The Nationalization of the Ottoman Empire’s War: Remembrance of the First World War in Republican Turkey

Im Rahmen des Jahresthemas der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften tragen monatlich Fellows und Mitglieder des Forschungsprogramms Europa im Nahen Osten - Der Nahe Osten in Europa zu Aspekten der politischen, sozialen und kulturellen Verflechtungen zwischen Europa und dem Nahen Osten vor. Die Veranstaltungen finden in englischer oder in deutscher Sprache statt.

Dr. Erol Köroglu

(Fellow des Forschungsprogramms Europa im Nahen Osten - Der Nahe Osten in Europa)

The Nationalization of the Ottoman Empire’s War: Remembrance of the First World War in Republican Turkey

This lecture will tackle the remembrance of the First World War in republican Turkey. The official historical narrative of the Ottoman empire’s last war after 1923 in the new Turkish nation-state, approached the past in a teleological and instrumental way. Although the war between 1914 and 1918 was experienced in a political regime of a multi-ethnic empire, it was represented as a certain progression from a 'wrong and unhealthy problem' to a 'true and natural solution', which means a national one. The formation and development of this process will be discussed through literary, cultural, and sociopolitical examples in this lecture.

Dr. Erol Köroglu obtained his Ph.D. from the Atatürk Institute at Bogazici University for his thesis "From Propaganda to National Identity Construction: Turkish Literature and the First World War." In 2005, he received the Afet History Award for his monograph Türk Edebiyati ve Dünya Savasi (Istanbul 2004). He has also written numerous scholarly articles and has co-edited several monographs.