SON NEFESİNDE OSMANLICILIK: BİRİNCİ DÜNYA SAVAŞINDA ARAP CEPHESİNDE GÖREV YAPAN OSMANLILARIN HATIRALARI

Bu makale, Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nda Arap Cephesi’nde görev yapan İttihat ve Terakki Cephesi hükümetinin önde gelen sorumlularının, bu görevlerini nasıl içselleştirdiklerini, sorguladıklarını ve yorumladıklarını ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. Çalışma, Falih Rıfkı’nın ve emir eri bulunduğu Başkumandan Cemal Paşa’nın ve İTC hükümetinin topluma ve eğitime yönelik reformlarının sıkı bir taraftarı olan Halide Edip’in hatıralarına dayanmaktadır. Her biri savaştan sonra kaleme alınan bu hatıralar, özlem ve pişmanlık hislerinin yanında, birbirlerinden Osmanlı Devleti vatandaşları olarak ayrılmak üzere olan Araplar ve Türkler arasındaki çetrefilli ilişkiyi göz önüne sermektedir. Bununla birlikte makale, genel olarak İTC idaresinin Türkçü ve Arap karşıtı ideolojisinin ve özelde savaş sırasında Cemal Paşa’nın Arap milliyetçiliğine karşı başlattığı mücadelenin, Arap milliyetçiliğinin doğuşunda başat rol oynadığına dair geleneksel düşünceyi de sorgulamaktadır. Bu çalışma, Arap topraklarında bulunan İTC üyelerinin hatıralarına dayanarak, Falih Rıfkı, Cemal Paşa ve Halide Edip’in, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Türkler ve Araplara ait ortak bir gelecek inşa etmek amacıyla bölgeyi ve halkını anlamaya gayret ettiklerini ileri sürmektedir.  

Ottomanism at its Final Gasp: Memoirs of the Ottomans on Duty in Arab Provinces during World War I

This paper aims to expose the ways in which the leading Committee of Union and Progress (the CUP) officials in the Arab lands during the First World War have internalized, questioned, and interpreted the conditions of their mission. It is based on the memoirs of Falih Rıfkı, aide-de-camp of Commander-in-Chief Cemal Pasha, the writer of the second memoir, and Halide Edip, an ardent defender of the social and educational reforms of the CUP government. Both written after the war, these memoirs reflect not only nostalgia and regret but also the complicated relationship between Turkish officials and Arabs on the dusk of their break up as citizens of the Ottoman State. The paper also questions the orthodox argument that the Turkist and anti-Arabic ideology of the CUP government in general and Cemal Pasha’s crusade against Arab nationalists during the war caused the emergence of Arab nationalism. By contemplating on the memoirs of the CUP members in the Arab lands, it argues that both Falih Rıfkı, Cemal Pasha, and Halide Edip tried to understand the region and its people in order to create a mutual future for the Turks and Arabs in the Ottoman Empire. 

___

  • Atay, Falih Rıfkı. Zeytindağı. İstanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1970.
  • Cemal Paşa. Hatırat. Transliterated by Behçet Cemal. İstanbul: Arma Yayınları, 1996.
  • Çiçek, M. Talha. War and State Formation in Syria: Cemal Pasha’s Governorate During World War I, 1914-17. Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2014.
  • Dawn, C. Ernest. “The Origins of Arab Nationalism.” in The Origins of Arab Nationalism. Rashid Khalidi, Lisa Anderson, Muhammad Muslih, Reeva S. Simon (eds.). New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
  • Farah, Caesar E. Arabs and Ottomans: A Checkered Relationship. Istanbul: The ISIS Press, 2002.
  • Haddad, Mahmoud. “The Rise of Arab Nationalism Reconsidered.” International Journal of Middle East Studies. Vol. 26, No. 2, May, 1994.
  • Halevy, Dotan. “The Rear Side of the Front: Gaza and Its People in World War I.” Journal of Levantine Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, Summer 2015.
  • Halidé Edip. Memoirs of Halidé Edip. New York & London: The Century Co, 1926.
  • Herzog, Christoph & Motika, Raoul. “Orientalism ‘alla Turca’: Late 19th / Early 20th Century Ottoman Voyages into the Muslim ‘Outback’”. Die Welt des Islams. New Series, Vol. 40, Issue 2, Ottoman Travels and Travel Accounts from an Earlier Age of Globalization, Jul., 2000.
  • Kayalı, Hasan. “Wartime Regional and Imperial Integration of Greater Syria During World War I.” in The Syrian Land: Processes of Integration and Fragmentation: Bilãd al-Shãm From the 18th to the 20th Century. Thomas Philipp & Birgit Schäbler (eds.). Stuttgart: Steiner, 1998.
  • Makdisi, Ussama. “Ottoman Orientalism”. The American Historical Review. Vol. 107, No. 3, Jun., 2002.McMeekin, Sean. The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908-1923. London: Penguin, 2016.
  • Tauber, Eliezer. “From Young Turks to Modern Turkey: the Story of Hüseyin Aziz Akyürek (Aziz Bey), the Last Director of the Ottoman General Security Service.” Middle Eastern Studies. Vol. 55, No. 1, 2019.
  • Wilson, Mary C. “The Hashemites, The Arab Revolt, and Arab Nationalism.” in The Origins of Arab Nationalism. Rashid Khalidi, Lisa Anderson, Muhammad Muslih, Reeva S. Simon (eds.). New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
  • Zeine, Zeine N. The Emergence of Arab Nationalism. Delmar, New York: Caravan, 1973.