The Ottomans and the Challenges of Building a Multi-Confessional Empire

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Level: 
Master's
CEU credits: 
4
Academic year: 
2009/2010
Semester: 
Fall
Start and end dates: 
7 Sep 2009
Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]: 
Department of History
Stream/Track/Specialization/Core Area: 
Culture, Religion and Intellectual History in a Comparative Perspective
CEU Instructor(s): 
Tolga U. Esmer
Additional information: 
Instructions on response papers: In your response papers you should NOT summarize the content of the articles but articulate your reaction to them—what did they make you think of, wonder about, want to know more about? You can choose a common theme that runs through several readings, comment on what seems to be absent in the readings, or come up with a different origanizing principle that ties the readings and lectures together. Are the arguments in the articles presented effectively and convincingly? What else could have the author(s) done to make the argument more convincing? What seems to be the authors’ perspective, background, bias etc.? You are encouraged to think comparatively and refer to readings you have done in other classes. Instructions on presentations of weekly readings: Presenters will be expected to succinctly introduce the readings by providing basic biographical information on the authors and briefly restating their main arguments. Furthermore, presenters will be responsible for coming up with a list of discussion questions (at least three per article) that will be posed in class for others to consider and discuss. These questions should be substantive and if possible comparative in nature, and should not be answerable by yes/no.
Learning Outcomes: 
The goal of this class is to introduce the students to Ottoman social and cultural realities and equip them with a conceptual vocabulary to discuss a non-Western, Muslim polity and its management of confessional and ethnic relations. By the end of the course the students will be expected to be familiar with the key Ottoman institutional vocabulary and historiographical debates relevant to the focus of the class.
Assessment : 
- Attendance at all class meetings is mandatory. Any unexcused absence will result in automatic decrease of the final grade by half a letter grade. - Participation: 10 % - 2 presentations of weekly readings: 20 % - 3 response papers—1st 3 pages; 2nd 4-5 pages; 3rd 6-7 pages (45%) • Final Exam—100 min in the 13th week (25%)
Full description: 

Week 1 (Sept. 21-25): Introductions—Ottoman Origins in the Land of Rum (Anatolia)

Class 1: Introduction—Anatolia as the Muslim-Christian Contact Zone in the 13th/ 14th c.

Class 2: The Gaza Debate; „Heterodoxy“ and „Orthodoxy“in Early Ottoman History

-- Wittek, Paul, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire (London: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1958), 1-51. [savepdf]

-- Lowry, Heath, „Debate to Date,“ in The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (New York: SUNY Press, 2003), 5-15. [savepdf]

Further Reading:

Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995)

Week 2 (Sept. 28-Oct. 2) : Who were the early Ottomans?

Class 1: Relations with Byzantium and other Balkan polities

-- Zachariadou, Elizabeth, „Coexistence and Religion,“ Archivum Ottomanicum 15 (1997): 119-129. [savepdf]

-- İnalcik, Halil, „Ottoman Methods of Conquest,“ Studia Islamica 2 (1954): 103-129 (JSTOR)

Class 2: Conversion to Islam, devshirme and other recruitment strategies

-- Minkov, Anton, „Forms, Factors and Motives of Conversion to Islam in the Balkans,“ in Conversion to Islam in the Balkans (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 64-77.

--Krstic, Tijana, „Rethinking “Syncretism” in the Ottoman Context—Politics of Religious Synthesis and Conversion in the Fifteenth-Century Narratives,“ in Contested Conversions to Islam (book manuscript), 78-121 

Further Reading:

Heath Lowry, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (New York: SUNY, 2003).

Week 3 (Oct. 5-9): Laying the Structure of the Empire and Dealing with the Challenges of Integration

Class 1: The Conquest of Constantinople as the Watershed Moment

-- İnalcik,Halil, „The policy of Mehmed II Towards Greek Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine Buildings of the City,“ Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23 (1969-70): 229-249 (JSTOR) [savepdf]

-- Lowry, Heath, „The Last phase of Ottoman Syncretism,“ in The Nature of the Early Ottoman State, 115-130. [savepdf]

Class 2: Rethinking „Millet“ System, „Tolerance“ and „Intolerance“ as Terms in Ottoman Histriography

--Interwiew with Aron Rodrigue, „Difference and Tolerance in the Ottoman Empire,“ available at http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/5-1/text/rodrigue.html

--Braude, Benjamin, „The Strange History of the Millet System,“ in The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilization, K. Çiçek (ed.), Vol. 2 (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 2004), 409-418

FIRST RESPONSE PAPER DUE IN CLASS

Further Reading:

--Daniel Goffman, "Ottoman millets in the early seventeenth century," New Perspectives on Turkey 1/1(1994): 135-58

Week 4 (Oct. 12-16): Transformation of the Empire in the „Golden Age“ of Süleyman the Magnificent

Class 1: An Ecumenical Vision for the Empire and Inter-Imperial Rivalries

--Necipoğlu, Gülrü, „Süleyman the Magnificent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman-Hapsburg-Papal Rivalry,” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 71, No. 3 (Sep., 1989): 401-427 (JSTOR) [savepdf]

Class 2: Fashioning of the Ottoman Sunni Orthodoxy—the Kizilbash Challenge

--Fleischer, Cornell, „The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Süleymân," in Soliman le magnifique et son temps, ed. Gilles Veinstein (Paris: La Documentation Française, 1992), 159-77. [savepdf]

–-Dressler, Marcus, "Inventing Orthodoxy: Competing Claims for Authority and Legitimacy in the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict," in Hakan T. Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski (eds.) Legitimizing the Order (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 151-173. [savepdf]

