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VOLUME 54
LEIDEN BOSTON
2013
Cover illustration: painting by Fausto Zonaro Mafalda on the Dolmabahe Coast, Berrak-Nezih
Barut Collection (2007 Antik A.. Archive)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A social history of late Ottoman women : new perspectives / edited by Duygu Kksal and
Anastasia Falierou.
pages cm. (The Ottoman empire and its heritage, ISSN 1380-6076 ; volume 54)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-22516-9 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN 978-90-04-25525-8 (e-book)
1.WomenTurkeyHistory19th century.2.WomenTurkeyHistory20th century.
3.TurkeyHistoryOttoman Empire, 12881918.I.Kksal, Duygu.II.Falierou, Anastasia.
HQ1726.7.S63 2013
305.40956109034dc23
2013036745
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ISSN 1380-6076
ISBN 978-90-04-22516-9 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-25525-8 (e-book)
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments..........................................................................................
List of Figures and Tables............................................................................
List of Abbreviations......................................................................................
xi
xiii
xv
Part One
31
47
65
Part Two
85
viii
contents
contents
ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This collective volume has benefited from the contributions of a number
of people and institutions. The idea emerged from a conference in April
2006 in Istanbul, entitled Women in the Arts and Writing: Negotiating
the Ottoman Public Sphere. The conference provided us a point of departure; in time we contacted a number of new scholars whose work would
contribute to the overall purpose of the book.
We would first like to thank the two institutions who funded the initial conference and have also supported us during the preparation of
the manuscript; Boazii University and IFEA (Institut Franais dEtudes
Anatoliennes). A number of people at Boazii University and IFEA have
offered their help during the editing process. We received much needed
help in typing and organization from the assistants at Atatrk Institute
for Modern Turkish History at Boazii University. We are particularly
grateful to zgr Burak Grsoy, mmhan Ceren nl, Deniz Arzuk,
zlem Dilber, Selim zgen, Alpkan Birelma, and Ekin Mahmuzlu, along
with others whose names we may have left out. Our warm thanks to Tracy
Maria Lord-en for reading and commenting on the manuscript.
We also wish to thank our series editors at Brill Publishers and the
anonymous reviewers for their meticulous comments, which were invaluable for the improvement of the initial manuscript. Kathy van Vliet and
Franca de Kort at Brill have done a wonderful job of coordinating the
editing and publishing process and to them we would like to express our
warm thanks. Our copy editor Valerie Joy Turner, who has made the manuscript more readable, also deserves our thanks.
Lastly, we would like to thank our families, who stood by us during this
long and sometimes difficult project. It was with their love and encouragement that we were able to complete this book.
54
70
75
76
93
101
103
158
158
163
163
165
180
181
182
xiv
205
Society of Pera.............................................................................
6.3.Female workers in the ironing section established by the
Ladies Charitable Society of Pera.........................................
211
7.1.The woman of 1911............................................................................... 253
7.2.The woman of 1922.............................................................................. 254
7.3.What a lie!.............................................................................................. 257
7.4.The full moon and the waves........................................................... 258
7.5.In the tramway..................................................................................... 261
7.6.After the curtain was lifted in the ferries.................................. 261
7.7.If women were................................................................................... 263
7.8.Women in coffeehouses..................................................................... 265
7.9.A scene from social life...................................................................... 266
7.10.Heels and legs....................................................................................... 268
7.11.I cant wait for summer...................................................................... 269
7.12.The widow........................................................................................... 271
7.13.Hrriyet Abidesi (Monument to Freedom)................................. 272
Tables
2.1.Fezzes knitted for Feshane according to the knitting type
and religious affiliation of knitters for a period of
approximately six months in 187576...............................
2.2.Earnings of fez knitters......................................................................
77
78
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AIU Alliance Isralite Universelle
BCA Babakanlk Cumhuriyet AriviPrime Ministry Republican
Archives
BOA Babakanlk Osmanl AriviPrime Ministry Ottoman
Archives
DH. D Dahiliye Nezareti, dare EvrakMinistry of Internal Affairs,
Administrative Documents
DH. MKT Dahiliye Nezareti, Mektubi KalemiMinistry of Internal
Affairs, Chief Secretary
HR. TO Hariciye Nezareti, Tercme OdasMinistry of External
Affairs, Translation Office
HV Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden
Y.A. HUS Yldz, Sadaret, Hususi EvrakYldz, Prime Ministry, Private Documents
Y. PRK. ASK Yldz Perakende, AskeriYldz Retail Documents, Military
Affairs
Y. PRK. DH Yldz Perakende Evrak, DahiliyeYldz Retail Documents,
Interior Affairs
INTRODUCTION
range of subtle and not-so-subtle responses by local actors to this hegemonic pressure. Thus, studying Ottoman women of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries means locating them in the wider history
of the Empire, which was characterized by the loss of territories, contesting nationalisms, and deepening ties with world capitalism and European
states. Recent work testifies that investigation into the late Ottoman
Empire cannot afford to ignore European history. The challenge is not
simply that of writing the larger history of Europe, but rather factoring in
individual histories within the Ottoman geography as informed by co-eval
developments in Europe, the Middle East outside the Empire, and, where
relevant, other regions.
Being mindful of co-evalness1 or equivalance in terms of time
requires that we regard developments in the late Ottoman Empire (or anywhere) on that regions own terms; that is, as neither behind or belated
nor ahead or advanced with respect to other contexts. Co-evalness in
history demands that we study geographies related with each other in a
given time frame as co-temporal entities, sharing the same world historical environment. These geographies are part of a larger system of power
relations, by which they may be effected in different but related ways.
We have thus come to use terms like alternative modernities or nonwestern modernities in deference to the need for co-evalness in our
analyses of both past and present in non-western geographies.2 Social sciences and history scholarship have taken major steps in imagining and
conceptualizing modernity in non-western contexts; yet much remains
to be done in the area of approaching a contextthe ideas, acts, and
practices of a particular societyin its own time. The studies in this volume present late Ottoman and early republican women as figures in a
1It was Johannes Fabians important work which brought to our attention the concept
of co-evalness. Johannes Fabian, The Time of the Other (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1983). Co-evalness has been taken up by several other writers contemplating Western and non-Western modernities. See for example Arif Dirlik, Is there History after Eurocentrism? Globalism, Post-colonialism and the Disavowal of History, in Postmodernitys
Histories: The Past as Legacy and Project (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers,
Inc., 2000), 6389.
2For critical discussions of these concepts, see Harry Harootinian, Overcome by Modernity, History, War and Community in Interwar Japan (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000), especially the Preface; and Nadir zbek, Alternatif Tarih Tahayylleri:
Siyaset, deoloji ve Osmanl-Trkiye Tarihi, Toplum ve Bilim 98 (2003), 234254; Nadir
zbek, Modernite, Tarih ve deoloji: II. Abdulhamid Dnemi Tarihilii zerine Bir
Deerlendirme, Trkiye Aratrmalar Literatr Dergisi 2, no. 1 (2004), 7190.
introduction
introduction
Re-locating Islam
Western scholarship is known to have perceived Islam, until late in the
twentieth century, as a belief system and way of life equated with the traditional in opposition to all that might be modern. Scholars of the Middle
East, for their part, have either identified with this picture or defensively
rejected it, seeking to show how, for example, Islam has not actually impeded
development and modernization. In womens studies, as well, the Islamic
framework has, as we noted, offered enticing themes such as the harem, the
polygamous and extended family, and patriarchal relations associated with
the seclusion/segregation of Muslim women.
A Middle Eastern Orient reduced to Islam and imagined largely by
means of rough and reductivist interpretations of these themes has
recently, however, been challenged by a post-Orientalist criticism. A literature mindful of the lived relations of power in a Muslim society, aware
of the various functions and utilities of traditional relations and power
networks among women, has slowly emerged.3 The harem has been
approached from new perspectives; for example, as an alternative site
of power from which womens involvement in household or community
politics can be clearly discerned,4 or as an alternative domestic space safeguarded from masculine intrusion.5 Seclusion and covering practices have
also been treated in novel ways; womens exercise of power and agency
are now seen as issues of self-actualization and a means of exerting influence rather than only as issues of seclusion, covering, or segregation.6
The new critical literature on nineteenth-century women has elements
in common with a number of historiographical works on the early modern
(pre-1839) Ottoman period. This schools point of departure was a new look
at Islamic law, courts, and legal texts, this time stressing both womens
formal rights and the opportunities and openings for womens exercise of
power in Muslim society. This literature goes beyond a re-assessment of
3Among these see Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1975); Leila Ahmed,
Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991). Nilfer Gle, The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan, c1996).
4A groundbreaking work is that of Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
5See Billie Melman, Womens Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 17181918.
Sexuality, Religion and Work (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992).
6Nilfer Gle, The Forbidden Modern.
introduction
on this intellectual tradition by local elites. In recent work on Middle Eastern and late Ottoman intellectual history, attention is turning to more
complex characters, those capable of spanning intellectual and cultural
frontiers.9 Academics of the field are increasingly inclined to look beyond
the sphere of ideas toward that of everyday experience, of power relations
among groups and individuals including the non-intellectual.
A familiar mode of scholarship on European colonialism that presents a more or less one-dimensional exploitation of the Orient for economic and strategic reasons, has recently been refined in certain aspects.
While the hegemonic and disciplinary effects of Western colonialism are
acknowledged, lately more attention is being paid first to indigenous economic and social developments, and second to indigenous populations
collaboration and cooperation with, as well as resistance to, the colonial
regimes.10 A number of studies show that capitalist developments more
or less contemporary with those in Europe may be noted in some areas
of the Ottoman Empire and Egypt, developments that actually preceded
Western colonial interference.11
The history of colonialism in the Middle East is no longer thought to
be that of a more or less one-way relationship between a hegemonic West
12Reina Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism, Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004).
introduction
13Margaret L. Meriwether and Judith Tucker (eds.), Social History of Women and Gender
in the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO and Oxford: Westview Press, 1999).
14Mervat F. Hatem, Ellen L. Fleischmann, and Deniz Kandiyoti have drawn attention
to the dominance of the nationalist narrative in studies of Middle Eastern women. See
Mervat Hatem, Modernization, the State, and the Family in Middle East Womens Studies, in Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East, ed. Meriwether and
Tucker, 6387; Ellen L. Fleischmann, The Other Awakening: The Emergence of Womens
Movements in the Middle East, 19001940, in Social History of Women and Gender in the
Modern Middle East, ed. Meriwether and Tucker, 8913; Deniz Kandiyoti, Contemporary
Feminist Scholarship and Middle East Studies, in Gendering the Middle East: Emerging Perspectives, ed. Deniz Kandiyoti (London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 1996), 127; Elizabeth B.
Frierson, Women in Late Ottoman Intellectual History, in The Late Ottoman Society Intellectual Legacy, ed. Elisabeth zdalga (London and New York: Routledge, 2005).
10
15Nicole van Os, Ottoman Womens Reaction to the Economic and Cultural Intrusion
of the West: The Quest for a National Dress, in Dissociation and Appropriation Responses
to Globalization in Asia and Africa, ed. Katja Fllberg-Stolberg, Petra Heidrich, and Ellinor
Schne (Berlin: Verlag Das Arabische Buch, 1999), 291308; Elif Ekin Akit, Kzlarn
Sessizlii, Kz Enstitlerinin Uzun Tarihi (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 2005).
16Elisabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, c2000).
introduction
11
17Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 1996); Serpil akr,
Feminism and Feminist History-Writing in Turkey: The Discovery of Ottoman Feminism,
Aspasia 1 (2007), 6183.
18Nicole van Os, Ottoman Womens Organizations: Sources of the Past, Sources for the
Future, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 11, no. 3 (2000), 369383; Aynur Demirdirek
In Pursuit of the Ottoman Womens Movement, in Deconstructing Images of The Turkish
Woman, ed. Zehra Arat (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998), 6582; Aye Durakbaa, Halide
Edib, Trk Modernlemesi ve Feminizm (Istanbul: letiim, 2000); Ayfer Karakaya-Stump,
Debating Progress in a Serious Newspaper for Muslim Women: The Periodical Kadn of
the Post-Revolutionary Salonica, 19081909, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 30,
no. 2 (2003), 155181. For a study drawing links between late Ottoman and the Republican
womens movement, see Yaprak Zihniolu, Nezihe Muhiddin, Kadnsz nklap, Kadnlar
Halk Frkas ve Kadn Birlii (Istanbul: letiim, Metis, 2003).
19Elisabeth Thompson, The Public and the Private in Middle Eastern Womens History, Journal of Womens History 15, no. 1 (2003), 5269; Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender
in Islam.
12
introduction
13
14
the time their jobs are temporary and last only until the end of the war,
war should still be taken as a factor that has pushed women into the public sphere.27 Recent studies also tackle the institutional background of
work relations with a focus on the Society for the Employment of Muslim
Women (19161923).28
Finally, a discussion of the late Ottoman public sphere also needs
to take single women into consideration, as new actors in and subjects
of education, literature, and the arts, and in the fields of labor and the
media. The single woman appears as an emergent site where the private
and public are redefined. As elsewhere in Europe, many working single
women seem to cease working once they are married. Thus, the concept
of girlhood in the sphere of education and work slowly entered Ottoman
womens studies.
The move of late Ottoman women into the public sphere through various types of work remains limited though, since womens labor is usually
considered supplemental and temporary. Womens work, while empowering them, seems to have introduced a number of new restrictions and
patriarchal pressures on women. Poor wages, moral pressures, and abuses
were common. In other words, Ottoman womens publicness may have
meant further exploitation of women by their families, by the society, and
by the state.
All in all, research demonstrates that in the late Ottoman context, not
only has the private moved into the public, but publicness itself has also
been expanded and is being theoretically refashioned. Publicness is no
longer restricted to the classic bourgeois public sphere described by Jurgen
Habermas.29 Work from far-flung geographies has further nourished discussion on this term, as womens studies undertaken in widely different
societies enters into dialogue on these issues. Examples like Mary Ryans
work on nineteenth-century American women, Carol Smarts assessment
of the public/private in American revolutionary thought, Belinda Daviss
27For examples of Muslim womens working conditions, see Elif Mahir Metinsoy,
Poor Ottoman Turkish Women During World War I: Womens Experiences and Politics
in Everyday Life, 19141923, PhD thesis (Boazii University, 2012), especially chapter 7.
28Tiine zkiper Oktar, Osmanl Toplumunda Kadnn alma Yaam (Istanbul:
Bilim Teknik Yaynevi, 1998); Yavuz Selim Karakla, Women, Work and War in the Ottoman Empire: Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women 19161923 (Istanbul:
Ottoman Bank Archive and Research Center, 2005).
29Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trans. T. Burger
and F. Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989) and Craig Calhoun (ed.), Habermas
and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1996).
introduction
15
16
introduction
17
18
introduction
19
20
the family and her society; on the other hand, it could also designate the
salon woman, a type prone to material and moral profligacy.
Male-female relationships in Ottoman society, a dissolution of traditional values, and changes in womens lives lie at the heart of this erotic
literature that flourished after the 1908 revolution with the abolition
of Hamidian censorship. Analyzing a representative selection of erotic
novels, Tre argues that the types portrayed, closer to the salon woman,
are remote indeed from the ideal Republican woman. The main themes
include the intriguing topics of arranged marriages, the effects of bad childrearing, the expropriation of wealth, venereal diseases, and social problems such as prostitution and gambling. Some stories are characterized
by a pedagogic tone, while others have a more humorous and hence arguably less erotic flavor since, as Tre notes, humor diminishes the sense of
shame and perturbation that is germane to the erotica experience.
The fourth section of this collection deals with women and the press.
Scholars repeatedly emphasize the usefulness of print culture in enriching our knowledge of womens history. The three papers comprising this
section delve into a range of print formats: a womens periodical, an
almanac for women published by a male intellectual, and cartoons. The
papers present male and female points of view and also identify differences between private and collective ideas.
Scrutinizing the pages of Eurydice, an Ottoman Greek womens periodical published in Istanbul in the 1870s, Anastasia Falierou notes womens
roles as spouses, mothers, and housewives and the contribution of this
triple role to the formation of the Greek Orthodox identity. Although
Eurydice is not the first nor the longest lived Greek womens journal, it
deserves attention for representing rising nationalist sentiments in the
Greek community at a particular moment in history, that is, the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate, which became a threat to the Ecumenical Patriarchates authority and by extension to the Greek communitys
leading position among the Christian populations of the Empire.
It was also at 1870s that the Greek elite realized the crucial role women
could play in the process of nation building. Of the three main roles that
women were enjoined to embrace, motherhood was considered the most
important. It was argued that women could contribute to the national
regeneration by raising ardent patriots to whom they would inculcate
national ideals. In this connection, women began to be praised as the carriers and transmitters of traditional Greek values as well as modernization.
zgr Tresays paper takes up the Takvmn-nis, an almanac for
women published in 1899 by Ebziya Tevfik, a prominent Ottoman pub-
introduction
21
lisher and intellectual. Situating the almanac in the general historical context of the late nineteenth-century Ottoman press and comparing it with
other publications concerning women, Tresay studies its eclectic contents
in some detail. Already in his introductory remarks, Ebziya links national
progress with womens progress, legitimizing womens education as necessary to the development of their social role as mothers. The idea of women
as transmitters of national culture and values thus seems to appear in all
communities of the period, transcending ethnic and religious frontiers.
The didactic character and the range of fields (household management,
childrearing, hairdressing, the handling of servants, biographies of famous
women, moral virtues) that Takvmn-nis offers for Muslim women
makes it a significant source for Ottoman gender history. The Takvm is
moreover unique in addressing a female audience with a gendered consciousness of time. Ebziya urges women to live in a Muslim temporality, while men are allowed to live in a secular temporality. Interestingly,
Ebziya Tevfiks almanac belies a considerable influence from Protestant
ethics and thus likely contributed to the cultural parameters of Ottoman
bourgeois modernity.
Finally, Franois Georgeons essay treats womens representations in
the immediate pre-Republican Ottoman satirical press. Satire was not a
new genre in Ottoman press history; the first satirical journal, Diyojen, was
published by Theodor Kassapis as early as 1870. However, satire flourished
dramatically between 1919 and 1924.
Expressing what the ordinary press cannot while illustrating a fantasized world, caricatures offer an alternative reading of Ottoman society.
As in the theater, gender roles can be reversed or exaggerated. Georgeon
traces shifts in Ottoman mentality through this genre in regard to an overlapping matrix of issues such as marriage, segregation of the sexes, work,
fashion, womens presence in public, equality of the sexes, and womens
emancipation. The type of women who attracted the humorists attention
was not, notably, the cosmopolitan westernized non-Muslim woman that
had been the focal point in previous years, but the emancipated, modern
Turkish woman, a topic that was off limits in earlier decades. Either as
objects of desire or for purposes of social criticism, the new woman was
now at the center of the press attention. Her social position and the degree
of her emancipation greatly preoccupied Ottoman public opinion, exposing contentions between young and old, modernist and traditionalist.
The last section is devoted to womens biographies or portraits, a genre
also cited by scholars as a valuable and always fruitful source for gender
history.
22
Demetra Vaka, Hayriye Melek Hun, Malek Hifn Nsif, and Nabawiyya
Ms belong to the first generation of women intellectuals from different communities of the Ottoman Empire. Duygu Kksals essay offers
an analysis of the life and thought of Demetra Vaka, a member of the
Istanbul Greek upper-middle class who was privileged to penetrate into
Muslim households through her close contacts with Muslim women. She
later migrated to America, where she worked and then married an American writer. Carrying a plurality of identities as Ottoman, Greek, and finally
American, Vakas personality is fascinating for scholars of the imperial
mentality of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Retracing
the familiar division between East and West, Vaka identifies Turks with
the Muslim Asiatic East and Greeks with the civilized Christian West.
These stereotypes, however, do not remain unchallenged; her later writings are characterized by mixed feelings about the harem and Muslim
womens lifestyles. In several instances, Vaka praises certain virtues of
Turkish culture and expresses her nostalgia for the Ottoman society of her
youth. Later in life, under the influence of American feminism, individualism, and modernism, Vaka defied the Victorian bourgeois values of her
adopted milieu and shifted from being an admirer of the West to become
a critic of Western modernity.
Catherine Mayeurs study traces the birth of feminism in Egypt by contrasting the life stories of Malak Hifn Nsif and Nabawiyya Ms. They
belonged to the first generation of women to emerge from the harem,
they were educated in a society where illiteracy was the norm, then went
on to take an active role in the public sphere, following strikingly different courses in life. Malak Hifn Nsif represents a relatively conventional
female type for the period: she came from an upper-class family, married
at the age of twenty-one, then busied herself with charitable work. By
contrast, Nabawiyya Ms, despite her modest social origins, refused marriage and earned her own living by working. Both women wrote extensively on veiling, female education, and employment, and criticized many
aspects of the patriarchal constraints that prevailed. Despite the divergence in their life choices, both Nabawiyya Ms and Malak Hifn Nsif
contributed substantiallywhether in radical or more modest waysto
the Egyptian womens awakening, and therefore are considered pioneers
of Egyptian feminism. Mayeurs study reveals that Egyptian nationalism
and feminism were not exclusively elite affairs, but transcended social
boundaries even in their early stages.
Finally, Alexandre Toumarkines paper examines the origins of the Circassian feminist movement through the life and the intellectual activities
introduction
23
24
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introduction
25
Gek, Fatma Mge and Marc David Baer. Social Boundaries of Ottoman Womens Experiences in 18th Century Galata Court Records, in Women in the Ottoman Empire, Middle
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Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Translated by
T. Burger and F. Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989.
Hadar, Gila. Jewish Tobacco Workers in Salonika: Gender and Family in the Context of
Social and Ethnic Strife, in Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender Culture and History,
edited by A. Buturovic and Irvin C. Schick, 127152. London and New York: I.B. Tauris,
2007.
Harootinian, Harry. Overcome by Modernity, History, War and Community in Interwar
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. Through Each Others Eyes, the Impact on the Colonial Encounter of the Images
of Egyptian, Levantine-Egyptian, and European Women, 18621920, in Western Women
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Jennings, Ronald C. Studies on Ottoman Social History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries: Women, Zimmis and Sharia Courts in Kayseri, Cyprus and Trabzon. Istanbul:
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(ed.). Gendering the Middle East: Emerging Perspectives. London and New York:
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26
introduction
27
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226255. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Part One
Chapter One
32
hasmik khalapyan
33
In the Ottoman Empire in the period under discussion, very few occupations were open to Armenian women: teaching, needlework, and domestic
service were among the few options. A small minority could also consider
nursing, acting, journalism, or writing. These limitations may be due to
both ideological perceptions of gender roles and to the pace and character
of Ottoman industrialization.
The most determining ideological constraint relates to how public and
private, male and female spaces were constructed in the Empire, where
seclusion and the segregation of the sexes were observed. As a rule, it was
assumed that Islam-based practices and/or those interpreted as Islamic,9
were observed by Muslims only; each millet had its own practices. Yet
how the ruling culture influenced the cultures of ethnic and religious
communities under imperial domination does deserve consideration. For
example, seclusion and segregation of the sexes were culturally accepted
among Armenians as among other millets,10 though these practices may
not have had the same critical importance as they did for the Muslim
population, since the Armenian millet was not officially bound by Islam
and/or its interpretation. Nevertheless, as Badran notes in the context
of Egypt, although Greek, Jewish, and Armenian women were freer to
innovate and set precedents, they could not confer legitimacy. Muslim
women were more constrained, but only they could lend cultural legitimacy to new behaviors.11
Seclusion and segregation practices were weakening toward the end of
the nineteenth century and women were active promoters of this change.
Though not without heated criticism, mixed gender gatherings, such as
and Gender, ed. Beth Baron and Nikki R. Keddie (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991).
For a similar perspective and case study from North Africa, see Julia Clancy-Smith, A
Woman Without Her Distaff: Gender, Work, and Handicraft Production in Colonial North
Africa, in Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East, ed. Margaret L.
Meriwether and Judith E. Tucker (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999).
9The origins of these practices are interpreted differently by different scholars. For
some views, at times contradictory, see Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Barbara Freyer Stowasser, Women and Citizenship
in Quran, in Women, the Family and Divorce Laws in Islamic History, ed. Amira El Azhary
Sonbol (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996); Mohsen Kadivar, An Introduction
to the Public and Private Debate in Islam, Social Research (September 2003), 659682.
10Margot Badran writes that in Egypt seclusion and veiling were practiced by both
Christian and Jewish communities. See Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 4.
For Jewish women, see also Ruth Lamdan, Communal Regulations as a Source for Jewish
Womens Lives in the Ottoman Empire, Muslim World 95 (April 2005).
11Badran, 48. My emphasis.
34
hasmik khalapyan
salons and balls, had become accepted among Armenians toward the end
of the century.12 With the increased visibility of women in public, seclusion gave way to a new practice: more frequent outings chaperoned by an
elderly woman, a father, a brother, or a husband.13
During this period, seclusion and segregation were also weakened by
social change and industrialization among Muslims and non-Muslims
alike. Variations in these trends occurred over time, as well as across
locations (cities vs. provinces).14 In the textile factories, womens work
was for the first time situated outside the household.15 However, until its
decline in 1918, the Ottoman Empire remained largely an agrarian state
with three-quarters of its population living in the countryside, where livelihoods depended on agriculture and related activities.16 With few exceptions, the pace of Ottoman industrialization did not, as in case of womens
35
17In Great Britain, a rupture occurred in the nineteenth century when paid household labor gradually shifted to the workplace. Industrialization had different impacts on
women of different classes. For upper and upper middle-class women it meant increased
domestication and dependency on the male breadwinner, whereas economic need pushed
lower middle-class and lower-class women from the household out to the workplace. The
shift of work from inside to outside the household meant its moving from the private
to the public, resulting in greater public visibility for women, if for exploitative reasons.
Jordan, The Womens Movement; Catherine Hall, White, Male and Middle Class: Explorations
in Feminism and History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992).
18Zabel Yessayan wrote in her unpublished autobiography: During that period [late
1890s] the feeling of hatred was strong in me. I observed contradictions everywhere and
in everyone, a disharmony of speech and act, and suffered greatly. Hovhaness Shahnazar
defended womens emancipation in [the pages of ] Hayrenik [but] during a friendly conversation he would say that a certain girl lacked a sense of decency because one day she
had come to the editing house without a chaperone to enquire about work. See Autobiography, Zabel Yessayan Fund, Dossier 6, NLMA, 317.
19According to the 1907 census, there were 147 mahalles. Allen Duben and Cem Behar,
Istanbul Households: Marriage, Family and Fertility, 18801940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 30.
20Edhem Eldem, Istanbul: From Imperial to Peripheralized Capital, The Ottoman City
Between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul, ed. Edhem Eldem, et al. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 152155.
36
hasmik khalapyan
communal controls and modes of behavior ranging from the family/household to the latent supervision of neighborhood relations.21
37
In debates defending womens labor in and outside the home, lowerclass women were of lesser interest; the issue was most pressing with the
declining middle class, both in concrete terms and in regard to discourses
creating consensus on work within the womens movement. Since a familys status was judged by the amount of leisure available to its women,
a middle-class womans working for pay was unavoidably a sign of her
familys economic vulnerabilityand something she would certainly not
want to be known. As with their counterparts in Europe, here, too, there
was a constant effort to catch up or keep up with upper-class lifestyles.24
For the middle class, paid labor inside, but particularly outside, the
home was considered dishonorable for the family as a whole. As Zarouhi
Galemkearian recalls in her autobiography:
How conservative the social norms were! Girls of modest [social] status
would often hide the need to earn money working outside the household.
Women who embroidered tival (decorative panels) or crocheted at home to
meet essential needs or to help the family regarded the money earned as a
sort of disgrace.25
In the early 1900s and from a well-off family, Galemkearians family did not
allow her to accept money for working as a journalist at the weekly Byouzandyon. Her mother, who served on the board of trustees of the National
Hospital, would take her pay and use it to buy sweets for hospital patients,
thus giving her daughters salary to charity. The mother of the prominent
actress, Azniv Hrachia, reluctantly agreed to her daughter acting, but only
after receiving the theater managers promise not to pay her daughter a
salary. But Azniv secretly accepted to be paid: Why would I not take it?
It was the money I had earned. It was my honest wages.26 She thus hid
her earnings from her motherat least until the family exhausted her late
fathers inheritance.
Azniv Hrachias case is an example of how economic pressures could
force families to abandon ideological preconceptions, and as such examples grew in number, new formulations of and rationales for the family
and womens role in it became necessary. Bowing to economic necessity,
educated men and women created a discourse encouraging women and
24For Germany, see Gisela Bock, Women in European History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 94; for England, see Jordan, Womens Movement, 3336.
25Zarouhi Galemkearian, [The path of my life] (Antilas: Publicationof Armenian Catholicosate, 1952), xviii.
26Azniv Hrachia, [My memoirs] Anahit 12 (AprilMay
1909), 1416.
38
hasmik khalapyan
their families to think favorably of paid labor for women. Along these lines,
some came to see a contradiction between womens demand for emancipation and their idle lifestyles, with the result that work came to be seen
as the truest form of feminism and emancipation. Visiting a textile factory
in Yedi Kule, Stepan Khachouni declared to a well-to-do female audience
that working women were the true models of feminism because real
feminism, in its larger meaning, is womans labor and feminists are the
working women.27
References to Europe had dual meanings and were used for dual purposes, depending on the message desired. For encouraging women to
engage in wage labor the preferred reference was European women, as the
more confined Muslim women could hardly serve as a model:
When it is impossible to sustain a home with the ever changeable and
declining earnings of men, when needs have grown and often the demands
of life grow day by day, what should be done? After all we must live, mustnt
we?...Today civilized countries proudly exhibit large groups of women and
girls at work who have even succeeded in surpassing men with their exceptional talents and abilities, in addition ensuring secure material circumstances for themselves and those around them.28
39
ment, our needs, our abilities and endeavors.30 Women were expected
to conform to the demands of the machine-age while keeping their distance from professions perceived as masculine:
We do not wish our innocent Armenian girls to serve in restaurants, taverns,
coffeehouses, and bars, as waitresses, singers or dancers. We have seen this,
though fortunately in small numbers...and blood froze in our veins.31
40
hasmik khalapyan
(ashkharhabar), much to the dismay of supporters of the classical language (grabar). Theater also served as a channel for charity when income
from the performances was donated to poor and orphan relief societies.
All of this contributed to laying the foundations of a civil society. Women
were crucial to this project since the level of civilization depended on the
status of women in society: the fact that Armenians were the only millet
whose women appeared on the stage made acting an honorable occupation in the eyes of reformers since it demonstrated the Armenians unique
progressiveness. Under these circumstances a woman stepping onto the
stage became both an object and subject of these efforts. These special
conditions were responsible for maintaining theater and women actors
outside the more common perceptions of womens space and roles.
Actresses boldly appeared on stage at a time when women in the audience continued to watch them segregated behind lattices.33 In 1864, when
a woman was labeled shameless for serving as a school administrator
in Marash,34 the first professional Armenian actress, Arousyak Papazian,35
was glorified as prima donna of the Arevelian Tatron (Eastern Theater).
Actresses were seen as true heroines. During Arousyaks performances,
men in the audience would throw flags under her feet.36 A prominent
literary and political figure from Russian Armenia, Mikael Nalbandian
(18291866) wrote after his visit to Constantinople in the late 1860s: The
history of Armenian theater will not forget the honorable young women
Arousyak and Aghavni Papazian...They boldly warred against influences of the public prejudices against them, and triumphing over them,
appeared on the stage.37
With the intensification of censorship in Sultan Abdlhamids reign
and the end of Vardovians ten-year monopoly on the Ottoman Theater
33. . -i, i: i [Constantinople entertainment: From summer impressions] (Tiflis, 1903).
34Victoria Rowe, History of Armenian Womens Writing (18801921) (London: Cambridge
Scholars Press, 2003), 166167.
35Arousyak Papazian (1841 Constantinople1907 Constantinople) is considered the
first professional actress of the Ottoman stage. She first appeared in the Hekimian theatrical group in 18571859, and joined the Arevelian Tatron (Eastern Theater) in 1861. Some
of the major plays by non-Armenian playwrights in which she appeared in leading roles
were: Sappho in Franz Grillpartzers Sappho; Blanche in Hugos The King Amuses Himself,
Antigone in Sophocles Antigone; Francesca in Silvio Pellicos Francesca da Rimini; Elise in
Molieres The Miser, etc. Her acting career was short; it was put to an end with her marriage due to her husbands opposition.
36Stepanian, vol. 1, 354.
37Mikael Nalbandian, [National theater in Constantinople] in [Complete collection of works], vol. II,
307311.
41
42
hasmik khalapyan
they would protect the morality of the young women. Local religious
authorities were in some cases asked to intervene,44 a pattern common
in factory work as well.45
The scarcity of women willing to act made actresses the most materially favored among other working women, even compared to male actors.
