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ABSTRACT
The 1908 Revolution of the Young Turks not only put an end to the autocratic rule of Sultan Abdülhamit II by making him restore the 1876 Constitution–thus reestablishing the constitutional monarchy–it also proclaimed the equality of Muslims and non-Muslims. Fraternity seemed to reign the day. However, early tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims, particularly the Greeks, soon arose over how the 1908 parliamentary elections were conducted. The elections demonstrated that Muslims–“the dominant nation”–were not ready to accept the newly proclaimed equality, and despite assertions that religion and ethnicity were not going to play any role in 1908 parliamentary elections, they were in fact central to the conduct and consequences of those elections.
Notes
1 “A Nation’s Sudden Conversion,” The Missionary Herald 104, 1908, 455-8: 457.
2 Le Moniteur Oriental [an Istanbul French and English daily newspaper], 24 July 1908.
3 Ergun Özbudun, “Turkey,” in Myron Weiner and Ergun Özbudun, eds, Competitive Elections in Developing Countries, Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1987, 355.
4 Kayalı, “Elections and the Electoral Process in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1919,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 3, 1995, 265-86: 268.
5 Le Moniteur Oriental, 29 August 1908.
6 Ibid.
7 Bedros Der Matossian, Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire, Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2014, 101.
8 M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, “The Second Constitutional Period, 1908-1918,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol.4, Turkey in the Modern World, ed. Resat Kasaba, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008, 62-111: 67; “The Coup D’etat in Turkey,” Saturday Review, 20 February 1909, 231.
9 Le Moniteur Oriental, 23 November 1908.
10 Sir G. Lowther, “Extract from Annual Report for Turkey for the Year 1908,” in G. P. Gooch and H. Temperley, eds, British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914, vol. 5: The Near East, London: HMSO, 1928, 279.
11 Püzantion [Istanbul Armenian daily], 4 November 1908; Jamanak [Istanbul Armenian daily], 18 November 1908.
12 The Daily Telegraph, 31 October 1908; Jamanak, 2 November 1908. Since the Greeks did not accept the initial arrangement (Jamanak, 3 November 1908), they were latter offered two deputies instead of three (Jamanak, 25 November 1908).
13 Semiha Kayaalp, “Jewish Deputies in the Ottoman Parliament (1908-1918),” unpubl. Master’s Thesis, Boğaziçi University, 2011, 5.
14 Jamanak, 3 November 1908.
15 Charles Roden Buxton, Turkey in Revolution, London: T. Fisher Union, 1909, 190-1. Buxton, a member of the Balkan Committee, had been in Turkey “both shortly before and shortly after the revolution” (ibid, 13).
16 Ibid., 190-1.
17 Lowther, “Extract from Annual Report,” 279.
18 Buxton, Turkey in Revolution, 190-1.
19 Ibid., 191.
20 Lowther, “Extract from Annual Report,” 279.
21 Buxton, Turkey in Revolution, 191.
22 The Daily Telegraph, 31 October 1908.
23 Quoted in Stamboul [Istanbul French daily], 15 October 1908.
24 Ibid.
25 Stamboul, 23 October 1908.
26 The Daily Telegraph, 31 October 1908.
27 Le Moniteur Orientale, 2 November 1908.
28 Stamboul, 18 November 1908.
29 Püzantion, 23 November 1908.
30 Püzantion, 11 December 1908.
31 Püzantion, 27 November 1908.
32 Püzantion, 12 November 1908.
33 Püzantion, 9 October 1908.
34 Püzantion, 15 December 1908.
35 Hugh Law, “A General Election in Turkey,” The Morning Leader, 7 December 1908.
36 Joseph Denais, La Turquie Nouvelle et L’ancien Régime, Paris: Marcel Riviere, 1909, 61.
37 F. G. Aflalo, Regilding the Crescent, London: Martin Secker, 1911, 157.
38 Lowther, “Extract from Annual Report,” 279. There were districts where non-Muslims cooperated against the Turks. In Vodina, for example, Greeks and Bulgarians united their forces and two Greeks and Bulgarians were elected to the exclusion of Turks, where the latter constituted the relative majority (see Le Moniteur Orientale, 5 November 1908).