Week 5 (Oct. 19-23): New Configurations of Power in the Late Sixteenth Century

Class 1: The Rise of the Elite Households

-- Peirce, Leslie „The Age of the Queen Mother: 1566-1656,“ in The Imperial Harem (London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 91-112

--Findlay, Carter V., „Political Culture and the Great Households,“ in The Cambridge History of Turkey, Vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 65-80 [savepdf]

Class 2: The End of Devshirme and New Strategies of Recruitment

-- İnalcık, Halil, „Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1700,“  Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980): 283-337 [savepdf]

--Minkov, Anton, „Apendix I“ (Docs #3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13), in Conversion to Islam

Week 6 (Oct. 26-30): Too much acculturation? Seventeenth-Century Challenges

Class 1: The Kadizadeli Movement

--Zilfi, Madeline, „The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Oct., 1986): 251-269 (JSTOR) [savepdf]

--Baer, Marc, „The Great Fire of 1660 and the Islamization of the Christian and Jewish Space in Istanbul,“ International Journal of Middle East Studies 36 (2004): 159-181. (JSTOR) [savepdf]

Class 2: The phenomenon of „New Martyrdom“

-- Krstic, Tijana, „Everyday Communal Politics of Conversion and Orthodox Christian Martyrdom,“ in Contested Conversion to Islam (book manuscript, Chapter Six).

Week 7 (Nov. 2-6): Increased Interactions with the West and Their Ramifications

Class 1: The Issue of „Westernization“

--Masters, Bruce, “Merchants and Missionaries,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 68-97. [savepdf]

Class 2: Shifts in Power Between the Ottomans and Their Christian Imperial Rivals

--Aksan, Virginia, „Locating the Ottomans Among Early Modern Empires,“ Journal of Early Modern History, 3/2 (1999): 103-134. [savepdf]

SECOND RESPONSE PAPER DUE IN CLASS

Week 8 (Nov. 9-13): The „Age of Ayan“ and the First „National“ Revolutions

Class 1: The Ayan and Land Tenure Paradigm

--Adınır, Fikret, „Semi-autonomous forces in the Balkans and Anatolia,“ in S. Faroqhi (ed.) The Cambridge History of Turkey, Vol. 3 The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839: 157-185 [savepdf]

Class 2: The Non-Muslim Elites and the First „National“ Revolts

--Philliou, Christine, „Communities on the Verge: Unraveling the Phanariot Ascendancy in Ottoman Governance,“ in Comparative Studies in Society and History, 51 (2009): 151-181. [savepdf]

For further reading and presentation:

--Khoury, Dina, „The Ottoman centre versus provincial power-holders: an analysis of the historiography,“ in S. Faroqhi (ed.) The Cambridge History of Turkey, Vol. 3 The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839: 135-156. [savepdf]

Week 9 (Nov. 16-20): The Ottoman Age of Reforms

Class 1: The Controversial Reign of the „Great Reformer“ Sultan Mahmut I and the Tanzimat

--Khoury, Dina, “Who is a True Muslim,“ in The Early Modern Ottomans, V. Aksan and D. Goffman (eds.), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 256-274. (Library e-reserves)

Class 2: Ottoman Reforms and Inter-Imperial Rivalries in the Balkans and Arab Lands

--U. Makdissi. „After 1860: Debating Religion, Reform, and Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire," in International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Nov., 2002): 601-617 (Library e-reserves) [savepdf]

In class exercise:

--Primary sources: Mahmud II, "Firman"; "Hatt-i ÿerif of Gülhane"; "Hatt-i Hümayun"

 Week 10 (Nov. 23-27): The Empire Recoils

Class 1: Balkan Nationalisms and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878

--Mazower, Mark, „Building the Nation-State“ in The Balkans: A Short History (New York: Random House, 2000): 113-144. (Library e-reserves) [savepdf]

Class 2: Abdulhamid and the Culmination of the Tanzimat

-- S. Deringil, “The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1808 to 1908” in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan., 1993), pp. 3-29. [savepdf]

THIRD RESPONSE PAPER DUE IN CLASS

Week 11 (Nov. 30-Dec. 4): The Young Turk Revolution and The Balkan Wars

Class 1: The 1908 Revolution and 1909 Counter Revolution

--Sohrabi, Nader, „Global Waves, Local Actors: What the Young Turks Knew about Other Revolutions and Why It Mattered,“ in Comparative Studies in Society and History 44/1 (Jan., 2002): 45-79. [savepdf]

--Zurcher, Eric, “The Young Turks: Children of the Borderlands?,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 9 (1-2): 275-86 [savepdf]

Class 2: Death, Exile and the Fashioning of a „Turkish“ Identity

-- Carnegie Commission. Chapter IV „The War and Nationalities“ in The Other Balkan Wars: A 1913 Carnegie Endowment Inquiry in Retrospect with a New Introduction and Reflections on the Present Conflict by George F. Kenan (New York: Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 1993): 148-186. (Library e-reserves) [savepdf];[savepdf]

Week 12 (Dec. 4-8): World War One and A Peace that Ended All Peace

Class 1: WWI and the Armenian Genocide

-- D. Bloxham. „The Armenian Genocide of 1915-1916: Cumulative Radicalization and the Development of a Destruction Policy,“ in Past and Present, No. 181 (Nov., 2003): 141-192.(Library e-reserves) [savepdf]

Class 2: The Greek Invasion and the Turkish War of Indepedence

--R. Gingeras. “Notorious Subjects, Invisible Citizens: North Caucasian Resistance to the Turkish National Movement in Northwestern Anatolia, 1919-1923,” in International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40 (2008): 89-108. [savepdf]

Week 13—Final Exam

application/msword iconts-the-ottoman-empire-empire-buildingkrsticesmer.doc