Books by Leyla von Mende
Wie geht eine intellektuelle Elite, die ihre Position im Osmanischen Reich erlangt und ihr Selbst... more Wie geht eine intellektuelle Elite, die ihre Position im Osmanischen Reich erlangt und ihr Selbstverständnis aus diesem gespeist hat, mit dessen Verlust und Wandel um?
Anhand der Repräsentationen Südosteuropas in osmanischer und türkischer Reiseliteratur wird dies auf der Ebene der Autoren nachgezeichnet. Es werden ihre Versuche analysiert, sich selbst, ihre Heimat und die bereiste Region innerhalb eines sich verändernden zwischenstaatlichen Machtgefüges neu zu positionieren. Die Untersuchung der Verarbeitungsmechanismen des Beobachteten – die Verwunderung und das Erinnern – erlaubt eine Neubewertung der Bedeutung der verlorenen Region für die Gegenwart der Autoren. All dies eröffnet eine weitere Perspektive auf den Übergang von Reich zu Republik.
How did intellectual elites, who had acquired their position and formed their self-conception within the Ottoman Empire, deal with its loss and change? This question is discussed by looking at their representations of Southeast Europe in Ottoman and Turkish travel literature. The study analyses their attempts to continuously reposition themselves, their homeland and Southeast Europe in times of a shifting international
balance of power. It also explores two mechanisms of processing the things observed – wonder and remembering. This approach allows us to reassess the importance of the lost region to the authors’ present and sheds new light on the transition from empire to republic.
Book chapters & articles by Leyla von Mende
Klagen um "Europäisierungsmißstände-im Osmanischen Reich des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts könn... more Klagen um "Europäisierungsmißstände-im Osmanischen Reich des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts könnten aus der Feder des osmanischen Schriftstellers und Bürokraten Ahmet Hikmet Müftüoğlu stammen, dessen Kurzgeschichte Yeğenim (Mein Neffe) dieser Essay im Folgenden behandelt. Doch findet man diesen Begriff in Wirklichkeit in einer Rede des deutschen Orientalisten Carl Heinrich Becker, die er 1916 unter dem Titel "Das türkische Bildungsproblemin Bonn an der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität hielt. 2 Im Osmanischen Reich empfanden Eliten vom späten 18. Jahrhundert an aus einer gefühlten und realen Schwäche heraus das starke Bedürfnis, den Staat zu reformieren, um dessen Existenz zu sichern. Sowohl staatliche als auch oppositionelle Zirkel wählten dafür als Orientierungspunkt Europa. 3 Reformen des Bildungssystems standen im Mittelpunkt staatlicher Bestrebungen. Der Ansatz, staatlich gelenkte Ausbildung könne zur Lösung vielerlei Probleme des Staates beitragen, scheint sich im 19. Jahrhundert weltweiter Beliebtheit erfreut zu haben. Theodore Zeldin bezeichnet in seiner Studie zu Frankreich diesen Zeitraum gar als Beginn des "Age of Education-. 4 Die Ausbildung sollte qualifizierte Arbeitskräfte schaffen. Mit ihnen glaubte man, auf wirtschaftlichem und militärischem Gebiet mit anderen Staaten besser konkurrieren zu können. Ebenso sah man im Bildungssystem die Möglichkeit der Erziehung der Schüler zu gesellschaftlich wertvollen Menschen. So wurde es zum Mittel sozialer Kontrolle, Beeinflussung kultureller Identifikation und Schaffung politischer Loyalität. Im Osmanischen Reich wurde seit dem frühen 19. Jahrhundert versucht, ein staatlich gelenktes Bildungssystem zu schaffen, das sich sowohl hinsichtlich Ausbildungs-und Erziehungsmethoden als auch der vermittelten Inhalte sehr vom früheren Bildungssystem unterschied. Es herrschte Optimismus bezüglich der transformativen Wirkung von Ausbildung und Erziehung vorauch auf nichtstaatlicher, zum Teil oppositioneller Seite, die ebenfalls dieses Mittel für die Transformation und "Rettung-des Osmanischen Reiches propagierte. 5 Wie den gesamten Reformprozess durchzog die Frage nach dem Grad der Übernahme ------
Edited Works by Leyla von Mende
Sayı 53: Osmanlı'da Türkçe Dışı Süreli Yayınlar (4): Arapça
Conference Presentations by Leyla von Mende
The history of Istanbul’s Arabic press begins in the middle of the 19th century with Rizqallāh Ḥa... more The history of Istanbul’s Arabic press begins in the middle of the 19th century with Rizqallāh Ḥassūn’s weekly Mirʾāt al-Aḥwāl, which was shortly after followed by Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq’s famous al-Jawāʾib. Until the 1920s approximately forty Arabic journals and newspapers were published in Istanbul, mostly for a short period of time. Many of them were bilin¬gual, Ara¬bic and Ottoman-Turkish, or trilingual (adding e.g. Persian, Urdu, French or Hebrew), state- or privately sponsored, and published by Arab Christians and Muslims as well as Ottoman Turks.