Salaries were determined according to rank, and women were typically
granted the first rank, ensuring them salaries higher than male actors.46
Morality questions did create prejudice against Armenian actresses in
the general population, outside a small group of reformers and literati. Marriage prospects could be problematic, since families sometimes refused to
accept an actress as a bride into the family. Many years passed before Azniv
Hrachias fianc received his familys permission to marry her.47 Lousnyak48
remained single and lived outside of wedlock with a certain Doctor Ormanian, whose brother was a Patriarch (Patriarch Ormanian, 18951908), as
the family had refused to accept an actress as a daughter-in-law.49 In cases
when they did marry someone outside theater circles, actresses more often
than not would leave the stage to do so, as was the case with the sisters
Arousyak, Yereanouhi, and Vergine Karaghasian.50 In her note congratulating Siranoush on her thirty-fifth birthday,51 celebrated in Bak in 1909,
Azniv Hrachia addressed the audience with the following words:
43
44
hasmik khalapyan
Tsaghik even expressed frustration that actresses were not judged with
the same norms of morality as other women:
Public morality has always shown particular tolerance towards
actresses...The decency of a woman of theaterau fondis the least of
our worries and has never bothered society....If the life of an actress is
full of adventures...the public does not judge her for such an insignificant
thing. Everyone understands that this isolated world, which is called theater,
cannot be judged on equal terms with the general mores ruling the rest of
the society....If for simple mortals the fall of a woman is an unrecoverable
circumstance, in backstage lives it is a trivial incident. An actress will never
lose the respect of the public for having a lover or a child out of wedlock.55
When the ban on Armenian language performances was lifted following the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, women from the cosmopolitan
Istanbul neighborhood of Pera presented a piece of jewelry to Mrs. Dourian-Armenian at a charity occasion she had organized. Byouzandyon celebrated the occasion: Above all expressions of appreciation, the jewelry
will remain as a token of Armenian womans pioneering love for art and
especially for the woman artist.56
Conclusion
In the course of the nineteenth century very few careers were open to
Ottoman Armenian women, due to the difficult economic state of late
Ottoman society and to perceived gender norms. In this respect, the theater presented a unique case in the history of Armenian womens labor. As
founders of modern theater in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian reformers
and literati attached such great pride to this development that womens
appearance on stage was perceived as an act of patriotism. This point of
view was clearly positive for women who otherwise had few choices for
supporting themselves and their families. Thus theaters importance for
the Armenian population allowed actresses to remain largely outside the
rigidly defined gender norms for working women, and made the stage an
attractive career for some. Given the support of reformers, criticism of
actresses unconventional behavior and lifestyles was seen as insignificant
as long as their careers were linked to the nations cause of progress.
55F. Jenterejian, [Decency in theater] Tsaghik 22
(9 July 1905), 380382.
56S. B. . - [Yevgineh: Mrs. Dourian-Armenian].
Byouzandyon 3721 (19 December1 January 1909).
45
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Badran, Margot. Feminists, Islam and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Bock, Gisela. Women in European History. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002.
Clancy-Smith, Julia. A Woman Without Her Distaff: Gender, Work, and Handicraft Production in Colonial North Africa, in Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern
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Galemkearian, Zarouhi. [The path of my life]. Antilas: Publicationof
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Goumbassian, Sanatrouk. [Biography of
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Harris, Alice Kessler. Reframing the History of Womens Wage Labor: Challenges of a
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Hemmings, F.W.J. The Theatre Industry in Nineteenth-century France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, c1995.
Hrachia, Azniv. [My memoirs]. Anahit 12 (AprilMay 1909):
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109122.
Jordan, Ellen. The Exclusion of Women from Industry in Nineteenth-century Britain.
Comparative Studies in Society and History 31, no. 2 (1988), 273296.
. The Womens Movement and Womens Employment in Nineteenth-Century Britain.
London: Routledge, 1999.
Kadivar, Mohsen. An Introduction to the Public and Private Debate in Islam. Social
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Kasaba, Reat. The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy in the Nineteenth Century.
Albany: State University of New York, 1988.
Khalapyan, Hasmik. Womens Education, Labour or Charity? Significance of Needlework
among Ottoman Armenians, from Mid-Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century. Womens History Magazine 53 (Summer 2006), 2131.
Lamdan, Ruth. Communal Regulations as a Source for Jewish Womens Lives in the Ottoman Empire. Muslim World 95 (April 2005), 249263.
Lewis, Jane E. Women Clerical Workers in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century, in The White Blouse Revolution, edited by Gregory Anderson. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988.
V. O, M. i: i. [Constantinople
entertainment: From summer impressions]. Tiflis, 1903.
Owen, Roger. The Silk-Reeling Industry of Mount Lebanon, 18401914: A Study of the
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46
hasmik khalapyan
Chapter Two
1Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 1994), 300.
2Elizabeth B. Frierson, Unimagined Communities: State, Press and Gender in the
Hamidian Era, PhD thesis (Princeton University, 1996), 244.
48
e. tutku vardal
Such examples suggest that the way women integrate into the public
sphere determined the form of struggle they engage in. This study of
women tobacco workers of Selanik province at the turn of the twentieth
century is carried out in an investigatory framework that seeks to evaluate
the position of working women of the late Empire and their role in the
organization of labor.3
Studying lower class women is a difficult, but not entirely impossible
task. A body of work does exist; textile workers are the most commonly
studied group.4 This is because the textile sector was the most longstanding and to all appearances the one to employ womens labor most
extensively throughout the period of transformation from commercial to
industrial capitalism.5 In this literature, we see how focus on the female
worker has sometimes dramatically changed received knowledge when
it supplements the history of Ottoman manufacturing in the nineteenth
century. Donald Quataert, for example, argues that womens labor is a
key to understanding this history. As throughout the century the output of the traditional male-dominated guild type labor organizations
fell, women stepped in to play key roles in textile manufacturing, operating from both the home and the workshop. Here, womens labor was
a determining factor mediating the Empires integration into the world
economy. As part of this process, in addition to various marginally professional jobs, Ottoman women were also heavily employed in the massive
agricultural export sector. Thus it could be argued that the under-representation of women in Ottoman labor history is directly related to a more
general under-representation of labor categories outside the industrial
sector in late Ottoman historiography. Here we propose that studying
the agriculturally-based workshop environment could further enlarge the
3The Province of Selanik here refers to the Ottoman administrative unit, the vilyet
which includes the district (sancak) of Drama and the sub-district (kaza) of Kavala. In
contemporary literature, Salonica or Selanik often refers to the center of the province.
In this study, it will be referred as Selanik because the time and space limits of the study
correspond specifically to the Ottoman administrative unit Selanik.
4There have been important attempts to access the world of lower-class women. Ottoman court registers, for example, have been used to explore the status of women in relation to domestic matters such as crime, divorce, inheritance, etc. See Madeline Zilfi (ed.),
Women in the Ottoman Empire: Middle Eastern Women in the Early Modern Era (Leiden:
E.J. Bill, 1997).
5See Donald Quataert, Women Households and Textile Manufacturing 18001914,
in The Modern Middle East, ed. Albert Hourani, et al. (London: I.B.Tauris, 1993), 255270.
Yavuz Selim Karakla, Uakta Kadn Hal ilerinin syan (1908), Toplumsal Tarih 8,
no. 99 (2002), 5457. M. ehmus Gzel, 1908 Kadnlar, Tarih ve Toplum 7 (1984), 612.
49
50
e. tutku vardal
51
12Annuaire Oriental, 1896; Annuaire Oriental, 1909. For the 1909 report tabacs en
feuille also included.
13BOA. DH.MKT., 1403/109.
14Tobacco processing methods vary according to the type, size, form, and structure
of the tobacco plants, which are known by the following names: 1Basma, 2Babal,
3Samsunkari, 4Samsun sra, 5skenderiye pastal-sra, 6zmir kalp, and 7Tonga. For
further information about tobacco processing, see Adnan H. Tapnar (ed.), The Tobacco
Affairs (Istanbul: State Monopolies of Turkey, 1939).
15BOA. Y. PRK. ASK., 227/86.
16Feroz Ahmad, The Development of Class Consciousness in Republican Turkey,
192345, in The Workers, ed. Donald Quataert and Erik Jan Zrcher, 78.
17BOA. Y.PRK. ASK., 227/86.
52
e. tutku vardal
18Having received its monopoly over the internal tobacco trade in 1881, the French
Rgie des Tabacs set up cigarette factories in major port cities of the Empire, including
Selanik. The tobacco export sector was independent of this company.
53
men; but in the central Selanik district workshops, women were the over
whelming majority.19
The question is, then, who were these women and how and why were
they engaged in the labor force? First, Jewish women made up the largest share of the female labor force. One reason for this could have been
the monopolization of tobacco exportation by Jewish merchant families
such as the Allatini family, an important presence in the region. (This
monopoly did not, however, last; around 19081909, Greek and also Muslim merchants began to appear in the regions of Kavala and Drama.)20
In addition to the Jewish merchant factor, the drahoma, or dowry, the
responsibility of the bride, may have been another motivation drawing
single Jewish girls into the tobacco sector.21
Women from other ethnic communities also took part in the tobacco
labor force. Archival registers indicate that Muslim women workers,
believed to be the latest entrants into this labor force, worked in tobacco
workshops as early as 1887.22 In figure 1.2, Muslim women are recognizable by their white headscarfs. In the Ottoman Empire, clothing indicated
a persons ethnic and religious identity. Scarce notes that Turkish women
of Selanik took to the streets in the fashion of ferace and yamak. While
ferace was a kind of black out wear covering the whole body of a woman
from the head to the feet, yamak was just a white headscarf. In this picture Muslim women appear wearing yamaks.23
Several registers also show that the employment of Muslim women in
the workshops led to social discontent within the Muslim community;24
it appears that the honor of female Muslim tobacco workers also caught
the attention of the Ottoman administrators. In 1911, the Ottoman government ultimately declared that the employment of Muslim women in
the workshops did not violate Islamic rules, since their workplaces were
separate from those of the men and their wages were paid by female
supervisors.25 Interestingly, gender segregation at the workplace was an
issue in the Jewish community as well. It was not only Muslim women
54
e. tutku vardal
Figure 1.1.Men and women tobacco workers of different communities in the workshop of the Herzog Company in Kavala, Tobacco Museum of Kavala (c1900).
laborers whose honor was questioned, but also that of Jewish women, in
the context of gender mixing or separation in the workplace.26
In some cases, however, men and women laborers might have been
required to work in pairs because of the type of operations implemented
in the workshop. As Nollas indicates, they sat in pairs on rush mats on
the floor. Each pair of qualified workers had an unskilled woman worker
sitting cross-legged next to them to stack the chosen leaves into small
piles.27 This was mostly the case in Kavala. The job descriptions and the
visual material presented by Hadar suggest that this was not the case in
26Gila Hadar, Jewish Tobacco Workers in Salonica: Gender and Family in the Context
of Social and Ethnic Strife, in Women in the Ottoman Balkans, ed. A. Butrovic and I. Cemil
Schick (London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2007), 132133.
27Kamilo Nollas, Tobacco Factories (Athens: Kastaniotis, 2007), 2.
55
56
e. tutku vardal
57
Ottoman Empire. Given the extent of female labor in the sector, and the
fact that womens labor has generally been considered an impediment to
the political organization and politicization of labor, the impressive politicization of the tobacco sector is perplexing indeed.
Literature on the waves of strikes in the Second Constitutional period
offers valuable data on the number of the strikes, on the strikers themselves, and on labor organization membership. Here we find that Selanik
tobacco workers organized several strikes in the period between 1904 and
1914.36 Yet despite the fact that they constituted a considerable majority
of the labor force, women are not present in the account.
Kavalas Greek consulate reports enlighten us on the position of women
workers in the tobacco workers movement. As noted above, the sub-district
of Kavala was the heart of tobacco export activity within the larger region.
According to consulate reports, Kavala tobacco workers first known strike
dates back to 1879. The reports on the strike follow.
The peace of our city has been broken for 15 days because of the strike of
nearly 3,000 men and women tobacco workers demanding a wage increase.
As a result, tobacco workshops are completely closed. The situation, stemming from attempts to prevent processing of tobacco for the merchant has
become quite serious; yet initiatives of the local government and consular
authorities have been influential and the workers are expected to return to
work today.37
According to the same source, the next strike broke out in 1896 with workers again demanding wage increases. They left their workplaces in a general revolt, breaking windows as they went. Then Christian, Muslim, and
Jewish workers conducted an impressive protest march on the main road
and in the town square. More strikes followed in 1904, 1905, and 1908.
That of 1908 in particular can be viewed as a turning point in the history
of the women tobacco workers. Women were excluded from membership
in the Kavala and Drama tobacco workers union (Ttn Amelesi Saadet
Cemiyeti, Tobacco Workers Welfare Organization),38 since membership
was open only to qualified workers, known as denki, which were almost
36For a detailed account of the strikes, see ehmus Gzel, Trkiyede i Hareketi 1908
1984 (Istanbul: Kaynak Yaynlar, 1996).
37Yanns Vizikas, (Kavala: Tobacco Museum of Kavala,
1994), 12.
38Because the organization was multi-communal, mostly composed of Muslim and
Christian Orthodox members, it had a name in Greek as well: the
(Welfare Organizaton of the Tobacco Workers of Kavala).
58
e. tutku vardal
59
45For the impacts of the putting-out system, see Oya Sencer, Trkiyede i Snf
(Istanbul: Habora Kitabevi, 1969), 2749; Quataert, Women Households and Textile Manufacturing, 255270.
60
e. tutku vardal
61
the tobacco labor force remained fairly constant throughout the early
Republican period.49
Focusing on economic and demographic developments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, this study draws attention to a female
profile different from that of the upper-class, intellectual Ottoman woman
well known to Ottoman womens studies. Data on womens participation
in the political activities of the tobacco workers of Selanik strongly indicates that laboring women may have constituted a category remote from
the stereotypes of women as voiceless, submissive members of Ottoman
society. More work is needed to explore the agency of this group; further
studies in this direction are likely to shed light on womens activities and
resistance to power.
49For further information on the tobacco workers of Selanik that migrated to Turkey, see Atilla Akar, Bir Kuan Son Temsilcileri; eski tfek sosyalistler (Istanbul: letiim
Yaynlar, 1989), and also Mustafa zelik, 19301950 Arasnda Ttnclerin Tarihi (Istanbul:
TSTAV Yaynlar, 2003).
62
e. tutku vardal
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Chapter Three
66
m. erdem kabaday
67
Beyond its political and ideological value, the fez had a considerable
economic importance. Following its declaration as the official headgear,
domestic production was far from satisfying demand. As a result, fezzes
were imported in large numbers from Tunis, France, and the AustroHungarian Empire. The classical accounts of Ottoman fez production5
falsely create the impression that the fez was non-existent in the Ottoman
Empire prior to its introduction by Mahmud II in 1829. However, a quick
search in the catalogues of the Ottoman archives (BOA) reveals that fezzes from Tunis and France were imported into the Ottoman Empire even
in the 1760s6 and the trade in Istanbul, Bursa, and Edirne was embedded
in the Empires guild structure.7 The fez trade was so widespread that in
1799 traders from Tunis based in Izmir petitioned to limit the number
of licensed fez sellers to twenty.8 Given this vibrant market, in the 1830s
the fez reform presumably further triggered demand and the Ottoman
administrations response was large-scale domestic fez production by
a state industrial enterprise. This import-substitution industrialization
attempt was in accord with the Ottoman industrial policy of the time.
Indeed, the 1830s to 1860s witnessed the establishment and spread of
Ottoman state industrial enterprises that produced mainly for the needs
of the military.9
Domestic Fez Production at Feshane
In 1833 Feshane was initially established as a manufactory in Kadrga,
an Istanbul district close to the Topkap Palace,10 later it was moved to
5nder Kkerman, Trk Giyim Sanayi Tarihindeki nl Fabrika Feshane Defterdar
Fabrikas (Istanbul: Smerbank Yaynlar, 1988) is a good example.
6A selective compilation of Ottoman official documents on guilds in eighteenthcentury Istanbul based upon ahkam defterlers provides the first example of a regulation
for fez sales from 1759. Ahmet Kala and Ahmet Tabakolu, stanbul Ahkm Defterleri:
stanbul Esnaf Tarihi, vol. 1 (Istanbul: stanbul Aratrmalar Merkezi, 1998), 235236. For
fez imports to Izmir, see BOA C.HR 13/659 and C.KTS 32/1571.
7BOA C.BLD 131/6514 for Istanbul, C.KTS 44/2158 for Bursa, and C.BLD 99/4936 for
Edirne.
8BOA C. KTS 7/302.
9For an early but still informative study on this phase of Ottoman industrialization
attempts, see Edward C. Clark, The Ottoman Industrial Revolution, International Journal
of Middle East Studies 5, no. 1 (1974), 6576 and for a study on state factories based on Ottoman archival material, see Tevfik Gran, Tanzimat Dneminde Devlet Fabrikalar, in 150.
Ylnda Tanzimat, ed. H.D.Yldz, (Ankara: Trk Tarih Kurumu, 1992), 235249.
10Wolfgang Mller-Wiener, Manufakturen und Fabriken in Istanbul vom 15.19.
Jahrhundert, Mitteilungen der Frnkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft 33/34 (1986/87),
291n56.
68
m. erdem kabaday
Eyb, on the Golden Horn, where it still stands today. For centuries the
Golden Horn had been a traditional industrial zone. Therefore, it is not
surprising that during the nineteenth century there was a high concentration of state industrial enterprises on both shores of the Golden Horn.
Two important features of Feshane set it apart from other state industrial
enterprises of its time. First, it was one of the very few state enterprises
that outlived the Ottoman Empire. It continued to function as a state factory until 1986, when it was partially demolished and its main production hall was transformed into an exhibition center retaining the name of
Feshane.11 Second, it was the only Ottoman state factory which competed
for customers under free market conditions. Feshane fezzes were sold
to the public in factory retail shops at central locations in Istanbul, in
iekpasaj, Bitpazar, Kalpaklarba, Yeni Cami, Tophane, Osmanbey,
Beikta, and Uzunar.12 Combating imported fezzes was the initial aim:
in 1836, shortly after the workshop moved to its new location, the quality
of the fezzes of Feshane was advertised against its Tunisian rivals in the
official Ottoman newspaper Takvim-i Vekayi.13 The fez remained a political commodity until the end of the Ottoman Empire. It was the key item
of a 1908 political campaign, when Austro-Hungarian goods were boycotted as a reaction to the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.14
Although the fez, as a traditional headgear, was long produced by artisans in the Middle East, with the establishment of Feshane, it began to
be produced by new methods. Nevertheless, the advent of the factory did
not mean a total mechanization of production. Fezzes were still knitted
by hand initially and then delivered to Feshane for further processing. Fez
knitting was a typical putting-out production. Fez production, therefore,
was well suited to proto-industry and to its principle form of production,
the putting-out system.15 This putting-out practice also characterized the
Austro-Hungarian fez industry, where rural female knitters performed
the earliest and key part of the production process. In Austro-Hungarian
urban centers knitting was prohibited to non-guild laborers. Therefore
11For more information on Feshane today see www.feshane.com.tr.
12BOA HH.FSH 12/26.
13The issue of 24 July 1836 quoted in Hamza akr, Trke basnda ilk Marka Rekabeti, Erciyes niversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstits Dergisi 16, no. 1 (2004), 2736.
14For a monograph on the boycott, see Y. Doan etinkaya, 1908 Osmanl Boykotu: Bir
Toplumsal Hareketin Analizi (Istanbul: letiim, 2004).
15For putting-out practices in the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century see
Donald Quataert, Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
69
16For a recent and interesting study on the Austro-Hungarian fez industry see
Markus Purkhart, Die sterreichische Fezindustrie, PhD thesis (Vienna University,
2006), 25. I would like to thank Markus Purkhart for enabling me to see his unpublished
dissertation.
17In his study on Viennese silk production Cerman defines conglomeration (in German
Gemengelage) as a continuous and simultaneous co-operative coexistence of different productive forms. Markus Cerman, Proto-Industrialization in an Urban Environment: Vienna,
17501857, Continuity and Change 8, no. 2 (1993), 281320.
18Quataert, Ottoman Manufacturing, and Donald Quataert, Ottoman Women, Households, and Textile Manufacturing, 18001914, in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting
Boundaries in Sex and Gender, ed. N.R.Keddie and B.Baron (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1992), 172.
70
m. erdem kabaday
and standing a little apart, as though she feared to offend by more immediate contact; and among the crowd some of the loveliest girls imaginable.19
Lady Pardoe provides us with a typical Orientalist view of a scene from the
daily life of Istanbul. The appearance of women working for Feshane, their
clothing, manners, and even body language are portrayed in rich detail.
Lady Pardoes account might be questionable, exaggerated or biased, however it should not be dismissed.20 Miss Pardoe claims that there were about
500 female knitters receiving wool to knit in their homes and about half a
dozen clerks were registering the quantity of wool delivered. She also states
that the knitters were Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Jewish girls. Those
female knitters do appear in archival documentation, maybe not as colorfully as Pardoe depicts, but as numerous and as diverse as she stated.
19Pardoe, The City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of the Turks, 1836, 3 vols (London: Henry Colburn, 1838), 178180.
20See Yerasimoss preface of Miss Julia Pardoe, ehirlerin Ecesi stanbul: Bir Leydinin
Gzyle 19. Yzylda Osmanl Yaam, trans. B. Bykkal (Istanbul: Kitap Yaynevi, 2004) for
possible merits and pitfalls of Orientalist accounts on Ottoman Empire as historical sources.
21This photograph was taken by Sarrafian Brothers based in Beirut and belongs to the
collection of M. Paboudjian, Paris. It was reproduced in the catalogue of the exhibition
71
Trames dArmnie. Tapis et broderies sur les chemins de lexil (19001940) at the Museon
Arlaten, which was on display between 16 July 2007 and 6 January 2008 in Arles, France.
I am thankful to Suraiya Faroqhi for bringing this exhibition to my attention. The women
on this postcard are Armenian refugees working in an American mission run by Miss
Study, sitting at the desk and registering the payments at the center of the photograph.
Although these female workers in Urfa in 1900 seem to pose for the camera as a group, the
actual practice of receiving wages from a clerk could have been similar for the knitters of
Feshane in 1875/76.
22HH 18324.
23The wage ledgers cover about six months in 1875/76 with a minor gap, BOA HH
23110B (13.812.9.1875), HH 23108 (13.913.10.1875), HH 23109A (13.1012.11.1875), HH 23113
(13.1113.12.1875), HH 19152 (13.212.3.1876) and HH.FSH 12/26 (13.529.5.1876).
72
m. erdem kabaday
73
worked for the factory at home and men worked in the factory for their
households. The aforementioned wage ledgers list forty departments, in
which male workers were grouped and worked together. For male workers
there was no strict ethnic division of labor. Ethno-religious characteristics
of male workers were not a criterion significant for departmental employment policy. In most of the departments both Muslim and non-Muslim
males were employed. Female workers, on the other hand, were almost
exclusively non-Muslim. This high concentration of non-Muslims among
female fez knitters accords with the hypothesis that the division of labor
in the Ottoman economy was based on ethno-religious criteria, controversial though this assumption has turned out to be in other types of labor.
For decades an oversimplified notion of the ethnic and religious division
of labor has dominated and perhaps distorted research on Ottoman economic and social history. This view has its roots in the travelers accounts
and consular reports of Westerners about the Ottoman Empire. These
external observers introduced and strengthened the notion that the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire were mainly tillers of the soil and non-Muslim
communities were engaged in the various trades. This oversimplified and
abstract religious division of labor even involved a further sub-division of
labor among non-Muslim communities. Accordingly, Orthodox-Christians
constituted the bulk of merchants and traders; Armenians were the artisans, and Jews were the moneylenders of the Ottoman Empire. These
over-generalized views were mainly by-products of the Orientalist and
nationalist mindset of the nineteenth century, during which numerous
nation states emerged in the Ottoman territories and elsewhere. Newly
emerging nation states were born without national histories and in the
urge to create the latter ex post facto, ethnicity and religion were used as
units of division and at the same time homogenizers. Especially during
the second half of the nineteenth century these constructs of ethnicities
as dividing unifiers were rather dominant in the writing, as well as the
making of history. However, the term ethnic division of labor had not as
yet been coined.
One of the earliest uses of this perspective in studying Ottoman economic history dates from 1917.29 In fact, the division of labor emerged
as an economic category through the rise of factory production. Without
29A.J.Sussnitzki, Zur Gliederung wirtschaftlicher Arbeit nach Nationalitten in der
Trkei, Archiv fr Wirtschaftsforschung im Orient 2 (1917), 382407, cited in Cengiz Krl,
A Profile of the Labor Force in Early Nineteenth-century Istanbul, International Labor
and Working-Class History 60 (2001), 126.
74
m. erdem kabaday
highly specialized labor and the development of complex skills in production processes, no factory work would have been feasible. A well-known
example of the division of labor in economic literature is the work of
Adam Smith, based upon his observations from a pin factory.30 The factory is the venue of industrial production, where groups of workers specialize in certain tasks and the production process is divided into different
stages. In various departments raw materials thus are transformed into
final products. In this setting the division of labor is decisive for planning, performing, and controlling the production process. It is the key
element of factory production. A factory setting like Feshane provides an
ideal opportunity for assessing whether ethnic criteria determined the
division of labor.
Fez Knitters on Pay Day
In what follows, I analyze the remuneration of female knitters of Feshane
to find out whether the employees ethno-religious characteristics influenced their earnings. Obviously, there are limits to what we can deduce
from the wage ledgers, as the total number of knitters cannot be computed precisely. Since payment was based on the number of fezzes
knitted, only this figure was registered. In the absence of family names
and any other personal markers, it is almost impossible to differentiate
between two persons having the same name or to locate persons having
several work assignments. The wage ledgers provide very limited information about individual female knitters and registers contain only the
information necessary for the remuneration of each knitters production:
name, worker number, the type and total number of fezzes knitted, and
total earnings. Wage ledgers for knitters show a stable departmental organization for the given period, 13 August13 December 1875; 13 February
12 March 1876; and 13 May29 May 1876. For the first four months between
13 August and 13 December 1875 there were three different types of knitting: manual, mechanical, and using a new device (nevicad). In the last
two periods the new device disappears, but manual and mechanical
knitting continue. In order to increase the number of observations and
30Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed.
R.H.Campbell, A.S.Skinner, and W.B. Todd, vol. 1 (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund,
1981), 1415.
75
deepen the dataset of female knitters earnings, six wage ledgers have
been integrated into one single database. This database constitutes a
matrix with 4,769 rows and 6 columns. Every individual entry per knitter
assignment is a row and on each row, information on knitting type, wage
ledger number, ethno-religious characteristics assigned according to the
knitters name, worker number, and the remuneration of that assignment
appear as separate column values.31
Using knitters names, we can compute the total number of working
assignments (4,769) and their distribution according to ethno-religious
categories such as Orthodox-Christian (oc: 1,959), Armenian (a: 1,921),
Muslim (m: 93), Jewish (j: 7), and unidentified non-Muslim females
(x: 789). The striking point here is the marginal involvement of Muslim
female knitters in fez production. They hardly constitute 2 percent of total
work assignments.
The ethno-religious division of labor among female workers of Feshane
was structurally different from the ethno-religious division of labor among
their male counterparts. In a monthly wage ledger from the same year,
1876, a total of 506 male employees were listed. There were 388 Muslim, 89 Armenian, 7 Orthodox Christian, and 2 Jewish male employees
at Feshane. The remaining 20 employees ethno-religious affiliation could
not be determined. The distribution in percentages in rounded numbers
can be seen in the following diagram.
a; 1921; 40%
x; 789; 17%
a
j
m
oc
j; 7; 0%
m; 93; 2%
Source: BOA HH 19152, 23108, 23109A, 23110B, 23113 and HH.FSH 12/26.
76
m. erdem kabaday
x; 20; 4%
a; 89; 18%
a
j
m
j; 2; 0%
m; 388; 77%
oc
x
77
of assessing the validity of the thesis that the division of labor was governed
by ethno-religious criteria.
Admittedly, the total number of unidentified names in this dataset for
females is quite high and this fact jeopardizes the significance of any comparison regarding both the total numbers of fezzes produced and the wage
averages of different groups among non-Muslim knitters. On the other
hand, the names of Muslim knitters can most probably be determined
without a margin of error. The reason for that difference is a peculiar practice: the name of each and every Muslim knitter was followed by the titles
Hanm, Kadn or Hatun. Interestingly, without exception, all Muslim and
none of the non-Muslim knitters bore these titles, which signify respect.
Hence the unidentified names could only have belonged to non-Muslims.
Furthermore, fezzes knitted with nevicad constituted only a small fraction
of the total production.33 In sum, most of the fezzes were either knitted by
hand or with a wheel, and overwhelmingly by Armenians and Orthodox
Christian women. As we have seen, Muslim female knitters were almost
non-existent.
Thus, the dataset for female earnings can be organized around the two
major categories of Muslim and non-Muslim. First the ethno-religious categories a, j, m, and, oc can be replaced with religious categories; m for
Muslims and nm for non-Muslims. Second, due to the limited number of
fezzes produced by the nevicad device, the work assignments in this category can also be excluded. The distribution of the total number of fezzes
knitted and earnings respective to the two production types and religious
criteria are as follows:
Table 2.1.Fezzes knitted for Feshane according to the knitting type and religious
affiliation of knitters for a period of approximately six months in 187576.
Religion
non-Muslim
Muslim
Total
Wheel-Knitters (arh)
78,943
2,133
81,076
Hand-Knitters (el)
63,371
813
64,184
Total
142,314
2,946
145,260
Source: BOA HH 19152, 23108, 23109A, 23110B, 23113 and HH.FSH 12/26.
33The total number of work assignments with nevicad amounts to just 85 items.
78
m. erdem kabaday
The most striking result drawn from the above table is the fact that fezzes knitted by Muslim females constituted a minute and almost negligible amount. Specifically, 2,133 fezzes were knitted by Muslim workers by
wheel and only 813 pieces by hand. In total, only 2,946 of 145,260 fezzes
were knitted by Muslim females, which is approximately 2 percent of the
total amount. Unfortunately we do not know how many of those approximately 145,000 knitted fezzes were processed into final products and sold
in the market or distributed to civil servants and soldiers. Nevertheless,
these figures should be close to the numbers of fezzes produced in the
factory. Statistics are not available on the size of the Ottoman fez market. However, since the fezzes of Feshane were only sold or distributed
in the domestic market and Feshane reached an annual production of
approximately 300,000 in the 1870s,34 and kept this level in 1885, we can
assume that in the last quarter of the nineteenth century Feshane had a
substantial market share.35
Both the total number of work assignments and the actual number of
fezzes knitted by Muslims in the period are insignificant. This extreme
underrepresentation of Muslim females in the Feshane work force, and
their consequent marginal share in total earnings are surprising and need
explanation.
The above numbers indicate that there was no ethnic division of labor
but a gender-religious one. This paper argues that along with a gender-based
division of labor, where the potential female workers of Feshane were concerned, being a Muslim was a strong barrier against engagement in an urban
putting-out activity. On the other hand being a Muslim was seemingly more
advantageous for male workers than being an Orthodox-Christian.
Table 2.2.Earnings of fez knitters.37
Religion
non-Muslim
Muslim
Total
Hand
Average
Wage36
Hand
Subtotal
Wage
Wheel
Average
Wage
Wheel
Subtotal
Wage
Total
Earnings
60
38.9
142,580
1,829.3
144,409.3
35.8
38.3
78,943
2,145.5
81,088.5
221,523
3,974.8
225,497.8
Source: BOA HH 19152, 23108, 23109A, 23110B, 23113, and HH.FSH 12/26.
34Tevfik Gran, Feshane, Trkiye Diyanet Vakf slam Ansiklopedisi 12 (1995), 426427.
35BOA Y.PRK.ASK 25/32.
36Per work assignment.
37In kuru in decimals.
79
Unfortunately the number of studies on the industrial workforce of Istanbul in the nineteenth century is very limited. Specifically on women workers of Istanbul in the period there is only one publication available to
this day, whose author clearly states that our knowledge on putting-out
systems in Istanbul is so limited that it is impossible to gauge the extent of
womens participation in them.38 In spite of their central role in economic
life, we also know very little about the labor of women in the Ottoman
Empire.39 The only monograph on working Muslim women covers the
extraordinary, final years of the Ottoman Empire, 19161923. Actually, in
this study Karakla argues that the Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women introduced the idea of work among Muslim women
for the first time.40 This claim is rather an exaggeration, as the female part
of the Ottoman population naturally constituted a huge part of the rural
workforce all along.
It is plausible to argue that the notion of work differed for Muslim and
non-Muslim women; this differentiation applied to the female workers,
their respective ethnic/religious representatives, and their male family members and communities. We can assume that cultural codes or
gender-religion specific meanings of work differed between Muslim and
non-Muslim Ottoman subjects regarding the employment of women. Yet
it is not possible to answer important questions such as why and to which
extent the factory management or the state administration preferred to
employ non-Muslim female workers. What were the preferences of the
working women and to what extent did these preferences determine
labor relations within the factory?
All in all, it is evident that Ottoman women throughout the nineteenth
century, Muslim as well as non-Muslim, were active partners of a flexible
household division of labor. The numerical analysis attempted here shows
that ethno-religious categories alone did not determine either wage differences or the division of labor in Feshane. The numbers lead us to think that
ethno-religious categories intersected with gender distinction. Gender, religion, and ethnicity definitely influenced the prospects of Ottoman subjects
as employees of Feshane, nevertheless not as absolute categories but as
time- and space-specific factors in their interaction with another.
80
m. erdem kabaday
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part two
chapter four
1Research on social problems in the Ottoman Empire during World War I is still very
limited. One of the main sources on this period remains Ahmed Emin, Turkey in the World
War (New Haven: Yale University Press; London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press for
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Division of Economics and History,
1930). On social and economic problems of the period, see Zafer Toprak, ttihat Terakki ve
Cihan Harbi, Sava Ekonomisi ve Trkiyede Devletilik, 19141918 (Istanbul: Homer Kitabevi,
2003).
