Intellectual Origins of the Republic: Ahmet Ağaoğlu and the Genealogy of Liberalism in Turkey

279 Pages·2015·1.82 MB·English

by  H. Ozan Özavcı

Intellectual Origins of the Republic
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Studies in the History of
Political Thought
Edited by
Terence Ball (Arizona State University)
Jörn Leonhard (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg)
Wyger Velema (University of Amsterdam)
Advisory Board
Janet Coleman (London School of Economics and Political Science, uk)
Vittor Ivo Comparato (University of Perugia, Italy)
Jacques Guilhaumou (cnrs, France)
John Marshall ( Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, usa)
Markku Peltonen (University of Helsinki, Finland)
Volume 10
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ship
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Ahmet Ağaoğlu’s Portrait (photographer and date unknown).
Intellectual Origins
of the Republic
Ahmet Ağaoğlu and the Genealogy of
Liberalism in Turkey
By
H. Ozan Özavcı
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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Cover illustration: Puteshestviye idey / The Journey of Ideas (2015), by Tatiana N. Kondruchina; created
specially for the cover of this book.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Özavci, Hilmi Ozan.
 Intellectual origins of the republic : Ahmet Ağaoğlu and the genealogy of liberalism in Turkey / by Hilmi
Ozan Özavci.
  pages cm. -- (Studies in the history of political thought ; v. 10)
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-29737-1 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-29736-4 (e-book : alk. paper) 1. Agaoglu,
Ahmet, 1869-1939. 2. Liberalism--Turkey. 3. Turkey--Politics and government. 4. Intellectuals--Turkey--
Biography. I. Title.
 DR592.A47O93 2015
 320.5109561--dc23
2015021127
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1873-6548
isbn 978-90-04-29737-1 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-29736-4 (e-book)
Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Fees are subject to change.
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Contents
Preface vii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The Making of a Liberal in Turkey 9
1.2 Ideas and Contexts 24
1.2.1 Ağaoğlu in Literature 27
2 Between Two Worlds: Ideas in the Making 34
2.1 Family Life and Education 35
2.1.1 Encounter with Russian Radicalism 38
2.1.2 Paris 42
2.2 Early French Influences 45
2.2.1 James Darmesteter and Ernest Renan 46
2.3 Early Writings 54
3 Return to the Near East 61
3.1 The Caucasus 61
3.1.1 The 1905 Petition, Violence and the End of the Oil Revolution 65
3.2 Istanbul 75
3.2.1 The Turkish Hearths 80
3.2.2 Activities during World War i 81
4 Rights, Religion and Nationalism 88
4.1 Rights and Equality 89
4.2 Religion, Modernity and the Question of Women 91
4.3 The Origins of Turkish Nationalism 100
5 Founding the Republic 120
5.1 The Establishment of an Authoritarian Regime 123
5.2 The Economy and a Temporary Democracy 133
6 Revolution and Ideology 143
6.1 A Liberal Revolution? 146
6.1.1 A Critique of the Revolutionaries 149
6.2 Ideology and the Intelligentsia 152
6.2.1 Two Liberalisms and Democracy 156
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vi Contents
7 State, Society and the Individual 161
7.1 Liberal Order 163
7.1.1 Durkheim and Ağaoğlu 167
7.1.2 Elements of Modern Liberalism: Division of Labour,
Occupational Groupings and Interdependence 171
7.1.3 Civic Equality and Individual Liberty 176
7.2 Étatism and Private Initiative 178
8 Westernisation and Nationalism 191
8.1 Turkey’s Westernisation 192
8.2 The Hidden Dialogue between Gökalp and Ağaoğlu 194
8.3 Nationalism Revisited 199
8.4 Monday Evening Talks 203
9 The Moral Ideology of the Republic 207
9.1 Petr Kropotkin and the Sources of Morality 209
9.2 The Origins of Moral Decadence Revisited 212
9.3 The Land of Free Men 214
9.4 The Divided Self 220
10 Conclusion: The Road to Liberty? 229
Bibliography 235
Index 264
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Preface
This book is the result of several years of research and writing. As the Republic
of Turkey is nearing its centenary and, as things stand today, the country is still
