the 20^th.

During the early ottoman centuries, two distinct uses of “millet” correspond to two independent linguistic registers. These registers are: the learned (‘ulamā) tradition; and the Turkish vernacular chronicles. In the learned tradition, the meaning of “millet” draws on medieval Arabic lexicography and qur’anic interpretation and is therefore systematically associated with the notions of dīn and šarīʿah. On the contrary, in Turkish vernacular chronicles and treaties – which mostly rely on Persian and Turco-Mongolian literate models – “millet” constitutes a synonym for “Λαός” and “populous” in Medieval Greek and Latin, i.e. a people. Besides, in Turkish vernacular sources, “millet” is often synonym for “ṭā’ife”. However “millet” belongs to a power legitimacy vocabulary, whereas “ṭā’ife” does not.

A third linguistic register, particularly significant for the uses of “millet”, and more generally for the power legitimacy vocabulary, were the titles of the sultanate’s officials (elḳāb). Alongside with the standardization of power rituals in the palace – including foreign ambassadors’ receptions – the extensive titles of ottoman officials became very important for the imperial rhetoric and were increasingly used by the ottoman chronicles and books of counsels. Τhe uses of “millet” in the elḳāb rely on the learned tradition. But, due to their formulaic character, the original meaning of these elḳāb becomes all the more obscure and is open to reinterpretation.

“Millet” undergoes a major semantic shift in the turn of the 18^th century, when the ottoman sultanate practically integrates the westphalian diplomatic system. From then on “millet” becomes occasionally a synonym for the modern English word nation and its translations in western European languages. This new meaning evolves together with an emerging semantic register: modern diplomacy, which embodies the integration of the Ottoman Empire into an “inter-national” (beyn-el-milel) world. The uses of “millet” as a synonym of “nation” become more frequent during the last quarter of 18^th and the beginning of 19^th centuries.

During the 19^th century, some Ottoman literati, who aimed to create a uniform Ottoman-Turkish national language, brought together the different premodern linguistic registers. Owing to this attempt, and despite some lexicographers’ resistance, the transformation of “millet” into “nation” became a fait accompli.

In the light of such findings we finally deal with the question of the so-called “millet system”. Starting from a close reading of the ottoman reform edict of 1856 (ıṣlāḥāt fermānı) and of a number of related diplomatic and administrative documents, I argue that the “millet system theory” leads to a complete misunderstanding of both the ottoman power concepts and the political practices. In fact, the 1856 reform edit introduces a form of governance based on the recognition of the “non-Muslim cemā‘ats” (and not “millets”). Rather than a medieval remnant, this was a calculated reaction to foreign intervention and nationalism. Nonetheless, these “cemā‘ats” were regularly called millets, i.e. nations, in most of the non-administrative sources. Therefore, the governance introduced by the ıṣlāḥāt fermānı reinforced the preexisting tendency to ascribe national attributes to confessional communities, with far-reaching consequences for the Balkan and Middle-eastern nationalisms.

Intervention en anglais

On the Other Shore: The Things of a Sufi Saint in Istanbul

Esther Voswinckel Filiz (Orient-Institut Istanbul)

Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi (1541-1628), the “second Pir” (pir-i sani) of the Celvetiyye Sufi-order, is a famous Sufi saint in Istanbul. His mausoleum (türbe) on the slope of a hill in Üsküdar has not ceased to be a vital focus of pilgrimage up to the present. Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi is known as one of the four protectors of the Bosporus, and according to local lore, seafarers between the opposite shores of Sultanahmet and Üsküdar cling to the “Hüdayi-way” (Hüdayi yolu), on which the saint is remembered to have crossed the waters on a stormy day. 

Until the 1980’s, a large collection of personal belongings (emanetler) of the saint and his followers such as several mantles (hırka), ritual headgear (tac-ı şerif), shoes, a stick (asa), ritual paraphernalia and many contact relics such as pieces of the cover (kısve) of the Kaaba or small pieces of musselin called destimal used to be kept in the türbe. In the past decades however, this extraordinarily rich collection of the mausoleum was gradually transferred to the archive of the State Directorate of Mausoleums and Museums (Türbeler Müze Müdürlügü) in Sultanahmet. While many historical inventories of Istanbul’s Sufi mausoleums dispersed and fell prey to looting after the closure of the Sufi shrines in 1925, among the locals of Üsküdar it is considered as one of the miracles of the saint that “not even a handkerchief” of the collection of his türbe got lost. Yet, presently, this rare collection is inaccessible to the public.