86
87
9Elizabeth B. Frierson, Cheap and Easy: the Creation of Consumer Culture in Late
Ottoman Society, in Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550
1922: An Introduction, ed. by Donald Quataert (Albany: State University of New York Press,
2000), 247.
10Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in
the Ottoman Empire, 18761909 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999), 107.
88
89
15Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 1993), 32.
16For the various names of the Ottoman Muslim Turkish feminist movement and
womens methods and strategies for liberation and empowerment, see akr, Osmanl
Kadn Hareketi, 110135.
17Margaret H. Darrow, French Women and the First World War: War Stories of the Home
Front (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000), 56.
90
18 Joyce Berkman, Feminism, War, and Peace Politics: The Case of World War I, in
Women, Militarism, and War: Essays in History, Politics, and Social Theory, ed. Jean Bethke
Elshtain and Sheila Tobias (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1990), 141.
19 For instance, American pacifist feminist Jane Addams, who won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1931, was labeled a traitor after the war. See Joshua S. Goldstein, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), 324325. In addition, see Kathleen Kennedy, Disloyal Mothers and Scurrilous
Citizens: Women and Subversion during World War I (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1999), 68.
20Thus Mary Augusta Ward (18511920) who was also an ardent supporter of the British
war propaganda campaigned against the suffragettes. See Mrs. Humphry Ward, Englands
Effort: Letters to an American Friend (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1916).
21 Two of these writers, Hlide Nusret (Zorlutuna) (19011984) and kfe Nihl (Baar)
(18961973), are also well-known literary figures of the early Republican period. However,
I could not find the biographies of the other four writers, probably because they did not
continue to write professionally.
91
92
the Empires power and cultural integrity. Ironically, the entry of women
into professional life was criticized by some writers in the womens press.
For instance, in Trk Kadn [Turkish woman], which was a nationalist
womens periodical, Nezhe Rikkat viewed the change in womens lifestyles and their entering the world of work as abnormal. In her article
entitled Erkekleme [Becoming male] she disapproved of those women
who regardless of their fragile natures walked boldly in isolated streets at
midnight, tussled with the police, raced after trams, blustered about in
the streets and plundered shops.25
According to Nezhe Rikkat, women had gone too far trying to imitate
men. She reviled women with university educations, arguing that the
daughters of her neighbors started to work as clerks in government offices
before learning cooking and basic housework. She was taken aback by
women who joined the army and spoke about politics out loud on the
streets. Since the new wartime developments in womens lives were not
generally welcomed by Ottoman society as a whole, Nezhe Rikkat was
not alone in these opinions.
Most particularly, the feminist goal of womens political emancipation, far from being accomplished when her article was published, was
despised by many others of her time. As a result, the press of the Armistice
period mocked womens demands for political emancipation (figure 3.1).
However, Nezhe Rikkats criticism went deeper. She appears have been
motivated by nostalgia for her youth, when girls waited at home playing
musical instruments and dreaming of their future husbands.26
Likewise, in the periodical Ss [Adornment], Hlide Nusret questioned
womens entry into work life.27 Although she acknowledged that many
women had no choice but to accept outside employment after experiencing losses in the war, she was still uncomfortable with this development.28
She stated that womens conditions were further aggravated by a growing
25Nezhe Rikkat, Erkekleme, Trk Kadn 13 (28 October 1918), 194195.
26Rikkat, Erkekleme, 195.
27Here Nusret plays with the first two words of the name of an institution founded
in 1916 for finding jobs for women, Kadnlar altrma Cemiyet-i slamiyesi (Society for
the Employment of Muslim Women), using the suffix ma in altr-ma in its sense as a
negation particle to imply do not allow women to work rather than the real meaning of
these words which is employment of women. Hlide Nusret, Kadnlar altrma, Ss
28 (22 December 1923), 34.
28For a much more detailed explanation of this argument and for the history of Muslim working women in the Ottoman Empire in World War I, see Yavuz Selim Karakla,
Women, War and Work in the Ottoman Empire: Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women (19161923) (Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre, 2005).
93
Figure 3.1.On his knees, the man in this cartoon begs the woman to demand
anything she wants, as long as it is not political. Diken 56 (3 June 1920), 8.
94
pauperization, a famine stemming from bad harvests, wartime speculation and black market profiteering, and frequent fires that destroyed a
great number of houses during the Armistice in Istanbul; in sum, given
the many widows and orphans in poverty it was very difficult to imagine
the capital with its previous tranquility and prosperity. Hlide Nusret thus
concluded that economic difficulties had made it impossible for many
to continue their seclusion; if in times of prosperity it was possible to
consider a woman who wanted to work as abnormal, surely a woman
who longed to possess the rough and materialistic jobs of her man rather
than dealing with household duties could only be mad. On the other hand,
despite her strong belief in the importance of the womens traditional
duties at home, Hlide Nusret admitted that in the chaotic atmosphere
of the time, which forced women to work as soldiers, officers, accountants, merchants, and even street sweepers, womens efforts to earn their
living should be respected, especially those efforts of single women and
the poor. And those who criticized these honorable women could only be
considered empty-headed or pitiful. According to Hlide Nusret, everyone had to accept the changing status of women as there were no moral
alternatives for those who failed to find a husband. Ultimately, at the end
of her article, she reversed her earlier argument against working women
to actually support womens employment given the wartime conditions,
albeit halfheartedly.29 All in all, both society and women writers found
womens work life undesirable; it was ultimately accepted only for practical reasons. In times of poverty, it was better for women to work than to
become beggars, thieves, or prostitutes, the latter becoming the profession
of many women given the adverse effects of World War I in Istanbul.30
29Hlide Nusret, Kadnlar altrma, 34. The ambivalent feelings of Hlide Nusret (Zorlutuna) (19011984) concerning working women in the Ottoman Empire makes
sense after learning that she was also one of those women who had lost her male relatives
in the war and had to start working out of necessity. Starting her career as a teacher at
an early age, she was proud of her profession later, during the Republican period, and
claimed that she had always been destined for this profession. She also became one of the
well-known women writers of the National Literature wave in Turkey. Nesrin Tazade
Karaca, Edebiyatmzn Kadn Kalemleri (Ankara: Vadi Yaynlar, 2006), 153157.
30For the problem of prostitution and venereal diseases during the Armistice period,
see Zafer Toprak, stanbulda Fuhu ve Zhrev Hastalklar, 19141933, Tarih ve Toplum
38 (March 1987), 3840. During the war period prostitution became so widespread that
Ahmet Rasim, a contemporary Turkish novelist and journalist, depicted prostitution
and moral degeneration in one of his memoirs. For this book, see Ahmet Rasim, Dnk
stanbulda Hovardalk: Fuh-i Atik (Istanbul: Arba Yaynlar, 1992).
95
96
97
preferred to blame the mothers of such young women, arguing that it was
their responsibility to be passionately concerned with even the smallest movement of their girls. Mothers were responsible for preventing the
girls from coloring their eyes with kohl and curling their hair. Not doing
so was an unforgiveable error.36
As we understand from the writings of kfe Nihl, who probably
wanted to defend the right of education of Muslim girls in a conservative
society by emphasizing the schoolgirls modesty, female students attire
was mainly debated in moral terms. But morality was not the only concern of those who spoke against cosmetics and fashionable clothing for
women. Starting with the Tanzmt period, criticisms of Muslim women
adopting European fashions mainly reflected a patriotic spirit. Despite
this patriotism Turkish women formed an important consumer base for
the new European fashions.37 In this respect womens demand for foreign
apparel created a two-way tension: traditionalists were alarmed by the
decline in standards of modesty in womens clothing, while local manufacturers feared a loss of profit as the new fashions demanded less fabric
and time to sew.38 Indeed, in contrast to the old-fashioned ferace39 the
usage of modern forms of araf required less cloth as it gradually covered less and less. But this also created moral problems, especially during
World War I and the Armistice period when womens apparel concepts
changed rapidly. During World War I women who had become their families breadwinners dressed in accordance with new conditions that obliged
them to be practical above all. A significant number of women abandoned
the veil and their choice of dress that facilitated physical movement made
female faces and bodies much more visible on the streets. The disorder
and unrest of the occupation years further loosened earlier patriarchal
mechanisms that had restricted Muslim womens fashion. The shift of the
political center from Istanbul to Ankara during the national struggle and
the weakening of the central states control mechanisms contributed to
this development. Larger numbers of women showed themselves in the
36kfe Nihl, ctimiyyt, 99.
37Elizabeth B. Frierson, Gender, Consumption and Patriotism: The Emergence of an
Ottoman Public Sphere, in Public Islam and the Common Good, ed. Armando Salvatore
and Dale F. Eickelman (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2004), 109110.
38Frierson, Gender, Consumption and Patriotism, 110111.
39The ferace was another article of outdoor clothing Ottoman Turkish Muslim women
used with the traditional Turkish veil called yamak among urban women before the araf
became more popular at the turn of the century. It was generally made from broadcloth
for winter and from silk for summer with a lining of white satin.
98
latest European fashions with only some concessions made to the rules
of Muslim modesty. Many among them left the veil off even with their
outdoor attire, showing their faces for the first time to strangers. Thus
fashion became one of the most fervently debated issues, thanks to which
not only womens liberation but also their modesty and patriotism were
evaluated.
Preserving the Ottoman moral code in clothing was also important for
Hlide Nusret, whose article on the issue of working women was discussed
above. This time in another periodical, Gen Kadn [Young woman], published in Istanbul in 1919, she wrote against totally abandoning the practice of covering. She claimed that there was an important number of
young people who spoke against covering, and argued that it hindered
development.40 She rejected the notion, with all the fervor and frankness
of her faith in Islam, that womens covering was contrary to development.
Worried that the youth were indifferent to national values, she believed
that those who resisted covering their heads did so from ignorance.41
Apparently, for Hlide Nusret, writing in occupied Istanbul, the renunciation of traditional values meant opening the way for cultural imperialism and contributing to an erosion of social unity so important in the
occupation period. The decline in moral values was one of the main arguments she proposed against the abandonment of womens covering. She
warned the public:
For today, throwing away the araf is like running towards a bottomless cliff
with bound eyes. I know this as clearly as two times two equals four. Yes, for
a womanhood which has matured in relation to science and thought, being
covered can be meaningless, I admit. Nevertheless, does not our deplorable
moral condition of recent yearsseen by some as bright and progressive!
demonstrate that we have not yet attained this happy maturity?42
Hlide Nusret wrote that she observed the students in ns Sultnsi (girls
high school) and disliked the fact that their heads were uncovered while
40Hlide Nusret, Ahlak: Tesettr Meselesi, Gen Kadn 8 (10 April 1919), 117118. It
is interesting to note Hlide Nusret (b. 1901) was very young, around eighteen, when she
wrote this article.
41 Hlide Nusret, Ahlak, 117.
42Bugn iin rflar atmak, nihyeti olmayan bir uuruma doru gz bal
komaktr. Bunu iki kere iki drt eder, kadar kat biliyorum! / Evet, ilmen, fikren tekemml etmi bir kadnlk iin tesettr, mansz olabilir; bunu itirf ederim. Fakat bizim daha
o mesd tekemmle yaklaamadmz son senelerdeki elmbelki de bazlarnca parlak
ve mterakk!!vaziyyet-i ahlkiyyemiz isbt etmiyor mu? Hlide Nusret, Ahlak, 117.
99
they were surrounded by foreign visitors.43 She argued that the day she
observed this scene the school had nearly 600 students, of whom 300
were at the age of puberty and thus ready to take on the araf. Yet only
three of them had covered their hair. Her attempts to warn the students
were inconclusive due to their indifference. In her article, she blamed
the school administration for this situation and interpreted their attitude as an assassination of religiosity and national traditions.44 Hlide
Nusrets attitude toward them showed that even educated women could
have ambivalent feelings about rapid changes in womens appearance.
Women could find it intimidating to change their appearance. Some
who wished to have short hair and the modern, fashionable look of the
1920s went so far as to imitate the bob style without cutting their hair for
fear of angering men (figure 3.2).
National clothing and the covering of women interested women writers with a variety of viewpoints. In contrast to Hlide Nusret, Zehr Hakk
was totally against the araf, which she claimed had nothing to do with
Turkish nationality. Her emphasis on the national meanings of attire
marked a social and cultural transformation. The pursuit of the national,
and the search of the modern, was apparent in her article, Mill Moda
[National fashion] in the periodical nci [Pearl]. According to Hakk,
since Turkish women had of necessity entered into public life alongside
men, their clothing had to be modernized along with their ideas. She
claimed that forcing women to preserve their old clothing styles was
unacceptable in view of the fact that laws were made and modified as a
result of changing norms and living conditions, and should not predetermine peoples way of life.
However, Zehr Hakk set certain limits on these changes in clothing
habits. She argued that Turkish women should not directly adopt French
fashion because it was not suitable for them. She argued instead that
women should try to create a Turkish national fashion movement, just
as the Germans had done earlier. According to Zehr Hakk, Turkish culture had all the resources needed to produce a national fashion. Rallying
to this vision, Turkish designers invented national headgear styles as an
43The neighborhood of the high school is not cited in the article, but the school mentioned here is very probably the first high school for girls opened in 19131914 as stanbul
ns Sultnsi (Istanbul High School for Girls) which in 1915 was reopened in Aksaray as
Bezm-i lem Sultnsi. Three other high schools were opened later in the Istanbul suburbs
of Erenky, amlca, and Kandilli. akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi, 224.
44Hlide Nusret, Ahlak, 118.
100
Figure 3.2.Kesmeli mi, Kesmemeli mi? [To cut or not to cut?] Resimli Ay
4 (May 1924), 27.
102
104
were ultimately the more liberated women of their epoch who had access
to the means of expressing their ideas in the press. Writing in periodicals
gave them the agency to raise their voices as Muslim Turkish women.
Given an embracing national patriarchal discourse, what were, then, the
limits of womens support of the feminist movement in this context? It
is not difficult to see that these writers accepted the contemporary activism of Muslim Turkish women as extraordinary and hoped to conserve
the traditional standards of womanhood and women as good wives and
mothers elevated by education.
The social impact of the war brought a decline in womens economic
status due to the conscription of their male breadwinners along with a
decline in moral standards and the breakdown of state authority. These
factors were significant in leading women writers to embrace more nationalist and patriarchal ideas. As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, together
with the loss of millions of lives and the fragmentation of numerous families, the concerns of women writers shifted from womens rights and liberties to the duties, responsibilities, and moral values which seemed to
boost them psychologically amidst the chaos.
Owing to wartime social and political upheavals with the demise of the
Empire, the feminist discourse of many Muslim Turkish women writers
remained limited. Writers like Hlide Nusret, in an explicitly nationalist
tone, openly blamed their few feminist friends for imitating European
women who, according to them, were bad mothers. Feminism was then
a word to be abhorred as it was regarded as foreign, individualistic, and
contrary to traditional family norms. The acceptance of patriarchal values
did not, however, prevent these women writers from legitimizing their
own position in society as wage earners. To put it another way, women
writers experienced a dilemma in their writings as their social status was
incompatible with their patriarchal and conservative discourse.
In sum, women writers attempted to preserve traditional norms in
their writings, while pointing out, criticizing, and sometimes approving
of changes in the lives of Muslim Turkish women. Most writers like kfe
Nihl, for example, attached great importance to education as an instrument of the transformation of the Muslim women into select, wise, and
fully-fledged personalities who would thus more likely become good mothers and housewivesif not necessarily liberated from social conventions.
Education, in their writings, was equated with liberation from ignorance
and socioeconomic restrictions, but at the same time with modesty and
morality. Writers like Zehr Hakk, too, encouraged changes in Turkish
106
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chapter five
1 Numerous primary archival and primary published sources of various origins are
cited in detail in my publications referred to below.
2Where post-Ottoman state names are used in this paper, they serve as regional references and do not indicate provincial divisions of the Ottoman Empire.
110
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111
from it. These activities also enabled women to mingle with women outside their family as well as with men, Jewish and even gentile.6
In addition to managing the house, rural Jewish women in Libya
also worked in agriculture, mainly in vegetable gardens attached to the
houses;7 they drew water and fetched wood. Each work day village girls
would draw water from a well that belonged to the Jews or to the whole
village.8 This made the village well a center of social interaction to which
men were attracted. Still, there was little opportunity for privacy in these
circumstances due to the large concentration of family and extended
family members of both genders. Yet these gatherings could still result in
matches, although parental approval for marriage was required. Wood for
cooking and heating was usually fetched at least once a week by groups
of women who left the village together for the day, unsupervised by men,
and often wandered far from village boundaries.9
Even before the nineteenth century, some Jewish women worked outside the home out of economic need or in order to perform various tasks
allotted to women. In the first category were maids and a small number
of merchants and peddlers, while the second group included midwives
and cosmeticians, mainly for brides. Another source of income was handicrafts practiced at home (e.g., knitting, weaving, embroidery). Even when
they were income providers, most women gave their earnings to male
guardiansfathers, brothers, or husbands.10 Yet throughout the period
women often had authority over their dowry, resulting in a certain measure of economic power.11 Older women, and especially widows, enjoyed
the most economic and personal independence, and could contribute
money to various causes of their choosing, including the construction of
synagogues, the founding of yeshivas,12 and the writing of Torah scrolls.13
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rachel simon
These conditions affected the institution of marriage. Only in the village, as was the case in Libya, could young Jews of both genders meet
daily, and relatively freely, around the well where the girls gathered to
draw water.14 Until the late nineteenth century, opportunities for young
people to meet were much more limited in urban environments. Here,
apart from family gatherings, which were often gender segregated, special events in some regions enabled young people to meet.15 Much of the
matchmaking was conducted during informal visits of family and neighborhood women; the economic aspects of the marriage, however, were
usually arranged by fathers.16 After a decision was made, the couple was
generally unable to meet until the start of the wedding ceremony.17 Also,
marriages were often conducted at a young age, when brides were in their
early teens and the grooms somewhat older.18 The marriage of minors
even below the age of ten did take place, if rarely.19
The education of Ottoman Jewish women20 was part of a process of
change or, to be more precise, several intertwined processes of change
not limited to individual women but also affecting others around them.
14 Simon, Change within Tradition, 50, on meeting by the well in Yefren, Libya.
15 On Libya, see Buaron, Minhage Hatunah, 57, 10; Hayim Khalfon, Lanu ule-vanenu
[To us and to our sons] (Hebrew) (Netanyah: H. Khalfon, 1986), 277280; Simon, Change
within Tradition, 4748.
16 Reguer, The World of Women, 237. On Libya, see Buaron, Minhage Hatunah, 57;
Simon, Change within Tradition, 22, 5052, 58.
17 See Simon, Change within Tradition, 50, on Libyan brides covering themselves with
the veil of shame [mimzuza] and keeping their distance from the bridegroom. Due to
shyness toward their fathers and brothers, brides did not return to their parents home
from the miqveh [ritual bath] where they were examined by the grooms female relatives
for any physical defect. For similar reasons the bride did not meet with her father and her
husbands parents for an extended period, sometimes more than a month, following the
wedding. See Buaron, Minhage Hatunah, 16 and Simon, Change within Tradition, 52, 54,
62. On a special ceremony enabling the prospective groom to view the bride in Libya, see
Buaron, Minhage Hatunah, 7.
18 Reguer, The World of Women, 237238; Simon, Between the Family and the Outside World, 84n98. In Iraq, until the late nineteenth century, brides were often twelve or
thirteen years old, and even eleven. On the eve of World War I, the marriage age there rose
to fifteen, see Hayyim J. Cohen, The Jews of the Middle East, 18601972 (Jerusalem: Israel
Universities Press, 1973), 170171. On Jerusalem, see Shilo, Princess or Prisoner, 3568. On
Libya, see Buaron, Minhage Hatunah, 5; Simon, Change within Tradition, 4647.
19 Simon, Between the Family and the Outside World, 84nn9899. On Iraq, see Cohen,
Jews of the Middle East, 170 (in the mid-nineteenth century). On Libya, see Simon, Change
within Tradition, 46 on the marriage of girls aged twelve in Amrus.
20On Ottoman Jewish female education in detail, see Rachel Simon, Jewish Female
Education in the Ottoman Empire, 18401914, in Jews, Turks, Ottomans: A Shared History,
Fifteenth through the Twentieth Century, ed. A. Levy (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University
Press, 2002), 127152; Reguer, The World of Women, 236237.
113
First it was the women themselves who changed with the accumulation
of knowledge acquired in school and as a result of encounters with others attending or managing educational institutions. But the changes did
not stop here, they impacted men in the Jewish community as well. One
should also note what was occurring in the surrounding populations,
Muslim as well as non-Muslim, which were not static either.
Social, cultural, and economic changes within the Ottoman Empire
as well as a growing involvement of Western elements, including Jewish citizens of European states from the second half of the nineteenth
century onward, brought inevitable change in the position and roles of
local groups and individuals. As we attempt to trace here, modern education and contacts outside the local Jewish community had a major role
in the transformation of Ottoman Jewish women and their aspirations.
Their social positions, though, may not have reflected this due to the slowness of change in social norms and perceptions, especially of those whose
privileged position stood to be affected, thus possibly creating conflicts
of interest between declared goals and their implementation. This was
because the governing powers in the community, composed solely of men,
were reluctant to broaden their ranks by relinquishing responsibilities and
authority to women and admitting them to their exclusive group.21
General Educational Conditions for Women in the Ottoman Empire
The female population of the Ottoman Empire received little or no formal education until the second half of the nineteenth century, largely due
to the absence of comprehensive public education in the Empire until
the reform period of the nineteenth century.22 Until this time the state
21 On Jewish education in the Middle East and North Africa, see Rachel Simon, Education in Reeva S. Simon, Michael M. Laskier, and Sara Reguer (eds.), Jews in the Modern
Middle East and North Africa (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 142164; Walter
F. Weiker, Ottomans, Turks, and the Jewish Polity: A History of the Jews of Turkey (Lanham,
MD: University of America Press, 1992), 193214.
22For general surveys on education in the Ottoman Empire, see Yahya Akyz, Trk
Eitim Tarihi (Ankara: Ankara niversitesi Eitim Bilimleri Fakltesi, 1982); Osman
Ergin, Trkiye Maarif Tarihi (Istanbul: Esmer Matbaas, 1977); Uur nal, II Merutiyet
ncesi Osmanl Rdiyeleri, 18971907 (Ankara: Gazi Kitabevi, 2008); Ahmet Cihan, Reform
anda Osmanl lmiyye Snf (Istanbul: Birey, 2004); Benjamin C. Fortna, Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State and Education in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002); Ali aksu (ed.), International Congress on Learning and Education
in the Ottoman World: Istanbul, 1215 April 1999 (Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture, 2001); Mehmet . Alkan (ed.), Education Statistics in Modernization
114
rachel simon
educated its Muslim male military and administrators, while the general
population studied in schools run by religious authorities and private educators. Formal female education was limited to the girls and women of
wealthier urban families; it involved religious studies and perhaps reading
and writing in coeducational schools up to the age of puberty. Girls may
have also benefitted from their brothers private tutors.23 Women could
be instructed by relatives or through some other private initiative but
this had little to do with academics as the focus was on household tasks,
religious instruction, and skills related to womens work. The few known
women scholars of the period were exceptions proving the rule.
It was a combination of political developments, economic needs, Western initiatives, and the emergence of a more supportive environment that
opened the way for female, including Jewish, formal education in modern institutions. State public schools for boys appeared in the Ottoman
Empire in 1839 and girls public schools gradually followed suit. The Public
Education Regulations of 1869 stated that girls aged 610 should be in
school, and women were preferred as teachers in these schools.24 Thus as
we shall see, although the number of formally educated women remained
lower than that for men, the former were the only segment of society
whose formal education was completely modern.
Foreign Schools
Foreign schools were established in the Ottoman Empire in order to
spread Christianity and as part of European attempts at peaceful penetration. Christian missionaries sought to strengthen their activities throughout the nineteenth century, aware that as a Muslim state the Empire
opposed Christian missionary activity among its Muslim citizens. As a
from the Tanzimat to the Republic (Ankara: Babakanlk Devlet statistik Enstits, 2000);
Necdet Sakaolu, Osmanl Eitim Tarihi (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 1991); Seluk Akn
Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 18391908 (Leiden:
Brill, 2001).
23Stanwood Cobb, The Real Turk (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1914), 130132; William E.
Strong, The Story of the American Board (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 221; Bertold Spuler,
Die Minderheitenschulen der europischen Trkei von der Reformzeit bis zum Weltkrieg
(Breslau: Verlag Priebatschs Buchhandlung, 1936), 2.
24Akyz, Trk Eitim Tarihi, 108110; Somel, The Modernization of Public Education,
passim; Seluk Akn Somel, Sources on the Education of Ottoman Women in the Prime
Ministerial Ottoman Archive for the Period of Reforms in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, in Beyond the Exotic: Womens Histories in Islamic Societies, ed. Amira ElAzhary Sonbol (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 295306.
115
116
rachel simon
117
of Jewish education in recent generations, vol. 5: The countries of the Mediterranean, the
Balkans, and the East] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Reuven Mas, 1966), 35. For Jerusalem, where
they paid one shilling a week, see Montagu, Jewish Life in the East, 120; Maneberg, Evolution of Jewish Educational Practices, 100.
31 Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, vol. 2, 127, 186; Moshe Rinott, Hevrat ha-Ezrah liYehude Germanyah bi-Yetsirah uve-Maavak [Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden in creation
and struggle] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Bet ha-Sefer le-Hinukh shel ha-Universitah ha-Ivrit,
1971), 81; Maneberg, Evolution of Jewish Educational Practices, 158; Haramati, Reshit haHinukh ha-Ivri, 340; Elboim-Dror, ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael, 159.
32Rachel Simon, Education, 148152.
118
rachel simon
33Reguer, The World of Women, 242246; On Jerusalem, see Shilo, Princess or Prisoner, 143180.
34Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, vol. 2, 127; Jacob M. Landau, Jews in Nineteenthcentury Egypt (New York: New York University Press, 1969), 7374; Cohen, The Jews of the
Middle East, 109; Paul Silberman, An Investigation of the Schools Operated by the Alliance
Isralite Universsele from 1862 to 1940, PhD thesis (New York University, 1973), 33; James
Heyworth-Dunne, An Introduction to the History of Education in Modern Egypt (London:
Luzac & Co., 1938), 272; Reguer, The World of Women, 243.
35Ben-Zion Gat, ha-Yishuv ha-Yehudi be-Erets-Yisrael bi-Shenot 56005641 (18401881)
[The Jewish population in Palestine in the years 18401881] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhaq Ben-Zvi, 1974), 242244; Maneberg, Evolution of Jewish Educational Practices, 149
157; Daniel Carpi and Moshe Rinott, Yoman Masotehah shel Morah Yehudiyah mi-Triyest
li-Yerushalayim (617625) [The travel diary of a female Jewish teacher from Trieste to
Jerusalem, 18671875] (Hebrew); Kevatsim le-Heker Toldot ha-Hinukh ha-Yehudi be-Yisrael
uva-Tefutsot 1 (1982), 126, 128130, 153; Kurt Grunwald, Jewish Schools under Foreign Flags
in Ottoman Palestine, in Studies on Palestine during the Ottoman Period, ed. M. Maoz
(Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975), 168171; Elboim-Dror, ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael,
67, 88, 104, 111114, 245, 292; Montagu, Jewish Life in the East, 144145; Leven, Cinquante ans
dhistoire, vol. 2, 213; Haramati, Reshit ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri, 1213; Albert M. Hyamson (ed.),
The British Consulate in Jerusalem in Relation to the Jews of Palestine 18381914 (London:
Jewish Historical Society of England, 19391941), vol. 2, 428, 502504, 514522, 583584; On
Jerusalem, see Shilo, Princess or Prisoner, 151176.
36For more details on the AIU activities in the Ottoman Empire, see Leven, Cinquante
ans dhistoire; Andr Chouraqui, Cent ans dhistoire: lAlliance Isralite Universelle et la
renaissance juive contemporaine, 18601960 (Paris: Press Universitaires de France, 1965);
Grard Israel, LAlliance Isralite Universelle 18601960 (Paris: AIU, 1960); Aron Rodrigue,
Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries in Transition: The Teachers of the Alliance Isralite
Universelle, 18601939 (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1993); Aron
119
(or Jewish modern) schools, at times specifically as a reaction and resistance to missionary activities.
The AIU founded over forty-five schools for girls throughout the Empire,
including vocational and mixed-gender schools; most were established
during the last twenty years of the Ottoman period. Many of these were
located in Anatolia, but gradually most major cities with a sizeable Jewish population were able to boast their own AIU girls school. AIU schools
operated under a single set of guidelines, often with standardized curricula emphasizing French language and culture developed by the Alliance center in Paris. The teachers were generally graduates of the Alliance
teacher college in Paris (ENIO), although teachers for Jewish subjects and
Hebrew were often local rabbis with no particular pedagogical training,
and were often reported by the AIU staff to be of inferior quality. These
rabbis were generally the only male staff in the AIU girls schools whose
principals, moreover, were often wives of the principals of the local Alliance boys schools.
Another important initiative in Jewish female education, mainly in
Palestine and Turkey, was that undertaken by the German Jewish educational and philanthropic organization Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden
(HV), which emphasized German language and culture. The HV started
operation in Palestine in 1904 and supported a number of coeducational
schools and kindergartens there. An important contribution of the HV
was the establishment of teacher training colleges in Palestine for males,
as well as for female kindergarten teachers. The existence of these colleges
prompted Hebrew teachers in Palestine to found their own teacher training colleges, including one for women in Jaffa.37
The involvement of Italy in Jewish female education in the Empire was
confined to Libya. It began in the late 1870s as Jewish merchants in Tripoli
sought Italian Jews to develop modern education for both genders. These
requests dovetailed with Italian political plans to colonize Libya. Thus,
although the impetus and realization were Jewish in origin, the Italian
educational network in Libya, emphasizing Italian language, literature,
and culture as well as general studies, became a major channel for political
Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990); Esther
Benbassa, Lcole de filles de lAlliance Isralite Universelle a Galata, in Premiere Rencontre Internationale sur lEmpire Ottoman et la Turquie Moderne (Istanbul and Paris: ISIS,
1991), 203236; Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue (eds.), A Sephardi Life in Southeastern
Europe: The Autobiography and Journal of Gabriel Ari, 18631939 (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1998); Reguer, The World of Women, 243244.
37For details on the activities of the HV, see Rinott, Hevrat ha-Ezrah.
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intervention by the Italian state. Initially the teachers were mostly Italian Jews; in the girls school they were gradually joined by local women,
some of whom were graduates of the local Italian school. Most students
in these schools were Jews with Italian citizenship from the mercantile
upper middle class. These families were already influenced by European
customs through their commercial activities; the schools thus served to
further strengthen the students Italianization and their assimilation of
European customs.38
Starting in the late nineteenth century Zionist influence in education
began to spread, especially in Palestinian schools such as in Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Jewish villages. Zionist impacts on education were felt outside
Palestine as well, especially during World War I when Palestinian exiles in
Cairo and Damascus provided instruction to their own and local children.
Schools under Zionist leadership were known for their innovative pedagogical experiments, including the revival of the Hebrew language and
coeducation.39 Zionist initiatives also included teacher training, Hebrew
gymnasiums in Jaffa and Jerusalem, and the Betzalel College of Arts in
Jerusalemall coeducational institutions advocating a Hebrew revival.
Most modern Jewish schools in the Ottoman Empire provided only
elementary education, mostly for ideological reasons: the belief that too
much education would prevent students from becoming good workers,
farmers, housewives and mothers, and that overly learned students might
seek higher education and better jobs outside, perhaps far from, the
local community. Still, both the AIU and HV felt the need for some sort
of higher education. The AIU provided this through its teacher training
college (ENIO) in Paris, which had sections for both genders; its secondary education was otherwise limited to male vocational and agricultural
training. For its part the HV provided teacher training for both genders in
Palestine, and also planned to found a technical college in Haifa.
Attitudes toward Female Education
As organizations and individuals promoting Western education in the
Empire were mainly influenced by European educational trends, female
education was shaped more by this than by any internal changes in
38Simon, Change within Tradition, see the chapter on education.
39Scharfstein, Toldot ha-Hinukh be-Yisrael, 18, 25, 27; Simon, Jewish Female Education
in the Ottoman Empire, 137138; Rachel Simon, Education, 157160.
121
122
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the curriculum.46 Only toward the end of the nineteenth century did the
emphasis on feminine arts wane as the curricula of girls and boys became
similar or identical, especially in the growing number of coeducational
schools, mainly in Palestine.47
In some centers Jewish female education became a point of contention
in power struggles between the Jewish communal religious leadership,
on the one hand, and Jewish modernizing figures, often with commercial ties in Europe, on the other. In reports, AIU staff often complained
of the conservative attitude toward modern education, including female
education, of the Jews of Islamic regions in comparison to the situation
in Europe in general and in France in particular. The reports stressed that
Orientals only wanted their women to be proficient in household skills.
It mattered little if they remained otherwise ignorant; of greater importance was their husbands religious piety. AIU reports and commentators
agree on the overall picture of Orientals as tending to resist any modern
idea which might endanger the status quo.48 Thus the AIU opined that it
should not be hasty in offering female education following the opening of
boys schools.49
In fact, the most serious opposition to modern and female education
among Jews in the Ottoman Empire was that of Ashkenazi (Jews of European background) rabbis, mainly in Palestine, where many went so far as
to proclaim the excommunication of those connected with such activities.