suffering from a version of authoritarianism under the Justice and Development
Party, the very roots of authoritarian governance and the idea of liberty in
Turkey, I believe, need to be revisited. My study is one of these attempts. It
aims to trace the intellectual origins of Republican Turkey and its founding
mentality with a focus on the ideas, life and times of on one of the most promi-
nent writers of his time, Ahmet Ağaoğlu. I seek to show here the features, mer-
its and limits of his ideas, and their making, as an important representative of
late Ottoman and early republican political, social and economic thought.
If the book will be of any use for the readers of intellectual and political his-
tory, this is thanks to the support of many. I was fortunate that Dr Feroze
Yasamee, Professor Stefan Berger, Dr David Laven, Professor François Georgeon,
Professor Alex Samely and the anonymous referees of Brill have read earlier
drafts of the book and made extremely helpful comments to improve its qual-
ity. I have also found the opportunity to receive generous support from the
British Institute at Ankara (BIAA), which provided me with funding for
research. One of the greatest pleasures of my work was to visit libraries and
archives in Europe and the Near East. Of all I would especially like to thank Dr
Lala Hajiyeva, the Director of AR Prezidentinin İşlər İdarəsinin Siyasi Sənədlər
Arxivi in Baku for providing me with materials on the work of Ağaoğlu in the
Caucasus. Kadın Eserleri Kütüphanesi in Istanbul allowed me to see Süreyya
Ağaoğlu papers while they were still being catalogued. Now there is a rich
amount of material about the Ağaoğlu family in this library, waiting to be
examined by researchers. The staff at Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka in St
Petersburg were most helpful in locating primary and secondary materials.
Rahmi Koç Müzesi in Istanbul was generous in sharing photos of Ağaoğlu’s
house in Istanbul for the use of this book.
Mrs Nilufer Gürsoy, the daughter of Celal Bayar, and Mr Tektaş Ağaoğlu,
grandson of Ahmet Ağaoğlu, were very kind to accept my visits and share
their stories about early republican life. I received enormous support from my
colleagues at Manchester, Southampton, Izmir and Utrecht during the prepa-
ration of this book; namely, Mrs Mutlu Bosson, Osen Kılıç-Yıldırım, Professor
Stuart Jones, Dr Jonathan Conlin, Dr Tuba İnal and Professor Beatrice de
Graaf. I must also thank my three teachers back in Istanbul, Dr Şahin Alpay
and Professors İlkay Sunar and Ahmet Sözen for being an inspiration to me in
my scholarly work and for drawing my attention to the history of liberalism.
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And many thanks to Mr Enver Yucel for his financial and moral support to my
academic work and for his trust in me.
Since there is more to life than work, I must thank my friends for being with
me at different stages of the preparation of this book, for accepting me at their
houses in my research trips or discussing the content of my work. Special
thanks to Tatiana Kondruchina for the illustration on the cover page, ‘the
Journey of Ideas’, and for her great support during the preparation of the book.
Esther Meininghaus, Ferhat Koksal, Hercai Yüksel, Yasemin Akyol, Alp Okan
Kaya, Juliette Laquila, Benjamin Paynter, Drs Ben and Sevinç Garner, thank
you. And Julia Kozak, for bearing with me and encouraging me enormously,
when I was making the final touches on the manuscript in the little time we
had together in London.
Last but by no means the least, my family, to whom my biggest thanks go:
My parents, Nilgün and Nuri Özavcı, have given me their unequivocal support
throughout, as always, for which my mere expression of thanks does not suf-
fice. My super cute niece, Şiir, has been my source of happiness and motiva-
tion; my elder brother, Şadi, has wholeheartedly supported and encouraged my
scholarly studies; and my sister, Işıl, who taught me to read and write well
before I should have learned, has become a great supporter and a best friend to
me; this book I dedicate to them.
Needless to say, if there is any mistake or flaw in this book, grammatical,
stylistic or other, the responsibility is solely mine.
H. Ozan Özavcı
Paris, 2015