This paper suggests to see Istanbul’s Arabic press as an actor who was not only able to connect different geographical, political, professional, religious, intellectual and linguistic spaces but also took part in their creation and transcended the urban context. At the same time, these publications exemplarily reflect the multitude of actors, interests, and contents involved in the metropolitan press of the long 19th century.
The paper aims to methodologically discuss the press as a producer of spaces for interaction. Taking the Arabic press of Istanbul as a case study, it will shed light on some of the above mentioned interrelated spaces, especially the urban, the political and the linguistic ones. By doing so it seeks to develop and discuss the means the Arabic press had for the creation of such spaces. The main question, however, is whether this approach enables us to grasp the role of the press as a historical actor or whether the press remains a passive (infra-)structure for interaction.
In the early 20th century several Ottomans travelled to Southeast Europe and published their obse... more In the early 20th century several Ottomans travelled to Southeast Europe and published their observations in Ottoman-Turkish newspapers. They were bureaucrats, literati and journalists/war correspondents. In the period under consideration (1912-1923) Bulgaria and Romania were favoured as travel destinations. This paper seeks to show how Ottoman travellers used the region and certain states respectively as a projection screen to position themselves, their home country and society of origin within different hierarchies (political, cultural, social etc.). Their multiple perspectives could range from a position of inferiority to equality and superiority, which, depending on the author, resulted in different self-representations and representations of the Other. By describing people, landscapes and cities in geographical and temporal terms the visited Southeast European states oscillated between being somehow international and regional, post-Ottoman and European at the same time. The Ottoman travellers describe the places visited as “globally interconnected spaces“. What is more, those places appear to enable them to represent themselves as global actors.
Late Ottoman and early Republican travel writing on the Balkans is interspersed with reminiscence... more Late Ottoman and early Republican travel writing on the Balkans is interspersed with reminiscences of the past. Depending on the individual traveller rather than on the respective politics of historiography, that past may be glorious or painful, Ottoman or Turkish, buried or alive, distant or close, and so forth. What is common to all, though, is that certain places would prompt travellers to tell (hi)stories. By way of example, during a journey on the Danube river or while visiting Pleven as the place of one famous battle during the Russo-Ottoman war the travellers are usually confronted with an almost overwhelming pain of loss. They even further that pain by highlighting the historical events or personal experiences associated with those places. Simultaneously, however, they also try to ease that pain in doing so. Drawing on the research on memory, I argue that by creating places of memory the travellers manage to include those places to a notion of fatherland without actually pursuing irredentist aims. In contrast to a present in flux, “their past” seems to be easier to define in retrospective and thereby serves to make sense of the somewhat elusive present.
The aim of this presentation is to throw a closer glance at those stories told by journalists and literati born and raised in times of proceeding territorial loss. I argue that such narratives exemplify how intellectuals handled the drastic political and social changes in the first decades of the 20th century and how they used the past to make sense of their present.