These rabbis argued that women need not be educated since they were
exempt from the obligation to study the Torah, and were known to be
frivolous.50 Sephardim and Oriental Jews, however, were more inclined
to send their daughters to school; some of their religious leaders even
advocated female education.51 Many poor Jews, especially Sephardim and
Orientals who did not benefit from financial support from abroad, were
123
124
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125
Contacts with gentiles occurred in Jewish schools as well. This happened most often when Turks, Arabs, and local and Western Christians
sought admission to AIU schools, but in the new Hebrew schools as well,
due to their quality as well as to the scarcity of schools in general.61 In this
environment that posed no threat of conversion, Jews could interact with
gentiles in ways that were impossible in more traditional society. In this
way school relations came to serve as a channel for external influence on
Jewish women.
The second half of the nineteenth century saw harsher economic conditions together with new employment opportunities for women with
formal school education.62 Earlier, as noted above, female wage earners
were mainly from among the needy who worked outside the home while
they were single; married women rarely did so. Most of such work was an
extension of that regularly performed by women or related to traditional
handcrafts. A large number of women worked as maids, for example,
mostly if not exclusively in Jewish households.63 Needlework and ironing
were also done in gender segregated workshops or at home.64
With Ottoman Jewish women entering modern schools in the second
half of the nineteenth century, female waged work continued for some
time to be performed at home, in a surrogate home, as in the case of
maids, or in gender segregated workshops,65 girls schools, or coeducational kindergartens. Only gradually, during the twentieth century, did
Jewish women start to enter mixed-gender workplaces as nurses,66 factory
61 Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, v. 2, 114 (Kuzguncuk: Turks, Greeks, Armenians), 243
(Haifa); Haramati, Reshit ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri, 88 (Jaffa, 1910); Benbassa, Lcole de filles, 207
(Galata).
62Reguer, The World of Women, 242. On the effects of external changes on womens
participation in the workforce in Libya, see Simon, Change within Tradition, 9495.
63Cohen, Jews of the Middle East, 174 (Iraq); Simon, Change within Tradition, 9596
(Libya).
64Yosef Meir, Hitpathut Hevratit-Tarbutit shel Yehude Iraq me-az 1830 ve-ad Yamenu
[Social-cultural development of Iraqs Jews since 1830 until our times] (Hebrew) (Tel
Aviv: Naharayim, 1989), 212217: in Iraq, maids were from poor families, and middle-class
women worked mainly at home in needlework, knitting, etc. Providing girls with these
professions was the main reason behind advocating female vocational education in the
twentieth century (on schools, see Meir, Hitpathut Hevratit-Tarbutit, 221227); Cohen, Jews
of the Middle East, 174 (Iraq); Simon, Change within Tradition, 9597, 99100 (Libya).
65On girls processing ostrich feathers in Libya, see Simon, Change within Tradition,
99100; Rodrigue, Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries, 96 (maids and workers in the fig
and valonia warehouses, Izmir).
66Simon, Change within Tradition, 101102 (Libya).
126
rachel simon
workers,67 and office employees. Even then, women often worked in separate groups. Nonetheless, opportunities for unsupervised inter-gender
interaction did increase among Jews as well as between Jews and gentiles. Moreover, the opening of kindergartens and girls schools in urban
centers called for more female teachers and principals, causing temporary
migration from mainly Turkey and Morocco within the AIU educational
network.68 Then with the spread of state schools, especially in several
post-Ottoman states following World War II, Jewish women began to
work as teachers in non-Jewish state schools, thus again increasing their
chances to meet gentiles. Teaching was indeed a departure from tradition,
as it involved both womens literacy and formal education, and a growing
number of women sought to join the workforce not only out of economic
need but also in order to satisfy personal aspirations such as interest in
a particular field or the desire to serve the public; some regarded it as a
means for self affirmation, fulfillment, and independence.69 This tendency
was strongest in urban centers exposed to Western influences.
With these changes in education and employment, marriage practices
also changed, mainly in urban centers. Western schools would often seek
to keep girls in school, one of the reasons being to postpone the age of
marriage. The AIU was active in this trend starting in the late nineteenth
century, and worked to persuade communal leaders to approve of marriage only above a certain age.70 Some schools even offered financial
prizes to girls who attended school for three years and reached the age
of fifteen before marrying, though only a few received this prize.71 The
entrance of women into the workforce both delayed the age of marriage
and enabled young people of both genders, even of different religions and
nationalities, to meet and interact. As a result marriage candidates were
67Meir, Hitpathut Hevratit-Tarbutit, 356357 on Jewish female textile factory workers
in Jewish enterprises in Baghdad. According to Cohen, Jews of the Middle East, 92, many
Jewish workers in the textile and clothing industries in Iraq were women. On Libya, see
Simon, Change within Tradition, 101, 106. On Salonica, see Donald Quataert, The Industrial
Working Class of Salonica, 18501912, in Jews, Turks, Ottomans, ed. Levy, 206207.
68Meir, Hitpathut Hevratit-Tarbutit, 216 on Iraqi Jewish women in white collar professions, mainly medicine and teaching. On the experience of a female student at the AIU
teachers training school in Paris and on female teachers in the AIU network, see Rodrigue,
Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries, 4244, 4951. On the situation in Libya, see Simon,
Change within Tradition, 102104, 106.
69The occupational breakdown from Iraq is based on data gathered from immigrants
to Israel in 1950/51 and on the situation in Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Aden, and Turkey, see
Cohen, Jews of the Middle East, 175.
70Rodrigue, Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries, 193 (Iraq).
71 Gat, ha-Yishuv ha-Yehudi be-Erets-Yisrael, 244; Montagu, Jewish Life in the East, 145.
127
able to personally know and even choose one another; marriage ages rose,
and engaged couples would meet to socialize, though parental consent for
marriage was most often required.
This study outlined important changes in education among Ottoman
Jews from the fifteenth century to the early twentieth century. During
most of the period education for men mostly involved academic religious
studies, while for women it meant primarily vocational training. Womens education was traditionally experience based, including household
tasks with spiritual elements limited to specific religious laws as applied
to their daily chores and personal hygiene as well as the passing on of
female oral tradition. Changes in the meaning of education were slow to
arrive: for a long period curricula for boys and girls were different, that of
the girls including many feminine crafts and fewer prestigious religious
areas. Only when coeducation became more common and less religious
did curricula come to be standardized. However, concepts of appropriately feminine and masculine subject areas persisted; the notion is not
entirely extinct even today.
Education can serve as an agent of change or as a guardian of tradition,
depending on institutional missions and those of the individuals standing
behind them. As a non-traditional concept from the start, Jewish female
education in the Ottoman Empire carried with it non-traditional messages but also the views of the founding organizations as well as those
of individual educators. The most non-conformist were these educators,
many of whom worked to change Ottoman Jewish society according to
a model that did not yet exist. European organizations, for their part,
sought to shape Ottoman Jews according to their own standards, which
they regarded as superior intellectually, morally, and socially.
Since traditional Jewish communal education did not include instruction for females, the latter developed solely in modern Western educational frameworks. As a result, although their numbers were fewer,
women were the only segment in the educated Jewish community whose
formal education was wholly modern. Education also allowed for closer
inter-sectarian, inter-class, and inter-gender relations, improved womens
economic positions, and enabled some to live and work far from their
birthplaces, though as individuals, not, likely, as spouses. In spite of all
these changes, womens social and political status was slow to change.
Examining these processes, it becomes clear that levels of transformation were not equal in their various phases, with some being faster and
deeper than others. Changes related to individual capacity and initiative
can be the most complete; for example, in academic studies or vocational
128
rachel simon
129
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chapter six
134
at its very center. In 1928, the opening of the first girls institutes took
place; these aimed at raising women to become able citizens. These day
and evening schools throughout the land sought the widespread education of girls from different classes, and they redefined the domestic as an
arena for patriotic activity.
Yet the girls institutes symbolized a metamorphosis more than a rupture, for educational practices common in the wealthier Ottoman homes
and imperial harem had already been adopted in the girls industrial
schools starting in the late 1860s. From the mid nineteenth century on,
new public schools had taken on the education of girls as well as boys.
Yet girls industrial schools educated three times more female students
than their closest, more traditional counterparts, the girls rdiyes.3 They
also employed and educated students who produced clothing and other
materials, first for the army and then for the palace. After the declaration
of the Republic in 1923, the mission and scope of these schools passed to
the girls institutes, which aimed at a broad education in general subjects
as well as in domestic tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and sewing.
Thus the curriculum of the girls institutes was closely enmeshed in the
larger mission of transforming private space in the new Republic of Turkey,
as overlapping public and private spheres provided politicians opportunities to transform the private in order to reshape the public. In this sense
girls institute graduates were to give suitable content and appearance to
a new elite in its public and private spheres, both with the clothing they
produced, and in the homes that they decorated and maintained. These
schools thus put young women in an active, transformational role, belying Western perceptions of children and women of third world countries
as passive. Yet this was undertaken with the help of an invented concept,
the girl: a mother-to-be, imagined as a sexless student.
Through the girls institutes, then, the private sphere lost some of its
intimacy and was, moreover, linked to the modernizing mission of the
state. This conception of girlhood brought with it a new balance between
the public and the private, at the same time creating a sort of limbo
between childhood and womanhood. These developments constituted
an alter-nationalist discourse connecting Turkey to other nationalisms,
such as those of India and Iran, that challenged Western nationalisms.
136
the focal point of a new relationship between the state and the female
population.10 Here, young women with their newly gained capacities produced underclothing for soldiers and decorative items such as silk and
tassel braid for the palace. Boarding was also offered at these schoolfactories. The schools emerged from and reproduced certain educational
traits, such as embroidery and music classes, which were also prevalent
in elite households.
In 1928, with the formation of the new Republic, the industrial schools
were transformed into girls institutes.11 Although the curriculum and
same-sex character suggest continuities with education in the home, students in the institutes worked hard to earn the new and as yet unacknowledged honor of playing a part in producing a new republican society. At
the same time, as noted above, these educational practices also involved
a new understanding between state and society: adopting a Western style
of clothing and home dcor, young women became an important sector
of the population, part of a cultural revolution, and a focal point in official
discourses of the new Republic of the 1920s and 1930s.
The Izmir Girls Institute was one of the more salient examples of this
cultural revolution and deserves closer attention.12 The school building,
which formerly belonged to the Greek community, was turned into a Turkish primary school following the Turco-Greek War, in 1922. In 1923, the
schools director petitioned the state for permission to use it as a private
art school to produce baskets and artificial flowers. In 1927 hatmaking was
added to the school curriculum following passage of the Hat Law, which
mandated replacing Ottoman headwear with Western-style hats. Shortly
after, the school passed from private administration to that of the ministry
of education. The ministry added science courses to the curriculum and
then, in 1931, secondary education. A year later administration passed to
the ministry of culture, which declared the school a girls institute.13
The institutes were located in major cities such as Istanbul, Bursa, Manisa, and Izmir in western Turkey, Ankara in central Turkey, and Adana,
10Cemil ztrk, Trkiyede meslek ve teknik eitimin douu I: Islahhaneler, in
Hakk Dursun Yldz Armaan (Ankara: Trk Tarih Kurumu Yaynlar, 1995), 427429.
11 Okulumuz ne idi ne oldu, 19378 Enstit Dergisi (1938), 1416.
12Okulumuz ne idi ne oldu, 1416. By cultural revolution I mean a transformation in
the public sphere through its equivalent in the private sphere as understood in the case
of China and retrospectively for Soviet internal colonization. See Michael David Fox,
What is Cultural Revolution? Russian Review 58, no. 2 (1999), 181201; Sheila Fitzpatrick,
Cultural Revolution Revisited, Russian Review 58, no. 2 (1999), 202209.
13Okulumuz ne idi ne oldu, 16.
138
Trabzon, and Elaz in eastern Turkey.14 In this way they began to serve a
larger number of students than did the girls industrial schools. The curriculum evolved to include classic Western content such as mathematics,
physics, history, geography, and social sciences, although geographical
differences brought variations, such as the addition of intensive language
classes to the curriculum for Kurdish girls in the eastern provinces.15
Modernization of the new Republic was pursued not only through day
schools, but also through the education of working-class girls in evening
classes. Embroidery, hatmaking, fashion, and sewing classes were included
in these curricula as well, making the girls institutes the most widespread
form of girls education in the early years of the Republic. The number
of girls attending evening classes in Izmir was always greater than the
full-time student population; by 1937, full-time students numbered 2,000
overall, while once the institutes were opened in the eastern provinces
the part-time, evening school population stood at almost 8,000,16 thus
an education consciousness was inculcated in ever wider segments of
society.17
The Izmir Girls Institute regularly published yearbooks and a periodical informing parents and the public about their activities. While state
archives are indispensable to understanding the founding process of the
schools, these yearbooks and periodicals fill in the gaps in the archives.
According to the first yearbook of the institute, its foremost objective was
to raise students to be deserving and useful members of the new Republic.18
The publications also promised that, with the education she received, the
Turkish girl could serve as an able businesswoman if necessary. But the
institute raised her primarily to become a housewife who knew how to
look after the health and wealth of the family, and be a mother competent
in feeding and raising children.
The institute accepted students between eleven and sixteen years of age.
Only primary school graduates were admitted. Graduates were offered the
14Fatma Gk, The Girls Institutes in the Early Period of the Turkish Republic, Education in Multicultural Societies: Turkish and Swedish Perspectives, ed. Marie Carlson, Annika
Rabo, Fatma Gok (Istanbul: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 2007).
15Elif Ekin Akit, Kzlarn Sessizlii (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 2005); idem, Anadil ve
kadnlar, Fe Journal 1, no. 1 (2009), 2130, http://cins.ankara.edu.tr/anadil.html.
16193738 Enstit Yll, 48. While the early years of the Republic evinced many and
varied forms of public education, such as the nation schools that taught literacy to thousands of men and women of different ages, the girls institutes were still the most widespread form of girls education.
17Trkan Tkelar (6th Grade), 19367 Enstit Dergisi (1937), 12.
181935 Enstit Yll, 16.
140
25smail Hakk, Enstitler aile terbiyesinin temelidir, Enstit Yll (Izmir: Cumhuriyet Kz Enstits, 1935), 19.
26For a comparative understanding of the usage of the mother figure in nationalist
policies, see Himani Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism,
Nationalism and Gender (Toronto: Canadian Scholar Press, 2000); Amy Bentley, Eating for
Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1998); Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Difference-Deferral of Colonial Modernity, in Tensions of
Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, ed. Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Anna Davin, Imperialism and Mother
hood, History Workshop Journal 5 (1976); Tamar Mayer (ed.), Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation (London and New York: Routledge, 1999); Rick Wilford and RobertL.
Miller, Women, Ethnicity and Nationalism: The Politics of Transition (London and New York:
Routledge, 1998).
27Chang Y-fa, WomenA New Social Force, Chinese Studies in History (197778), 31,
32, 37. Also see Mark Elvin, Female Virtue and the State in China, Past and Present 103
(1984), 111152 on how expectations regarding girls virtues have changed over the centuries
and how girls education was seen as the primary means for creating virtuous women.
Marie Florine Bruneau, Learned and Literary Women in Late Imperial China and Early
Modern Europe, Late Imperial China 13, no. 1 (1992), 158. Also see Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1995); Beth Baron, The Making of the Egyptian Nation, in Gendered
Nations: Nationalisms and Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Century, ed. Ida Blom,
Karen Hagemann, and Catherine Hall (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, 2000).
142
as the equivalent of a pilgrimage to Mecca. Paris became a source of inspiration to other students as well, as sewing patterns and materials were
ordered from here,34 to be purchased by the teachers themselves.35 In
other words, the skills learned in the institutes were complemented with
new languages and a love for Western civilization.
The fact that young women were freed from household chores opened
them up to new influences. Traces of this openness may be seen in the
way that graduates of the institutes, even at advanced ages, continue to
relate to each other as girls. In short, having emerged during the period
before World War II, when the Turkish state stood close to Italy and Germany, these schools cultivated certain peer dynamics among girls that
were inspired by European practices.
Before and during World War II, politicians shared goals in education
shaped by relations among countries. For example, Turkey was influenced
by the German model during this period. Thus two of the three Ks of
German anti-feminist politics, Kinder and Kche, were understood as the
ultimate place and tasks for women. After the war the American model
moved to the foreground in school magazines, replacing the German one.
The private sphere was now nearly limited to the kitchen, and an industrial aspiration, Taylorism, was to prevail in this space. Thus Taylorism was
introduced into the household even as industrialism came to dominate
development plans for Turkey. When applied to the housewifes work,
this scientific and disciplined organization of housework standardized
and systematized her bodily movements in a way similar to factory labor.36
Women needed to be extremely conscientious while performing multiple
tasks in a small kitchen, especially when clothed in hygienic white; an
efficient housewife was to place the kitchenware appropriately in order to
move swiftly from the oven to the sink, from the sink to the table.37
The application of Taylorism to kitchen work was not just a parody of
an industrial strategy, nor was it an aggrandizement of womens work.
34BCA 27/2/1933, 13901, 144138, 30.18.1.2, 34.12.5; 5/11/1933, 15199, 144154, 30.18.1.2,
40.76.18; 26/3/1936, 2/4269, 144194, 30.18.1.2, 63.23.13.
35Teachers like Violette Pillzer. BCA, 14/11/1940, 2/14679, 127141, 30.18.1.2, 93.105.19.
36Modern ev idaresi: Evimizde (Taylorizm), 19367 Enstit Dergisi (1937), 4041. This
article summarizes principles of Taylorism on how to reorganize the kitchen in order to
increase the efficiency of the housewife. Also see Yael Navaro-Yain, Evde Taylorizm: Trkiye Cumhuriyetinin ilk yllarnda eviinin rasyonellemesi (19281940), Toplum ve Bilim
84 (2002), 5174.
37Modern ev idaresi: Evimizde (Taylorizm), 4041.
During a time when the importance of the public sphere was increasing
while the spaces reserved for it were decreasing, the kitchen was declared
a factory through the application of Taylorism to the urban Turkish
household. This factory was no longer an area for women to seek and
claim the reproduction of their own lives and values, or even the mere
survival of their families; even relations with their children took on a new
formality insofar as these were now perceived as the future citizens of the
Republic. Nor could women claim their kitchens in the public sphere, for
example, by forming a network of relations with other women in other
kitchens, because what was going on in the kitchen had to be isolated
in order to be sufficiently hygienic. One of the most private corners of
the modern private sphere in the first half of the twentieth century,38 the
kitchen was becoming the beating heart of the new nation.
Reversing the public and private spheres was advocated by the school
magazines in the form of poems such as this one starting, Dear Turkish
Girl, discover your useless hopes and dispose of them, let motherhood be
your ultimate aim!39 This re-invention of homemaking brought a new
understanding to womens work, which now meant not just toil but also
complete dedication. The Turkish girl, stripped of her useless hopes
experience of sexuality, remuneration for her labor, perhaps even remaining singlewas to limit her life goals to motherhood; only then could she
find her place within the state discourse.
It should be recalled that a coexistence of motherliness and lack of sexuality distinguished the Turkish girl from her counterpart in other nations.
The emphasis on asexuality was shared by various discourses developed
around newly opening schools in the early Republic, a result of the new
Western standard of mixed education, while the simultaneous emphasis
on future motherhood distinguished the girls institute magazines. Thus if
the sacralization of motherhood was common to both Indian and Turkish modernisms, Indian colonization was marked by an impulse to protect women from the influence of the West.40 This obliged the women
of the nation to adhere to traditional values and outlooks. Alternatively,
38Ferhunde zbay, Gendered Space: A New Look at Turkish Modernisation, Gender
& History 11, no. 3 (1999), 555568.
39193738 Enstit Yll, 14.
40Chakrabarty, The Difference-Deferral of Colonial Modernity, Partha Chatterjee,
The Nationalist Resolution of the Woman Question, in Recasting Women: Essays in
Indian Colonial History, ed. Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 233253; Najmabadi, The Erotic Vatan.
144
erotic attributes of the motherland, symbolized by the Quranic character Zulaykha in Iran, were nowhere to be seen in the Turkish girl.41 In
contrast to the erotic love that Zulaykha developed for Joseph in the religious tale, the Turkish girl was to cling to her girlishnesswhich should
also, perhaps, guarantee her submission to the republican state and its
politics of education.
The obsessive attitude toward the cleanliness of the house and tidiness
of clothing cultivated in the institutes meant that it was not enough to
cling to girlhood, one had to also outperform ones mother. Until now,
our girls had to be satisfied with what they learned from their mothers,
and were miserable with their sloppiness in life. But now, those who
attend the Institute start their lives with valuable information, having
learned about conduct in the home, and no longer have these problems.42
Institute girls were to transcend the family of the past, or childhood, and
aim for the idealized family of the future, that is, womanhood, albeit one
for which the acknowledgment of sexuality was kept at a convenient distance. In the end, as one of the older student-workers of the Izmir evening
school wrote, none of the students were wasting anything, nor were they
sloppy any more.43
Magazines
The girlhood theme was most prominently visibly in school magazines
in Turkey during the 1930s. In contrast to publications such as Sevimli
Ay, published by socialist and feminist Sabiha Sertel (18951968), starting
in the second half of the 1920s other womens magazines such as Asar-
Nisvan [Works of Women] also focused on homemaking with the larger
goal of being national family magazine(s) similar to the girls institute
publications.44 Sertels magazine bore an element of continuity with feminist publications like Kadnlar Dnyas [Womens World] and Kadnlk
Duygusu [The Feeling of Womanhood] that had emerged after the 1908
constitutional revolution. Then as the Ottoman womens movement was
41 Gayane Karen Merguerian and Afsaneh Najmabadi, Zulaykha and Yusuf: Whose
Best Story? International Journal of Middle East Studies 29, no. 4 (1997), 485508.
42Akam okulu, 193435 Enstit Yll (1935), 53.
43Rahan Sezer, Akam okulu, 19378 Enstit Dergisi (1938), 3435.
44For example, see Kar-Koca Kavgas, Asar- Nisvan 2, 1 (1925), 1415.
146
or weekly local newspapers and the like, the Izmir Girls Institute activities were reflected in its own publication, whose consistency and quality
marked girls education in Turkey of the period.
Although Turkey did not actively fight in World War II, the effects of the
war on the country were felt intensely since politicians made agreements
with both Germany and England.52 While England seemed to have more
influence in Turkish politics, the popular media, along with most politicians, felt closer to fascist Germany.53 Thus by 1944, agendas that included
a conservative redefinition of the girl with an emphasis on values such as
good morals, selflessness, and patriotism prevailed.54 The institute magazines identified wholly with smet nns (18841973) politics and even
referred to the national flag as the flag of the president.55
nn, first prime minister and icon of the new Turkish Republic, then
president who ushered in Turkeys transition to multi-party politics, had
always supported the institutes. Institute teachers were fascinated with
him and he visited them in turn, according to a graduate.56 A photograph
of an important institute directress with nn hand in hand suggests
important connections: the pose emphasizes his support for her activities in the eastern provinces, as well as their collective commitment to a
Westernized vision where men and women could hold hands in public
even though not married.57
The end of the single-party regime (1945) brought another period of
transformation in the girls institutes. With the multi-party regime following World War II, the Democrat Party, on the strength of its newly-gained
popular support, sought to destroy institutions that had become symbols
for the single party regime. Girls institutes were not targeted for closure
since they had, as noted above, proceeded well down the path of Americanization, of which the Democrat Party was also a proponent. In 1950,
the girls institutes were turned into maturation institutes (Olgunlama
Enstits), a new format that aimed at a basic education for girls. These
carried on the conservative outlook of the girls institutes, with their definition of the home as a middle-class womans truest and highest place,
52Sertel, Roman Gibi, 220276.
53Sertel, Roman Gibi, 220276.
541944 Enstit Yll, 9.
551944 Enstit Yll, 22.
56See Koak, Trkiyede Milli ef; Ms. Z., interview conducted with Sevim Yeil at Menemen, Izmir, 14 July 2002.
57Sdka Avar, Da ieklerim (Ankara: retmen Yaynlar, 1986), 231.
148
150
19231934 Trkiye statistik Yll / Statistical Yearbook of Turkey Devlet statistik Enstits.
Vol. 7. Ankara: Devlet Matbaas, 1934.
1935 Enstit Yll. Izmir: Cumhuriyet Kz Enstits, 1935.
193738 Enstit Yll, Izmir: Cumhuriyet Kz Enstits, 1938.
1944 Enstit Yll. Izmir: Cumhuriyet Kz Enstits, 1944.
1944 Enstit Yll. Izmir: Cumhuriyet Kz Enstits, 1944.
Aar, mer Kemal. Kz Enstits ald. Altan: Elziz Halkevi Dergisi 32 (1937), 13.
Akit, Elif Ekin. Anadil ve kadnlar. Fe Journal 1, no. 1 (2009), 2130. http://cins.ankara
.edu.tr/anadil.html.
. Girls Education and the Paradoxes of Modernity and Nationalism in the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic. PhD dissertation, Binghamton University,
2004.
. Kzlarn Sessizlii. Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 2005.
. Patterns of Spiritual Involvements of Women in Ankara. MA thesis, Middle East
Technical University, Ankara, 1998.
Alkan, Mehmet . Education Statistics in Modernization from the Tanzimat to the Republic, Historical Statistic Series No 6. Ankara: Prime Ministerial State Institute of Statistics,
2000.
Alpkaya, Faruk. Cumhuriyet Rejiminin Bir Islah almas. MA thesis, Istanbul University, 1988.
Avar, Sdka. Da ieklerim. Ankara: retmen Yaynlar, 1986.
Badran, Margot. Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Bannerji, Himani. The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and
Gender. Toronto: Canadian Scholar Press, 2000.
Baron, Beth. The Making of the Egyptian Nation, in Gendered Nations: Nationalisms and
Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Century, edited by Ida Blom, Karen Hagemann, and
Catherine Hall. Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, 2000.
Bayrakeken-Tzel, Gke. Being and Becoming Professional: Work and Liberation
through Womens Narratives in Turkey. PhD thesis, Middle East Technical University,
Ankara, 2004.
Bentley, Amy. Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Blackburn, Gilmer W. Education in the Third Reich: A Study of Race and History in Nazi
Textbooks. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985.
Blom, Ida. Introduction, in Gendered Nations: Nationalisms and Gender Order in the Long
Nineteenth Century, edited by Ida Blom, Karen Hagemann, and Catherine Hall. Oxford
and New York: Berg Publishers, 2000.
Bruneau, Marie Florine. Learned and Literary Women in Late Imperial China and Early
Modern Europe. Late Imperial China 13, no. 1 (1992), 156176.
Canbaz, Firdevs. Fatma Aliye Hanmn Romanlarnda Kadn Sorunu. MA thesis, Bilkent
University, Ankara, 2005.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. The Difference-Deferral of Colonial Modernity, in Tensions of
Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, edited by Frederick Cooper and Ann
Laura Stoler, 373405. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Chatterjee, Partha. The Nationalist Resolution of the Woman Question, in Recasting
Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History, edited by Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid,
233253. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990.
Davin, Anna. Imperialism and Motherhood. History Workshop Journal 5 (1976).
Devrimeri, Fikret. kmaktaki balca byk gayemiz nedir? Okul Kz 1 (1937).
Durakbaa, Aye. Halide Edib: Trk Modernlemesi ve Feminizm. Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar,
2000.
Ellison, Grace Mary. An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.,
1915.
Elvin, Mark. Female Virtue and the State in China. Past and Present 103 (1984), 111152.
Fatma Aliye Hanm. Nisvn-i slm ve Bir Fransz Muharriri. Hanmlara Mahsus Gazete
9192 (1896), 5.
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Findley, Carter. Political Culture and the Great Households, in The Later Ottoman Empire,
16031839, edited by Suraiya N. Faroqhi, 6580. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006.
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. Cultural Revolution Revisited. Russian Review 58, no. 2 (1999),
202209.
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Kar-Koca Kavgas. Asar- Nisvan 2, no. 1 (1925), 1415.
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152
Part Three
Chapter Seven
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period after 1826, westernization was associated more with the ideas of
the Enlightenment, as formulated in the Tanzmt Edict (1839).
The Tanzmt reforms aimed to create a new category, the Ottoman
citizen, while women became not only a center of attention but also
objects of bureaucratic and legal change.4 The reforms various impacts
on upper-class women were to render them more visible in public spaces
by, among other things, enhancing and enabling their activities outside
the home.5 The education of women, their increasing visibility in the public sphere, their taking professionseven having their picture takenall
symbolized a new energy and transparency in the womens domain as
they assumed new places as social actors.6
The changing status of women in the late nineteenth and early twen
tieth centuries was no doubt closely related to new educational opportunities offered them, such as studying abroad, in missionary schools, or
in the newly established Ottoman schools for girls. In late Ottoman society the concept of mahrem, or sacrosanct domestic privacy, was shaken,
and its traditional strictness began to relax. As Zeynep nankur points
out: Ironically, those yearswhen the woman figure had virtually vanished from the canvasrepresent a turning point for women in Ottoman
society. When the female subject reappeared on canvas (she) became the
representative of a new identity.7
For the daughters of upper class families, westernization meant learning a foreign language, especially French, and piano and painting lessons
in their mansions, all from private tutors (mrebbiye). Late nineteenthcentury Ottoman literature, especially novels, reflects these changes in
the lives of women, children, and the rest of the household.8 Two famous
female characters of late nineteenth-century literature, Canan in Felatun
Bey ve Rakm Efendi, by Ahmet Midhad Efendi, and Adnan Beys daughter
Nihal in Ak- Memnu, by Halid Ziya (Uaklgil), depict these westernized
lifestyles of upper-class women.
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Figure 4.2.Mihri (Mfik) Hanm, Her Sister Enise Hanm, pastel on cardboard, 65 50.5 cm., Mimar Sinan Gzel Sanatlar University Istanbul Painting
and Sculpture Museum.
159
and subletting one of her rooms to students. One of these tenants was
Mfik Selami Bey, a student of politics at the University of Sorbonne,
whom she later married.16
Mihri Hanm was introduced to Cavit Bey, Ottoman minister of finance,
in Paris to arrange an agreement with the French government following
the Balkan Wars. Telegrams sent by Cavit Bey to the minister of education recommending Mihri Hanm resulted in her being appointed as an
art teacher at the Istanbul Teachers Training School for Girls (Drlmuallimt) in 1913,17 following the appointments of Mfide Kadri18 and
Madame Rafael.19 When the School of Fine Arts for Girls (nas Sanayi-i
Nefise Mekteb-i lisi) was established in 1914, she was hired here as director as well as fine arts instructor, following the appointment of mathematician Salih Zeki Bey. As we will see, Mihri Hanms contributions to the
School of Fine Arts for Girls were considerable, even revolutionary.
Another early and significant step in womens education was the opening of nursing classes in 1843. Fifteen years later, a letter arrived at the
Grand Vizirate from the Council of Education, stressing that a school for
girls was badly needed; if leaving girls uneducated was now being viewed
as dangerous, after a certain age educating them together with males was
equally so.20 Thus shortly thereafter, in 1859, the first general school for
women, the Cevri Kalfa School, was opened, and since women teachers
could not be found, elderly male instructors were hired to provide training. Official journals as well as various other newspapers supported womens education and promoted the Cevri Kalfa School. Arguments made
Since we know that Onat was in Paris in 1911, Mihri Hanm must have been in Paris at the
same time.
16Mfik Bey was the son of Selami Bey, a well-known personage from Bursa. He was
interested in politics, history, and literature. The date of his marriage with Mihri Mfik
Hanm is unknown. (See Taha Toros, lk Kadn Ressamlarmz, 39.)[[Au: please clarify, is
this the book (1988), or the article (2), as below?]]
17 Taha Toros, lk Kadn Ressamlarmz (2), 10.
18Mfide Kadri (18901912) took lessons from the renowned Orientalist painter Osman
Hamdi Bey as a child; later on, he taught at the Teachers Training School (Drlmuallimt),
and then was appointed as tutor to Adile Sultan, the daughter of Sultan Abdlhamid II.
The Ottoman Palace thus became familiar with the female painter figure.
19Madame Rafael probably taught in this school following the death of Mfide Kadri
and until the appointment of Mihri Hanm. Madame Rafael took her students to the exhibition at the School of Fine Arts for Boys (Sanayi-i Nefise-i Mekteb-i lisi) in order to
create the occasion for an encounter with paintings and thus encourage a love of art. See
Sedad etinta, Tarihi Notlar: Gzel Sanatlar Akademisi, Cumhuriyet (6 May 1939), 5.
20BOA, Nr. 27616, cited by Sema Uurcan, Tanzimat Devrinde Kadnn Stats, 150.
Ylnda Tanzimat (Ankara: Trk Tarih Kurumu Yayn, 1992), 500501.
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21BOA, Nr. 27616, cited by Sema Uurcan, Tanzimat Devrinde Kadnn Stats,
500501.
22According to Halil Edhem, the school was opened 1 November 1914. See Halil Edhem,
Elvah- Nakiye Koleksiyonu (1924), ed. Gltekin Elibal (Istanbul: Milliyet Yaynlar, 1970), 43.
23Mustafa Cezar, Gzel Sanatlar Eitiminde 100 Yl (Istanbul: Mimar Sinan niveristesi
Yayn, 1983), 14.
