Ebru Boyar

The press and the palace: the two-way relationship between Abdülhamid II and the press, 1876–1908

While Abdulhamid is usually represented as an extreme example of a ‘censorship sultan’, this article seeks to redress the balance and to present a more nuanced picture of Abdulhamids relationship with the press. Based largely on archival material from Istanbul, the article investigates how press magnates sought to use their relationship with the palace in order to ensure their survival and to gain the concessions they wanted, and how, in turn, the sultan manipulated the press and used it to cultivate his own image and to present the empire and his sultanate in the way he wished, both to his own subjects and to other states outside the Ottoman frontier.

A Dangerous Axis: The ‘Bulgarian Müftü’, the Turkish Opposition and the Ankara Government, 1928–36

Between 1928 and 1936 Hüseyin Hüsnü Molla Ahmed (1882–1940) held the position of Başmüftü (the head Mufti, religious leader of the Muslim community) in Sofia. Hostile to the new Kemalist regime in Turkey and backed by the Bulgarian authorities, he became a centre for opposition to the Ankara government. This combination of religious office, political backing and power base for anti-Kemalist opposition was perceived by the Turkish government as potentially threatening to the stability of the new regime, and it sought to counter this challenge through a variety of means. What made the Başmüftülük so important for Turkey in the late 1920s and early 1930s was the personality of its incumbent. ‘Ignorant and fanatical’ according to Yaşar Nabi (Nayır), Hüseyin Hüsnü was ‘the proven enemy of Turkishness and of our revolution’. For the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP), the ruling and sole party in Turkey, he was a ‘reactionary’ with ‘the soul of a dangerous religious fanatic’. He was seen as being a hard-line supporter of Damad Ferid Paşa (the sadrazam after 1918) and the Hürriyet ve _ Itilaf Fırkası (the party in opposition to the _ Ittihad ve Terakki Fırkası (Committee of Union and Progress) which ended with the collapse of the empire). With a strong loathing for Mustafa Kemal, who had, for Hüseyin Hüsnü, destroyed religion in Turkey and allied with the atheist Bolsheviks, he vehemently opposed all the new reforms: the adoption of the hat, the replacing of the Arabic script with the Latin, and the introduction of a civil code in place of the Shari‘a. Although Başmüftü of the Bulgarian Turks, Hüseyin Hüsnü’s energies were much more devoted to the struggle against the Kemalist regime than they were to either the interests of the Turkish minority or of the Muslims in Bulgaria in general. In this he clashed with one segment of the Bulgarian Turkish community, which was split between the more traditional, conservative element, and that section which supported the new government in Turkey and was keen to follow the new reforms. Such deep hostility to Turkey made Hüseyin Hüsnü an attractive ally to the Bulgarian authorities. He was certainly regarded that way by Yaşar Nabi (Nayır), who commented that he was ‘kept in office by the Bulgarian government, which he served following Bulgarian orders and loyal to Bulgarian interests’. Some Bulgarian Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 44, No. 5, 775–789, September 2008

The Impact of the Balkan Wars on Ottoman History Writing: Searching for a Soul

Based on histories, accounts and articles published after the Balkan Wars, this article argues that, contrary to the commonly accepted thesis, the Balkan Wars did not mark the point at which Turkism became the dominant state ideology. There was in fact no clear-cut and definite shift toward Turkism at this point. Instead there was an increasing awareness of the need for a ‘common soul’ that would unite the population of the empire in the face of dramatic challenges such as the Balkan Wars.1

“An inconsequential boil” or a “terrible disease”? Social perceptions of and state responses to syphilis in the late Ottoman empire

From the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman state started to perceive syphilis as a dangerous menace threatening the security of the state and the welfare of society. It therefore began to undertake measures to contain the disease and prevent it spreading. In particular the province of Kastamonu became the hub of the campaign against syphilis and the central government set up an invasive system of enforced pre-nuptial health checks, regular controls of the hamams and barber shops there, as well as imposing restrictions on the mobility of local residents, controls which had a direct impact on the everyday lives of the population. Among these measures the effective application of pre-nuptial health checks, directed at both male and female subjects of the province, was hampered by the resistance of the population, who did not perceive syphilis as dangerous, and in consequence the local and central governments and their agents, such as the medical personnel, who were responsible for the imposition of such measures, were forced to modify some measures and ignore others in order to avoid a confrontation with the local population.