CONTESTING THE OLD ORDER: GREEK ORTHODOX AND MUSLIMS IN IZMIR WELCOME THE OTTOMAN CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION
CONTESTING THE OLD ORDER: GREEK ORTHODOX AND MUSLIMS IN IZMIR WELCOME THE OTTOMAN CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION

Summary/Abstract: In 1908, after thirty three years of autocratic rule and following the successful course of the Revolution organized by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) (Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti), which was set up by dissident young offi cers and bureaucrats better known as Young Turks, the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II was urged to restore the Constitution that he had suspended in 1878. The news triggered enthusiasm among all communities, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, and preparations for the parliamentary elections soon began. As a matter of fact, this period entailed a totally new experience in the way Ottoman subjects, particularly in the urban centers, contemplated their relations with the authorities, in the sense that decision-making and mobilisation of populations took place mainly in the major urban centers, Izmir, Salonica and the capital Istanbul. Thus, to begin with, our interest revolves around the urban space and the ways the urban population perceived and responded to the new challenges. In this paper, our aim is to address some of the questions generated by our study of the Greek-Orthodox community in a major urban center like Izmir (Smyrna). To what extent, for instance, did the urban experience of an ethno-religious community in a particular city of the Empire bear the marks of its specifi c geographical coordinates? Moeoer, to what extent was this experience determined by the ethno-religious background of its population? To what extent, fi nally, can this experience be comprehensible to outsiders? [...]

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