161
school building was the Zeynep Hanm Mansion, which also hosted the
Istanbul Teachers Training School for Girls.24
Education at the School of Fine Arts for Girls thrived with the appointment of Mihri Hanm as director. While finding models for the drawing
classes was a troubling issue even at the School of Fine Arts for boys,
Mihri Hanm managed to solve this persistent problem in imaginative
ways. Antique Greek sculptures, Russian migrants, older women whom
Mihri Hanm found in the public baths; Ali Efendi, a school attendant;
and the famous Zaro Aaall served as models thanks to Mihri Mfiks
efforts. One of her pupils, Nazl Ecevit, mentions that Mihri Hanm once
requested ancient Greek sculptures from Halil Edhem Bey, director of the
Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Following a complaint by a museum
attendant on the nudity of a male Greek sculpture selected as a model,
Mihri Hanm persuaded the official authorities by assuring them that towels (petemal) would be wrapped around the genital area.25
Apparently, Mihri Hanm wished that her students be exposed to more
than just her own artistic style. Gzin Duran, one of her students, narrates
that their teacher sent them to Ali Sami Boyars studio for six months, yet
they returned to her studio, unhappy with Ali Sami Bey.26 Mihri Hanm also
created the opportunity for students to continue their drawing classes in
the open air in summertime under the supervision of the famous painter
Hoca Ali Rza, who belonged to the all, or 1914, generation.27
The all (1914) generation artists28 traveled to Paris in the years 1908
1910 to attend the atelier of Fernand Cormon (18451924); they returned to
Istanbul at the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Following a trend of openair painting that had been introduced by Hoca Ali Rza, this generation of
artists fell under the influence of Impressionism, which was living out its
24Canan Beykal, Yeni Kadn ve nas Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi, 613; Zeynep Yasa Yaman,
nas Sanayi-i Nefise Mekteb-i lisi, Dnden Bugne stanbul Ansiklopedisi 4 (Istanbul:
letiim Yaynlar, 1994), 170171. But more recent research shows that the schools curriculum began at Drlfnn then continued at Bezm-i lem Valide Sultan School and after
a few years moved to the school for children (sbyan mektebi) in Gedikpaa. See Fatma
rekli, Gzel Sanatlar Eitiminde Osmanl Hanmlarna Alan Bir Pencere nas Sanayi-i
Nefse Mektebi, Tarih ve Toplum 231 (2003), 5060.
25Anonymous, Interview with Nazl Ecevit, Yeni Boyut 2, no. 16 (1983), 14.
26Interview with Prof. Adnan oker, 26 May 2002.
27Canan Beykal, Yeni Kadn ve nas Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi, 10.
28A few of these artists are Ibrahim all (18821960), after whom the school was named
because of his popularity; Nazmi Ziya (18811937), Hikmet Onat (18821977), Hseyin Avni
Lifij (18851927), Feyhaman Duran (18861970), Namk smail (18901935), Mehmet Ruhi
Arel (18801931), and Sami Yetik (18781945).
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The similarities between Osman Hamdi Bey and Mihri Hanm are not
limited to these details. Both artists may also be regarded as Orientalists
from the Orient, in a sense pushing Orientalism to its limits while at the
same time manifesting an evident desire to track change in a geography
depicted as timeless and frozen. Indeed, Osman Hamdi Beys celebrated
works revolutionized the Orientalist genre in the plastic arts: The Tortoise
Trainer carries the message of educating society by means of art;31 in the
Mihrab, he places a woman above even the Holy Quran; Hodjas in Front
of a Mosque depicts religious men as learned intellectuals (figure 4.5). In
general, it could be argued that Osman Hamdi Beys were the first Ottoman paintings dignifying Muslim women. Similarly, Mihri Hanms paintings did not depict Oriental women as erotic and docile objects, passively
receiving the voyeuristic gaze, but as strong personalities who meet the
observers eye with their own.
Yet evaluating Mihri Hanms work only from within the Orientalist
tradition would be to ignore her versatility. In Istanbul, she had close
relations with the Palace and elite circles, as understood, for example,
from anecdotes provided by air Nigar Hanm in her autobiography: Last
night I was invited to visit my dear prince. It was an art soiree. (Prince)
Burhaneddin Efendi was playing the cello, and Vildan Hanm, the daughter of Mahmud Celaleddin Paa, was playing the piano while the painter
Mihri Hanm was painting her portrait.32 Mihri Hanm also had friends
among the poets of the Edebiyat- Cedide (New Literature),33 especially
one of its leaders, Tevfik Fikret. If the Edebiyat- Cedide poets constituted
the literary wing of French artistic influence among the late Ottoman
intelligentsia, Mihri Hanm can be said to represent its counterpart in
painting; she clearly had a special place among the artists of this school.
Tevfik Fikrets house in Aiyan became her studio for a time, as seen in his
notes: There is a lady upstairs who paints my portraits. She interprets my
31See Semra Germaner and Zeynep nankur, Constantinople and the Orientalists (Istanbul: Trkiye Bankas Yaynlar, 2002).
32air Nigar, Hayatmn Hikayesi (Istanbul, 1959) 74, cited by Zeynep nankur, Constantinople and the Orientalists.
33Edebiyat- Cedide was a novel current, largely shaped by Western influences, in late
Ottoman literature (18061901). Its members collected around the journal Servet-i Fnun.
The larger eponymous artistic movement emerged when Tevfik Fikret (18671915) became
the editor of the journal (no. 256, 7 February 1896), which ran until 16 October 1901 when
Sultan Abdlhamid II shut it down because one issue contained the expression ...the
day came when freedom of speech was established by the goverment of 1789, referring
to the French Revolution in an article entitled Literature and Law (Servet-i Fnun, 553,
October 1901).
165
Figure 4.5.Osman Hamdi Bey, Mihrab, 1901, oil on canvas, 210 108 cm.
Private collection.
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167
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Mihri (Mfik) Hanm was one of several late Ottoman women who contributed to making history, although she has received scant attention in the
pages of Turkeys official historiography. Reina Lewis argues that cultural
theory should assist in reshaping understandings of the Ottoman past by
paying attention to the specifity of Ottoman womens experiences while
shaking off standard formulations of post-imperialist feminist theory.51 When
Mihri Hanm is examined both as a female figure and as an artist, the degree
to which she operated both inside and outside social conventions governing late Ottoman society becomes apparent, and this not only through her
works but also through her intrepid deeds and defiant attitude.
If Mihri (Mfik) Hanm played a leading role in opening the way for
training in the plastic arts for women and in seeing personally to the education of many women artists in the period stretching from the late Ottoman into the Turkish Republican period, it is clear that she also judged
that many male artists suffered from indifference as well and that the Turkish plastic arts were underappreciated throughout their history. Doubtless
one of the main reasons for this is that the art of painting, which had been
embraced by the elite for many years, remained within the bounds of
50Taha Toros, lk Kadn Ressamlarmz, 1617. Senelerce almakla ben neye muvaffak oldum? Hi...stelik shhatimi kaybettim. Vaktiyle Herkl idim. imdi merdivenleri kamyorum...Sanat beni bu hale koydu...Hele gzlerim hi grmyor. ifte ifte
gzlk kullanyorum...Paraszm. Bizim gibi-Avrupaya nazaran- geri kalm bir memlekette sanatkarn yolu kadar g bir yol yoktur. Bizimkisi fazla fedakarlk isteyen bir
meslek...Bugn bana, genliimi hediye etseler, bu meslek urunda ektiklerimi, ekmek
korkusundan, reddederdim! ektiim meakkatleri bir ben bilirim bir de Allah bilir. (...)
Bizim ailenin yegne hususiyeti, inadndadr. Ben her eyde olduu gibi sanat hayatm
boyunca, inadmla yaadm...Bugn, buna, bin kere pimanm.
51Reina Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004).
169
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Bibliography
171
chapter eight
174
fatma tre
Invaded by Allied forces at the end of World War I, Istanbul was sunk
in poverty and misery and had become a city of war profiteers, yet it was
also a safe haven for White Russians fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution and
for refugees from the Balkans. The citys population increased rapidly
and resources were soon strained. Sharp contrasts between the poverty
of the post-war city and the disproportionate wealth of those who made
fortunes during the war; and social changes inspired by the presence of
the Allied forces along with new kinds of entertainment and night life
introduced by the Russian refugees, among others, all resulted in lifestyle
transformations.
Women in Istanbul from the end of World War I to the foundation of the
Republic were impacted in their own way by the economic hardship, lack
of political authority, and changes in social life. As Istanbuls economy and
demography changed, its women became relatively freer and more visible.
This greater public visibility, in turn, triggered debates in the mass media of
the period bringing biological responsibilities, behavior in public, apparel,
and relations with the opposite sex under scrutiny. Against a backdrop of
turmoil and disorder, a majority believed that it was women above all who
threatened the social order and needed to return to their proper roles. Articles in popular magazines urged women to comply with the norms of chastity, good manners, and public morality; women were criticized for what
were seen as contemporary but degenerate forms of behavior.
In the popular press of the 1920s definitions of this degenerate behavior appear similar to those circulating around Europe of the period: freer
relationships with men, spending money on clothing and fashion, using
makeup, cutting hair short, drinking and smoking, dancing, and participating in new forms of entertainment. The popular press of the occupation years made particular reference to what it called the worldly woman,
who closely resembled the new woman image of Europe and the United
States. These worldly women, also believed to be a threat to the social
order, were of a mold similar to upper-middle and upper-class European
women in their close relationship with consumer culture.
At the same time, the popular press also presented consumer culture
as an extension of modern life. Magazines printed features on the latest
fashion news, makeup, and short hairstyles, health and beauty products,
modern etiquette, dance halls, tea parties, and balls.2 In a perplexing manner, the womans new life was both promulgated and condemned.
2While womens fashions touched off both favorable and unfavorable discussions,
magazines such as Ss and Resimli Ay devoted numerous pages to fashion and beauty,
keeping women up to date on new trends in Europe. Through these pages women were
able to access all manner of fashion trends related to day and evening wear, accessories,
hair and makeup. This suggests that despite constant and abundant criticism of these
innovations, women maintained their interest in fashion and created demand for it. Ss,
in particular, published articles on womens hair fashions; this continued into the early
years of the Republic. See, for example, Sa Ssleri [Hair ornaments], Ss 10 (18 August
1923), 9; Kesik Salar [Hair cut], Ss 49 (17 May 1924), 9; pek Salarnz [Your silk hair],
Ss 5 (14 July 1923), 8; Ufak Kadn Ssleri: Yan Taraklar [Mini-ornaments for women];
Ss 53 (14 June 1924), 3; Salarn Kesmek stemeyen Hanmlara [To ladies who do not
want to cut her hair], Ss 53 (14 June 1924), 4.
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178
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180
fatma tre
182
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fatma tre
10Mehmed Rauf (18751931) was a Turkish writer and member of the literary group,
Servet-i Fnn. He authored the novels Serap [Mirage] 1909; Bir Zambakn Hikyesi [The
story of a lily] 1910; Gen Kz Kalbi [A heart of a young girl] 1914; Meneke [Violet] 1915; Eyll
[September], 1920known as the first Turkish psychological novel; Karanfil ve Yasemin
[Carnation and jasmin] 1924; Brtlen [Blackberry], 1926; Son Yldz [The last star], 1927;
Define [Treasure], 1927; Kan Damlas [Drop of blood], 1928; as well as a large number of
short stories: htizar [Agony] 1909; Son Emel [The final goal] 1913; Hanmlar Arasnda
[Among ladies] 1914; Bir Akn Tarihi [The history of a love] 1915; Kadn sterse [If the
woman wills] 1919; Safo ve Karmen [Sappho and Carmen] 1920; Pervaneler Gibi [Like
a turning fan] 1920; lk Temas lk Zevk [First touch, first pleasure] 1922; Ak Kadn
[A woman of love] 1923; Gzlerin Ak [The love of eyes] 1924; and Eski Ak Geceleri
[Olden nights of love] 1927. He also published two womens magazines, Mehasin (1909)
and Ss [Ornament] (1924). For further information, see Rahim Tarm, Mehmet Rauf
Hayat ve Hikyeleri zerine Bir Aratrma [Research about Mehmet Rauf, his life and
stories] (Ankara: Aka Yaynlar, 2000).
11 Collectors should make haste since the early numbers are about to be exhausted
line on the back cover of the sixth book of Bin Bir Buse.
12Edhem zzet, Kz m Dul mu? [Girl or widow?], Genlik Demetleri 1 (Istanbul: Cemiyet
Ktphanesi, 1923).
13Some examples from the Bouquets of Youth Series: Kz m? Dul mu?, Fahienin
Gazab [Wrath of a prostitute], Bir Gnl Masal [A tale of heart], Nms Bels [The
scourge of honor], Kudurtan Geceler [Boogie nights], Ac Zevk [Painful pleasure], ldran
Kadn [Mad woman], Izdrap [Anguish], Kokain Fcialar [Disasters of cocaine], Sarhoun
Tvbesi [Repentance of a drunken man], Randevu Yerinde [At the appointment place], Ak
Mektuplar [Love letters], Sevgili Mektuplar [Lovers letters], kisi de Gebe [Both of them
are pregnant].
14Data on book prices of 1923 is not available. At this time a daily newspaper sold for
around 3 kuru, and womens magazines like Ss (Ornament) were 5 kuru. First-quality
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owner and publisher are identified as Cemiyet Ktphanesi. Cemiyet Ktphanesi also issued a second 22-book series bearing the title Fcia ve Ak
Serisi [Disaster and love series]; they were cheaper than Genlik Demetleri,
selling for 5 kuru each.15 The authors did not use pseudonyms but their
original names.
Apart from these sets, there are individually published books as well.
These may carry a subtitle such as Fantezi Bir Hikye [Fantasy story] or
Milli Bir Hikye [National story].16 Events are fictional, of course, as the
titles suggest, yet the narrative is highly realistic: the author frequently
addresses the reader directly, warning him not to feel empathy with the
text or characters; he underscores their faults and cautions the reader
from falling into similar traps.
The Suicide Motif in Popular Stories
According to the Trkiye timayat Enstits (Turkish Institute of Sociology), suicides increased in number during the 1920s.17 Quasi-fictional
suicide reports appeared in newspapers.18 This situation was inevitably
reflected in literature.
bread was 12.5 kuru (10 cents) a loaf in 1921. Laurence S. Moore, Sanayi Yaamnn
Baz Ynleri, in Istanbul 1920, ed. Clarence Richard Johnson (Istanbul: Tarih Vakf Yurt
Yaynlar, 1995), 155.
15Books issued in the Disaster and Love Series appeared in this order: ki Kocal Bir
Kadn [A woman with two husbands], adiye Boandktan Sonra [After adiyes divorce],
Mahmurenin Gebelii [The pregnancy of Mahmure], Kaynana [Mother-in-law], Grmce
[Sister-in-law], Batan kan Halime [Seduced Halime], ilide Bir Gece [A night in ili],
Kahpe Feride [Bitchy Feride], Ferdane, imdiki zdivalar [Current marriages], Gen Kzlar
Bilmelidirler ki [Young girls should know], Dul Kadnn Esrar [Mystery of a widow], Biz
mi Eleniyoruz Onlar m? [Who has more fun, us or the others?], Kadn Salar [Womens
hair], Yetimenin Kabri [Yetimes grave], Melekper, Mahpeyker, Mehl Bir Kahraman [An
unknown hero], Gzel Prens [The handsome prince].
16Mehmet Asaf, Cilveli Rana [Rn the coquette], Genlik Demetleri 12 (Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1925).
17Zafer Toprak, Dr. Cemal Zekinin Delimen, lgn Kzlar: Cumhuriyette Gen Kz
Ve Kadn ntiharlar, Toplumsal Tarih, no. 87 (March 2001), 16.
18An item entitled Brothel Suicide that appeared in Vakit newspaper described the
suicide of a syphilitic man in a semi-fictional language: Server malul bir adamd. Dim
yatakta yatar, hastalndan ikayet ederdi. Dn akam saat sekiz vard. Biz birka kadn
aada oturuyorduk. Serverle Meserret Hanm kendi odalarnda idiler. Bir aralk Meserret hzla aaya indi. Aman kzlar bir yerimiz yanyor. Yank kokuyor! dedi. Aa kat
tamamen aradk. Yanan filn yoktu Sen yukary ara dedik. Ayn zamanda ben de yukar
ktm. Serverin yatt oday aryordum. Yatann baucunda elime bu kutu geti. Siyah
siyah haplar vard. bunlar ne? diye sordum: Server: hibir ey deil! diye cevap verdi.
Serverin yzne baktm. Az oynuyordu. Bir ey yiyor gibi geldi. Sordum: almm,
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immorality from being transmitted to other girls. Above all, female sexuality had to be kept under control. For example, Dr. Zeki advised that girls
unable to restrain their lust be married off without delay and if possible
moved to the country and sequestered from society. He recommended
that such women be institutionalized if isolation, travel, mountain air,
and warm baths proved ineffective.20
Another dangerous influence on the young womens mental state is
love, perceived as a kind of trap that prevents girls from thinking rationally and leads them to calamity. To protect them from this hazard, girls
and women must be brought up to be sober, with well-developed powers of judgment.21 Suicide can end the life of unrestrained women who
have misinterpreted modernization and sought material, sensual pleasures above all elseit can also lead to the deaths of those affected by
her inconsiderate behavior. Of course it is necessary for such characters
to die so that their lives, representing all the wrong choices, do not set an
example for later generations and compromise the healthy, respectful,
useful Republican citizen model. Readers are given a clear message: there
is no future for individuals refusing to abide by social ethics and norms
of respectability.
Cilveli Rn [Rn the coquette], Damat Bey [The son-in-law],
Fuhu Kusmuu [Vomit of prostitution], Kudili Gelini [Bride from
Kudili], Sabir Efendinin Gelini [Sabir Efendis daughter-in-law], adiye
Boandktan Sonra [After adiyes divorce], and Sokak ve ayr Kzlar
[Street and meadow girls] all feature the suicide theme.22 The introduction to Rn the coquette, from 1925, describes the contents as a short
fantasy story. This is the drama of young siblings Kmran and Rn,
whose parents are lost in a world of pleasures and homosexual relationships. The young people do not approve of their parents lifestyle, yet are
powerless to change it, not having come of age. They are, moreover, in
love with a neighbor familys son and daughter, yet are not considered for
marriage because of their parents indecent behavior. Events turn tragic
20Toprak, Gen Kz ve Kadn ntiharlar II, 17.
21 Ibid., 18.
22Mehmet Asaf, Cilveli Rana, Genlik Demetleri 12 (Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi,
1925); Mustafa Remzi, Damat Bey (Istanbul: Suhulet Matbaas, 1925); Vedat rfi, Fuhu
Kusmuu in Kz M Dul Mu?, 2738 (Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1923); Mehmet Asaf,
Kudili Gelini (Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1925); Ercment Ekrem, Sabir Efendinin
Gelini (Istanbul: kbal Ktphanesi, 1922); Kaya Nuri, adiye Boandktan Sonra Fcia Ak
(Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1924); Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar (Istanbul:
Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1925).
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The main theme is that children will suffer from their parents mistakes;
it is wrong to persist in the traditional Ottoman way of living within the
changing and modernizing social structure.
Vomit of prostitution (1923) is the story of a government employee
who is discharged after thirty-five years of service and unable to make
a living under the Armistice. Poverty drives him and his wife to suicide30
and, out of despair, their daughter is forced first to beg and then to prostitute herself. The girl tells Zeki, a client, that she could not bring herself
to commit suicide and became a prostitute to survive.31 Though the girl
had no other means to sustain herself, she suffered pangs of conscience
for the stain she left on her fathers honor.32
The moral of this story is that without parental custody girls can easily
become prostitutes, yet the girl forced into this by poverty is still preoccupied by her fathers honor. The honor of women may be under mens protection, yet women are also obliged to preserve their chastity and avoid
tarnishing the reputation of men.
Ercment Ekrems Sabir Efendis daughter-in-law (1922) includes an
unsuccessful suicide attempt.33 Belks, a beautiful and modern young
bride, leads a contemporary lifestyle, and does not veil herself in the presence of men. This behavior is criticized by Huriye, the other daughter-inlaw in the household, her mother-in-law Glendam, the maid Sofi, and
the housekeeper Eda.34 Belks is generally alone at home except for her
two brothers-in-law Selim and rfan, students at a prestigious high school.
Misreading her liberated behavior, rfan and Selim soon fall in love with
Belks. As a consequence of unreciprocated love, Selim becomes jealous
of his brother and attempts to commit suicide, but is rescued at the last
minute.35
genci abucak ba gz edivermek nazariyesinden kendimizi kurtarmalyz. Remzi, Damat
Bey, 23.
30Vedat rfi, Fuhu Kusmuu, in Kz m? Dul mu? (Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi,
1923), 3637.
31 Vedat rfi, Fuhu Kusmuu, 38.
32Her eyden ziyde babama acyorum!...Zavall babam!...tlisizliine ite en
byk misl. Otuz senelik hizmetinin ite yegne mkafat: Bir fuhu kusmuu!... Vedat
rfi, Fuhu Kusmuu, 38.
33Ekrem, Sabir Efendinin Gelini.
34Ekrem, Sabir Efendinin Gelini, 25.
35te rfan! O dakikada, beynime yldrmlar indi...anladm ki dnyada saadet denilen tatl eyde kimse iin msavat yok...Ve ben hibir zaman sizin bahtiyarlnz kadar
bahtiyar olamayacam...O hlde kendimi yok edip, meydan size bo brakmay, hi
olmazsa kskandm bir saadete ahit olarak her gn bir para yreimi kanatmayp birdenbire lmeyi kurdum. Bu husstaki kararmn size verecei memnniyyet u mektupta
itiraf ettiim ufak kusurlar elbette affettirir. Sizden yalnz bir ricam var. Ona syleyiniz
de intihrmn her devr-i seneyisinde mezarma bir demet iek getirip braksn! Selim
Biaresi Ekrem, Sabir Efendinin Gelini, 25.
36Nuri, adiye Boandktan Sonra Fcia Ak.
37Herif canavar gibi nmsuma taaruz etmek iin urayordu. Bir saat kadar mcdelede bulunduk. Kendisine teslm iin direndike cebr-i iddet gsteriyordu. (...) Fakat
mmkn m idi ki alaa teslm olaym! nk sizin verdiiniz terbiye bana kfi idi! Sizden aldm ahlk dersi ahlkm metin etmiti... Nuri, adiye Boandktan Sonra Fcia
Ak, 18.
38Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar.
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39Bir sabah Erdekte fec bir haber i oldu. ekerzade smail Efendinin olu Hasan
odasnda kolunun damarlarn makasla keserek intihr etmi. Bu intihra sebep bir akm.
Latifeyi seviyormu. Bu vakadan sonra daym beni Erdekte tutmad. lk posta ile Bursaya
iade etti. te hayatmda yegne zevk duyduum, mtehasss olduum ilk bir vaka budur.
Bir gencin benim iin hayatn feda etmesi gururumu o kadar okuyor ki, imdi yine size
anlatrken deta sevincimden ldryordum. Ibid., 33; ...Bununla kur yapmaya baladm. Belki ay elendim...Hizmetisi vastasyla bana bir mektup yollayarak randevu
istiyordu. Kabul ve cbet ettim. O gn dikkat ettim. ocuk esmer, iek bozuu, irkin bir
eymi. Tab ognden itibren onunla alkam kestim. Hlbuki o beni ok sevmi...bensiz yapamayacan dnerek intihr etmi. (...) Dnyada en ziyde houma giden ey
beni sevenlerin ocukluunu, azbn grmektir. Ibid., 3839; ...ak tamamiyle maddi
olarak kabul etmek lzmdr. Ak iin intihrlar ise maddi bir kymeti elinden kayp eden
insanlarn tevsil ettii bir are-i yeis ve hicrn olarak telkki etmek zarrdir.Tasavvur
ediniz Tiraje Hanm bir gen sizin iin intihr etmi hemen szm kesti:Ah!...benim
iin bir gen deil tam gen intihr etti.Hi mteessir olmadnz m?Ben hayatmda tesrin ne demek olduunu daha tanmadm hi? Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr
Kzlar, 51.
40Bu ak kan damlalaryla ssleyen, bu cinayetten vahi bir zevk duyan bu akn kzdan irenmitim. Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar, 33; Neslimin bu dkn kzn
nefret ve lanetle yd ediyordum. Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar, 39; Bu bedbaht
kzn ak hakkndaki telkkisi beni ok mteessir etmiti. (...) Bu zavall kzn kalbimde
yaratt hisler merhamet ve efkatten ziyde onun mensb bulduu hisse kar lanet ve
nefret hlinde tebeller etmiti. Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar, 51.
41 Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar, 2.
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The theme of impotence is a frequent one; for example, an emasculated man finds himself in the company of a sexually liberated or powerful woman, resulting in embarrassment. In Mlkat Saatine ntizaren
[Pending a rendezvous], while waiting to meet his lover, Nazl, Cemil
Nuri finds the time to frolic with women he has met on the way and is
exhausted by the time the actual rendezvous takes place; he is unable to
perform and is embarrassed before his lover.46 Seherciin Bana Gelenler: lk Tecrbe [The misfortunes of poor Seher: The first experience] and
Seherciin Bana Gelenler: Gen, Fakat [The misfortunes of poor Seher:
Young, but...] follow the adventures of Seher, who has lost her husband
in a tram accident at a young age and is in search of a lover to gratify
her insatiable urges.47 In a first attempt, Seher tries to seduce the elderly
doctor who examines her, but he confesses impotence and must turn her
away.48 Sehers second attempt is with the young playboy, Recep, who
proves unable to oblige for similar reasons.49
The stories Byl Haplar [Magic pills] and ki are [Two remedies]
relate the adventures of individuals who resort to pharmaceutical methods to fight impotence.50 In Byl Haplar, the themes of womans infidelity and impotence are brought together. aziye and Cemil have been
19231924); Bir Rya..., in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 5, 1016 (Istanbul:
med Matbaas, 19231924); Mjgnn Kedisi, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler,
no. 9, 310 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924); Fare, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh
Hikyeler, no. 10, 1822 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924); Bir Dubarac, in Bin Bir
Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 12, 1118 (Istanbul: medi Matbaas, 19231924); Bir
ntikam, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 15, 915 (Istanbul: med Matbaas,
19231924). [[Au/Ed: where titles have been translated once in the text, they do not need
to be repeated in the notes, okay?]]
46Mlakt Saatine ntizaren, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 2 (Istanbul:
med Matbaas, 19231924).
47Seherciin Bana Gelenler: lk Tecrbe, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler,
no. 3 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924); Seherciin Bana Gelenler: Gen, Fakat...,
in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 4 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924).
48-Ah doktor bey; bilseniz; bilseniz; diye inledi.Doktor bir teessf hattyla aln burumu olduu hlde, derin bir ah ekti:Anlyorum hanmefendi...Anlyorum...Fakat nasl
syliyeyim, maatteessf, elimden birey gelmez...Birey yapmaya muktedir deilim...
Seherciin Bana Gelenler: lk Tecrbe., 10.
49Nihyet, Receb Bey geldi; ve tam kadnc bir erkek gibi gelir gelmez hi; evveliyta
lzm grmeden, hemen kaleye hcm etti. (...) Fakat muhcim, daha ilk hcm hareketine yeni balam, mahsur ehri yeni ihata etmi, daha kaleye takarrb bile etmemiti ki,
velvele ve teennc hareketleriyle, ferydlar, ennlerle, gevedi, ve btb, mezbuh, uzand
kald. Seherciin Bana Gelenler: Gen, Fakat..., 23.
50Cmbz, Byl Haplar, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 5 (Istanbul:
med Matbaas, 19231924); ki are, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 9
(Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924).
51 Delikanl ok apknlk etmi ve snm bir adam idi. (...) Fakat bir ay gememiti
ki, Cemil aziyenin hcmlarna mukavemetten ciz kalmaya balad; birka teebbsten
sonra, hezimet-i kahkariye sbit oldu... Cmbz, Byl Haplar., 19.
52Dostu onu dikkatle dinledi. Ve ona bir hap tavsiye etti. Bu hap Msrda yaplyordu,
fakat eczhnenin adresi malum olduu in sipri kolayd. Cemil hi durmadan para
gnderip sipri etti. On be gn sonra kutu hap geldi. Tarft Arabca olduu in
anlama kbil deilse de Cemil tesrini grmek in ilk akam drt tane hap ald. Drt ay
sonra aziye bir ikiz ocuk dourdu. Byl Haplar., 10.
53...Bu meselenin iki tarz- hlli vardr. Birincisi zevceniz hanmdaki ateli arzularn
fazla harretini sndrmektir. (...) Bu ienin iindeki ilc syesinde refikanz det bir
odun hline gelecektir. Bunun ad mnevvimdir. (...) Eczac ayn cmekndan krmz
renkli kda sarlm baka bir ie kararak: Bu ilcdan da sabah akam siz kendiniz
bir kak alacak olursanz snm veya uyumu arzularnz, yirmi yanda bir gen gibi
galeyn edeceklerdir. (...) Bunun ad muharrikdir... ki are, 1819.
54Only in the story Selmann lk Kocas [Selmas first husband], the Selma character
has a baby, but she kills it. Mustafa Remzi, Selmann lk Kocas, in Selmann lk Kocas
(Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1928), 11.
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prizes domesticity above all; and to the virtuously efficient, educated, and
sexless female figure of the nationalist ideal.
In none of these stories does one encounter the ideal female type in the
same scene as her decadent counterpart, for immoral women types can
be imagined only in environments where the worst fears about female
sexuality become real within a corrupted social order. The didactic stories
stage these types in order to instruct women what not to do and which
values to adopt. In doing so they guide them toward ideal female roles,
thus speaking in the same voice as the literary canon of the period.
In these erotic tales, female characters and relationships unfit for the
social order tend to be neutralized either by suicide or through humor.
While in didactic stories narrators actively intervene to prevent the reader
from empathizing with the story and its characters, inviting them to return
to the real world by means of plot elements such as suicides and other
tragic endings that symbolically remove the intolerable evil portrayed,
humorous stories accomplish a similar end but by making light of threatening situations through comedy. Both the didactic and comic erotic stories offer a fantasy world in which late Ottoman/early Republican societys
fears about women as sexual beings are given shape and form. Protagonists are depicted as either powerful women who control men with their
sexual wiles or, in contrast, especially after 1924, these women are more
and more depicted as destructive. While comic erotic stories reflect the
social disintegration after years of secrecy and seclusion, and the excitement and awkwardness felt by men and women now sharing the same
environment, the moral erotic stories reflect societal anxieties, fears, and
defenses. In both versions of popular literature, women have become the
embodiment of late Ottoman and early Republican Turkish societies contradictory feelings about modernization.
198
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Deutsch, Sarah June. From Ballots to Breadlines: American Women, 19201940. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1994.
Ekrem, Ercment. Sabir Efendinin Gelini. Istanbul: kbal Ktphanesi, 1922.
Frame, Lynne. Gretchen, Girl, Garonne? Weimar Science and Popular Culture in Search
of the Ideal New Woman. In Women in the Metropolis: Gender and Modernity in Weimar
Culture. Edited by Katharina Von Ankum. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of
California Press, 1997.
zzet, Edhem. Kz M Dul Mu? Genlik Demetleri 1. Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1923.
Marcus, Steven. Conclusion: Pornotopia, in The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality
and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth Century England, 266286. London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1966.
Moore, Laurence S. Sanayi Yaamnn Baz Ynleri, in Istanbul 1920, edited by Clarence
Richard Johnson. Istanbul: Tarih Vakf Yurt Yaynlar, 1995.
Narvaez, Peter. Introduction: The Death-Humor Paradox, in Of Corpse: Death and Humor
in Folklore and Popular Culture, 112. Logan: Utah State University, 2003.
Nuri, Kaya. adiye Boandktan Sonra, Fcia Ak. Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1924.
rfi, Vedat. Fuhu Kusmuu, in Kz M Dul Mu?, 2738. Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi,
1923.
Remzi, Mustafa. Damat Bey. Istanbul: Suhulet Matbaas, 1925.
. Selmann lk Kocas, in Selmann lk Kocas, 312. Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi,
1928.
Rza, Safaeddn. Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar. Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1925.
Tarm, Rahim. Mehmed Rauf Hayat ve Hikyeleri zerine Bir Aratrma [Research about
Mehmet Rauf, his life and stories]. Ankara: Aka Yaynlar, 2000.
Toprak, Zafer. Dr. Cemal Zekinin Delimen, lgn Kzlar: Cumhuriyette Gen Kz Ve
Kadn ntiharlar. Toplumsal Tarih 87 (March 2001), 33.
. Gen Kz Ve Kadn ntiharlar II: Cumhuriyet Erkeinin Kadn mgesi. Toplumsal
Tarih 99 (March 2002), 1519.
. Merutiyetten Cumhuriyete Mstehcen Avam Edebiyat. Tarih ve Toplum (January
1987), 2529.
Waterman, Richard A. The Role of Obscenity in the Folk Tales of the Intellectual Stratum
of Our Society. Journal of American Folklore 62, no. 244 (AprilJune 1949), 162165.
Yorgo. Kaynanann Fedkrl. In Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 3, 2023.
Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924.
Part Four
Chapter Nine
202
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Recontre Internationale sur lEmpire Ottoman et la Turquie Moderne, ed. Edhem Eldem
(Istanbul and Paris: ISIS, 1991), 441452; and Nicole A. N. M. van Os, Ottoman Womens
Reaction to the Economic and Cultural Intrusion of the West: The Quest for a National
Dress, in Dissociation and Appropriation Responses to Globalization in Asia and Africa, ed.
