Defending Turkey on global stages

• Verfasst von: Liebisch-Gümüş, Carolin [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Defending Turkey on global stages
• Titelzusatz: the young Turk Reşit Saffet’s internationalist strategy in 1919
• Verf.angabe: Carolin Liebisch
• E-Jahr: 2016
• Jahr: 24.12.2016
• Umfang: 35 S.
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 16.06.2017
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: New global studies
• Ort Quelle: Berlin : De Gruyter, 2007
• Jahr Quelle: 2016
• Band/Heft Quelle: 10(2016), 3, Seite 217-251
• ISSN Quelle: 1940-0004
• DOI: doi:10.25673/112656
• URN: urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:5-100142
• Schlagwörter: (p)Atabinen, Reşit Safvet / (g)Osmanisches Reich / (k)Pariser Friedenskonferenz <1919-1920, Paris> / (s)Internationalismus / (k)Völkerbund / (k)Zweite Internationale / (s)Turanische Bewegung
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• K10plus-PPN: 1559791942

Abstract

The article investigates the internationalist activities of a Turkish nationalist during his Swiss exile at the outset of the postwar settlements in early 1919. Reşit Saffet, a devoted Young Turk and Ottoman diplomat on leave, moved in the internationalist milieus in Berne while his agenda remained utterly nationalist. Drawing on pan-Turkic, pan-Islamic, anti-imperialist, socialist, and Wilsonian ideas, he adapted his rhetoric to the internationalist conferences he attended; he thus sought to disguise and to defend his otherwise discredited nationalist cause on these global stages. The article traces Reşit Saffet’s internationalist activities as a strategy to engage with the ‘Paris moment’ and the Ottoman question beyond official politics and governmental discourse. In a time when Ottoman diplomacy was in deadlock as a result of the Empire’s exclusion from the peace conference and Reşit Saffet’s career faced an unknown future in the face of the Ottoman collapse, internationalism seemed a promising option. The case illustrates the increasingly blurred border between state diplomacy and non-governmental influence, and thus questions exclusively state-centered approaches. It reveals the appeal and potential held by civil society internationalism, not only for Western pacifists and socialists, but also for anti-imperialist nationalists confronted with the disappointment of the ‘Wilsonian moment’.

Abstract

Paris Peace Conference, Internationalism, League of Nations, Second International, Ottoman Empire, Panturkism