Often viewed as an “Islamic state,” the Ottoman Empire was a multiethnic and multiconfessional empire inhabited by diverse ethnic and religious communities, including Muslims, Christians, and Jews. This seminar introduces students to non-Muslim and non-Sunni communities of the late Ottoman Empire and early republican Turkey, specifically three of the empire’s largest non-Muslim populations—the Greeks (or Orthodox Rums), Armenians, and Jews—and its non-Sunni communities such as the Alevis, Yezidis, Nusayris, and Druzes. The main objective of the seminar is to explore the histories of these communities in the 19th and early 20th centuries and their interactions with the government and other communities in an imperial and national context. Throughout the semester, we will discuss the basic concepts, events, and issues that are important for us to understand the realities and implications of being a non-Muslim and non-Sunni community in the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic. Topics and concepts to be addressed in the seminar include the culture and lives of these communities, imperial methods of rule over diverse populations, tolerance, loyalty, intercommunal harmony and violence, the transformation from an empire to a nation-state, and the minority question in Turkey.
This introductory seminar is designed for bachelor/undergraduate students regardless of background and experience. There are no prerequisites for it.- Trainer/in: Markus Dreßler