Katja Fllberg-Stolberg, et al. (Berlin: Verlag Das Arabische Buch, 1999), 291308.
4In Eurydices first issue, we learn that a special committee will direct the periodical.
5Sappho Leontias was born in Istanbul in 1832. A student of French, German, and
Greek literature, she translated Racine, published a home economics book for girls in 1877,
wrote several articles, and gave lectures. Sappho Leontias worked as a teacher and from
1854 onward directed several schools for girls in Samos, Izmir, and Constantinople (Pallas),
including the girls school of Saint Fotini (Agia Fotini) in Izmir. Eurydice (Evridiki) thus
offers us a window through which to glimpse her personality.
203
The Periodical
The periodicals name Eurydice (Evridiki) came from Greek mythology.
According to the myth,6 the nymph Eurydice was the beloved wife of
Orpheus, son of the god Apollo and the muse Calliope. Orpheus had been
taught by his father to play the lyre with such perfection that nothing
could withstand the charm of his music. When Eurydice died, bitten by
a snake, Orpheus went down to Hades to bring her up. Hades promised
to let her go, on the condition that Orpheus should not turn around to
look at her until they reached the open air. Unfortunately, Orpheus disobeyed and turned round to hold his wife and Eurydice returned to the
underworld. Having lost his love forever, Orpheus remained aloof from
womankind, constantly recollecting his tragedy.
Eurydice was a womans review comprised of the contributions of eminent male and female writers of the Greek Orthodox community. Emilia
Ktena remained Eurydices only editor and publisher throughout its publication. The periodical was initially published weekly. Later, it was published every ten days, then every five days, and finally twice a month. Its
head office was located in Galata in Yorgacolu no. 37 and after some time
was transferred to Muuru Han no. 30.
The review was illustrated and as indicated on its front page included
several designs for needlework and embroidery. The price of each issue
was 2.5 kurus. Its structure changed from time to time, both its shape and
contents were continually enriched. Over the course of its publication,
the number of pages varied from eight to twenty-four, with most issues
consisting of sixteen pages (figure 6.1).
Written by well known personalities in addition to the editors sister
Sappho Leontias, the main article always appeared on the first page. By
and large, the themes of the journal concerned womens destiny in society
and female education. In some cases, the main article was concerned with
biographies of female personalities, from all historical periods, who had
gained great honor and respect because of their self-sacrificing spirit and
love for the country. Anonymous articles belonged usually to the editor.
On subsequent pages the reader found articles on issues such as geography, history, mores and customs, advice on domestic work and household
6For a more detailed analysis, see Gerda Schwarz, Eurydike 1, in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, vol. IV/1 (Zurich and Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1988), 98100.
204
anastasia falierou
Figure 6.1.First page of the periodical Eurydice, volume 48, 1872. Anastasia
Falierous private collection.
205
Figure 6.2.Young girls learning to sew clothes in the Ladies Charitable Society
of Pera.
management, as well as information on infant physiology and proper childrearing (figure 6.2).
Apart from the articles dedicated to womens questions, the periodical
included literary texts and poems. Finally, on the last page, the reader
could find announcements for teachers seeking jobs, i.e., for private tutoring, or announcements concerning cultural events such as the publication
of new books, the organization of plays, balls or conferences. Notices, puzzles, and the correspondence column also appeared on the same page.
Eurydice was initially financed by subscriptions, which were yearly, halfyearly or quarterly for Constantinople and yearly or half-yearly for readers from outside the city. Subscriptions were paid in advance. An annual
subscription was 6 silver mecidiye in Constantinople and 7 silver mecidiye
abroad. In that period, subscribers were regarded as reliable readers and
subscriptions were the main source of income for periodicals. The way to
increase the number of subscribers and consequently the number of sales
was to popularize the magazine. Therefore, the magazine organized frequent
lotteries or puzzles in order to attract the interest of a larger readership.
Although we do not have any information about the periodicals print
run, the names of the associate partners appearing on the last page, from
various cities both inside and outside the Ottoman Empire, reveal that
the periodical was distributed in an extensive area: Constantinople, the
Princes Islands, Izmir, Trabzon, Philippoupolis (actually Plovdiv), Varna,
206
anastasia falierou
7Tatiana Stavrou, [The Greek Literary Association of Constantinople] (Athens: n.p., 1967), 82.
8For the connection between the European Enlightenment and the woman question,
see Paschalis M. Kitromilides, The Enlightenment and Womanhood: Cultural Change and
the Politics of Exclusion, Journal of Modern Hellenism 1 (1983), 3961.
9M. Kitromilides, The Enlightenment and Womanhood, 39.
10M. Kitromilides, The Enlightenment and Womanhood, 52.
207
With the Tanzmt reforms, equal rights were granted to all Ottoman
subjects regardless of their language, religion, and ethnicity and this
opened the way for the status of Greek women to become part of the
social agenda. The question of womens status gained importance as a
result of the general conditions of Greek prosperity throughout the nineteenth century. As is well known, Greeks held a special place11 in the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the Ottoman capital, amounting
to about one-fourth of the citys population.12 The Greek community
was dominant in banking and various forms of international and local
commerce.13 Greek merchants had developed relations with their European counterparts in all the port cities and controlled most transactions
throughout the Empire. These close relations to the Western world permitted Greek merchants to quickly adopt Western ideas and ways of life,
including new approaches to womens position in society.
Moreover, Greeks traditionally occupied important offices in the Ottoman administration.14 They served as translators of the imperial divan
and dragomans in the navy at least until 1821. Retaining to a great extent
the old Phanariot tradition, Greeks occupied prominent posts in Ottoman
diplomacy. In this period the Greek communitarian press also flourished;15
11 For a general overview on the position of Greeks in the nineteenth century, see Roderic H. Davison, The Millets as Agents of Change in the Nineteenth-century Ottoman
Empire, in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society,
ed. B. Braude and B. Lewis (New York and London: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1982),
319337.
12The number of people living in the Ottoman capital in 1882 has been estimated as
873,575 souls. For Constantinoples population in general see Stanford Shaw, The Population of Istanbul in the Nineteenth Century, Tarih Dergisi 32 (1979), 403414. Especially for
the Greeks, see A. Synvet, Les Grecs dans lEmpire Ottoman (Constantinople, 1878), 3.
13In the 1840s almost all distinguished bankers were Greeks. Greek banking reached its
peak between 1840 and 1881 by establishing private banking houses and the participation
in socit anonyme banks and by acting as moneylenders to the Porte; in this way the Galata bankers succeeded in wielding power both in the economic and political sense. For the
dominant position of Greeks in economic and monetary activities, see Haris Exertzoglou,
The Development of a Greek Ottoman Bourgeoisie: Investment Patterns in the Ottoman
Empire, 18501914, in Ottoman Greeks in the Age of Nationalism: Politics, Economy, and
Society in the 19th Century, ed. D. Gonticas and Ch. Issawi (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press,
1999), 89107 and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou, Greek Diaspora Bankers, 18401881, Financial Historical Review 9 (2002), 125146.
14Alexander Karatheodoris and Stephanos Mousouros are two good examples. The
former became deputy foreign minister, while the latter was appointed ambassador to
Greece. On this issue see Alexis Aleksandris,
, 18561922 [The Greeks in the service of the Ottoman Empire, 18561922]
Deltio Kentrou Mikrasiatikon Spoudon 23 (1980), 365404.
15In some areas such as the satirical press, Greeks were pioneers. As early as 1870
Theodor Kassapis published the first satirical periodical to be published in the Ottoman
208
anastasia falierou
not only big dailies but also reviews and periodicals of all kindsreligious,
literary, medical, satirical, periodicals for children and womenwere
published or translated into Greek. Well-versed in European languages,
the Greeks were also active in translating16 into Ottoman Turkish.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Greeks founded schools,
cultural associations (syllogoi), and hospitals which to a great extent were
financed by the fortunes of bankers. The economic and cultural ascendancy of the Greeks seems to have encouraged members of the elite to
search for solutions to improve the quality of life of the underprivileged
groups of population, including women, orphans, and beggars.
The number of students registered in the girls schools was continually
increasing. Established in Pera, in 1850, the Central School for Girls (Kentriko Parthenagogeio)17 consisted of about 100 girls. Twelve years later in
1862, their number had increased to about 500.
The first periodical in the Greek Orthodox community dedicated to
womens issues with a woman editor was entitled Kypseli18 and was published by Euphrosyne Samartzidou in 1845, while the first Armenian one
named Gitar appeared in 1862. Some years later, in 1869, the first Turkish
magazine for women called Terakki [Progress] entered circulation and in
1887 there appeared kfezar, the first Turkish womens periodical with
a female editor.
Empire; it was called Diyogen. On the Greek community press, see Ali Arslan,
[The Greek
press in the Ottoman state as it is presented through the documents of the period], trans.
Chr. L. Pampalos (Athens: Eptalofos 2004) and Stratis D. Tarinas,
(Istanbul: Iho, 2007).
16Johann Strauss, The Millets and the Ottoman Language: The Contribution of Ottoman Greeks to Ottoman Letters (19th20th Centuries), Die Welt des Islams 35 (1995),
189249.
17Koula Xiradaki, [Girls schools
and teachers of the unredeemed Hellenism] (Athens: Prometheus 1972), 5962.
18leni Fournaraki, :
( 1845) [An early female attempt at journalism: Kypseli by
Euphrosyne Samartzidou (Constantinople 1845)], in Proceedings of the International Conference of Womens Discourse, ed. Democritus University of Thrace, Department of Greek
Philology (Komotini, 2006 and Athens, 2008), 3754, and leni Fournaraki, in
Egkiklopaideia tou Ellinikou Typou 17841996. fimerides, Periodika, Dimosiografoi, Ekdotes
[Kypseli in Encyclopedia of Greek press 17841996: Newspapers, periodicals, journalists,
publishers], ed. Loukia Droulia and Yioula Koutsopanagou, vol. 2 (thens: I/, 2008),
677678.
209
210
anastasia falierou
211
The only way for women to penetrate the public sphere was through charitable activities. Charity was considered a Christian duty, but at the same
time an activity compatible with the character and virtues of women,
like sensitivity, kindness, self-sacrifice, and compassion. It is in this context that one should understand the significance of the founding of the
Ladies Charitable Society of Stavrodromi.24 The Society organized its
activities in five different sections: general assistance, sewing, laundry and
ironing, medical services, and nursing. This Society became the model for
several other womens associations which attempted to imitate its organization in work sections and more particularly in the sewing workshop
(figure 6.3).
Among these associations the Ladies Charitable Society of Chalkidon
(Philoptohos Adelfotis ton Kirion tis Halkidonos)25 was established in 1884;
24Mamoni and Istikopoulou, , 27109.
25Mamoni and Istikopoulou, , 120122.
212
anastasia falierou
it aimed to provide medical aid to poor ill people, and material aid to the
poor, the old, and the disabled. From 1884 to 1887 about 171 persons146
Greeks, 10 Armenians, and 15 Turkswere granted medical aid from the
association. Following the example of the Ladies Charitable Society of
Stavrodromi, this Society too founded a workshop for sewing clothes,
basically blouses and underwear for the male employees.
The Ladies Charitable Society of Byk Dere The Charity (Philoptohos Adelfortis Kirion Megalou Revmatos I Philantropia)26 was another
association that founded a sewing atelier; it provided work to thirty-six
female workers in 1907. It seems that the Ladies Charitable Society of
Stavrodromi was closely connected with this new association. In fact, the
director of the latter helped organize the atelier of the Ladies Charitable Society of Byk Dere. Some years later, in 1913, a new association
called the Ladies Charitable Society of Beikta (Philoptohos Adelfotita
tou Diplokioniou)27 was founded. As in previous charity associations,
this society aimed to provide help to the poor and sick and offered work
to poor women. Within a year, the Society created a unit divided into
two sections: cutting and dressmaking. Similarly, the Orthodoxy, or the
Religious and Educational Society of those from Malakopi (Thriskeftiki
ke Ekpedeftiki Adelfotita Malakopiton I Orhtodoxia)28 founded in Constantinople in 1912, established a section of sewing and needlework in
the Malakopi in the girls school. Finally, founded in 1919, the Charitable
Society of the Ladies of Nevehir in Constantinople The Resurrection
(Philoptohos Adelfotita ton Kirion tis Neapoleos stin Konstantinoupoli
I Anastasis,29 aimed to create a sewing section for poor women and
girls of Nevehir in Cappadocia as soon as the Societys financial situation
would permit it. Unfortunately, the association failed to fulfill its aim.
Thus between 1861 and 1922, nearly 500 voluntary associations were
established in Constantinoples Greek community, and of these 60 were
formed by women.30 Clearly, in the period Eurydice (Evridiki) was published (from 1861 to 1870), a sort of ideological and cultural awakening was
taking place in the Greek Orthodox community, one that affected women
and their role in society.
213
214
anastasia falierou
Greek Women as Mothers of the Nation
The Orthodox Patriarchate33 was ideologically opposed to the nationalization of the Bulgarian church, since for several centuries it was the only
institution to guide almost all ethnicities of the Orthodox populations
except Armenians and Greek was the dominant language in both education and ecclesiastic liturgies. This secession of Bulgarians34 in 1870 considerably restricted the Patriarchates sphere of influence. In the light of
these threatening developments, the Greek elites realized the important
role that women, as mothers and schoolteachers, could play in the process
of nation building. As the Greek schools of the Ottoman Empire were frequented not only by Greeks but also by students of non-Greek origin, who
identified themselves as Greek on the basis on their Orthodox loyalty, it
was believed that women as schoolteachers could maintain the cultural
and religious homogeneity of the national body by actively integrating
these students into the community. As mothers, women could contribute
in an essential way to the national regeneration by raising ardent patriots to whom they disseminate national ideals. In this connection, writers
began to praise women as the carriers and transmitters of Greek traditional values and the Greek language, and their role as a motivating force
in the formation of ethnic identity was enhanced.
Therefore, of the three main roles ascribed to women, motherhood was
considered the most important; several articles in Eurydice refer to it as
the supreme duty. In an article entitled Woman as spouse, mother and
housewife the author claims that the mother has the main responsibility
for the childrens upbringing and education and that she could shape the
childs character: she is the only one who can turn the child away from
evil and push him to embrace the good, the only person who can transmit
virtues to the child.35
33On the issue of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, see the work of
Dimitris Stamatopoulos, .
19 [Reform and secularisation: Toward a restructure
of the history of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the 19th Century] (Athens: Alexandria,
2003).
34The Bulgarians were not the only Orthodox inhabitants to react to the domination of
the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In 1833, the church of Greece became independent and some
years later the Serbs and the Romanians followed suit. On Bulgarian nationalism and more
particularly the Greek-Bulgarian rivalry in Macedonia see Giorgos Angelopoulos, Perceptions, Construction and Definition of Greek National Identity in late 19th-century Macedonia, Balkan Studies 36 (1995), 247263; Basil Gounaris, Social Cleavages and National
Awakening in Ottoman Macedonia, East European Quaterly 29 (1995), 409426.
35Eurydice, 24 March 1871, 230.
215
216
anastasia falierou
217
that often preoccupied the writers of our periodical. Sappho Leontias suggested that a woman who loves her house and family must avoid all ostentation. By allowing luxurious and superfluous items to enter her house,
she in fact brings to her shelter a wretched evil. Thus, the author does not
hesitate to criticize women who spend large amounts of money on fancy
clothes, jewelry, new furniture, and expensive food.
Coquetry was depicted in Eurydice as a female defect. Fashion was
perceived as a Western trait alienating women from their threefold goal,
contradicting Hellenic traditions and culture. This corrupting illness is
not ours. Europe has given it to us.42 Leontias argued that this consumption of material goods nurtured female vanity and could lead to moral
degeneration.
Beauty can be, for women, the cause of several misfortunes, if it is not accompanied by wisdom.... Beauty can be disastrous if a woman only regards her
bodys qualities and ignores completely her intellectual education and the
acquisition of virtues (...) the nation can quickly disintegrate if it is overcome by luxury and corruption and if women stop being the households
steering-wheel and examples of self-restraint and wisdom.43
218
anastasia falierou
and ended up in prison. As for the vain Magdalene, she lost her social position without
ever stopping her desire for luxury. Eurydice, 15 June 1871, 102.
45Eurydice, 24 March 1871, 232233.
46Eurydice, 19 March 1871, 218.
47Eurydice, 19 March 1871, 219.
219
220
anastasia falierou
221
55Omnia Shakry, Schooled Mothers and Structured Play: Child Rearing in the Turn of
the Century Egypt, in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed.
Lila Abu-Lughod (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Cairo: American University in
Cairo Press, 1998), 126170.
222
anastasia falierou
Bibliography
223
224
anastasia falierou
Chapter Ten
226
zgr tresay
3For a recent overview on the genre, see Hans-Jrgen Lsebrink et al. (eds.) Les lectures
du peuple en Europe et dans les Amriques (XVIIeXXe sicles) (Brussels: ditions Complexe,
2003).
227
228
zgr tresay
229
(Strasbourg and Istanbul: ISIS, 1992), 524; and Ktp ve Resail-i Mevkute: Printing and
Publishing in a Multi-ethnic Society, in Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy, ed.
Elisabeth zdalga (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 225253.
12Elizabeth Brown Frierson, Unimagined Communities: State, Press, and Gender in
the Hamidian Era, PhD dissertation (Princeton University, 1996), 90.
13Seluk Akin Somel, Osmanl Modernleme Dneminde Kz Eitimi, Kebike 10
(2000), 223238.
14Elisabeth Thompson, Public and Private in Middle Eastern Womens History, Journal of Womens History 15, no. 1 (Spring 2003), 5860. Two important booklets on the womens question which were published in Ottoman Turkish, namely Kadnlar by emseddin
Sami (1879) and Nisvn- slm by Fatma Aliye (1891), were written as a response to the
Western critics of womens conditions in Muslim countries.
230
zgr tresay
15Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 17981939 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 164170; and Juan Ricardo Cole, Feminism, Class, and Islam in Turnof-the-Century Egypt, International Journal of Middle East Studies 13 (1981), 393401. The
first book of Amin was translated into Ottoman Turkish in 1913, under the title Hrriyet-i
Nisvn.
16smail Gaspral, Kadnlar (Bahesaray: Tercman Gazetesinin Ta ve Hurufat Basmahanesi, 1903), 18 pages. This booklet is reprinted in smail Gaspral. Seilmi Eserleri:
II. Fikr Eserleri (Istanbul: tken Yaynlar, 2004), 287305. For Gasprals ideas concerning the womens question, see Edward James Lazzerini, Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and
Muslim Modernism in Russia, 18781914, PhD dissertation (University of Washington,
1973), 237260. His daughter, efika Gaspral, was also a prominent female figure in the
Muslim womens movement in the Russian Empire. See engl Hablemitolu and Necip
Hablemitolu, efika Gaspral ve Rusyada Trk Kadn Hereketi (18931920) (Ankara: AjansTrk Matbaaclk, 1998).
17The non-Muslim Ottoman womens press preceded the Muslim one. The first Ottoman-Greek (rum) womens periodical [Hive] appeared in 1842, and the second one
[Pandora] in 1861. See Anastasia Falierous study in this volume.
18See Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 1996), 2227.
19For the translation of Nisvn- slm into modern Turkish, see Mbeccel Kzltan,
Fatma Aliye Hanm. Yaam, Sanat, Yaptlar ve Nisvan- slam (Istanbul: Mutlu Yaynlar,
1993), 63148.
20See Firdevs Canbaz (ed.), ok Elilik. Taaddd-i Zevcat (Ankara: Hece Yaynlar,
2007).
21 Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi, 2732.
231
monographs by women and men on subjects of gender rights and obligations, and family structure.22 The first womens almanac mentioned
above, Nevsl-i Nisvn, was also published there.
This first almanac comprises, aside from common calendar information, some articles on hygiene, household management, and cosmetics,
essentially the writings of the women writers of the Hanmlara Mahss
Gazete. An anonymous article entitled Ottoman womens progress deals,
in a tone of praise, with womens progress in the Hamidian era. The following passage expresses what womens progress really means, at least in
the minds of that almanacs publishers:
Undoubtedly, a countrys progress requires womens education and training
to an equal degree [to that of men]. A people is constituted by families. If
only one part of the family, namely the man, is educated and the woman
not, that family and, subsequently, society cannot really progress. The progress of all parts is required. Learned men state that a peoples progress can
be measured by its womens degree of education. They are certainly not
wrong. A well-educated woman raises well-educated children. Only these
children can contribute to their peoples progress and wealth [...] Women
are humanitys mothers, on the education of which the future wealth of a
people depends.23
232
zgr tresay
The more virtuous we are, the better
Above all, we should be bashful
Whose evidence is the covering of the face
Felicity is in the veiling.26
Nevsl-i Nisvn was not merely the first almanac in Ottoman Turkish
addressing a female audience, but also the first and only almanac deserving the name womens almanac since it included essentially women writers writings on aspects of the womens question in the Ottoman context.
The rest of the article focuses on Takvmn-Nis, a much more voluminous almanac than the previous one.
Ebzziya Tevfik (18491913) and Takvmn-Nis (1899)
In order to understand the significance of Takvmn-Nis, it is necessary to delve more deeply into the biography of its editor and publisher.
Ebzziya was born in Istanbul in 1849. After spending some years in the
bureaucracy following his late fathers career, in the 1860s he joined the
nascent press circle of the imperial capital, within which he received his
real education. As a novice in journalism, he became close friends with
writers such as brahim inasi, Namk Kemal, and Ziya Paa, and became
involved in the Young Ottomans movement.
inasi was the author of the first Ottoman satirical play, air Evlenmesi
[The poets wedding] published in 1859, which criticized the tradition of
arranged marriages; and Namk Kemal was the first Ottoman intellectual
to publish an article in the press on the question of womens education
as early as 1867. Furthermore, in 1879 another close friend of Ebzziya,
the lexicographer emseddin Sami, published the first treatise on the
womens question in Ottoman Turkish; this was reedited in 1895.27 The
womens question was indeed central to the agenda of reformist Ottoman intellectuals, including Ebzziya.
26Makbule Lemn, Kadnlk, in Nevsl-i nisvn, 4950: Ne rtbe fahr edersek biz
revdr / Ki en lzm olan bizde haydr / Buna brhn ise yzde riddr / Tesettrle
selmet rendr.
27emseddin Sami, Kadnlar, 96 pages. For a discussion of Kemals and Samis writings
on the womens question, see Frierson, Unimagined Communities, 107112; rfan Karako, emseddin Sami ve Kadn, Tarih ve Toplum 183 (March 1999), 6165; and Bir Elde
ne Bir Elde Kitap. emseddin Sami ve Osmanl Kadnlar (Istanbul: Kitap Yaynevi, 2008),
which also contains a transliteration of the booklet Kadnlar to the Latin alphabet.
233
28Ebzziya took part later in 191112 in a fierce controversy about feminism with a
feminist writer, Cevad Sami. From a conservative perspective, he defended the necessity
of veiling for Muslim women. See zgr Tresay, Mecmua-i Ebzziyada Tesettr Meselesi
ve Feminizm Tartmalar, Toplumsal Tarih 87 (March 2001), 1623.
29There is a large body of literature on Ebzziya. See lim Gr, Ebzziya Tevfik: Hayat;
Dil, Edebiyat, Basn, Yayn ve Matbaacla Katklar (Ankara: Kltr Bakanl, 1998); and
zgr Tresay, tre intellectuel la fin de lEmpire ottoman: Ebzziya Tevfik (18491913)
et son temps, PhD dissertation (Paris, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, 2008).
30Ebzziya, Ecel-i kaz (Istanbul: 1288/1872), 108 pages. The play, which is a romantic
tragedy about the tradition of the vendetta, was deeply influenced by Shakespeares Romeo
and Juliet. See nci Enginn, Tanzimat Devrinde Shakespeare Tercmeleri ve Tesiri (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakltesi Basmevi, 1979), 115118.
31 Ebzziya, Ne edt- nefyi hakknda tetebbt (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya,
1309/18911892), 84 pages.
32Ebzziya Tevfik, Nef (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya, 1305/18871888), 303+4
pages.
33Ebzziya Tevfik, Millet-i sriliye (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya, 1305/1888),
78 pages. On this book, see zgr Tresay, Osmanl mparatorluunda antisemitizmin
Avrupal kkenleri zerine birka not: Ebzziya Tevfik ve Millet-i sriliye (1888), Tarih ve
Toplum Yeni Yaklamlar 6 (Autumn 2007Spring 2008), 97115.
34Lgat-i Ebzziya (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya, 13061308/18891891), 600 and
752 pages.
35Ebzziya Tevfik, Numne-i Edebiyt- Osmniye (Istanbul: Mihran Matbaas,
1296/1879), 512+7 pages.
234
zgr tresay
Ebzziya was also the most important Ottoman publisher of the late
nineteenth century.36 With his second printing house, founded in 1882,
he realized a revolution in the art of printing in the Ottoman Empire.
Matbaa-i Ebzziya thus became the leader in Ottoman printing in the last
two decades of the nineteenth century. Some of the products of Matbaa-i
Ebzziya received awards in European competitions. Besides impression
quality, Ebzziya and his printing house deeply influenced Ottoman publishing. First, Ebzziyas collection of paperbacks, Kitphne-i Ebzziya,
consisting of some 110 titles published in the 1880s, seems to have contributed much to increasing the potential readership.37 Second, his almanac
collection played a pioneering role in the Ottoman Turkish book market.38
His almanacs are indeed the most beautiful specimens of Ottoman printing. Ebzziyas womens almanac Takvmn-nis, which is the subject
of this study, was the last almanac of this collection, the publication of
which was interrupted by his exile to Konya in 1900.
Eclectic Content and Plural Temporalities
Takvmn-Nis was made up of 328 pages and published in a small format: 6.5 cm to 13.5 cm. This was the same size as its immediate predecessors, i.e., the last two of Ebzziyas almanacs which appeared in 1898
and in 1899. He decided to publish paperback almanacs, starting with the
first two and continuing with Takvmn-nis. Ebzziyas almanacs before
these had generally been of larger size. Only these last three were published in this very small format.
Takvmn-Nis is composed of two general parts. The first, which could
be called the calendar, is divided into twelve parts, organized according
to the months of the year. This part, which was comprised of 200 pages,
36See zgr Tresay, Bir Osmanl Matbaacsnn Sergzeti: Ebzziya Tevfikin Matbaa-i Ebzziyas, Toplumsal Tarih 128 (August 2004), 3643 and II. Abdlhamid Dnemi
Yaymcl, Matbaa-i Ebzziya ve Bast Kitaplar, Mteferrika 34 (Automn 2008), 348.
37On this collection see Ziyad Ebzziya, Kitaphane-i EbzziyaKitaphane-i Meahir,
in Trk Dili ve Edebiyat Ansiklopedisi V (Istanbul: Dergh Yaynlar, 1982), 370372; and
lim Gr, Kitphne-i Ebzziya, in Ziyad Ebzziya Kitab: Darada Bir elebi, ed. mer
Faruk erifolu, (Istanbul: Tima, 1998), 191204.
38On Ebzziyas almanacs, see lim Gr, Ebzziya Tevfik: 282292 and 361362; mit
Bayazolu, Ebzziya Takvimi, Sanat Dnyamz 42 (1990), 5264; mer Faruk erifolu,
Unutulmaz Efsane! 18731969 Ebzziya Takvimleri, Cogito 22 (2000), 145152; and zgr
Tresay, Contribution lhistoire de ldition ottomane: les almanachs Ebzziya (1880
1900), in Printing and Publishing in the Middle East: Journal of Semitic Studies. Supplement
24, ed. Philip Sadgrove (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 129154.
235
39In his almanac for 1306/18891890, Ebzziya published an advertisement of a womens almanac prepared by him and called Takvm-i muhaddert, with publication planned
for 1890. For unknown reasons, it did not appear. If it had been published, it would have
been the first almanac in Ottoman Turkish targeting a female audience.
40Ebzziya, Ey kirm- nisvn, in Takvmn-Nis, 58.
41 Ebzziya, Ey kirm- nisvn, in Takvmn-Nis, 1215.
236
zgr tresay
Thus, the social role of women as mothers clearly consisted of the preservation of national, i.e., Muslim religious values and their transmission to
the next generation. It would be a mistake to focus on the word preservation and miss the modernist aspect of this approach toward the womens
question. This approach was widespread among reformist intellectuals of
that period.42 One of the leading ideologues of the early Tanzmt period,
Sadk Rifat Paa, argued at the end of the 1840s that,
The state should provide a good upbringing for female children, since personal maturity is among the honorable attributes for girls [...] the motherly
embrace is indeed the earliest school for human beings. Therefore it would
be a great service for the nation and humanity to train mothers who will
provide their children religious and moral education while nursing them.43
237
45Put in a similar historical context, Marilyn Booth states: What was identified as
the woman question at various historical moments and in a range of societies, including
Egypt, needs to be scrutinized equally as the man question, see Marilyn Booth, Woman
in Islam, 174.
46Tedkik-i efl ve muhsebe-i nefs, in Takvmn-Nis, 2833, for the original version
of Benjamin Franklins list, see http://www.flamebright.com/PTPages/Benjamin.asp. It
should be noted that the famous Poor Richards Almanack published by Benjamin Franklin
between 1733 and 1757 was a real cultural transfer and translation phenomenon for almost
two centuries. Parts of this work were translated into German, French, Italian, and even
Bulgarian, several times. See Hans-Jrgen Lsebrink, Transferts culturels transatlantiques
et circulation des savoirs dans les cultures populairesle cas des almanachs Benjamin
Franklin, Tangence 72 (2003), 2740.
47Ebzziya Tevfik, Benjamen Franklen (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya, 1299/1882),
36 pages, 3rd edition in 1890, 48 pages).
238
zgr tresay
the order of chastity and tranquility. Second, he omitted the phrase Rarely
use venery but for health or offspring in the translation of the meaning
of chastity given by Franklin. Finally, where he writes on humility to imitate the persons that you consider clever and wise, he changed Franklins
original phrase which was imitate Jesus and Socrates.
Having defined each virtue, Ebzziya explained how women should
use this list. After this explanation, began the real calendar section of the
almanac, divided into twelve parts. Each month was comprised of some
ten to fifteen pages organized under the same rubrics, the first being the
calendar of the respective month.
The calendar was printed on two pages. The first page included three
different calendar systems, the Muslim lunar calendar (hicr kamer), the
Gregorian calendar (efrenc), and the Ottoman financial calendar called
Rm takvm. The order of the calendars was noteworthy in itself. In
Ottoman society each religious community had its own calendar system
while the state used another, a financial one, for bureaucratic purposes.
In the nineteenth century, there was even a plurality of hours: alafranga
and alla turca. With the modernization process and the obvious European presence and influence on Ottoman society, progressively, during
the second half of the nineteenth century the Gregorian calendar gained
ground at the expense of the others. The almanacs published during the
last two decades of the century generally included all the different calendar systems on the same page. Nevertheless, Ottoman almanacs generally
marked the first of March, which was the first day of the Ottoman financial calendar, as the beginning of the year.
In Ebzziyas almanacs, the Muslim solar and lunar years appear only
on the cover page, but these almanacs generally did not follow the Muslim solar or lunar year. However, after publishing almanacs for almost
twenty years, when Ebzziya finally succeeded at publishing almanacs for
women, he again followed the Muslim lunar year. The first almanac aimed
at a female audience, Nevsl-i Nisvn discussed above, also followed the
Muslim lunar year. In that sense, it can be argued that Ebzziya believed
that in order to transmit traditional Muslim values to children, mothers
had to live in the Muslim religious temporality.
The second rubric was titled as Bugn ne yaptm? (What did I do
today?). It consisted of four blank pages, which in turn were divided into
the days of the month. Ebzziyas thirteen virtues appeared at the head of
the first page. Encouraging confessional self-reflection, Ebzziya encouraged women to fill in the relevant days blank case with one or more virtues every night, according to the accomplishments of the day.
239
48See the case study of Franois Georgeon and Paul Dumont, Un bourgeois dIstanbul
au dbut du XXe sicle, Turcica 17 (1985), 127187.
49Molly McCarthy, A Page, A Day: A History of the Daily Diary in America, PhD dissertation (Brandeis University, 2004), chapter 1: Telling Time by the Book: The Almanac
as Daily Diary: 1258; see also Alison Anne Chapman, Reforming Time: Calendars and
Almanacs in Early Modern England, PhD dissertation (University of Pennsylvania, 1996),
158188.
240
zgr tresay
241
242
zgr tresay
243
244
zgr tresay
245
The latter did not include sections concerning the outstanding events of
the previous year, which was an essential feature in almost every ordinary Ottoman almanac. For instance, the previous almanac of Ebzziya,
mentioned above, contained a very detailed account of the Dreyfus Affair.
Nothing similar is noted in Takvmn-Nis, except from a brief account of
famous women who had died the previous year. Another essential difference concerns chronologies. In fact, every Ottoman almanac and all the
official yearbooks included various and very detailed historical chronologies, universal, Islamic, Ottoman and so on.62 Ebzziyas other almanacs
had fifteen to twenty pages of chronologies, sometimes including more
than three hundred dates, all briefly explained. There is not a single chronology in the womens almanac. Apparently, from Ebzziyas perspective, contemporary events and important historical dates did not concern
women. History was made outside the house, and womens place even in
modern society was in the domestic sphere.
62On this topic, see my Le temps des almanachs ottomans: usage des calendriers et
temps de lhistoire (18731914), in Les Ottomans et le temps, ed. Franois Georgeon and
Frdric Hitzel (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2012), 129157.
