Ottoman History Podcast - Arapların 1915’i: Soykırım, Kimlik, Coğrafya

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

Emre Can Dağlıoğlu Sunucu: Can Gümüş & Önder Eren Akgül | Emre Can Dağlıoğlu’nun Arapların 1915’i: Soykırım, Kimlik, Coğrafya başlıklı derlemesine (İstanbul: İleti��im Yayınları, 2022) odaklanan bu bölüm, 1915’i Osmanlı ve Osmanlı sonrası Arap dünyası bağlamında ele almanın önemine işaret ediyor. Hem soykırımı hem de 1915 sonrasını bölgenin siyasal, toplumsal ve çevresel krizleri içinde konumlandıran çalışma, Arap vilayetlerine sürülen Ermenilerin karşılaştıkları politikaları, hayatta kalma stratejilerini, Arap toplumları ve coğrafyasıyla kurdukları karmaşık ilişkileri inceleyen makalelerden oluşuyor. Bu podcastte, bu çalışmaların soykırımın tarihyazımında açtığı yeni pencereleri detaylandırırken 1915’i sabit bir kırılma anı olarak görmek yerine, farklı yerel dinamikler ve ilişkiler çerçevesinde zamansal ve mekânsal olarak genişleyen bir perspektifle ele almanın imkânları üzerine de sohbet ediyoruz. « Click for More »

Music I use the Middle East historians in the Middle East. They were apathetic and even seeing. Therefore, the genocide, I don't use this only in connection with the Armenian genocide, of course, the fact that these violent events are part of the Middle East in academic terms, of course, is very important. The first one is the great When we talk about the way in which literature is told, especially when we talk about violence, first of all, there is an action that puts the whole of Arab societies in a single category, and in the process of rape and violence, in a single categorical position. There is a tendency to lower the position.

In such a big wave of violence, it is possible to change the position every minute. In terms of geography, in terms of economic relations, in terms of relations with the Ottomans and the Itahats, there are articles that show that there are different opportunities and positions in the field. Welcome to Atom List podcast. I am Önder Eren Akgül. I am Can Gümüş. Today's guest is Emrecan Dağaloğlu, who continues his research at Stanford University in the history department.

Welcome Emrecan. Thank you. Today's interview with Emrecan is about the Arabian 1915 genocide the book on the history of the Ottoman Empire and the Arabian geography. This book has contributed to the work of the state-centred and nationalistic historical writers for the last few decades. First of all, Emrecan, can you tell us about the book in general terms? How did you come up with the idea of ​​sharing such a book? What do you think is the example of researching in 1915 on the Arabian geography? This book was actually published in August 2014 when I was a journalist.

I started to see the genocide of Faiz al-Gh In 1917, I started to research why a Muslim Arab wrote a text about the genocide. It was a book that was used as a source. But there was nothing about who Faiz Al Hussein was, what he did, why he about such a thing. There are information about how the massacres took place in the Arabian geography. There are information about the camps. There are information about what happened in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan. But there is also information about how the Arabs were involved in the genocide as an actor. When we couldn't find much information about them, we started to write a book called Can We Consider Such a Thing?

The importance of such a study is actually opening up to the Middle East, expanding the borders of the European-Crimic geography. The reason why this is important is that Yiğit Akın, who wrote this book in the introduction part of the book, who explained this situation better than me,

I can say something by taking reference from him. First of all, genocide, what we call Armenian genocide, but in fact, the wave of violence that does not target only Armenians, is much bigger than the framework of the first revolution in the Middle East. After 1918, in 1920, the colonialist wave that shaped the Middle East, the Arab, the Muslim Arabs, strengthened their perceptions that they could not govern this geography. It is one of the most important proofs that it is necessary to establish the Mandar regime is one of the most important evidences.

On the other hand, we can see how the same colonialist regimes started the violence in 1915 and how they felt the Armenians have created in the classical sense, in the sense that it is a part of the white civilization, in terms of the control of this, in terms of what the Armenians have experienced against the Turks, or the Muslims, or the Kurds, is much greater than what they have experienced. Similarly, the genocide has already been physically...the...and the mass deaths are already expanding the local perception of genocide. In addition, what happened after 1918-19 is that the political flow of the Armenians...

...has pushed the Armenians to the Middle East, to the Arabian geography... ...and to the places where we can call the Arabian geography. That demographic change is not something that happens in certain years, but it is something that we perceive as a process. At the same time, it is important to see the participation of Arabs as actors, to see how they are involved in this matter, and to see how they are participating in this conflict as a source language, and to see how they are participating in this conflict as a source language, and to see how they are participating in this conflict as a source language,

and to see how they are participating in this conflict as a source language, and to see how they are participating in this conflict as a source language, I think you have expanded it. Actually, in the introduction of Yiğit Akın, Akın talks about three things. He says that the book has created an opportunity for a time-based, geographical and resource-based expansion. You have given the general framework of this. How can you tell us how this expansion, both from a geographical and resource point of view and from a time-based point of view, was cut off by the new developments in the history of history in the history of history, with the work of the 1915 study was cut off. The literature of the Armenian genocide has expanded a lot in the last 20-25 years.

