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Winning at land, losing at Sea: The first Turkish history of the Greek Revolution

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Title

Winning at land, losing at Sea: The first Turkish history of the Greek Revolution

Date

16 June 2022

Abstract

The Turkish receptions of the Greek revolution from 1923 onwards are a little studied subject. This is largely due to the lack of systematic interest in 1821 on the Turkish side, at least until the 1990s, when a quantitative and, to some extent, qualitative shift has been identified. An important feature of the Turkish historiography of the Greek revolution is the actual reproduction of historical evidence through an ethnocentric view of things.

Without exceeding these limits, Fevzi Kurtoglu’s book “The Greek War of Independence and the Battle of Navarino” (1944) stands out as an interesting exception. The book was the first monograph based on Ottoman primary sources from 1858 and the first after the founding of the Turkish Republic. The approach of the book is particularly interesting as it focuses on the maritime dimension of the Greek revolution. This should not come as a surprise, given that Kurtoglu was a navy officer and a professor at the Naval Academy. The search for the political and intellectual context in which Kurtoglu writes leads to more substantial conclusions. The presentation places the book in its historiographical context, presents its main arguments and examines the importance of the author’s sea-centred approach outside of the formal view of the Kemalist intellectual and military establishment.

(Edited and translated description from organiser’s website)

Type specialization

Format

Text

Language

Number Of Pages - Duration

00:20:00

Rights

BY-NC-SA Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Position: 6876 (23 views)