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Books by Leyla von Mende
Anhand der Repräsentationen Südosteuropas in osmanischer und türkischer Reiseliteratur wird dies auf der Ebene der Autoren nachgezeichnet. Es werden ihre Versuche analysiert, sich selbst, ihre Heimat und die bereiste Region innerhalb eines sich verändernden zwischenstaatlichen Machtgefüges neu zu positionieren. Die Untersuchung der Verarbeitungsmechanismen des Beobachteten – die Verwunderung und das Erinnern – erlaubt eine Neubewertung der Bedeutung der verlorenen Region für die Gegenwart der Autoren. All dies eröffnet eine weitere Perspektive auf den Übergang von Reich zu Republik.
How did intellectual elites, who had acquired their position and formed their self-conception within the Ottoman Empire, deal with its loss and change? This question is discussed by looking at their representations of Southeast Europe in Ottoman and Turkish travel literature. The study analyses their attempts to continuously reposition themselves, their homeland and Southeast Europe in times of a shifting international
balance of power. It also explores two mechanisms of processing the things observed – wonder and remembering. This approach allows us to reassess the importance of the lost region to the authors’ present and sheds new light on the transition from empire to republic.
Book chapters & articles by Leyla von Mende
Edited Works by Leyla von Mende
Conference Presentations by Leyla von Mende
This paper suggests to see Istanbul’s Arabic press as an actor who was not only able to connect different geographical, political, professional, religious, intellectual and linguistic spaces but also took part in their creation and transcended the urban context. At the same time, these publications exemplarily reflect the multitude of actors, interests, and contents involved in the metropolitan press of the long 19th century.
The paper aims to methodologically discuss the press as a producer of spaces for interaction. Taking the Arabic press of Istanbul as a case study, it will shed light on some of the above mentioned interrelated spaces, especially the urban, the political and the linguistic ones. By doing so it seeks to develop and discuss the means the Arabic press had for the creation of such spaces. The main question, however, is whether this approach enables us to grasp the role of the press as a historical actor or whether the press remains a passive (infra-)structure for interaction.
The aim of this presentation is to throw a closer glance at those stories told by journalists and literati born and raised in times of proceeding territorial loss. I argue that such narratives exemplify how intellectuals handled the drastic political and social changes in the first decades of the 20th century and how they used the past to make sense of their present.
Anhand der Repräsentationen Südosteuropas in osmanischer und türkischer Reiseliteratur wird dies auf der Ebene der Autoren nachgezeichnet. Es werden ihre Versuche analysiert, sich selbst, ihre Heimat und die bereiste Region innerhalb eines sich verändernden zwischenstaatlichen Machtgefüges neu zu positionieren. Die Untersuchung der Verarbeitungsmechanismen des Beobachteten – die Verwunderung und das Erinnern – erlaubt eine Neubewertung der Bedeutung der verlorenen Region für die Gegenwart der Autoren. All dies eröffnet eine weitere Perspektive auf den Übergang von Reich zu Republik.
How did intellectual elites, who had acquired their position and formed their self-conception within the Ottoman Empire, deal with its loss and change? This question is discussed by looking at their representations of Southeast Europe in Ottoman and Turkish travel literature. The study analyses their attempts to continuously reposition themselves, their homeland and Southeast Europe in times of a shifting international
balance of power. It also explores two mechanisms of processing the things observed – wonder and remembering. This approach allows us to reassess the importance of the lost region to the authors’ present and sheds new light on the transition from empire to republic.
This paper suggests to see Istanbul’s Arabic press as an actor who was not only able to connect different geographical, political, professional, religious, intellectual and linguistic spaces but also took part in their creation and transcended the urban context. At the same time, these publications exemplarily reflect the multitude of actors, interests, and contents involved in the metropolitan press of the long 19th century.
The paper aims to methodologically discuss the press as a producer of spaces for interaction. Taking the Arabic press of Istanbul as a case study, it will shed light on some of the above mentioned interrelated spaces, especially the urban, the political and the linguistic ones. By doing so it seeks to develop and discuss the means the Arabic press had for the creation of such spaces. The main question, however, is whether this approach enables us to grasp the role of the press as a historical actor or whether the press remains a passive (infra-)structure for interaction.
The aim of this presentation is to throw a closer glance at those stories told by journalists and literati born and raised in times of proceeding territorial loss. I argue that such narratives exemplify how intellectuals handled the drastic political and social changes in the first decades of the 20th century and how they used the past to make sense of their present.