The policy of the Turkish academic studies are beyond a certain point. This literature created by 25 years of process is actually very clear. A literature developed without discussing that genocide is actually a genocide, without taking any consideration of the repressionism, and the issue of social gender in the context of genocide, the issue of social gender, and perhaps more local studies, in places that are not focused on Istanbul, in more different places, in places where we can call the Ottoman Empire, how the genocide was found and what it led to, definitely expanded.

But still, the only thing that can make this geographical and temporal perception even broader is not just in the Middle East, or not just in the Arabian geography, but also in the Balkans, Caucasus, Iran, and even maybe even within Europe,...how the Armenian genocide started and how this process developed... ...how the political possibilities created here died or how they started... ...I think it is the foundation of an important opening here. I mean, we can think like this, when we come to the 1960s, when we look at the Igbo genocide that took place in the Biafra region of Nigeria, or when we look at the Metinites, who claimed that these massacres were a genocide, we see references what the Europeans wrote after 1919, I use the term in the context of the Armenian genocide, the Armenian genocide, with the experience of the ethnic anxiety experienced by the Muslim fanaticism.

I think that the 1920s and 30s caused by the but also those who work on Armenian genocide, those who produce here, and those who have the resources to develop literature by seeing these cuts or these common benefits of the Middle East historians. I think the book is one of the successful examples of a collection. When we look at the book as a whole or when we read the articles or the chapters together, it is one of the most striking sides to me. It is a story of confrontation. It is a confrontation between the Armenian who is persecuted from Anatolia

and the Arab Armenians who are encountering the Arabian genocide, the desert and the Arabian geography beyond the desert. This encounter is also a period of great crises. The first world war brought a lot of economic, economic and ecological crises that the Arabian people and the Arabian geography are facing. After the war, the war years were also very much affected by the war, with the quake, the nuclear disaster, forced military operations, and a year of independence that was characterized by pressure, exile and execution policies against the Arab nationalists of Cemal Pasha. How does the relationship between the Armenians and? What kind of relationship do they establish? What kind of lessons are taken?

What kind of perspective is this confrontation on the future and the past? When the confrontation is taken into account in one category and in the period of rape and violence. So there is a perception that Arabs are better behaved towards Kurds and Turks than Armenians and that they are in the position of the bystander, the viewer. But the book has a very fragmented position, and in such a big wave of violence, maybe it has a position that can change every minute. And in terms of geography, in terms of other geography, economic relations, and relations with the Ottomans... ...it is said that they have created many different opportunities and positions.

In this sense, not only the audience position, but also in Victoria Abrahamia's article... ...in the later Manda Suriye, how the Arab and Armenian nationality met in the later-established Mandasuri, and how the Ottoman Arab intellectuals of Keith Watt & Pohn saw the Armenians punished for this violence or how they made this to make this violence more common in their metin. And there are articles that do not put the audience in a positive position. In addition, there are also stories in the book that show that this confrontation is more in the past, that there was no confrontation that started in 1915. These are areas that are waiting for the deepening. Because we know that especially in the elite, the Arab and Armenian reformists had serious relations before 1915.

In the Arab Congress of Paris in 1913, the acceptance of the demands of the Armenians in the Adem Center, is a material in the final text of the Congress. Or before that, we know that the Armenians and the Arabian immigrants are actually in close relations in Istanbul and they are in various associations or in the search for civilization or alliance. Or we see from the book of Shulechan that a cooperation search in the area of Kilikya appeared between the Arab Alevi tribes and the Huns. And when we come to 1915, we see that the Arab Alevians have a contribution in terms of logistical aspects. Therefore, there is a past of this comparison. But when we come to the more mass-published version after 1915,

...what we see from the Sam Dolby article is actually a well, where the desert is automatically a place where you cannot live with death, and where the city's minds are. If we look at the Arab intellectuals, that comparison may be one of the most famous examples. Of course, the fact that Emir Faisal saw what happened in Istanbul on April 24, 1915... ...and what happened in Syria when he returned... ...is a prelude to a political perception that completely different. We see this in other Arab intellectuals, in the book of Nora Arisyan, Arab intellectuals are very afraid. They live this because they feel that the same wave of violence is coming to the Arabs.