246
zgr tresay
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Chapter Eleven
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2See, for example, the work by Orhan Kololu, Trkiye Karikatr Tarihi (Istanbul:
Bileim, 2005), as well as that by Turgut eviker, Geliim Srecinde Trk Karikatr, t. 3,
Kurtulu Sava Dnemi, 19181923 (Istanbul: Adam, 1991); both are richly illustrated.
3On Istanbul during this period, see Bilge Criss, Igal Altnda Istanbul, 19181923 (Istanbul: Iletiim, 1994), and Zafer Toprak, Mtareke Dneminde Istanbul, in Dnden Bugne
Istanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol. 6 (Ankara: Kltr Bakanl; Istanbul: Trkiye Ekonomik ve
Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi, 1994).
251
4On this political aspect, cf. Cneyt Okay, Dnemin Mizah Dergilerinde Milli Mcadele
Karikatrleri (Ankara: Kltr ve Turizm Bakanl, 2004).
5See my work in the Ottoman satirical press: Au bord du rire et des larmes: les
Turcs dIstanbul pendant la guerre et loccupation (19141923), in Istanbul 19141923, ed.
Stphane Yerasimos (Paris: Autrement, 1992), 78105. Republished in Des Ottomans aux
Turcs. Naissance dune nation (Istanbul: ISIS, 1995), 332368. This article is based on a study
of the satirical press of the period; certain of its passages have been freely re-adapted in
this text.
6By this point it had already been some time since the image and the portrait made
a place for themselves in Ottoman society; cf. Johann Strauss, Limage moderne dans
lempire ottoman: quelques points de repre, in La multiplication des images en pays
dislam: de lestampe la tlvision (17e21e sicle), ed. Bernard Heyberger and Sylvia Naef
(Wrzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2003), 139176.
252
franois georgeon
253
to mind figures representing a cosmopolitan taste. In any case, the evolution separating the two is quite impressive: the woman of 1922 is less covered and seems considerably more at ease than her equivalent of a mere
eleven years earlier. The physical attitudes are also different: in 1911 she is
striking a pose, with something rigid in her demeanor, while the body of
her 1922 counterpart seems to be alive, in motion.
Considering those gazing on these drawings from 1911 and 1922, Cem
has separated them into two groups: those on the right are men of differing age and appearance who, by the way they look at her (and the few
words they utter) all convey their ardor for the modern woman and their
desire to seduce her. A few examples include a young officer twirling his
mustache and wondering aloud how he can impart to the young beauty
that he is from Rumeli, so that she will understand that he is a hero, one
of the Young Turks responsible for the 1908 revolution, in addition to being
a man of modern views. The muhacir (immigrant) in the middle expresses
his admiration in his dialect, something like Just what the doctor ordered!
(Lokman hekmn ye ded). The remaining three are also clearly smitten.
To the left, Cem has sketched three disapproving glares: above, a religious
figure of some kind for whom this woman is a diabolic creature; below
him, an elderly man who longs for the old days when he was spared such
sights; and finally, at the bottom left, an older woman, covered from head
to toe, horrified, says, May she go to the devil, that one!
254
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255
Eleven years later, in the Ayine illustration, once again we find eight individuals gathered around the woman: eight faces, that is, but this time, no
speech. The draftsman must have thought that their facial expressions
alone conveyed their separate reactions. Two of the eight are, so to say,
familiar: the dowager with a reproachful glare and the cleric, shocked as
ever. The other masculine figures each express their passion in their own
way; we have here a veritable gallery of male portraits: the seducer, treating the lady to his most winning smile; the swain who sends her a kiss
from afar, his lips shaped like a heart; the frustrated aspirant sticking out
his tongue; the policeman who knows he should not look (he must be
on duty), but cannot resist a quick glance from the corner of his eye; the
voyeur who scrutinizes the womans silhouette from over his glasses
and lastly, the pervert who blows in the direction of her skirt in order to
make it lift up a little! All told, the attitudes conveyed here are noticeably
bolder and more brazen than those of twelve years earlier.12
There is one new figure among these observers: a young woman in
the right hand corner. Her face, which seems to closely resemble that
of the model, expresses overt curiosity; in fact, she appears to identify with
the emancipated creature before her in a sort of mirroring effect. Doubtless the caricaturist sought to represent a young Turkish woman who has
taken this modern woman as a model, wholly identifying with her.
The Identity of the Modern Woman
So who is this woman who captures everyones attention? This modern, emancipated woman with European airs, so decisive, often scantily
clothed, now mans equal, strolling freely in the streets? In her short skirt,
embellished with jewelry, who is she, really, within the Istanbul society
of the period? Is she a foreigner? An adventurer, accompanying the allied
troops? A Levantine, a non-Muslim, a Greek, a Jew, or an Armenian?
Could she be a Turk, a Muslim? Or simply the figment of a dream, a caricaturists fantasy?
The satirical journals offer responses to this question, each in their
own waya question that also clearly preoccupies the man in the street.
12Concerning the switch carried by women in the satirical press I have only hypotheses. It seems that in this period in Europe, the switch was an accessory of men, particularly
dandys. Perhaps the Ottoman caricaturists represented these very occidentalized women
with an essentially masculine symbol in order to satirize them.
256
franois georgeon
They do this by representing naive characters, those who have not yet witnessed or understood the rapid changes in the status of woman that had
occurred since World War I, those who have not yet grasped the identity
of this new female figure.
In this role of the naive observer we may immediately cite the Anatolian, the peasant or small town provincial who has traveled up (in the
common parlance) to the capital: this is the muhacir, or immigrant, from
the Balkans or the Caucasus, astonished at the spectacle of Istanbul. This
could also be the Muslim from Central Asia, an Uzbek or Tajik, who for
the Turks of Istanbul symbolized a more uncompromising or conservative
Islam. Among Istanbul residents we could cite also children, of course,
with their direct and guileless gazes; and, finally, a frequently encountered category, that of Istanbul dowagers, elderly ladies utterly incapable of understanding the manners and morals of the new generations
young women.
In a cartoon published in Diken an immigrant standing before a woman
in a short skirt, exclaims: Poor thing, she didnt have enough money to
finish her dress!13 In another example, a muhacir woman, a child on her
back, in torn clothing that leaves her half exposed, applauds the Istanbulite: Bravo to the women of Istanbul, she says. In order not to make
us feel ashamed [of our poverty], they also walk around half naked!14 A
Central Asian man is talking to an Istanbul resident, with two modern
young women with short hair and short skirts in the background: They
say that the women of Istanbul are very free, he says naively, What a
lie! I havent seen a Muslim woman out in the street since I got here!
(figure 7.3).15
The naif is sometimes a child; for example, the one whose grandmother
had promised to take him to the movies. At the entrance to the movie
theater, he spies some movie posters with nearly naked women and
concludes that his grandma has brought him to the hamam instead! In
another example, Akbaba presents an elderly lady who contemplates her
daughter or granddaughter from her armchair: They say that young girls
these days have no morals. Thank God, our girl never goes out without
her prayer beads (tesbih) around her neck, she declares with admiration;
of course, the tesbih in question is, in fact, a long string of pearls that
257
the young lady is twirling coquettishly.16 Again in Akbaba, an old couple are out walking contentedly along the beach under the moonlight.
The gentleman remarks, How pleasant it is to stroll along under the full
moon listening to the gentle lapping of the waves along the shore. But
what the poor old fellow takes to be the murmer of the waves is in fact a
sonorous embrace enjoyed by a young couple obscured by the darkness
(figure 7.4).17 And finally, a young lady outfitted in the latest fashion, short
258
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skirt and loafers, an umbrella casually tossed over her shoulder, walks by
within sight of Karagz and an Anatolian peasant, who asks his companion, My dear Sir Karagz, is that lady Greek, Russian, Turkish, or Jewish?
Karagz replies: Nothing of the kind, my friend; she is an Istanbulite!18
Among the hypotheses that our Anatolian peasant produces regarding
the identity of the modernized woman, we note the presence of a Russian woman. Russians could be found in Istanbulindeed; several tens
of thousands of White Russians, male and female, fled the Bolshevik revolution and found themselves exiled along the shores of the Bosphorus,
among other destinations.19 Comfortable in any milieu from high society to the demi-monde, with their relaxed style so unfamiliar to Istanbul,
these Russian women shook up the codes of conduct in force until that
time. They were instrumental, for example, in the abolition of sexual seg-
259
260
franois georgeon
separation of the sexes, strictly adhered to before the war, has noticeably
relaxed. When public transportation first appeared in Istanbulferries
on the Bosphorus in the middle of the nineteenth century, then the tramways such as that of Tnel connecting Karaky to Beyolu, and the train
out to the suburbsthe issue of the mingling of the sexes arose. It was
settled with the decision to install separate compartments, for example,
on the trains and ferries, and swinging doors or curtains in the trams.
These arrangements meant that, paradoxically, as public transport developed, so, too, did a certain form of sexual segregation throughout the city.
In time, however, this barrier began to slowly give way; first because of
the war, which brought more women into the labor market, thus necessitating their commuting to and fro in the city; then, as noted above, with
the White Russians and other groups of foreign women after the armistice, who no doubt simply refused to pay any mind to it. Finally, in 1923,
segregation of the sexes was officially abolished in public transportation
throughout the city.24
The curtains and swinging doors intended to keep the sexes apart on
public transport were the source of countless pleasantries during the first
years of the satirical press; their suppression proved no less fertile in supplying the humorist with comical situations. In a packed tramway, an
aged lady complains of being wedged in by a man who, clearly, has eyes
only for the young woman on her other side (figure 7.5).25 In the same
vein, in another vignette from Akbaba a young woman tries to persuade
her grandmother to use the tramway: But how am I to sit among all those
men? she protests, Theyll all look at me!26 Karagz, for his part, an
ardent supporter of womens liberation and the mingling of the sexes, is
visibly gratified at the sight of young men and women seated side by side
in a Bosphorus ferry seating compartment. In one of the journals sketches
entitled, After the curtain was suppressed in the ferries, he admonishes
the older generation, pointing to the youth with approval: Now its up to
us to learn from them! (figure 7.6).27
24This point needs more research. A regulation dating from 1913 concerning conveyance by boat indicates that it was expressly forbidden for men to enter the womens sections of the vessels as well as the waiting areas of the ferry landings. (Osman Nuri Ergin
(ed.), Mecelle-i Umr-i Belediyye (Istanbul: Istanbul Bykehir Belediyesi, 1995), vol. 5,
2377). This segregation policy was officially removed in December of 1923 on all public
transport (ferries on the Bosphorus, tramways). Cf. Tanin, 23 December 1923, cited in elik
Glersoy, Tramvay Istanbulda (Istanbul: Istanbul Kitapl, 1989), 4243.
25Zmrud- Anka, no. 124, March 1924.
26Akbaba, no. 110, 24 December 1923.
27Karagz, no. 1647, December 1923.
261
262
franois georgeon
Another motherlode for our authors was the woman in the working world.
As noted above, the war had served to considerably enlarge the scope of
this phenomenon, whose timid beginnings may be detected in the Young
Turk era.28 One can easily imagine how the humorists might have exploited
this territory. They present the woman in all manner of employment, even
the most improbable, the most masculine, as in a series of sketches
from Aydede entitled, If women were... (Hanmlar...olursa), in which
women are shown in the roles of neighborhood watchman (beki), police,
chauffeur, military officer, mason, even ferryman on the Bosphorus. In
most of the cartoons she is surrounded by a crowd of mensniggering,
mocking, derisive, exciteable. The foil for the modern female figure is that
of the voyeur, who appears around this time, and for whom the Ottomans
came up with a prankish name: rntgenci (X-ray specialist)! Thus, as the
lady-mason works on a scaffold, the voyeurs gather below, and make the
most of this stunning opportunity. In another example, a woman operates
a small ferry that plies the Golden Horn or the Bosphorus; so many men
eagerly jump on board that the rowboat capsizes (figure 7.7).29
The caricaturists push the concept of equality to its (il-)logical conclusions. Since there is no profession that women are incapable of exercising,
why cant they be theologians? Aydede is amused at this possibility, and
under the title, It seems that women will be admitted to the university
theology department, the drawing shows, for example, a mufti, a prayerleader, a judge, and a Quran reciter, using the feminine version of the
word for each one, thus giving them a peculiar resonance to Ottoman
ears (mftiye, vaize, kadiye, etc.).30 In a similar vein, Karagz imagines a
woman preaching from the pulpit at the mosque, explaining to her sisters
how to give birth! Other sketches, less extravagant, poke fun at the idea
of a woman judge, parliamentarian, or university lecturer; although here
we are somewhat closer to historical realities. There had been women
licensed to practice law since the founding of the Republic, and women
parliamentarians made their debut in the Grand National Assembly of
Ankara in 1935. What is being satirized here is mens reactions when
confronted with these novelties. Two members of parliament observe
the entry of a female parliamentarian into the chambers: one gapes,
28Cf. the recent work by Yavuz Selim Karakla, Women, War and Work in the Ottoman
Empire: Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women (19161923) (Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center, 2005).
29Aydede, nos. 45 and 46, 5 and 8 June 1922.
30Akbaba, no. 137, 27 March 1924.
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wide-eyed; the other twirls his mustache! In another, standing before the
judge, an elderly man, guilty of having beaten his wife, defends himself
by pointing out, But look here, Madame President, shes just a woman!
in the hopes of softening up the magistrate...Kemalist and republican
from the beginning, Karagz, for his part, is pleased at the great strides
forward taken by Turkish women. Among the audience at a lecture given
by a young female graduate of the university, he declares proudly: When
I see young women like her, it makes me want to cry out, Long live the
new (yenilik), long live the Republic!31
The Ottoman World in Reverse
Other public spaces give rise to similar kinds of comic situations as those
noted above. For example, outside the barracks, there is hardly a more
masculine space in the Empire than coffee houses. Well, here, too, Karagz steps up to campaign against segregation. One sketch featuring him
is entitled, It seems that women will be able to frequent coffee houses
(figure 7.8).32 And in the coffee house sketched by the reviews cartoonist,
the clientele is entirely femininewith men serving them! An unimaginable spectacle for Istanbul of 1920. Hacivat is bending over the stove and
Karagz is waiting tables: Two medium-sweet coffees for our customers
over here, he cries out to his colleague, and a nargile with a good mouthpiece for this little lady! Knowing Karagzs penchant for obscenity, one
can guess what he may be implying here with mouthpiece!
Rapid changes affecting the position and condition of Istanbul women,
including the Turkish female communityher newly won emancipation
each day more visible in the societyoffer humorists visions of a world
at the limit, in which sex roles are reversed. During the 1870s, humorists acted as if they believed that gender equality meant that men would
be condemned to helping with household tasks. Cartoonists of the 1920s,
however, take this one step further to amuse themselves with visions in
which the sex roles are completely reversed, women taking the mens
place and vice-versa. One finds this motif in Aydede in particular. A modern woman, elegant in her fur collar, flat-heeled shoes, and always that
switch!readies herself to go out, and is speaking to her husband. He is
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home busying himself with kitchen work and other domestic tasks. And
to top it off, the wife-breadwinner has to borrow from...the office boy!
Coming on the heels of such a rapid liberation of women, this is not a
social fiction.
Thus women became visible, appearing in every imaginable form in
public life, including the workplace. If that were all there were to it! But
this modern woman is not satisfied with merely making appearances
in public and seeking employment outside her domestic confines. She
uncovers her physical self, casts off her veil, liberates herself. And this
revolution occurs extremely rapidly...its enough to drive the men of the
city of Istanbul to distraction. Here, too, there are plenty of comic situations to exploit.
267
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A number of cartoons represent women in outfits each less substantial than the last. Scantily clad women with cigarette holders in their
handsone of them is stretched out lazily on a divan among cushions,
her legs propped up, thighs uncovered, nonchalantly waiting for her pedicure...Another, in high heels, with her baton and beret, a thin scarf negligently tossed around her neck and her legs mostly bare, complains of
these winter vestments: I cant wait for summer, she declares, when we
can dress more lightly! (figure 7.11). Many of these images seem to come
right out of French or English fashion magazines of the era; often its only
by the fez on the head of a father or a husbandor, more often, on that
of the suitorthat we are able to identify the cartoon as Ottoman.
The degree of nudity in which women are represented in certain of the
journals is indeed striking. One is brought to wonder whether, to some
extent, the satirical press of the period might not have played the role of
a masculine press and that, under the cover of humor, it could have been
principally conceived to provide material for male fantasies. It should not
be forgotten that it was at this point in time that we encounter the first
erotic publication of the Ottoman Empire, Bin Bir Bse.41
41This publication has been recently re-edited in Latin characters: mer Trkolu ed.,
Bin Bir Bse. 19231924 Istanbulundan Erotik bir Dergi (Istanbul: Kitap yay., 2005). See the
study by Fatma Tre in this volume.
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Two more examples from Aydede help us to grasp the dimensions of the
issue. One depicts a scene in the street: an old man, leaning on a cane and
fingering his prayer beads (tesbih) encounters a young modern woman,
her hair drawn back in a little scarf, her araf in the form of a short cape,
a mid-length skirt revealing stockinged feet in high-heeled pumps; in one
hand she holds the ever-present switch and in the other, a reticule. They
glance at each other with something beyond hostility: Will we have to
see types like that for much longer? exclaims the young woman. And to
think that Ive lived all these years only to witness such a thing! mutters
the elderly gent.42
In a second example an older man and a younger one, both wearing
fezzes, bustle about a young woman. The first one, armed with a large
needle and thread, attempts to stitch a araf onto her bodice, while the
second one, armed with an enormous pair of scissors, is busy cutting a
high hem on the young ladys skirt. The young lady doesnt know which
way to turn: One wants to cover me, the other wants to uncover me. Im in
a sorry pass, indeed!43 The interest of these two cartoons resides as much
in their captions; the first one being The two enemies (iki dman), and
the second, The battle (mcadele). Just reading the captions, brings to
mind the war that was being fought among Greeks and Turks in Anatolia.
While Anatolia was indeed embroiled in a military conflict, another one
was raging in Istanbul, and its object was women.
It was not just older people, but also the religious community which
manifested its hostility to new ways of life and to emancipated women.
These, too, are often enough caricaturists targets. One is a cartoon captioned
Life on Mars in which an astronomer wearing a turban peers through a
spyglass, and what does he see? A couple embracing! What! So they have
them there as well! he cries out, horrified.44 Another hodja accompanies
his wife, veiled and enswathed from head to foot. Bravo, my good woman.
Now thats how a Muslim women should go out into the street!45
In fact, even the veiled woman is no longer any sort of guarantee. A
very fine drawing by Mnif Fehim published in Aydede illustrates just this:
a woman covered from head to foot in a long araf and a thick pee
42Aydede, no. 15, 20 February 1922. This drawing along with the subsequent one may
be seen in Zafer Toprak, Mtareke Dneminde Istanbul.
43Aydede, no. 56, 13 July 1922.
44Guguk, 28 August 1924.
45Kelebek, no. 41, January 1924. The caption continued with this remark: Since daring
drawings can incur penalties, this is how the caricaturists of Kelebek will portray women
from now on.
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In the satirical press that we have reviewed, the female figure is most
often portrayed as young and emancipated; moreover, the trend toward
emancipation and modernization is no longer restricted to the foreigner
in Pera or to the Levantine, the Jew, the Greek or the Armenianit is
now of relevance to the Turkish and Muslim woman. Thus, in the Turkish/
Muslim press, the modern woman can also be a Turkish/Muslim woman.
And as we have seen, with respect to the Turkish/Muslim woman, the
move to emancipation and modernization was an extremely rapid one:
the war years (Balkan wars, World War I and II) thus came to an end in a
veritable restructuring of the social order in Istanbul.
Illustrations in the satirical press show us a society in which mixing
of the sexes is becoming the order of the day: it is gaining ground on the
streets (more regularly frequented by women), on public transport (men
and women are no longer segregated), and in most public places. To some
extent, the humorists simply confirm what we know from other sources
such as photographs, memoirs, and the regular press of the period. But
they do more than bear witness; they take advantage of this new situation,
with its rich potential for misunderstanding and unexpected or comical
reactions, to make us laugh. Is it, then, really so absurd to imagine women
in even the most masculine preserves of Ottoman culture such as coffee
houses, or in strictly male roles such as those of officer or policeman?
A salient humorous device used by caricaturists and illustrators is the
representation of a hyper-westernized or hyper-modern woman type, borrowed from fashionable European and American magazines. Thus we see
the boyish, liberated woman of 1920s France or her flapper counterpart
in the United States, with short hair and lightweight outfits, smoking and
driving sports cars and in every way conducting herself as an equal to
men, making her entrance into the Istanbul press. It is doubtful that there
was much empirical precedent for such female figures in the Ottoman
capital, but no matter: the image serves as a kind of foil or safety rail
for a society which, despite its aspirations to change, was hardly ready to
cast off its values and moral reserve; it marks a limit which one would be
ill-advised to reach. As erif Mardin points out in his well-known article
on the super-westernization of Ottoman society, this is a theme which
had existed for some time in Ottoman culture:48 in the first novels it was
48erif Mardin, Super-Westernization in Urban Life in the Ottoman Empire in the Last
Quarter of the Nineteenth Century in Turkey, Geographic and Social Perspectives, ed. Peter
Benedict, Erol Tmertekin, and Fatma Mansur (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974), 403446.
275
embodied in the ultra-westernized man, the snob, the dandy, the character of k Bey (Mr. Chic). In the satirical press of 19191924, however,
we see that from now on the woman was also used as a symbol of this
hyper-westernization.
The satirical press allows us to understand the radical effect that the
emergence (or, one might say, the explosion) of the feminine figure in
the space of a few years had on the average Turkish-Muslim man in the
street. The woman is an object of complete fascination, but also constitutes a threat insofar as she reminds us that, at the rate things are changing, she may soon become mans rival.
In generaland without considering in more detail the subtle differences among the various magazines and newspapers, differences that
would emerge from a more in-depth studyit can be argued that the
satirical press defends a moderate version of womens liberation: it is
clearly hostile to the overtly traditional woman, but on the other hand
does not shy away from ridiculing the extremes to which modernization
and womens liberation could lead. It therefore adopts a middle road. If
we suppose that the satirical press reflects the opinion of the average
Turk, we can perhaps conclude that public opinion in Istanbul appeared
to be generally favorable to the emancipation of women. In summary,
then, at least in this area, it could be said that urban society looked forward to the Kemalist reforms.
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Brumett, Palmira. Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 19081911.
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Criss, Bilge. Igal Altnda Istanbul, 19181923. Istanbul: letiim yay., 1994.
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Istanbul: Adam yay., 1991.
Dumont, Paul. Les annes blanches, in Istanbul 19141923, edited by Stphane Yerasimos,
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Belediyesi, 1995.
Georgeon, Franois. Au bord du rire et des larmes: les Turcs dIstanbul pendant la guerre
et loccupation (19141923), in Istanbul 19141923, edited by Stphane Yerasimos, 78105.
Paris: Autrement, 1992.
. Des Ottomans aux Turcs. Naissance dune nation. Istanbul: ISIS, 1995.
Glersoy, elik. Tramvay Istanbulda. Istanbul: Istanbul Kitapl, 1989.
Karakla, Yavuz Selim. Women, War and Work in the Ottoman Empire: Society for the
Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women (19161923). Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives
and Research Center, 2005.
Kololu, Orhan. Karikatrmze Kadnn Girii. Toplumsal Tarih, special issue on caricature in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey (2004), 7883.
. Trkiye Karikatr Tarihi. Istanbul: Bileim yay., 2005.
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Mardin, erif. Super-Westernization in Urban Life in the Ottoman Empire in the Last
Quarter of the Nineteenth Century, in Turkey, Geographic and Social Perspectives,
edited by Peter Benedict, Erol Tmertekin, and Fatma Mansur, 403446. Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1974.
Okay, Cneyt. Dnemin Mizah Dergilerinde Milli Mcadele Karikatrleri. Ankara: Kltr ve
Turizm Bakanl yay., 2004.
Plajlar, in Dnden Bugne stanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol. 6. Ankara: Kltr Bakanl Istanbul: Trkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi, 1994.
Strauss, Johann. Limage moderne dans lempire ottoman: quelques points de repre, in
La multiplication des images en pays dislam: de lestampe la tlvision (17e21e sicle),
edited by Bernard Heyberger and Sylvia Naef, 139176. Wrzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2003.
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XIXe sicle, in Presse turque et presse de Turquie, edited by Nathalie Clayer, Alexandre
Popovic, and Thierry Zarcone, 189209. Istanbul and Paris: ISIS, 1992.
Toprak, Zafer. stanbulluya Rusyann Armaanlar: Haraolar. Istanbul 1 (1992), 7279.
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Trkolu, mer (ed.). Bin Bir Bse. 19231924 stanbulundan Erotik bir Dergi. Istanbul:
Kitap yay., 2005.
Part five
Dilemmas of Nationalism:
Debating Modernity, Identity, and Womens Agency
chapter twelve
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(1923) demonstrate a deep interest in the international politics and diplomacy of her time.1
Ussama Makdisi states that in the nineteenth century, while Ottoman
officials tried to make the case for an independent reformation of the
Empire, directed from within, a majority of European authors, travelers,
politicians, and missionaries insisted on its inevitable subordination to
a European civilizing mission.2 From this point of view Vakas writing
can without much doubt be viewed as Orientalist, due to her unambiguous differentiation between the categories of West and East, which she
somewhat mechanically translates into the cross and the crescent. She
typically narrates the Orient, late nineteenth and early twentieth-century
Ottoman society, as seen through the eyes of an Ottoman-Greek-American
woman, to Western reading audiences. In broad strokes, her Orientalism
takes for granted an Asiatic, Muslim East, on the one hand, and a civilized,
superior West, on the other. Her own Greek-Ottoman community as well
as the Greeks of independent Greece unquestionably belong to the civilized West, embodied in the nations of Europe. Later in her life, the main
bearer of this civilization becomes America.
A closer look into Vakas writings reveals, however, that her works differ from the general body of Orientalist literature in that the author presents herself to the Western reader as an Ottoman woman from Istanbul.
In spite of all the distance she takes from that society when writing about
Muslim women, the Ottoman imperial system, and the Islamic Orient,
she cannot help but proffer an insiders insight into the everyday life of
Istanbul, including the lives of Muslim women.
Reina Lewis notes the difficult position Vaka finds herself in while
performing both Occidental and Oriental identifications.3 Indeed, Vaka
intentionally and painstakingly built her own Oriental identity in an
effort to distinguish herself from other Orientalist writers. The underlying
message in her texts is that her account of the Orient is truer, or closer to
1 Vaka wrote for mainstream American magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly and
Colliers in addition to a number of Greek-American journals. She published twelve books
of fiction and non-fiction. Demetra Vaka (Mrs. Kenneth Brown), In the Heart of the German
Intrigue (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918) and The Unveiled Ladies
of Stamboul (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923).
2Ussama Makdisi, Mapping the Orient, Non-western Modernization, Imperialism,
and the End of Romanticism, in Nineteenth Century Geographies, ed. H. Michie and
R. R. Thomas (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 40.
3Reina Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism, Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004), 164.
truth, because she was born in an Oriental geography and closely interacted with Oriental people, she possesses firsthand knowledge of this
world. Her intimacy with the Orient, she hoped, would distinguish her
work from the majority of outsiders looking in, yet her writings should
nevertheless fulfill the expectations of Western popular reading audiences
seeking Orientalist romance. In this vein, she is not satisfied with simply depicting Muslim women in their harem or konak (well-to-do family
home) surroundings, but also tells their stories, mostly related to her by
those women, as one accepted into their intimate worlds. Thus as Lewis
puts it, writing for Western audiences, Vaka repeatedly invokes orientalist stereotypes and challenges them.4
Vaka had been living in America as a married woman for almost twenty
years, and was working as a journalist specializing in Near East and Balkan diplomacy when she began writing her autobiographical novel,
A Child of the Orient. In the work, she summons to life Orientalist stereotypes drawn from her childhood. Here Turks are described as an Asiatic
people associated with slavery, despotism, military aggression, polygamy,
the suppression of women, indulgence of the senses, etc. As the chapters
unfold, however, these negative traits ascribed to Turks are often counterbalanced by positive characteristics as such as naturalness, delicacy,
emotionalism, and hospitality, as reportedly witnessed by Vaka in her
everyday contacts with Muslim people. Each chapter begins with a depiction of the insurmountable cultural difference between the Greek subjects
of the Empire and the Muslim ruling group, to end with a reassessment
of the events and thoughts of her earlier years and a re-evaluation of her
youthful convictions. Written in 1914, this book reflects Vakas questions
about not only her early stereotypes of Muslims, but also the larger concepts of the West and Western civilization.
Vakas writings are her responses to this complex and volatile environment, across geographical and cultural boundaries. As Kathlene Postma
aptly states, a number of forces influenced Vaka and her readers: a vigorous American expansionism, the growing population of educated women
and the role of the feminist movement in the United States, American
philantrophic involvement with Christian minorities living in the Ottoman Empire, and Vakas own Greek-American background...5 This
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paper pursues the argument that, writing for an American audience, Vaka
was responding to ideological currents in her American environment.
I argue that while presenting the Orient to Western (American) audiences,
in underlining her differences from the Victorian-Edwardian middle-class
worldview, she clearly diverges from mainstream bourgeois values both as
a writer and as a woman.
In what follows I describe how Vaka was born into and raised in a
Victorian-bourgeois cultural milieu and discuss how this affects her early
perceptions of the Orient. Yet Vaka later revolted against her own bourgeois background ultimately to find herself in a modernism that questioned Western modernity itself.
European Enlightenment for a Greek-Ottoman Girl
Greek women both inside and outside the Ottoman Empire, as educated
women elsewhere, were influenced by the liberal currents spread by
European Enlightenment thinkers. These thinkers introduced the notion
of womens equality and sparked debates about womens nature and
their subordinate status. Yet despite its liberationist and anti-despotic
messages, Enlightenment thinking still bore patriarchal strains within it.
It is now understood that even for liberal philosophers like John Locke
and Jean Jacques Rousseau, equality of the sexes was little more than an
embryonic, abstract assumption while the good citizen or rational individual of the liberal ideal were unexceptionally conceptualized as male
(and western). Women were not imagined as citizens as much as republican mothers who would play important but supplementary and instrumental roles in the new society.
Modern Greek thinking also inherited these contradictory assumptions
about womens status.6 Modesty, chastity, and virtue were still the predestined qualities sought in women not only by prominent male figures
of the neo-Hellenic Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century like
Rigas Velestinlis and Adamantios Korais, but also according to the newly
emerging Greek women writers of the nineteenth century.7 Paschalis
6Paschalis Kitromilides, The Enlightenment and Womanhood: Cultural Change and
the Politics of Exclusion, in Enlightenment, Nationalism, Orthodoxy, ed. Paschalis Kitromilides (Hampshire, UK: Variorium, 1994), 3961.
7Rigas Velestinlis (Ferais) and Adamantios Korais were major figures of the Greek
Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century and founders of Greek nationalism. Both
were greatly influenced by the ideals of the French Revolution. Rigas (17481789) was one
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as living completely segregated from the Muslims, with its own conventions, culture, and social rules. Though much more conservative than the
liberal Greek bourgeoisie of the time, Phanariots, too, according to Vaka,
inherited Enlightenment values and gradually accepted the bourgeois
mentality and the changes in Greek womens lives brought by economic
necessity, among other reasons. In descriptions of the Phanariot family,
the emphasis on rationality, discipline, education, and philantrophy is
much in evidence.
Her father was a bureaucrat at the Sublime Porte, so Vakas family
also partook of the broader cosmopolitan culture of the Ottoman court.
Vakas ideas about women, family, marriage, and her own bildung should
be understood against the diverse components of this intellectual and cultural background. On the one hand she was exposed to Greek nationalist
ideas emanating from her family and community, on the other, she spent
long hours with Muslim girls and boys of her own age, some of whom she
befriended for a lifetime. Through these acquaintances she had access to
the harems and households of Muslim families, experiences which did
much to shape her future writing career.
In the following section, I trace the influence of middle-class ideology
on Vakas ideas. Born into a world where bourgeois mentality and values
reigned supreme, Vaka not surprisingly internalized them. However, as
she grew older, Vaka strove to shed this worldview in favor of an emancipated New Womanhood.
Victorian Middle-class Ideology and Vakas Orient
The writings of English women travelers in the Middle East show how
Victorian middle-class values were projected onto the Oriental harem.10
In contrast to a group of earlier travel writings deploring Oriental womens subjection, a remarkable number of nineteenth-century female travel
writers ascribed Victorian moral values to the Oriental harem and found
parallels with the bourgeois private sphere. For this group, the harem was
a space that protected women not only from outside dangers but also
from the husbands unnecessary intrusions and interventions. The idea
of separate spheres (public vs. private) found its ultimate model in the
harem which, according to these Victorian commentators, not only created
10Billie Melman, Womens Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 17181918 (London: Macmillan Press, 1995).
separate womens quarters but also empowered the women within them.
That is, neither the harem nor the veil meant mere subjection, rather they
symbolized womens autonomy, or freedom from sexual exploitation.11
Demetra Vakas accounts of Muslim womens lives and customary
harem practices reveal mixed feelings toward some traditional aspects of
Ottoman society, reflecting in turn disdain and admiration, even a kind of
fascination. In the autobiographical accounts of her childhood and youth
in Istanbul, Vaka experiences the harems and traditional Muslim households of her friends as places where she can take refuge from her studies
and other obligations. Unambiguously her descriptions bear the stamp of
her Victorian bourgeois values.
