From its earliest days, the dominant history of the Turkish Republic has been one of national self-determination and secular democratic modernization. The story insisted on total rupture between the Ottoman Empire and the modern Turkish state and on the absolute unity of the Turkish nation. In recent years, this hermetic division has begun to erode, but as the old consensus collapses, new histories and accounts of political authority have been slow to take its place.
In this richly detailed alternative history, Christine M. Philliou focuses on the notion of political opposition and dissent—
muhalefet—to connect the Ottoman and Turkish periods. Taking the perennial dissident Refik Halid Karay as a subject, guide, and interlocutor, she traces the fissures within the Ottoman and the modern Turkish elite that bridged the transition. Exploring Karay’s political and literary writings across four regimes and two stints in exile, Philliou upends the official history of Turkey and offers new dimensions to our understanding of its political authority and culture.
"A beautifully crafted exploration into the nature and significance of the oppositional figure in late Ottoman and post-Ottoman Turkey."—Ussama Makdisi, author of
Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World "The first comprehensive study of opposition in the Middle East during the critical decades of empire-to-nation transmutation. A compelling and accessible investigation."—Hasan Kayali, author of
Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Second Constitutional Period of the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1918 "Once again, Christine Philliou has written a book that changes the field of late Ottoman and early Turkish Republican history. Skillfully using the figure of Refik Halit Karay as a foil, Philliou disturbs the typical approach to the transit from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic. Drawing on the concept of 'opposition' embodied in this 'anti-nationalist nationalist' figure,
Turkey: A Past Against History productively—and provocatively—unsettles the lexicon of Turkish historiography."—Benjamin Fortna, author of
The Circassian: A Life of Esref Bey, Late Ottoman Insurgent and Special Agent
“[Philliou’s] work successfully brings to life one of the most colorful muhalifler and shows his evolution from a broader perspective.”
