Şerif Mardin's seminal study The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought, published half a century ago, deftly challenged two widely accepted assessments of the existing historiography. The first was that the Young Ottomans were a link in a long chain of Ottoman proponents of Westernization from Selim III to the Young Turks. The second was that the Ottoman statesmen and intellectuals of the Tanzimat era had internalized the “Eastern Question” discourse and could not produce paradigms that would contest this overarching contextualization. Ably and in great detail, Mardin explained how the Young Ottomans, envisaging a reconciliation of modernity and Islam, had proposed solutions to the problems of the empire quite different from those of the Tanzimat, which they viewed as a capitulation to European dictates; and, he showed how, in practical terms, they conceptualized a “Western Question”.
Nazan Çiçek's ably-researched and well-written study focusing on the Young Ottomans' criticisms of the Eastern Question paradigm takes this challenge a step further. Basing her study on archival sources, and on journals and newspapers of the time, Çiçek argues that while representing a segment of the Ottoman elite that benefitted immensely from the new Western ideas, the Young Ottomans produced a robust anti-Western ideology that planted the seeds of early modern Turkish nationalism in the wake of the break-up of the empire. This, she skilfully maintains, was an ideology primarily shaped as a reaction to the Eastern Question discourse imposed on the Ottomans by the all-powerful Great Powers of Europe. Çiçek further elaborates on the strong influence of these ideas on the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who had considered a leading Young Ottoman, Namık Kemal, as “the father of his patriotic ambitions”.
Çiçek's expertly constructed, tightly argued, and limpidly written study situates the Young Ottoman opposition in the Eastern Question debate, and demonstrates the significant role of this discussion in shaping Young Ottoman ideology. Without delving into the obscure details of the Eastern Question debate Çiçek also discusses the interplay between the vehemently anti-Russian Urquhartites and some Young Ottomans who shared a similar vision regarding the Eastern Question and its detrimental effects on both the British and Ottoman empires.
Çiçek's study provides an interesting framework for understanding the hitherto underestimated role of the Eastern Question debate in moulding the Young Ottoman ideology in particular and defensive Muslim/Turkish anti-Westernism in general. The examples chosen, such as the Cretan crisis of 1866–69, the European-imposed equalization of Ottoman subjects of various religious affiliations in 1856, and the Ottoman public debt crisis that reached its peak in 1875, serve as sound case studies to illustrate the evolution of an anti-Western ideology embraced by intellectuals publishing journals in the West.
Çiçek maintains that this ideology evolved into a nationalist ideology and dominated the intellectual debate in the early years of the Turkish republic. While many similarities may be found between the Young Ottoman ideology and that of the Turkish nation-state that emerged from the ruins of the empire, jumping from the mid-nineteenth century to the early Republican era and sometimes to present-day Turkey is highly problematic from the viewpoint of history writing. Such an approach, bypassing the long Hamidian era and the rule of the Committee of Union and Progress in the waning years of the empire, not only sets up an ahistorical comparison but also prevents the reader from fully grasping the evolution and mutation of an ideology. Likewise, xenophobic anti-Westernism is portrayed solely as a product of the Eastern Question debate of the mid-nineteenth century. While Çiçek shows that this discussion undoubtedly exacerbated the existing sentiments of the Ottoman Muslims vis-à-vis the Great Powers of Europe and the non-Muslim subjects of the empire, it is difficult to accept the emergence of the Young Ottoman ideology as the starting point for this anti-Westernism and of the conceptualization of non-Muslims as the “Other”.
For instance, the author states that it is not possible to “understand the motives behind such extreme measures such as Varlık Vergisi (the Emergency Prosperity Tax) in 1942 without referring to the historical relations between the Ottoman state and its non-Muslim subjects”. This is an entirely valid point; however, while the origins of the unfair treatment of minorities in the Turkish nation-state can be traced back to earlier periods, in searching for the roots of the aforementioned tax, which sought to dispossess non-Turkish elements, looking at the post-1913 “National Economics” policies of the Committee of Union and Progress that were shaped under the strong influence of the German historical school and aspired to create a Muslim-Turkish bourgeoisie would yield better results. Similarly, while for many Young Ottoman leaders the regime of Abdülhamid II was a “nightmare”, as stated in the book, it was this pious sultan who revamped the anti-Western ideology of the Young Ottomans, reconciled it further with Islam, and turned it into a pillar of the new official ideology of the state. Çiçek would have rendered her analysis more inclusive and solid through an epilogue historicizing the evolution of the Young Ottoman ideology in a larger context without major leaps.
These minor theoretical imperfections notwithstanding, students of Ottoman and European, especially British, history will make ample use of Çiçek's book, which is a valuable contribution to the field. In addition to solid archival research, it reflects both breadth of knowledge and the ability to use it in an analytical way.
