The Ottoman Legacy of the Connected Histories of Demographic Engineering: The Case of the Ottoman Greeks of Western Anatolia

Emre Erol

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2025, vol. 27, issue 6, 963-981

Abstract: Is there any relationship between the seemingly separate histories of demographic engineering that affected millions of Ottoman peoples of Albanian, Arab, Bulgarian, Circassian, Georgian, Greek, Jewish or Kurdish origin and the Muslim refugees from the Balkans and Russian territories during the late-Ottoman period? Does this historical legacy play a role in the nation-state building processes of the Republic of Turkey and other post-Ottoman nation-states? What may sound like simple and rhetorical questions, taken at their face value, provide a scholarly framework for a more connected and holistic history of demographic engineering. Focusing on the personal micro-histories of the victims and perpetrators of demographic engineering clearly demonstrates how such histories are entangled with each other, and their role in the creation of the post-Ottoman world. The article argues that, unique as it may seem, a segment in the life of a Unionist-appointed and Muslim nationalist Ottoman civil servant; Ferid Bey, who was both a victim and a culprit of ethnic violence, points out to a pattern that connects histories of demographic engineering designed primarily by competing nationalists in the late Ottoman Empire. It underlines the impact of this legacy on the nation-state building processes of the post-Ottoman world.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2024.2310913

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