Drawing on my fieldwork at the türbe of Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi in Üsküdar and on my archival research,  I wish to offer a close look at this inventory of a famous Istanbul Sufi türbe and to shed light on the ways and stories of some of its items after 1925. An enquiry into the “biographies” of the belongings of the shrine of Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi invites us to pay attention to the vitality of portable and textile things in the aesthetics and materiality of Sufi shrines and to some local practices of Sufism in Istanbul past and present.

Esther Voswinckel Filiz M.A. is a fellow at the German Orient-Institut Istanbul in the research field “History of Religions of Anatolia”. She studied Cultural Anthropology and Religious Studies. Her Ph.D. thesis with the title Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi in Istanbul - Biography of a Place (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) was completed in June 2020. She conducted a long-time ethnographic fieldwork at the mausoleum of Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi in Üsküdar.

Intervention en anglais

Aux sources de l’alévisme : l'évolution des doctrines abdāl et bektachi

Zeynep Oktay Uslu (Université du Bosphore) 

Dans la Turquie moderne, l’alévisme, auquel adhère dix à trente pour cent de la population, est à la fois une dénomination religieuse et une identité sociale. L’histoire des croyances alévies s’incarne dans le corpus d’œuvres connu sous le titre de « littérature alévie-bektachie », avec sa propre multitude de genres, de terminologie et de symbolisme, ainsi que ses propres conventions esthétiques. Ce corpus négligé est en fait crucial pour la compréhension du développement des traditions religieuses vernaculaires en Anatolie et dans les Balkans. Cet exposé va donner un aperçu de l'évolution historique des aspects de la doctrine alévie entre les 14^e et 17 ^e siècles, à travers une analyse d’œuvres littéraires écrites par des auteurs appartenant à deux groupes des derviches relevant de courants majeurs de la doctrine alévie: les bektachis et les abdāls de Rūm. Cette étude contient une analyse doctrinale des œuvres de cinq abdāls (dont quatre bektachis) datant de la fin du 14^e au début du 17^e siècle. Ce sera lors de ce siècle-là que les les abdāls intégreront l’ordre officiel bektachi.  Ma communication va se concentrer sur des ouvrages de Ḳayġusuz Abdāl (au nombre de onze) et de ses successeurs, à savoir Ṣādıḳ Abdāl (le Dīvān), Yemīnī (le Fażīlet-nāme), Şemsī (le Deh Murġ), et Vīrānī (le Risāle et le Dīvān). L’exposé  montrera que les croyances shi’ites « extrémistes » et imamites existaient dans le milieu turkmène anatolien bien avant la propagande safavide. La doctrine de Muḥammad-ʿAlī, ainsi que la vénération des douze imams et des ahl al-bayt étaient déjà présentes dans ces cercles au 14^e siècle. En outre, les tendances antinomiennes, exprimées par une critique ouverte des notions exotériques de l'islam, ont été un marqueur majeur du tempérament abdāl et bektāşī dès les premiers jours de ces groupes et ont continué à l'être au 17^e siècle.

Intervention en français

Etienne Charrière, Université Bilkent (Ankara)
Séance modérée par Denis Hermann (IFEA)

           
Transcription, translittération, traduction: les littératures de l’espace ottoman et turcophone au miroir des « univers scripturaux »

Bien que sa puissance symbolique et son retentissement ne puissent en aucun cas être remis en question, la « Révolution des Lettres » - à savoir la loi de 1928 qui entérine l’adoption officielle d’une version adaptée de l’alphabet latin pour l’écriture du turc - n’est pourtant que l’aspect le plus visible de ce qui constitue en fait une longue série de « crises scripturales » agitant l’Empire ottoman et la République turque et dont la portée ne se limite d’ailleurs pas à la seule langue turque.

La présente communication s’intéresse aux répercutions littéraires des multiples débats et réformes alphabétiques qui ponctuent l’histoire de l’espace ottoman et turc de la seconde moitié du dix-neuvième siècle jusqu’à nos jours. En s’inscrivant dans la lignée de travaux récents en littérature comparée qui soulignent l’importance des « univers scripturaux » (scriptworlds) comme catégorie d’analyse, cette communication examine la complexité des rapports entre les pratiques de la transcription, de la translittération et de la traduction dans le contexte littéraire plurilingue de l’Empire ottoman finissant. Dans un deuxième temps, l’analyse se porte sur l’impact des tensions scripturales ottomanes sur des pratiques contemporaines d’« hétérographie » littéraire, notamment dans la littérature turco-chypriote.