They live this because they see the future is coming to them. They live because they see what is happening to Armenians in person. We also see that there is a mental breakdown from the Ottomans that the moment of that confrontation is born. If I go back to the mass thing again, in the chapter where Narine Margaryan writes on Emir F wrote about the Syrian administration, I will summarize it as Emir Faisal-Sherif movement. He sees the Sherif movement as a tool for showing the West that it is a much softer and a right Islamic power against the West. In fact, he clearly shows this to Nareen. and the fact that she saw them as a part of the Arab community. But on the other hand, the fact that the relationship between the Armenians and the Arabs and the Serif Movement and other Arab authorities is very grifted, for example, the Armenian women of Anna Alexanya were kidnapped after 1918

or given to the Arab tribes who were given to them to save their lives, when the mission of the liberation of Armenian women and children enters Syria or into Jordan, what they experience and the resistance there, or the mixed feelings and ideas that Armenian women have lived, we see in the article that he summarized. These encounters have a really different state and an incredibly grift, a complicated relationship was born

that cannot be summarized in a single word or sentence. Therefore, we are talking about a root-based comparison. But when these moments of comparison are broken by violence, it is a completely complicated, very diverse and truly a relationship that is completely transformed, with foreign politicians and with great change. We can talk a little bit about the part you wrote for the book....and in some moments, it really transforms the whole relationship. We can talk about the part you wrote for the book.

You gave the short tips at the beginning. In the part you wrote for the book, you focus on the work of Fahiz El-Ghuseyn, ...who is a Bedevi Asilzade, who was published in 1917, ...in the book, The Assassinations in Armenia. Who is Fahiz El-Ghuseyn? When we place this work, which I described as a propaganda piece, in the nail, in the local and global politics of the period, this broadcast tells us about the reflections of the ITC, the policies of the United States and the Terekki in the Arabian geography,

the different political alternatives and attitudes in the Arabian geography and the alliance relations in the First World War. and the first international war, what does he tell about the alliance relations? Faiz El Hussein was the son of the head of the Al-Sulut tribe in the north of Syria, and he was born in the late 1880s or 1870s. The second one was the tribe school that Abdulhamid founded established to train more loyal Arab bürokrats. He came out of there and joined the state bureaucracy. He was a member of the state bureaucracy until 1912. He was a Bedouin Asilzade, a Bedouin elite.

In 1912, he was disbanded from the Ottoman bureaucracy. He was with the famous We are talking about someone who broke the state bureaucracy and returned to Syria and joined the Ottoman reformists. Faiz Al Hussein was the first person to be arrested in the campaign that Cemal Pasha started against the Arab intellectuals in 1915. I think it is because he is someone with a lower profile here. He is sent to exile after the trial in Alei. He is found in Diyarbakır. Actually the exile place is Erzurum. But a certain period of time in Diyarbakır is imprisoned for a short time

with the help of the Russian Tsarist forces. Then he is released under the that he stayed in the city. When Faiz Al Hussein saw what he saw here in 1916, when he fled the city and reached Basra, he had no idea how to write what he saw here. But the names he encountered here are very critical. One of the most important names of the British military bureaucracy and intelligence are Percy Cox and Gertrude Bell. And of course they are people who manage the war propaganda. And the British, especially against Germany and the Ottoman Empire, are the Armenians are of fundamental importance.

They convince him to write about it. Then he goes to India and writes about the massacres in Armenia. Then he joins the Shia movement movement, which had rebelled. He became one of Emir Faisal's secretaries. If I'm not mistaken, in February 1917, I saw in a newspaper, by chance, that this was published in the Elmenar newspaper of Rashid Riza. I didn't write it in order not to be too assertive,

but later I realized that it was probably the first evidence written and published on the Armenian genocide. The testimony of Faiz El-Husein. I come from the fact that this is a propaganda substance. First, it is translated into Flemish, English and French. Then we talk about a book that is translated into Spanish and other languages of Europe. Here, Faiz El Hussein's story points to the following. Firstly, he really conveys what he saw, experienced and witnessed there. He describes what happened to the Armenians in Diyarbakır. But later, this book has an eclectic structure.

In different places, the parts that he tells about why the Ottoman Empire did this, are very seriously based on the propaganda of the Ottoman Empire towards the Shariah movement, towards the Islamists. It is a completely overlapping book in this sense. Therefore, as it is often mentioned in literature, it is much more than an English propaganda,...and how the Sherif movement has turned the Armenian genocide into a tool to reflect the outside world. In this context, I will talk about the true Islamic power, ...and who should be in charge of the caliphate and who should be in charge of the Islamic world in and the European countries,

and of course, it indicates the actions of Sheriff Huseyin and his actions. While explaining this, while explaining the genocide, massacre and violence policy, we see a book that actually establishes why Sheriff Huseyin rebelled against us. At the same time, I also think that fear that I claim to read in between the lines. It is that the same violence that the Arabs can face, that the events that start the fate of the Armenians are in the beginning, and that the same violence can be directed to the Arabs. And the Arabs claim that Armenians can live the fate of the Armenians in the nail.

Therefore, it is a book written to the Western eyes, but we understand that it is not so compatible with the Western eyes from the parts that are translated into English and French. But we also talk about what the actions of Şerif Hüseyin and his movement told the Ottomans, the world to the Armenians, to the Armenian people, you mentioned that it is not a year or a moment that has been 1915, but a process, and then we have to take it into account as a process. In this sense, it is important to research the Armenian lives after 1915, to do research on these issues, to open channels to get closer to this issue. And especially to the Armenians living in the borders of the Republic of Turkey, an important academic literature is developing in this regard. I mean, the book of Lerna Ekmekçiyoğlu comes to mind immediately.

I think the book also expands the dimension in this sense. So, the book has a line that tries to understand the Armenian book. When you think of the book as a whole, when you think of the collection as a whole, what kind of new perspectives do you think will be given to the life after 1915 and the construction of the Armenian identity and the different variants of the Armenian identity, and in general, what kind of new perspectives will be given to the life after the war in the Middle East history? I can start with the following. I started by saying that this is a process that has extended the Armenian genocide to this day.

This should not be perceived as something that is connected to the genocide, not because it is connected to the genocide after all these years, but because it is not connected to the genocide after all these years, they are not still connected to genocide. But somehow we are talking about the bodies that the violence has labeled with the words of Yektan Türk Yılmaz. We see that this identity can be broken, even the trace of being about to be destroyed... ...has not left the pursuit of Armenians or other groups that have been hit by violence and who are chasing other societies. When we look at what happened to the Armenian bodies in the Middle East, when we look at what happened to the Armenian bodies who were severely beaten,

we see a very similar process. For example, in 1919, we see the pogrom against the Armenians in Aleppo. In 1925, we see the Armenians in the conflict with the Arabian-Nazi in Syria. Then in 30s, after the 1920s, in 1939, in 1939, with the right to Turkey, the Armenians broke out of there and went to Lebanon this time. The next internal war in Lebanon, the Soviet Union in 1946- to read that the new Armenians can be a teacher in this sense. Therefore, just looking at Turkey, it is something that reduces the experience of Armenians in this sense, thinking how the Armenians here could not be established with the power of the state or in this respect. Because here is an identity, new Armenians, a new society, maybe a new language are being built. And this is basically built in the Middle East where the population has now slipped.

It is built in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt. And in this sense, I think it is more comprehensive in terms of understanding the Armenian identity and re-establishing it in terms of expanding the perspective a little towards here. I think it is more informative to understand the Armenian identity and to understand the expansion of the Armenian identity. In the section he wrote in the book, Keith David Wattenpa says that the genocide needs to be included more in the social and intellectual history of the Eastern Mediterranean.

I think this analysis opens the way to this minefield to an important degree. What do you think are the questions and concerns that researchers are expecting for the future? Actually, the book shows how the works of some of the key analytical categories, such as the desert, social gender, childhood, and the above, can create opportunities for such work of a great artist. What would you suggest to young researchers who want to work on this subject but are afraid or lose their way? As Votumpo said, after this book was published, or maybe the publishing dates are too short, when Usama Maktisi published his last book,

Usama Maktisi said the same thing in that book. Middle Eastern historians are actually in the Middle East I use it in the nail. They were apathetic against the mass violence that came to the head of the minorities. They were even a little out of sight. Therefore, the fact that these violent events are part of the Middle East is very important. It is also very valuable to understand how the transformation in the Middle East, the social, economic and social

transformation has taken place. In this context, if I may pass to Can's question, I can say that the first is that we are now at the stage of political denial period. So we are talking about the post-denial period. Therefore, the Armenian genocide is a academic field and stands in front of all of us. This is both in terms of the environmental history of Sam Dolby, in terms of social gender as Anna Alexanya did, in the context of social sex, and as you said, there are definitely very serious areas that can work in the context of children, ...in the face of researchers. In this sense, I can suggest something.

By taking these historical trends seriously, ...that is, the history of the environment, the history of the newly developed capitalism, ...the history of the new, the history of the new-developed capitalism, the history of the new capitalism, the political economy and the various cuts of these, while also keeping the geographical perspective wider, taking the Ottoman Empire as a whole of peoples, but not as peoples living separately and stand on one side, but as people who have... ...a relationship, communication, and maybe even tension relationships.

Thank you very much, Emre Can. Good luck. Thank you very much. Thank you for your questions and for having me here. In this episode of the Autumn Unicycle Podcast, our guest was Emrecan Dağlıoğlu, who continued his research in the history of Stanford University. Emrecan and Emrecan made the opportunity to research on 1915 new themes, geographies and sources, and made significant sources in 1915, and held a meeting on the 1915 See you in the next podcast. Bye! Bye! Thank you.