39 Aflalo, Regilding the Crescent, 157-8.
40 Sina Akşin “Ottoman Political Parties, 1908-1922” in Erik J. Zürcher, ed., Turkey in the Twentieth Century, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008,138.
41 Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın, Siyasal Anılar, İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 1976, 42.
42 Quoted in Stamboul, 17 November 1908.
43 Jamanak, 18 November 1908.
44 Le Moniteur Orientale, 16 November 1908.
45 Ibid.
46 Stamboul, 20 November 1908.
47 Stamboul, 16 November 1908.
48 Stamboul, 20 November 1908.
49 Quoted in Stamboul, 16 November 1908.
50 Stamboul, 20 November 1908.
51 Vangelis Kechriotis “Post-Colonial Criticism and Muslim Christian Relations in the (very) Late Ottoman Empire: The case of Smyrna/İzmir,” in Michalis N. Michael, Tassos Anastassiadis and Chantal Verdel, eds, Religious Communities and Modern Statehood, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag GmbH, 2015, 72n2.
52 Stamboul, 20 November 1908.
53 Le Moniteur Oriental, 21 November 1908.
54 Le Moniteur Oriental, 23 November 1908.
55 Jamanak, 23 November 1908.
56 Jamanak, 24 November 1908.
57 Jamanak, 25 November 1908.
58 Stamboul, 24 November 1908.
59 Lowther, ““Extract from Annual Report,” 279.
60 Stamboul, 25 November 1908.
61 Quoted in ibid.
62 Jamanak, 27 November 1908.
63 E.F. Knight, The Awakening of Turkey: A History of the Turkish Revolution, London: John Milne, 1909, 278.
64 Gochnak, 7 November 1908.
65 Jamanak, 11 November 1908.
66 The Daily Telegraph, 3 December 1908.
67 Sir G. Lowther “Parliamentary Elections,” 279-80.
68 Jamanak, 23 November 1908.
69 Quoted in La Patrie: Journal Ottoman Publié en Français, 25 November 1908.
70 John E. Merill, “When Mohammedan Meets Christian; Then?” The Missionary Herald, March 1909: 107-8: 108.
71 Buxton, Turkey in Revolution, 193.
72 Le Moniteur Orientale, 11 November 1908.
73 Ibid.
74 Jamanak, 12 November 1908.
75 Le Moniteur Orientale, 11 November 1908
76 Jamanak, 12 November 1908.
77 The Times’ correspondent in Constantinople was of the same opinion: “The almost entire abscence of complaints on the part of the Jews and Armenians renders it probable that such infractions are unimportant” (The Times, 23 November 1908).
78 All quoted in La Patrie: Journal Ottoman Publié en Français [Istanbul French weekly]. 25 November 190).
79 Jamanak, 11 December 1908.
80 Hüseyin Cahit, “Millet-I Hakime,” Tanin, 8 November 1908, in Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın Tanin Gazetesi Başmakaleleri, ed. Kudret Emiroğlu, Istanbul: Ötüken, 2022, 265-8.
81 H. M. Şahe “Does Turkey Belong to the Turks?” Jamanak, 11 November 1908.
82 For these attempts and reactions see Roderic H. Davison “Turkish Attitudes Concerning Christian-Muslim Equality in The Nineteenth Century,” The American Historical Review, 1954: 844-64.
83 Lord Newton, “The Outlook for the Young Turks” The National Review 53, 1909, 314.
84 Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks: The Commitee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics, 1908-14, London: Hurst Company, 2010, 25, 165n79.
85 Hanioğlu, “The Second Constitutional Period,” 67-8.
86 “Mr. G. H. Fitzmaurice to Mr. Tyrell, British Embassy Constantinople, January 11, 1909” in Gooch and Temperley, eds, British Documents, vol. 5, 271.
87 Quoted in Stamboul, 28 November 1908.