Biographie: Etienne Charrière est titulaire d’un doctorat en littérature comparée de l’université du Michigan (USA). Il est actuellement professeur assistant dans le département de littérature turque de l’université Bilkent à Ankara. Ses recherches portent principalement sur l’émergence de l’écriture romanesque dans plusieurs des communautés linguistiques de l’Empire ottoman (Grecs, Arméniens et Juifs séfarades). Il a récemment co-édité le volume Ottoman Culture and the Project of Modernity: Reform and Translation in the Tanzimat Novel (Bloomsbury, 2020).

Intervention en français

Yaşar Tolga Cora (Boğaziçi University)

In the autumn of 1910, coal heavers in Istanbul, more than a thousand men, predominantly Kurdish, went on strike. Disrupting sea transportation in the capital and leading to the unlawful police detainment of ringleaders, the strike turned into a major incident that elicited a variety of political responses. Focusing on this strike as a case study, this presentation examines the political sphere in general and the politics of labor activism in particular as they existed at the turn of the twentieth century in the Ottoman Empire.

The presentation will first reconstruct the history of the strike through sources produced by a variety of state and non-state actors. Approaching the strike as a field of contestation in which various actors were pitted against one another, it will address not only the specific labor issues involved but also broader problems in Ottoman society that the strike made visible, including those of political economy, freedom of expression, and intercommunal relations. Thus this presentation aims to contribute to recent discussions about why, in an age in which coal was a driver of the global economy, labor activism in the coal sector did not turn into a broader democratic movement in the Ottoman Empire.

As a second goal, following various scholars’ calls in recent decades for the issue to be brought into the study of labor history, the presentation seeks to examine the central role that ethnicity played in the labor activism of the Second Constitutional Period, both in discourse and in politics on the ground. It thus aims to address broader historiographical concerns, particularly the challenge of writing about the working classes who went largely unrepresented in urban politics and the limits such lack of representation places on our ability to understand the wider politics of the era.

Intervention en anglais

Abdurrahman Atçil (Université Sabanci)

Séance modérée par Denis Hermann (IFEA)

In the pre-modern Ottoman Empire, a large group of Muslim scholars, specialists of Islamic religious knowledge, constituted a significant branch of the Ottoman bureaucracy. In addition to participating in the transmission of religious knowledge and providing religious guidance, these scholars acted as the agents of the sultans’ government, serving as judges, financial officials, administrative investigators, diplomats, etc. They pursued a career in government service, climbing up a ladder of hierarchically organized positions with regular promotions. The functions they fulfilled and the form of their relationship with the government distinguished these scholars from their predecessors and their contemporary colleagues. They were a unique group, and deserve a unique label: “scholar-bureaucrats.”

Muslim scholars traditionally claimed the moral authority in the Islamic world and usually esteemed independence from the ruling authorities. For this reason, their incorporation into the government was a significant development. It was a gradual process and had many ups and downs and turning points. From the second half of the fifteenth century, many factors, such as the construction of largescale educational complexes, the institutionalization of the state, international developments, and scholars’ increasing desire to participate in the government, dynamically interacted and brought about the rise of the group of scholar-bureaucrats.

The special position of scholar-bureaucrats was one of the distinctive characteristics of the early modern Ottoman Empire. Scholar-bureaucrats contributed legal and administrative expertise to the Ottoman government. They also helped the Ottomans to acquire and strengthen their legitimacy. Last but not least, the presence of scholar-bureaucrats hindered the rise of a body of religious authorities, with parallel and competing claims to those of the government. 

Abdurrahman Atçıl is an associate professor of history at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago in 2010. Before joining Sabancı University in 2020, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Law School and as an assistant professor and associate professor at Queens College of the City University of New York and Istanbul Şehir University.

In terms of research, Dr. Atçıl is particularly interested in questions of law, religion, and politics in the early modern Ottoman Empire. His first book, Scholars and Sultans in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, details Muslim scholars’ transition from independent and cosmopolitan actors to scholar-bureaucrats. His other published work is devoted to addressing issues, such as the Ottoman-Safavid conflict, scholarly mobility and theology and philosophy in the Islamic legal tradition.

Dr. Atçıl is currently working on two projects: The first, funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey-Career Development Grant, uses social-network-analysis technologies to examine the professional and intellectual networks of over 750 high-level Ottoman scholar-bureaucrats in the period 1470–1650. The second, funded by European Research Council-Consolidator Grant, investigates the formation of law in the Ottoman Empire between 1450 and 1650. Examining the religio-legal opinions (fetva) of scholars and decrees of sultans (kanun), it aspires to develop a model of lawmaking that will account for diversity and change in early-modern societies.

Intervention en anglais