This title is available online in its entirety in Open Access. This volume explores the ways childhood was experienced, lived and remembered in the late Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when rapid change placed unprecedented demands on the young.
This volume explores the variety of ways in which childhood was experienced, lived and remembered in the late Ottoman Empire and its successor states. The period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a time of rapid change, and the history of childhood reflects the impact of new expectations, lived realities and national responsibilities on the youngest members of societies undergoing monumental change because of ideological, wartime and demographic shifts. Drawing on comparisons both within the Balkans, Turkey and the Arab lands and with Western Europe and beyond, the chapters investigate the many ways in which upheaval and change affected the youth. Particular attention is paid to changing conceptions of childhood, gender roles and newly dominant national imperatives. Contributors include: Elif Akşit, Laurence Brockliss, Nazan Çiçek, Alex Drace-Francis, Benjamin C. Fortna, Naoum Kaytchev, Duygu Köksal, Kathryn Libal, Nazan Maksudyan, Heidi Morrison, and Philipp Wirtz. This title, in its entirety, is available online in Open Access.
Explores five centuries of changing attitudes toward children and childhood in the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman attitudes towards children - on the part of adults, religious institutions and the state - from the 15th to the early 20th century are explored in this volume. Specialists in the social history of the Ottoman Empire as a whole, in regions ranging from Anatolia, through the Arab provinces to the Balkans, respond to recent theoretical calls to recognise children as active agents in history. Divided into five thematic sections (concepts of childhood, family interrelationships, children outside family circles, children's bodies, and education) the volume covers the social and political structure of the Ottoman Empire through the innovative prism of children as social agents who are shaped by but also shape society, rather than being the passive recipients of their social environment. Key features -Includes data on Christian, Jewish and Muslim children that shed light on differences and commonalities in family structures and communities -Covers a broad geographic area including Ottoman Romania, Bulgaria, Rumelia, Greece, Bosnia, Syria, Palestine and Istanbul -Paves the way for new directions in research on the history of children and childhood in the Ottoman Empire -Features a Preface by Suraiya Faroqhi, an introductory chapter by Colin Heywood, and includes 8 tables, 8 graphs, 9 illustrations and a glossary of key terms Gülay Yılmaz is Associate Professor at Akdeniz University. She published articles and book chapters on the recruitment process of devşirmes, the janissary involvement on the urban culture, and economy of seventeenth-century Istanbul. Fruma Zachs is Professor at the University of Haifa. She is the author of The Making of a Syrian Identity: Intellectuals and Merchants in 19th-Century Beirut (2005). She published several articles on cultural and social history of the nahda in Greater Syria.
History books often weave tales of rising and falling empires, royal dynasties, and wars among powerful nations. Here, Maksudyan succeeds in making those who are farthest removed from power the lead actors in this history. Focusing on orphans and destitute youth of the late Ottoman Empire, the author gives voice to those children who have long been neglected. Their experiences and perspectives shed new light on many significant developments of the late Ottoman period, providing an alternative narrative that recognizes children as historical agents. Maksudyan takes the reader from the intimate world of infant foundlings to the larger international context of missionary orphanages, all while focusing on Ottoman modernization, urbanization, citizenship, and the maintenance of order and security. Drawing upon archival records, she explores the ways in which the treatment of orphans intersected with welfare, labor, and state building in the Empire. Throughout the book, Maksudyan does not lose sight of her lead actors, and the influence of the children is always present if we simply listen and notice carefully as Maksudyan so convincingly argues.
Contrary to the stereotypical images of torture, narcotics and brutal sexual abuse traditionally associated with Ottoman or 'Turkish' prisons, Kent Schull argues that, during the Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918), they played a crucial role in attempts to transform the empire.
An exploration of the ways in which children learned and were taught to read, against the background of the transition from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic. This study gives us a fresh perspective on the transition from empire to republic by showing us the ways that reading was central to the construction of modernity.
At the turn of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire straddled three continents and encompassed extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity among the millions of people living within its borders. This text provides a concise history of the late empire between 1789 and 1918, turbulent years marked by incredible social change.