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Before the Nation: Muslim-Christian Coexistence and its Destruction in Late-Ottoman Anatolia
It is common for survivors of ethnic cleansing and even genocide to speak nostalgically about earlier times of intercommunal harmony and brotherhood. After being driven from their Anatolian homelands, Greek Orthodox refugees insisted that they 'lived well with the Turks', and yearned for the days when they worked and drank coffee together, participated in each other's festivals, and even prayed to the same saints. Historians have never showed serious regard to these memories, given the refugees had fled from horrific 'ethnic' violence that appeared to reflect deep-seated and pre-existing animosities. Refugee nostalgia seemed pure fantasy; perhaps contrived to lessen the pain and humiliations of displacement.
Before the Nation argues that there is more than a grain of truth to these nostalgic traditions. It points to the fact that intercommunality, a mode of everyday living based on the accommodation of cultural difference, was a normal and stabilizing feature of multi-ethnic societies. Refugee memory and other ethnographic sources provide ample illustration of the beliefs and practices associated with intercommunal living, which local Muslims and Christian communities likened to a common moral environment.
Drawing largely from an oral archive containing interviews with over 5000 refugees, Nicholas Doumanis examines the mentalities, cosmologies, and value systems as they relate to cultures of coexistence. He furthermore rejects the commonplace assumption that the empire was destroyed by intercommunal hatreds. Doumanis emphasizes the role of state-perpetrated political violence which aimed to create ethnically homogenous spaces, and which went some way in transforming these Anatolians into Greeks and Turks.
Before the Nation argues that there is more than a grain of truth to these nostalgic traditions. It points to the fact that intercommunality, a mode of everyday living based on the accommodation of cultural difference, was a normal and stabilizing feature of multi-ethnic societies. Refugee memory and other ethnographic sources provide ample illustration of the beliefs and practices associated with intercommunal living, which local Muslims and Christian communities likened to a common moral environment.
Drawing largely from an oral archive containing interviews with over 5000 refugees, Nicholas Doumanis examines the mentalities, cosmologies, and value systems as they relate to cultures of coexistence. He furthermore rejects the commonplace assumption that the empire was destroyed by intercommunal hatreds. Doumanis emphasizes the role of state-perpetrated political violence which aimed to create ethnically homogenous spaces, and which went some way in transforming these Anatolians into Greeks and Turks.
- GenresHistory
246 pages, Hardcover
First published November 22, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 20, 2014
In Before the Nation, Nicholas Doumanis attempts to uncover why, despite historians having traditionally viewed the late Ottoman Empire as an era of sectarian conflict, regional refugees remember the era prior to the Balkan Wars as one of peace and intercommunality. The work suggests that the perspective of the past as having been plagued by violence is based on western standards that view cultural homogeneity as the norm, which led historians to seek out and emphasize incidences of conflict. The late Ottomans themselves, however, perceived heterogeneity as standard and were aware of the potential for conflict, leading them to be particularly careful in avoiding it. Moreover, they realized that collaboration could help bring order and prosperity, strengthen social bonds, uphold the reputation of the community, and preserve communal boundaries. Using the Greek Orthodox community as a case study, the author does not argue explicitly that his analysis is applicable across the empire; instead, he raises critical questions about the assumptions that have been made by other scholars and brings the field’s potential biases to the fore.
Doumanis’ first chapter describes the situation in Anatolia during the late Ottoman period and argues that the average Ottoman Greek was not preoccupied with identity, as this was an activity reserved for societal elites. The westernized and self-aware Greek minority was appropriated by intellectuals to represent all Greeks living within the Empire, despite the absence of strong connections between the citizens of Greece and their counterparts in Anatolia. The idea that nationalism, and later violence, is driven by societal and political elites and imposed upon an Ottoman population that had little conception of, or concern with, cementing an identity within rigid boundaries becomes a recurring theme. The fact that elites left records and sources where average individuals did not led to a historical bias wherein the Greek community at large was portrayed as nationalistic and conflict-driven based on the undertakings and assessments of an activist minority. Doumanis expands upon these themes in his second chapter as he investigates the more pragmatic manifestations of intercommunal relations with Muslims and argues that they were both necessary and genuine. He penetrates deeper into his earlier discussions, claiming that only Greek intellectuals were permitted to tell the history of Greece and the Empire, and they made theirs a Greek-centered tale of oppression and a struggle for freedom. The views of the refugees, whose experiences were ones of communal harmony and peace, were considered irrelevant because they were not educated and their contributions did not help advance political and ideological agendas. Complicating this problem is that histories of coexistence are not recorded because they are uneventful and thus it has been difficult for scholars to conceptualize and prove a counter-narrative. Nonetheless, the author is able to highlight some forms of cooperation and demonstrate that the refugees had a more complex picture of the Turks than the stereotypes bestowed upon them by Greek intellectuals.
