Ottoman Propaganda and Turkish Identity : Literature in Turkey During World War I

Erol Koroglu

ISBN 10: 1845114906 / ISBN 13: 9781845114909

Edité par Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Jul 2007, 2007

A propos de cet article

Neuware - Throughout World War I the Entente Powers (France, Britain, Russia and later the USA) directed widespread efforts towards the generation of propaganda as a weapon of war, with devastating effect. However, in the underdeveloped and multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire, the Turkish intelligentsia could not produce adequate propaganda to support the war effort. As the war unfolded, writers abandoned their initial attempts at propaganda and turned instead to the task of defining a national identity. In this new reassessment of Turkish literature and propaganda in World War I, Erol Koroglu argues the Ottoman-Turkish intelligentsia used the conditions created by the war to eliminate the deficiencies in national culture and build a Turkish identity, a project inherited from the pre-war years.

N° de réf. du vendeur 9781845114909

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Ottoman Propaganda and Turkish Identity : Literature in Turkey During World War I
• Éditeur: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Jul 2007
• Date de parution: 2007
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1845114906
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781845114909
• Reliure: Buch
• État de l'article: Neu
• Dimensions: 216 L x 138 H x 0 P (en millimètres) 216 millimètres de largeur par 138 millimètres de hauteur par 0 millimètres de profondeur

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

The Great War was the first example of a total war in history, reflected in the cultures and literatures of Europe in the shape of propaganda. What began as civic patriotism developed into a weapon of war, programmed and organized by the state to devastating effect. In almost all countries, writers of different ideological hues were ready to undertake the job of representing the war, in accordance with the state's guidance. War propaganda in the Ottoman Empire, the most anachronistic belligerent of the war according to historians, was condemned to failure. In the underdeveloped and multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman-Turkish intelligentsia could not produce adequate propaganda to support the battlefronts and the home front. Why did propaganda efforts die after 1915? Can this be explained with the laziness or cosmopolitanism of the cultural agents? Or did the lack of propaganda derive from reasons that are more material?Erol Koroglu seeks to address these questions in a unique interdisciplinary assessment of Turkish literature and propaganda, interpreting literary texts written by the representative writers of the period.
These interpretations follow a literary cultural history method and give an analysis of the complex interaction between literary texts and the historical context. Koroglu discusses the subjects of First World War propaganda, Turkish nationalism and national identity construction. He concludes that the unfavourable conditions in the Ottoman-Turkish cultural sphere, the literature of the years 1914-1918, even if superficially full of propaganda aims, was essentially the continuation of a project to build a national culture, inherited from the pre-war years and never completed. Turkish literature therefore did not reflect powerful propaganda, but was more a difficult attempt to create 'national identity'.

À propos de l?auteur

Erol Koroglu is Assistant Professor of Turkish Language and Literature at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey.