The Ottoman Armenians Discuss Ottoman Civic Identity during Tanzimat Reforms
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56673/18294502-23.17-9Keywords:
Ottomanism, citizenship, the Ottoman nation, the Armenian millet, TanzimatAbstract
This paper explores how the Armenian efendis conceptualized and responded to the Ottoman imperial nation-building project during the Tanzimat reforms. It seeks to answer whether for the Armenian elite, the new form of the Ottoman civic identity was exclusively based on membership in an imperial nation, or it promoted a dual identity – one imperial, and one ethno-religious or national.
Discourse analysis of reports of the Armenian National Assembly, and editorials of Armenian newspapers, published in Constantinople (Istanbul), let me argue that although the Armenian Tanzimat-men shared the idea of Ottoman citizenship, they made it clear that membership in an imperial nation could not exclude the Armenian identity which was relatively inflexible.
References
● Ashaluys Arartian, № 328, 07.01.1849.
● Arshaluys Araratian. № 366. 23.06.1850.
● Meghu, № 5, 15.11.1856.
● Atenagrutyunk’ azgayin yndhanur zhoghovoy, №. LB, 22.10.1871.
● Atenagrutyunk’ azgayin yndhanur zhoghovoy, № Zh, 10.09.1876.
● Atenagrutyunk’ azgayin yndhanur zhoghovoy, № ZhZ, 10.12.1876.
● Haytararut'yun baregortsakan ynkerut'yan hayots. Kostandnupolis: Tparan Hovhann Myuhendisyan. 1861.
● Gülhane hattı, Düstür 1. Tertip. Cilt 1.
● Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (MIAM), fund M. Izmirlyan, file 14, 613. Islâhat Firmânı (18 Cemazi ül-ahir1856).
● Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), fund I.MVL, file 00382, 16736 (1274 Ra. 13).
● A Dictionary of Sociology, ed. by John Scott. Oxford University Press, 2014.
● Akarlı, Engin. Belgelerle Tanzimat: Osmanlı Sadrıazamlardan Âli ve Fuad Paşaların Siyasî Vasiyetnâmeleri. Istanbul: BÜY, 1978.
● Anagnostopoulou, Sia, "The ‘Nation’of the Rum Sings of Its Sultan: The Many Faces of Ottomanism,” in Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean, edited by Baruh Tanatar and Kechriotis Vangelis, 79-105. Athens: Alpha bank Historical Archives.
● Artinian, Vartan. Osmanlı Devleti’nde Ermeni Anayasası’nın Doğuşu 1839-1863. Istanbul: Aras yayıncılık, 2004.
● Cohen, Julia. "Between civic and Islamic Ottomanism: Jewish imperial citizenship in the Hamidian era", International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 44(2) (2012): 237-255.
● Cora, Yaşar Tolga. “Localizing Missionary Activities: Encounters between Tondrakians, Protestants and Apostolic Armenians in Khnus in the Mid-Nineteenth Century” n The Ottoman East in the Nineteenth Century: Societies, Identities and Politics, edited by Yasar Tolga Cora, Dzovinar Derderian and Ali Sipahi, 109-132. London: IB Tauris, 2016.
● Davison, Roderic. “Turkish Attitudes Concerning Christian-Muslim Equality in the Nineteenth Century”, The American Historical Review, vol. 59 (4) (1954): 844-864.
● Davison, Roderic. Reform in the Ottoman Empire 1856-1876. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.
● Derderian, Dzovinar. “Shaping Subjectivities and Contesting Power through the Image of Kurds, 1860s” in The Ottoman East in the Nineteenth Century: Societies, Identities and Politics, edited by Yasar Tolga Cora, Dzovinar Derderian and Ali Sipahi, 91-108. London: IB Tauris, 2016.
● Eissenstat, Howard. “Modernization, Imperial Nationalism, and the Ethnicization of Confessional Identity in the Late Ottoman Empire” in Nationalizing Empires, Edited by Stefan Berger and Alexey Miller, 429-460. Budapest- New York: Central European University Press, 2015.
● Findley, Carter. Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789-1922. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
● Göçek, Fatma. "The decline of the Ottoman empire and the emergence of Greek, Armenian, Turkish, and Arab nationalisms", in Social Constructions of Nationalism in the Middle East, edited by Fatma Göçek, 15-83. SUNY Press, vol. 15 (2002).
● Kamouzis, Dimitris. "Elites and the formation of national identity: the case of the Greek Orthodox millet (mid-nineteenth century to 1922)", in State-Nationalisms in the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Turkey, edited by Benjamin Fortna, Stefanos Katsikas, Dmitris Kamouzis and Paraskevas Konoratas, 26-59 (Routledge, 2012).
● Antaramian, Richard. “In Subversive Service of the Sublime State: Armenians and Ottoman State Power, 1844-1896." (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2014).
● Kılıçdağı, Ohannes. "Socio-Political Reflections and Expectations of the Ottoman Armenians after the 1908 Revolution: Between Hope and Despair." (PhD diss., Boğaziçi Üniversity, 2014).
● Libaridian, Gerard. "The ideology of Armenian liberation: the development of Armenian political thought before the revolutionary movement: 1639-1885." (PhD diss., University of California, LA, 1987).
● Mamuryan, Matevos. «Verak’nneal sahmanadrut’yun», Arevelyan mamul. № 3. (Mart 1871) 120.
● Nathans, Benjamin. Beyond the Pale: the Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California press, 2002.
● Salzman, Ariel. “Citizens in Search of a State: The Limits of Political Participation in the Late Ottoman Empire”, in Extending Citizenship, Reconfiguring States, edited by Michael Hanagan and Charles Tilly, 37-66. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.
● Stamatopoulos, Dimitrios. ”From millets to minorities in the 19th-century Ottoman empire: An ambiguous modernization”, in Citizenship in historical perspective, edited by Steven G. Ellis, Gudmundur Halfdanarson and Ann Katherine Isaacs, 253-273. Edizioni Plus – Pisa University Press Lungarno Pacinott, 2006.
● Taghavarian, Nazaret. Grigor Aghaton. Tsagumn yev kensagrutyun, Venetik: Surb Ghazar, 1900.
● Ueno, Masayuki. "“For the Fatherland and the state”: Armenians negotiate the Tanzimat Reforms", International Journal of Middle East Studies vol. 45(1) (2013): 93-109.
● Uludağ, Osman. "Tanzimat ve hekimlik» in Tanzimat I, 967-977. Istanbul: Maarif matbaası, 1940.
● Vardanian, Hovsep. Sahmanadrakan chshmartutyunner. K.Polis: H. Muhendisian, 1863.
● Зеленев, Евгений, Османизм и его роль в общественно - политической жизни Сирии, вторая половина XIX - нач. XX вв., Ленинград: ЛГУ, 1990.
● Сафрастян, Рубен, Доктрина Османизма в политической жизни Османской империи, Ереван: Изд-во АН АССР, 1985.
● Фадеева, Ирма, Официальные доктрины в идеологии и политике Османской империи. Османизм – панисламизм (XIX – начало XX в.), Москва: Наука, 1985.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Anahit Kartashyan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