Doumanis’ next two chapters explore how both the Greeks and Muslims negotiated religious boundaries, arguing that, at the local level, these boundaries were crossed regularly and that the continuities between both faiths were emphasized. These chapters serve to demonstrate that Greeks and Muslims engaged in cooperation not only because it was necessary to maintain social order, but on a voluntary and likely subconscious (since they did not perceive themselves as having “different” or “sectarian” identities) basis as well. His final chapter examines how all of this unravelled during and after the Balkan Wars, placing the blame on political elites as the ones who instigated violence and left the average Anatolian to suffer in service of nationalist ideologies that benefitted a limited minority. He postulates that historical ignorance of this has reduced the complexities of the conflict to mere “ethnic” difference, shifted culpability to everyday people, and obscured the true perpetrators. The Ottoman state blamed Christians as a whole for loses in the Balkan Wars, while local Muslims grew enraged with the way the new states were persecuting their coreligionists. Waves of state-sponsored and outsider violence, from the Ottoman’s forced relocation policies to the Greek occupation, destroyed any chance of maintaining intercommunality and yet, as the author concludes, different ethnicities continued to help one another. Furthermore, many Muslims were welcoming when Christian refugees were permitted to visit decades later, suggesting that nationalism’s attempts to cement new and rigid identities did not eradicate entirely the spirit of cooperation.
Overall, Before the Nation is a brief work that raises many important issues about the historiography of the late Ottoman Empire, yet also remains ambiguous about how broadly applicable the lessons from this particular case study are. Doumanis’ writing style is easy to navigate and, while the details do begin to pile it up at certain points, his analysis never overstays its welcome and his penchant for informative conciseness is matched by few other scholars. While this may be of limited interest to the casual reader, it is essential reading for any scholar in the field due to the questions it raises about biases, assumptions, and historical narratives that have been taken for granted.
Doumanis’ first chapter describes the situation in Anatolia during the late Ottoman period and argues that the average Ottoman Greek was not preoccupied with identity, as this was an activity reserved for societal elites. The westernized and self-aware Greek minority was appropriated by intellectuals to represent all Greeks living within the Empire, despite the absence of strong connections between the citizens of Greece and their counterparts in Anatolia. The idea that nationalism, and later violence, is driven by societal and political elites and imposed upon an Ottoman population that had little conception of, or concern with, cementing an identity within rigid boundaries becomes a recurring theme. The fact that elites left records and sources where average individuals did not led to a historical bias wherein the Greek community at large was portrayed as nationalistic and conflict-driven based on the undertakings and assessments of an activist minority. Doumanis expands upon these themes in his second chapter as he investigates the more pragmatic manifestations of intercommunal relations with Muslims and argues that they were both necessary and genuine. He penetrates deeper into his earlier discussions, claiming that only Greek intellectuals were permitted to tell the history of Greece and the Empire, and they made theirs a Greek-centered tale of oppression and a struggle for freedom. The views of the refugees, whose experiences were ones of communal harmony and peace, were considered irrelevant because they were not educated and their contributions did not help advance political and ideological agendas. Complicating this problem is that histories of coexistence are not recorded because they are uneventful and thus it has been difficult for scholars to conceptualize and prove a counter-narrative. Nonetheless, the author is able to highlight some forms of cooperation and demonstrate that the refugees had a more complex picture of the Turks than the stereotypes bestowed upon them by Greek intellectuals.
Doumanis’ next two chapters explore how both the Greeks and Muslims negotiated religious boundaries, arguing that, at the local level, these boundaries were crossed regularly and that the continuities between both faiths were emphasized. These chapters serve to demonstrate that Greeks and Muslims engaged in cooperation not only because it was necessary to maintain social order, but on a voluntary and likely subconscious (since they did not perceive themselves as having “different” or “sectarian” identities) basis as well. His final chapter examines how all of this unravelled during and after the Balkan Wars, placing the blame on political elites as the ones who instigated violence and left the average Anatolian to suffer in service of nationalist ideologies that benefitted a limited minority. He postulates that historical ignorance of this has reduced the complexities of the conflict to mere “ethnic” difference, shifted culpability to everyday people, and obscured the true perpetrators. The Ottoman state blamed Christians as a whole for loses in the Balkan Wars, while local Muslims grew enraged with the way the new states were persecuting their coreligionists. Waves of state-sponsored and outsider violence, from the Ottoman’s forced relocation policies to the Greek occupation, destroyed any chance of maintaining intercommunality and yet, as the author concludes, different ethnicities continued to help one another. Furthermore, many Muslims were welcoming when Christian refugees were permitted to visit decades later, suggesting that nationalism’s attempts to cement new and rigid identities did not eradicate entirely the spirit of cooperation.
Overall, Before the Nation is a brief work that raises many important issues about the historiography of the late Ottoman Empire, yet also remains ambiguous about how broadly applicable the lessons from this particular case study are. Doumanis’ writing style is easy to navigate and, while the details do begin to pile it up at certain points, his analysis never overstays its welcome and his penchant for informative conciseness is matched by few other scholars. While this may be of limited interest to the casual reader, it is essential reading for any scholar in the field due to the questions it raises about biases, assumptions, and historical narratives that have been taken for granted.
April 3, 2013
This is a really splendid piece of history very capably told about an incredibly complex place, period, and set of actors. Further thoughts here: http://easternchristianbooks.blogspot...
July 18, 2014
Both Christians and Muslims wanted to know how the supernatural impacted their lives, what happens after death, and both wanted to be cured of sickness or protected from bad luck. Folk beliefs intersected with both faiths, and if a particularly charismatic faith-healer could cure diseases most people didn’t care whether he was a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew.
Read my full review here: http://wordsbecamebooks.com/2014/07/1...
Read my full review here: http://wordsbecamebooks.com/2014/07/1...
August 10, 2014
Great, well researched
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May 3, 2019Academic, but filled with beautiful stories of Antolian-Greek refugees remembering their close relationships with Turkish Muslims. :)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews