From court history recorder to an official historical writing society in Turkey: The case of the Ottoman Historical Society

Abstract

Tradi tional Ottoman historical writing maintained __its general features without any significant changes up tothe second part of the nineteenth century. This period ofottoman historical writing was dominated by the recordingof the official Ottoman state chronicles. From the nineteenthcentury on, traditonal Ottoman historical writingwas affected by European historiography. Yet, though historicalwriting extended its areas of interest and startedto include new branches of history, it still did not exhibita significant development of historical methodology.However, the most important result of western influenceon ottoman historical writing was the beginning of thenational approach toward history.The Second Constitutional period did not receiveany heritage of modern historical writing from the nineteenthcentury. After the proclamation of the Constitution,the activities in the field of history consisted of thepublications of translated books and publishing articlesabout history in newspapers and magazines. This situationwas due to the expansion of history courses in schools andthe abolishment of censorship from press and publicationsafter the proclamation of the Second Constitution. On theother hand, the vakantivis institution of traditional Ottomanhistorical writing continued to record the events ofOttoman history during the period, too. Just after the accessionof Sultan Mehmed Re§ad,to the throne in May 1909,Abdurrahman $eref was appointed as the official historyrecorder (vakallltivis). The interest of :the new Sultan inhistory coincided with the general conviction that theOttoman state can maintain her existence as a multi-nationalempire. Thus, the writing of a new ottoman history inconformity to this conviction became important. Under theCircumstances, the Ottoman Historical SOCiety (Tarih-i Osman1Enctimeni) was founded with Abdurrahman ~eref as president,in November 1909.The SOCiety planned to first write the comprehensivehistory of the ottoman state. In addition, it wouldpublish the documents and the manuscripts of Ottoman historiesand pamphlets. The SOCiety first issued a journalpublishing the documents and articles on ottoman history.Only the first volume of the planned work on Ottoman Historywhich covered the history of pre-Ottoman Turks ratherthan the Ottomans themselves, could be written and publishedin 1917. Furthermore, the SOCiety worked on the classificationof the Ottoman archives with the collaborationof the vaka~ntivis institution. Moreover, the Society triedto collect the sourCes of Ottoman history. The SOCiety alsopublished the manuscripts of major ottoman histories andpamphlets separately as an appendix of its journal. Inaddition, after 1916 it started to publish some monographson ottoman history.The Society stopped its activities during the Armisticeperiod. After the Republic, the Society took thename of Turkish Historical Society (Türk Tarih Enctimeni)and continued its activities, except the writing of ottomanHistory. The Society was re-founded and put under the control of the Ministry of Education by the government of Ankarain 1927. On the other hand, it did not play an effectiverole in the activities of the cultural reform programmesof the Republican Administration. As a result, the newinstitution of the Republic, TUrk Tarih Kurumu (the TurkishHistorical Society) replaced the Society in 1930.