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So, what were the challenges that led to the emergence of Turkish nationalism?
In Turkish nationalism, we are talking first and
foremost of the pressure that is coming from
Europe and the problem of secession by the
Christian populated territories in the European part of [INAUDIBLE].
Ottomanism failed to keep the Christians inside the Empire.
During the [UNKNOWN] read on the about the equality
about the law that was passed, and this equality before
the law that included Christians and Muslims; was suppose
to create a shared Ottoman identity but it did not.
In the face of Christian secession, Sumpana turn to
[INAUDIBLE] to strengthen the bonds between the increasingly Muslim empire.
As Christian seceded, so the Empire became even more Muslim.
But this idea of pan-Islam and uniting the people on the basis of their religion.
Was becoming less and less acceptable to the new, Westernizing Turkish elite.
They believed in Turkish national solidarity.
Based on a common langauge, Turkish, European-style.
The empire now was almost entirely Turkish and Arab.
Therefore, the emphasis on Turkishness could be a cause of tension with
the Arabs, especially after 1908 when the young Turks came to power.
So, though Turkish nationalists, the young Turks
were reluctant to push Turkish nationalism too far.
Not create a break with a very large narrow Muslin population.
Then who were the young Turks.
The young Turks were young military officers and bureaucrats, the graduates
of the [INAUDIBLE] and not the usual opponents of the Sultan.
Not the local [INAUDIBLE] or the unruly tribes or the Christians.
And it's the Young Turks who stage a revolution
in July 1908, dispose the Sultan in April of 1909.
And continued with the process of reform in the military with German advisers,
as they continued like their predecessors, building
new schools and adding to legal reform.
The young Turks continued as
their predecessors, building a modern infrastructure.
Telegraph, roads, and railways, generally modernizing the Ottoman Empire.
Government became ever more centralized.
Even the development of an effective secret police.
Many of the revolutionaries, those who came out the revolution of 1908.
Where military officers organized in an organization that
was called The Committee of Union and Progress.
In short, the C-U-P.
They sought the salvation of the empire
and the restoration of the 1876 Constitution.
They believed in Turkish nationalism.
On Westernized education and on the implementation on the constitution.
There was very impressive impact amongst the young
Turks and others in the Muslim middle east.
Of the defeat of Russia in 1905, by the Japanese.
This was a defeat of a European power by an Asian power.
And in looking for the success of the Japanese against
the Russians, many in the Middle East focused on the fact.
That Japan had gone in the direction
of constitutionalism, whereas the Russians had not.
And therefore, the idea of a constitutional government
was gaining ground as a source of collective power.
But also, for the young Turks.
Constitutions meant, the steady shift of power into the hands of
the army at the expense of both the sultan and the bureaucracy.
They also believed that the resumption of
parliamentary life, would ease you to peer pressure.
But he did not.
In the Balkans, the Ottomans continued losing ground.
And in 1911 the Italians took Tripoli in Libya.
In 1912, '13, the Ottomans lost nearly all the territory they had left in Europe.
In 1913, the CUP assumed complete control,
which they had not enjoyed entirely until then.
But they didn't manage to do much before the outbreak
of the First World War, and that changed a great deal.
Since the second half of the 19th century, there had been
a steadily increasing interest in the history of the Turkish people.
As well as in the Turkish language, in Turkish literature.
Ziya Gokalp, who lived from 1876 to 1924,
was the most prominent idealogue of Turkish nationalism.
He rejected autonism and made theTurkish nation the basis of his program.
But as long as the empire continued to exist.
Turkish nationalism, as a practical, political program, had little
appeal to the leadership and to the general public.
The CUP, those sympathetic and supportive of Turkish nationals, continued like
their predecessors with autonism, centralization and modernization.
It would take the end of empire for [INAUDIBLE]
ideology to become the policy of the new Turkish republic.
This emergence of Turkishness, and Turkish nationalism, gives
rise to a question of how this all relates.
To the notorious Armenian tragedy.
And now we turn to this so called Armenian problem.
Since the Empire was losing territory all the time, what was
left of the Empire which essentially was the area of Anatolia.
Faced increasing nationalist challenges by others,
that served to reinforce Turkish identity and nationalist fashions.
With the loss of the European province.
Anatolia was established as the heartland of the Turkish speaking people.
And it was its zone of their prospective self-determination.
But this allowed for the emergence of the Armenian problem.
As a potential threat to the Turkish [INAUDIBLE].
Anatolia developed, impressively like the rest of the empire,
especially in the west of Anatolia during the 19th century.
Eastern Anatolia remained less developed and
there was considerable social and political tension.
Between the Armenians who are Christians, and the [INAUDIBLE]
who are Saudi Muslims in the eastern part of Anatolia.
There were Armenians in all of Anatolia, but especially in the eastern provinces.
And during the 19th century.
An Armenian National Consciousness developed very much under the
influence of western sources, especially
through the American partisan missionaries who were active amongst the Armenians.
The Armenians engaged in provocations against the [INAUDIBLE].
To attract European intervention on their behalf.
Cooperation with Russia, men's cooperation of the
Armenians, with the traditional enemy of the Armenians.
Tensions between the Turkish speaking muslims and the Armenians rose.
And in the last quarter the nineteenth there were massacres of Armenians,
by Kurdish irregulars of the Ottoman army in the eastern part of Anatolia.
A combination of a lack of
government control, with suspicion towards the Armenians
as a national move threatened what the Turks had left of their Empire.
These two came together to allow for a
terrible massacre of the Armenians to take place.
This terrible massacre took place in the midst of
World War One, in the early years of the war.
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Armenians in Eastern Anatolia had fought with the Russians against the Ottomans.
Other Armenians had engaged in guerrilla operations and some
Armenians populations rose against the Ottomans during the war.
In the spring of 1915, with the British attacking at the Dardanelles.
The Russians attacking in the East and the British apparently advancing on Baghdad,
the Ottomans decided on the deportation of the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia.
In the process of this deportation, hundreds of
thousands, maybe even one million Armenians or even more.
Perished because of the harsh conditions, dying of hunger, disease and exposure.
Many were murdered by local, mainly Kurdish, tribesman and villagers.
The Armenian tragedy is part of.
A general transition that is taking place in the Ottoman Empire.
The transition from commoner identity to territorial self-determination.
And this had some very unfortunate consequences on the ground.
The transition from communal co-existence, where religious
communities lead side by side Ottoman style.
To territorial nationalism, European style.
Required some degree of territorial continuity.
The need for communities now to acquire territorial continuity.
In the name of self-determination, rather than communities just living side
by side, created unavoidable clashes between the mosaic
of minorities within the Ottoman Empire, accompanied by horrific bloodshed.
The Balkans of those days.
And latter-day Yugoslavia of the 1990s were one example.
The Armenians in Anatolia was another.
Not all parts of modernity and change had positive results.
Some were quite catastrophic.
Indeed, the Turkish-Armenian clash.
Was the worst example of this unfortunate reality.