It was a patriarchal home, this first harem I visited...There was little furniture in the house, just rugs and hard sofas, and small tables upon which
there were always sorbets or sweets, and cushions of all colours were piled
up on the rugs where babies or grown-ups were always lying slumbering...(T)he whole place seemed to me like a play-box, transformed into a
fairy house, from which discipline, like a wicked fairy was banished...The
amount they permitted me to eat was incredible...Djimlah and I practically owned the house. We slid on the banisters; we climbed on the backs
of the slaves...and we ate candy whenever and in whatever quantities we
pleased...No one said No to us...12
In Vakas accounts the harems and konaks are described as a remote and
utterly strange world. Exoticized and stylized, for the most part Vakas
harems conform to Orientalist depictions from nineteenth-century travel
writing. The crucial revelation for her is the atmosphere of these upperclass households, which defies the Victorian emphasis on order, hierarchy, and discipline. The upper-class Ottoman harem was like a paradise
for little Demetra where she could freely gratify otherwise strictly curbed
childhood desires.
In my home there were duties for me to be learned, remembered, and to be
guided by. The words duty and obligation played a great role in my Greek
home, and these two words so stern, so irreconcilable with pleasure were
absent from the Turkish homes...In Turkish homes there was no history to
be learned. All they seemed to know was that they were a great conquering
race...13
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The wives, the children and the slaves, according to Vaka, lived in an environment of indulgence where senses, desires, and needs were unabashedly expressed. Polygamous marriages and extended households, where
wives were dedicated to their husbands and childrenwhere passionate
devotion was valued above all elsebewildered Vaka. Yet her Victorian
upbringing and conscience weighed heavily nonetheless, imparting a perhaps inevitable sense of superiority and pride in her own culture.
I came to them ready to enjoy them...and yet as years went by, deep down
in my heart I felt glad to be a Greek child, even though I belonged to the
conquered race; and I began to return to my home with greater satisfaction than I had at first, and to put into my studies a fervour and willingness which might have been less, had I not been a visitor to these Turkish
households.14
In Haremlik (1909), as well, women in the harem are admired and disparaged in turn. Vaka reproduces the gaze of the typical Western male of
Orientalist travel writing while describing the beautiful Oriental womens
physical traits.15 At the same time, contrary to popular Western expectations, she finds the women strong willed, intelligent, and witty. After her
first visit to a harem just back from America, she writes,
[The women were] not very different by nature from many commonplace
American friends I have, whose lives are spent with dressmakers, manicures, masseuses and in various frivolous pursuits...Except for the absence
of men I might have been visiting an American household. What difference
existed was to the advantage of the Turkish girls. They were entirely natural and spontaneous. They did not pretend to be anything that they were
not...There was no unwholesome introspectionthat horrible attribute
of the average half-educated European and American women. They never
dreamed of setting the world aright...16
Vaka realized that even, and perhaps because, segregated as they were,
these women nonetheless exercised agency in a private sphere that might
be considered a workable alternative to that of Western bourgeois society.
Yet Victorian bourgeois morality always haunted Vaka, pushing her to write
with always a mix of sympathy and contempt for the Muslim women.
...[C]uriously, too, as I grew older, I liked the Turks more and more, though
in my liking there was a certain amount of protective feeling, such as one
14Demetra Vaka, A Child of the Orient, 35.
15Lewis, Rethinking Oreintalism, especially 146177.
16Demetra Vaka, Haremlik: Some Pages from the Life of Turkish Women (Piscataway, NJ:
Gorgias Press, 2005 [1909]), 2829.
Vaka found out that her childhood friend, Djimlah, now the third wife
of an Ottoman pasha, lived in a harem. On a visit, Vaka asked her the
secret of the change which had made the bold and self-reliant Djimlah an
entirely new person, a passionate and obedient wife. Djimlah replied:
You dear little crest of the wave, because you have been studying and running around the world, improving and enlarging your mind, you think
you know something. Why, you are as ignorant as my baby...No, little
mountain spring, books will never teach you life as a man and a child will.
Books may feed your mind, but your heart will be starvedand human
beings must live through the heart.18
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among the toiling masses of the new world awaited her. Departing for
and settling in America should be read as an act of defiance against the
Old World in favor of the New. She wrote:
Even before I was fifteen I was quietly planning to leave Turkey, to go and
seek what fortunes awaited me in new and strange landsa course which
my imagination painted very attractively. America beckoned me more
than any other country, perhaps because I thought there were no classes
there, and that everyone met on an equal footing and worked out his own
salvation.20
Indeed, Vaka escaped not only the stifling social environment of the late
Ottoman Empire but also the conservative bourgeois morality of her own
Greek-Ottoman community. Her act, which Vaka recounts as a deeply
individual choice, was a radical move even for enlightened women of her
milieu. Among the reasons for her departure, she noted: Accustomed to
having my own way, I was convinced that the supreme duty of every individual is to lead his life as he chose. I do not think so any longer.21
Vakas persistent emphasis on individualism during and following her
departure for the United States should be read as a revolt against both
traditional imperial culture and the bourgeois conservatism of the Greek
community. Yet Yiorgos D. Kalogeras notes that while Vaka herself, as
author, dismisses the Victorian/Edwardian ethos of womanhood, Vaka
the narrator judges Ottoman Muslim women through this same bourgeois
mentality.22 As Kalogeras explains, Vakas own life, as an individual and
a professional woman, certainly defied the middle-class patriarchal ethos
which was dominant in Europe and America of that era.23 She wrote:
I was at last living the life I had dreamed about. I was one of the great
mass toilers of the earth...24 In her sensitive analysis of Vakas popular/Orientalist novel In the Shadow of Islam, Kathlene Postma notes the
conflicted position of Millicent, the young American female protagonist
visiting Istanbul, one reflecting the transitional stage of middle and uppermiddle class American women after the turn of the century and before
World War I.25 Postma shows how Millicent bore both the elitist world20Vaka, A Child of the Orient, 253.
21 Vaka, A Child of the Orient, 254.
22Yiorgos D. Kalogeras, Contested, Familiar and Exotic Spaces: The Politics of Demetra Vaka Browns Identity, Introduction to the reprint, Haremlik, ix.
23Yiorgos D. Kalogeras, Contested, Familiar and Exotic Spaces: The Politics of Demetra Vaka Browns Identity, ix.
24Vaka, A Child of the Orient, 259.
25Postma, American Women Readers, 75.
291
292
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of modernity. I tend to think that Vakas sensitivities as a literary modernist led her to champion but also to question modernity. Musing on her
own fragmented self, having crossed geographical and cultural boundaries, Vaka discovered within herself the ultimate modern personality. It is a
pity that, as a literary figure, she was unable to remove her gaze from the
Orient and develop her modernist perspective more fully. If this perspective included openness to change, a sense of mobility, and of loosening
all prior bonds, Vaka doubtless exemplified it. Yet artistic modernism also
means a delving into the labyrinths of alienation and expressing the fracturing of the self brought by the experience of modernity. In this sense, it
is also a questioning of modern existence itself.
Vakas Critique of Modernity
Vaka enjoyed the freedom, vitality, and buoyancy that America offered
but was also driven to deepen her understanding of freedom. Her search
for happiness led her to question Western modernity, a questioning whose
signs are already visible in Haremlik. Insisting that, while in transformation, the Orient should nevertheless resist mimicking the Western model
of development, she called on Muslim women not to imitate Western
feminists in their demands for rights. Her conservative impulse cannot be
explained only in terms of Vakas career investment in Orientalism or in
an Orient she does not want to see disappear as a result of westernization.
Her advice to Muslim women and all other reformers in Ottoman society
is that change be brought about gradually and without denigrating, belittling, or denying the achievements of the Ottoman imperial system.29
The ideal of Western civilization that Vaka, perhaps somewhat unconsciously, brought into play in most of her Orientalist novels seems to
have eroded significantly by the time she wrote A Child of the Orient. Her
confidence in the Western individual, free to choose and to act without
restrictions, and the ideals in whose name she had settled in America, seem
to have been shaken. Faced with the difficulties of adapting to an early
twentieth-century America of a fierce and unbridled capitalism, terms like
29This cautious attitude in the face of Western modernity is typical of a number of late
Ottoman intellectuals and modernizers such as Ziya Gkalp, as well as among prominent
figures of the Greek enlightenment such as Ion Dragoumis (18781920). See Gregory Jusdanis, Belated Modernity and Aesthetic Culture: Inventing National Literature (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2003), especially 113121, for critiques of modernity in modern Greek thought.
collectivity, altruism, and the toiling masses of the world entered Vakas
vocabularyyet in parallel with a growing nostalgia for the protective
domesticity of the Ottoman society of her youth.
After spending an entire night in the streets of New York, strolling on
Broadway and wandering through Harlem, Vaka wrote the following:
Before this year I used to think that to be absolutely free, to go and come
as I pleased, would be the acme of happiness; to have no one to question
my actions, to be responsible only to myself would be the koryphe (peak)
of freedom. Yet this year, when I was free to go and come as I pleased, and
had no one to give any account of my actions, I found to be the most desolate of my life, and my freedom weighed on me far more than ever restraint
at home.30
Her aspirations for a higher humanism led Vaka to embrace the American
dream; its progressive spirit, democratic ideals, and social accountability
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duygu kksal
were to be the panacea for ruthless capitalism, poverty, and nationalistic strife. Ironically, Vaka escaped the late Ottoman imperial/hegemonic
model to embrace the American melting pot and its model of assimilative
universalism. It is from within this American context that she persists in
asking vital questions about feminism, human existence, and modernity:
I realized that I was only one of the victims of that terrible disease, Restlessness, which has taken hold of women the world over. We are dissatisfied
with the lines of development and action imposed by our sex...The terrible fact remains that in our discontent we rush from this to that remedy,
hoping vainly that each new one will lead to peace. We have even come to
believe that political equality is the remedy for our disease. Very soon, let
us hope, we shall possess that nostrum, too. When we find ourselves politically equal with men, and on a par with them in the area of economics, we
may discover that these extraneous changes are not what we need. We may
then...see whether, as women, we have really done the best we could by
ourselves...and devote ourselves to developing that greater efficiency in
ourselves along our own lines, which is the only remedy for our present
restlessness.32
It is claimed that [i]n Freuds Vienna, it was hysteria, in the modern world
alienation is the most prevalent problematic state experienced.33 Indeed,
this paper tries to show that Demetra Vaka strove to distance herself not
only from the limitations of Ottoman society but also from the bondage
of her Victorian worldthe world of hysteria in Freuds termsseeking
self-actualization in America. In this new land she sought freedom, liberty, and individuality. Vaka found all these things, but then came to
realize that happiness included much else as well, such as interpersonal
connectedness, spontaneity, and care for others. A constant vacillation
between the drive for individuality and the longing for connectedness is
the uneasy predicament of the modern individual. At first rejoicing in her
individuality and self-sufficiency, Vaka ultimately found herself experiencing the tragedy of the modern human being, the anguish and sense of
loss accompanying freedom in the modern state of mind.
Vakas intellectual and personal trajectory, her critique of the Orient
entwined in a feminist revolt which culminated in a critique of modernity, evinces the dilemmas of the modern self, experienced perhaps more
acutely by women than by men.
Chapter Thirteen
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and thought in Ottoman terms, brought their wives to Turkey, and veiled
them in the style observed along the shores of the Bosphorus.
With the declaration of the British protectorate in Egypt in 1914 at
the outbreak of World War I, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and
especially with the Egyptian national revolution in 1919, the modern
female type begins to take a more specifically Egyptian configuration,
with the rise of the nationalist discourse, on the one hand, and increasing attention paid to the social problems of rural Egypt, on the other. Of
the two authors that we study here, the first, Malak Hifn Nsif (1886
1918), embodied the early promise and potential of the Turkish model by
which she herself was inspired, only to be later, and painfully, confronted
with Egyptian realities. The second author, Nabawiyya Ms (18901951),
lived to personify a more authentically Egyptian version of the modern
womanemployed, unveiled, independent.
On 6 December 1918, some weeks after the death of the woman of letters, Malak Hifn Nsif, a public memorial was held in her honor at the
Egyptian University. It was the first public memorial ever organized for
a woman in Egypt. Of the men of letters, poets, and journalists, all those
who paid homage to the deceased were men, with one exception: the only
woman to make a speech was Nabawiyya Ms, a former schoolmate of
the deceased and then director of a public girls school in Alexandria. In
this way the two pioneers of Egyptian feminism were brought together
for the last time.
Nabawiyya Ms and Malak Hifn Nsif are both associated in the collective memory with the first generation of Muslim women to emerge
from the harems of the elite to play a public role. Of course, they benefited
from the founding movement that, since perhaps the 1860s or 1870s, was
inspired by a combination of the Ottoman model, the emigration of Syrians to Cairo, and the European schools that had multiplied in Egypt. This
movement put the woman question at the center of public debate among
the Egyptian elite, and these debates created space for the appearance of
a womens press in Egypt starting in 1892 and thealbeit very limited
emergence of schooling for girls.1
1It should be mentioned that these developments took place much earlier at the Ottoman Empires metropole, where the first Rshdiyye girls school was founded in 1858 and
the first Ottoman womens review was published starting in 1868. For Egypt, on the general
context of the womens condition in the nineteenth century, cf. Judith Tucker, Women in
Nineteenth-century Egypt (Cambridge, London, and New York: Cambridge University Press,
1985), and on the appearance of women in the public domain, cf. Beth Baron, The Womens
299
The collected articles of Malak Hifn Nsif have been recently republished in Cairo, and were followed soon after by the works of Nabawiyya
Ms: her memoirs and a short work from 1920, al-Mara wa-l-amal
[Women and employment]. The current interest that led to the reissue
of these two womens works points to their continued importance: celebrated in their lifetimes, they remain two pioneers of Egyptian feminism.2
At first glance they seem united by many similarities in education, career,
and opinion: Muslims, educated in the same school, they both wrote for
the press. Linked to the Egyptian nationalism movement, they advocated
equality of the sexes and called for developing womens education. Both,
ultimately, embody a feminism not necessarily or particularly Western
in orientation.3 Unlike Hud Sharw, founder of the Egyptian Feminist
Union (EFU) in 1923, who sadly confessed to writing more easily in French
than in Arabic (to the extent that she had to dictate her memoirs to a
secretary), Malak and Nabawiyya wrote elegantly in Arabic.4 This mastery
of written Arabic was an important factor at a time when nationalism
and the woman question were closely linked. At first glance, the respective images of Nabawiyya Ms and Malak Hifn Nsif seem close indeed:
both were modest Muslims who stayed faithful to traditional ethics and
Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society and the Press (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1994).
2Nabawiyya Mss memoirs first appeared in serial form in 1937, and were later collected in one volume under the title Trkh bi-qalam, the publication date of the 1st edition is not known; 2nd edition presented by Rnia Abd al-Rahman and Hla Kmil (Cairo:
Multaq l-mara wa l-dhkira); 3rd edition (1999), 272 pages. Al-Mara wa-l-amal was also
reissued by Ahmad Muhammad Salem (Cairo, 2004), 125 pages. Malak Hifn Nsif published a series of articles in different newspapers, collected under the title al-Nisiyyt.
The first edition was published in her lifetime, in 1910; the second edition, with homages
appended, was published posthumously in 1925. This second edition was reissued in 1998:
Malak Hifn Nsif, al-Nisiyyt, majmat maqlt nasharat f l-Jarda f mawd al-mara
al-misriyya, (Cairo: Multaq l-mara wa l-dhkira, 1998), 246 pages. What is known of her
life is based on the written accounts of her brother and contemporaries like Rashd Rid
and Mayy Ziyda.
3This is in comparison to the no less courageous, nationalistic sprit of feminism
embodied by Hud Sharw (18791947) and Doria Shafik (19081975), women who
expressed themselves primarily in French. On Hud Sharw and the birth of Egyptian
feminism, cf. Hud Sharw, Harem Years, the Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist, translated
and itroduced by Margot Badran (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2003 [1987]),
and Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam and Nation, Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt
(Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1995). On Doria Shafik, cf. Cynthia Nelson,
Doria Shafik, Egyptian Feminist: A Woman Apart (Gainesville, Miami, and Jacksonville: University Press of Florida, 1996).
4Cf. Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, Historical Roots of a Modern Debate
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 178.
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catherine mayeur-jaouen
morals (adab and akhlq) while gaining access to a new education, if not
higher education. In the minds of the Muslim reformers of the time, they
were the ideal feminist figures. A close examination, however, shows the
different, and even opposing, choices that determined the personal and
professional lives of these two women.5
An Unprecedented Education
Malak Hifn Nsif and Nabawiyya Ms were counted among the first
students of the Saniyya Teachers School, the first real public girls school
in Egypt.6 As was then the custom for girls of the Egyptian elite, Malak
Hifn Nsif first attended a private French school; once at the Saniyya
School she became, in 1901, one of the first two Egyptian women, along
with a fellow student from a bourgeois Coptic family, Victoria Awwd,
to obtain a diploma, and certainly the first female Muslim Egyptian to do
so. She then pursued her studies for three more years to receive the first
teaching diploma ever awarded to an Egyptian woman. In 1905, Malak
Hifn Nsif obtained authorization to teach, and taught for two years
before marrying in 1907. The courses at the Saniyya School were given in
French and English by foreign female instructors and followed a principally British model, while Arabic language classes were given by a sheikh
in the presence of a chaperone. Even if they were not permitted access
to true secondary education (much less higher education), this schooling permitted the girls to attain a level of learning unique at that time,
validated by a certificate of study judged nearly equivalent to that of the
male students.
Nabawiyya Ms, destined to become a fellow-student, friend, and rival
of Malak Hifn Nsif, initially received a very different sort of education.
She was above all an autodidact; she learned to read and write from her
5An excellent analysis of Malak Hifn Nsifs texts is provided by Susanne Brckelmann, Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, Zaynab Fawwz (18601914) und Malak Hifn Nsif
(18861918) (Wrzburg: Ergon Verlag-OIDMG, 2004), 95. For a penetrating and important
article comparing Malak Hifn Nsf, Nabawiyya Ms, and Hud Sharw in their encounters with Western imperialism and European women, see Mervat Hatem, Through Each
Others Eyes: The Impact on the Colonial Encounter and European Women, 18621920,
in Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, ed. Nupur Chaudhuri and
Margaret Strobel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 3558.
6On girls education in the Egypt of the period, cf. Donald M. Reid, Cairo University and
the Making of Modern Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 5156.
301
older brother while teaching herself mathematics and English from books.
Apparently gifted with an exceptional intelligence and a strong will, at
the age of thirteen she decided to enroll in the Saniyya School against
her familys wishes, most notably those of her mother, who judged such
things against propriety (khurjan al qawid al-adab) and religion. She
clandestinely sat for the examination in 1901, and succeeded in achieving
the same level in French and in English as that of fellow students whose
Arabic was considerably inferior to hers. When she became a teacher in
1906 and realized that, lacking a diploma, her salary was to be half that of
her male colleagues, she presented herself for the state secondary school
examination (baccalaureate), then limited to boys. In 1907 she was the first
Egyptian woman to sit for this examination and succeed; she remained
alone in her success until the late 1920s when women began to regularly
sit for the exam.
Going as far as it was then possible for Muslim Egyptian women to go
in their studies, Nabawiyya and Malak were among the first to receive
teaching diplomas that permitted them, in principle, access to employment that was both remunerated and generally recognized as honorable.
They began to write for the press: by the end of 1908 Malak Hifn Nsif
began to publish articles in al-Jarda, while Nabawiyya Ms published in
al-Ahrm, al-Jarda, al Balgh al-usbgh, before founding her own review,
al-Fatt, in 1937. Initially, both of them chose not to write for a womens
press oriented toward women readers, but rather for newspapers read primarily by men. Malak Hifn Nsifs writings struck such a chord that they
were collected in 1910when she was not yet twenty-eight years oldin a
volume published in Cairo under the title al-Nisiyyt [Womens issues].
Acquiring an education in 1907 in a country where female illiteracy was
99 percent was in itself a militant act. Through their teaching, writing,
and actions, both women participated in the Egyptian nationalist movement, seeing in the improvement of womens position a means of rebuilding the nation and liberating it from ignorance. If Nabawiyya Ms later
mourned her own apoliticism in her memoirs, it must be said that some
of her decisionssuch as training Egyptian teachers to replace British or
Syrian teacherswere in themselves political acts, as was her constant
struggle against the Egyptian administration. Malak Hifn Nsif, through
family and marriage, was even closer to the nationalist Egyptian milieu.
It was, in fact, largely nationalism that lent legitimacy to the first wave
of Egyptian feminism. Writing for the newspaper of the al-Umma Party,
al-Jarda, before World War I firmly situated both women in the political
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catherine mayeur-jaouen
landscape of the time, alongside the most secularized and liberal disciples
of the Muslim reformist sheikh Muhammad Abduh (18491905).7
Different Social Origins and Family Histories
Their comparable educations could have led the two feminists to follow
similar trajectories. However, differences in their choices and personal
journeys indicate strongly opposing personalities. To begin with their
social origins, Malak Hifn Nsif belonged to the upper class or at least to
the new elites of the Egyptian state, while Nabawiyya Ms came from the
lower middle class, the very milieu that most strongly rejected schooling
for girls. Their family histories also pointed up very different sensibilities.
In Nabawiyya Mss case, the absence of a father played a determining
role in her education: the child of an Egyptian officer of modest origins
who died before she was born, she was raised by a mother who was intelligent but without formal education, who allowed her a certain amount of
liberty, notably during periods when the family resided in the countryside.
Contrary to the prevailing fashion for girls of the middle class and aristocracy, her mother did not make her study art, piano, embroidery, or even
French. When questioned later about her ignorance of music, dance, and
piano, she responded sharply that she had not been created for that life,8
and that she preferred mathematics. In some ways her choices were deliberately masculine, against the grain of the time and contrary to what, in
Egypt or the Ottoman Empire as in Europe, typically comprised a feminine education.9 An in-depth study of written Arabic seemed equally
7The al-Umma party was founded in 1902 and played an active role until World War I.
The party, with, its modernist, liberal, and Muslim reformist currents, gathered notables,
large land- and property-holders, and disciples of Muhammad Abduh. It was closely connected to the journal al-Jarda, founded in 1906; the journals editor, Ahmad Lutf al-Sayyid
(18721963), was the partys chief ideologue. From 1907 to 1914 al-Jarda served as the
mouthpiece of a liberal elite embracing Egyptian nationalism but hostile to pan-Islamism.
Al-Umma played an important role in efforts to establish the Egyptian University in 1908.
8Nabawiyya Ms, Trkh bi qalam, 56.
9As in the bitter observations of the Countess dAgoult (18051876) on the education
given to young girls of the French aristocracy during the Restoration, from her Mmoires:
In the distribution of time devoted to study, the majority of it was apportioned to pleasing talents. It was said that a woman of good upbringing, when she entered the world,
would have to have learned dance and music, regardless of taste or natural disposition,
and have done so in expectation of a husband who, perhaps in truth, might not like art or
balls, and who, the day after the wedding, might close the piano, throw away the pencils,
put an end to the dances, but who, it was just as possible, might like them as well. The
husband, this hypothetical husband who by the grace of French custom was yet unknown,
303
unnecessary for girls: when they were educated it was preferred that they
study European languages.
Nabawiyya Ms was, in fact, supported by her brother, Muhammad,
ten years her senior, who assisted her in discovering the beauty of the Arabic language and lent her books on English and mathematics. This close
link between brother and sister that survived into adulthood was characteristic of many Arab feminists of that generation. Largely self-taught
and ever guided by a male model, it was Nabawiyya Mss own choice,
contrary to the wishes of her family, to go to the Saniyya School. Her decision to sit for the state secondary school exam in 1907 was made in order
to earn a salary equal to that of a man. This openly declared struggle for
equality between men and women, not seen in the life of Malak Hifn
Nsif, made Nabawiyya Ms a singular figure. For more than twenty
years she remained the only woman in Egypt who held a secondary school
diploma. She was, moreover, the first woman to teach Arabic and the first
woman examiner in Arabic, struggling against professors trained at Dr
al-Ulm who considered it their sole prerogative to teach the language of
the Quran.10 Nabawiyya Ms eventually left the ministry of education to
teach privately and establish private schools.
This rejection of convention contrasts with the seemingly more conformist character of Malak Hifn Nsif, bound as she was by the protocols
of her much higher status and social class. In contrast to that of Nabawiyya
Ms, Malak Hifn Nsifs father played a determining role in her life story.
A figure in the Egyptian reformism of the day and known for his talents
in Arabic, Judge Hifn Nsif was among the founders of the first Egyptian University in 1908. He joined Qsim Amn in calling for the improvement of womens conditions.11 Hifn Nsif encouraged his daughters to
is in the French education of young girls what one could call, in the language of strategy,
the objective of parents and instructors; a vague, variable objective, who lends to all the
plans something vague, inconsistent and superficial, which the most serious of women will
resent all their lives. Daniel Stern, Mmoires, souvenirs et journaux de la comtesse dAgoult
(Paris: Le Temps Retrouv, Le Mercure de France, 2007), 152153.
10Founded in 1872, Dr al-Ulm was a school designed to educate, in a relatively modern spirit, the professors of Arabic who taught the Egyptian public. Its students and teachers often came from al-Azhar.
11 The two books of Qsim Amn (18651908) on the status of women, Tahrr al-mara
and al-Mara al-jadda, aroused various reactions and had considerable repercussions. He
called for relaxing the segregation of the sexes, for a gradual evolution toward unveiling
(sufr), and for girls education. His two books, along with other writings, were reprinted in
Qsim Amn, al-Aml al-kmila, ed. Muhammad Imra (Cairo: Dr al-Shurq, 2006). The
best introduction to the ideas of Qsim Amn is still that of Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought
in the Liberal Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983 [1962]), 164170.
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catherine mayeur-jaouen
further their education. Among students at the Saniyya School, Malak was
known for the high quality of her essays in Arabic. Her father and teachers
encouraged her to compete with the younger Nabawiyya Ms when the
latter enrolled in the school. They were given the same essay subjects to
determine their respective levels; Hifn Nsif judged Nabawiyya superior
to Malakat least according to Nabawiyya.12
In her writings, Nabawiyya Ms gives vent to her jealousy of Malak
Hifn Nsifa jealousy that perhaps, as she suggests, was reciprocated.
Their competition for esteem outlasted their student years, and was
reawakened in Fayyum (a rural center where they both happened to
settle)13 when one was married and the other was a school director. What
began under the eyes of her father was continued under those of Malaks
husband, the sheikh Abd al-Sattr Bsil. Nabawiyya Ms describes in
detail how Bsil read Nabawiyyas articles in al-Jarda, thought highly of
them, and preferred their style and subject matter to those of his wifes.14
In adulthood as in school, it was a male assessment that judged the Arabic
of the two rivals.
In contrast to Nabawiyya Ms, who grew up more or less alone in
the shadow of an admired but often absent brother, Malak Hifn Nsif
was the eldest of six brothers and sisters. As their mother was often ill,
Malak adopted a maternal role toward her siblings. Among them it was
her brother, Majd al-Dn Nsif (18911978), who wrote his sisters biography and published her articles in a second edition.15 But Malak also
had a much younger sister, Kawkab Hifn Nsif, who was able to exceed
the limits experienced by Malak Hifn Nsif. Malaks junior by nineteen
years, Kawkab was one of the first Egyptian women to study in Europe
and became the first woman to direct a hospital in Egypt.16 Thus two
12Rather pettily, Nabawiyya Ms recalled in her memoirs that she bested Malak Hifn
Nsif, to the irritation of the latter, and that Hifn Nsif himself recognized this superiority.
Cf. Nabawiyya Ms, Trkh bi qalam, 47.
13Fayyum is an oasis about 90 kilometers to the west of Cairo. Surrounded by desert,
it was in this rural and conservative region that Nabawiyya Ms worked to develop girls
education and Malak Hifn Nsif married a local sheikh.
14Nabawiyya Ms, Trikh bi qalam, 117118.
15Majd al-Dn Nsif, Muassasat al-nahda al-niswiyya bi-MisrMalak Hifn Nsif, in
Fathiyya Muhammad, Balghat al-nis f l-qarn al-ishrn (Cairo: Husayn Hasanayn, 1925)
and Bhithat al-Bdiyya, reprinted in al-Nisiyyt, 4756. Majd al-Dn Nsif was the secretary of Hud Sharw.
16Kawkab was part of a delegation of twelve Egyptian students sent to France in 1928;
she returned to become the first female director of a hospital in Egypt. Cynthia Nelson,
Doria Shafik, chapter 2.
305
decades were apparently sufficient to fundamentally transform the destinies of educated women.
Divergent Choices, Divergent Lives: Marriage
The divergent life choices of Malak and Nabawiyya point up ambiguities
and impasses in the first generation of Egyptian feminism. When Malak
first began to write for the press in 1908, she adopted the rather transparent pseudonym Bhithat al-bdiyya (Seeker in the Desert) to preserve her
modesty as a married woman, thus permitting her to write. She was not, in
fact, actually seeking to conceal an identity that readers knew was important to her writing. Before 1914, however, an Egyptian womans writing in
a newspaper under her proper name, or even corresponding with strangers, was still frowned upon. A womans writing was regarded as thoughts
addressed to other women, even if male readers also read them. Respect
for the rules of hijb led Malak Hifn Nsif to adopt a pseudonym; and
this reflected romantically and perhaps a bit melancholically on her solitude among the Bedouins of Fayyum. She delivered her famous lectures
of 1909 and 1910 to other women, and it was only via print that men came
to know them. Even when Malak Hifn Nsif sent a list of ten demands
to the Egyptian National Congress in the Spring of 1911, she had to ask a
man, Ahmad Mustaf, to read the report in public. Here she put forward
measures dealing with education, employment, marriage, and divorce:
she proposed that higher education be open to women, that space in the
mosque be made accessible, and that a minimum age for marriage, and
restrictions on spousal repudiation, be established.17
Some of these suggested measures were far from reflecting the demands
of the masses, at a time when most women were not yet seeking to study
or to worship in mosques. Yet they certainly do underscore, through contrast, the situation of women in Egypttheir semi-exclusion from the
17Malak Hifn Nsif had already written on 29 December 1908, an article on the minimum marriage age which she had fixed at sixteen years, cf. Malak Hifn Nsif, Sinn alzawj, al-Jarda, no. 551, Dh l-Hijja 1326, in al-Nisiyyt [ed. 1998], 7982. In her speech
of 1911, among the ten propositions she presented to the congress, her demand to allow
women to enter mosques to pray and hear sermons (with provisions that women come
in through a separate entrance half an hour before men, pray on raised platforms, and
leave earlier) provoked a hot discussion, according to the minutes. But when order was
restored the motion was rejected by a majority of votes, Baron, Womens Awakening in
Egypt, 194. Baron quotes the Foreign Office Archives, First Egyptian Congress, Foreign
Office, 371/1113/18097.
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catherine mayeur-jaouen
18She signed the untitled articles, Damr hurr f jism raqq [A free conscience in a
weak body], in al-Ahrm.
19Arthur Goldschmidt, Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 2000), 139.
20On the latter, cf. Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 170183 and Charles
Wendell, The Evolution of the Egyptian National Image: From its Origins to Ahmad Lutf
al-Sayyid (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972).
21 In the account of her brother, Majd al-Dn Nsif, Muassasat al-nahda al-niswiyya biMisrMalak Hifn Nsif, in Fathiyya Muhammad, Balghat al-nis f l-qarn al-ishrn, 10.
22Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, 183.
307
and in the testimonies of women who visited her in Fayyum she was
described as rather melancholic.
From experience Malak Hifn Nsif was particularly hostile to polygamy.
Her bitter words reveal what she had come to know living in Fayyum: it
is better for the first wife, she wrote, to be repudiated by her husband at
the time of his remarriage than to remain in a polygamous marriage. The
misery and liberty of a repudiated woman is preferable to the misery and
imprisonment of polygamy. She called for polygamous unions be submitted to the approbation of a judge.23 At the same time, she insisted on the
necessity of knowing ones partner before marriagean opportunity that
she herself had not had. While rejecting the idea of marriage for purely
economic reasons, she did not, on the other hand, insist on marriage for
love: contrary to many authors of her time, she had little faith in marriage for love, preferring instead the notion of unions based on reason, on
reciprocal sympathy, and common interest.24 This, ultimately, was what
she experienced herself. Married at twenty-one, she declared that marriage should under no circumstances be permitted until after puberty,
and so that girls could complete their education, she proposed sixteen
as the minimum age for marriage. Her own marriage removed her from
teaching and public life but permitted her to travelnotably to Istanbul
in 1908and to meet frequently with members of the elite of the day,
including European and American women with whom she corresponded
in various languages.25 She became, notably, a friend of the celebrated
Turkish feminist Halide Edip (18841964), whom she met in Istanbul.
Nabawiyya Ms, for her part, adamantly refused three proposals of
marriage, explaining rather bluntly her disgust with the institution as it
existed in Egypt of that time. It seemed to her mathematically impossible that her suitors, all civil servants, could match the living standard
she enjoyed with her own salary, since marriage perforce meant giving
up employmentshe could not, she explained, depend on others. But
above all, I hate marriage and consider it an obscenity (qadhra).26 She
was far from ignorant on sexual matters, explaining that from childhood
she had understood what took place between men and women from the
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catherine mayeur-jaouen
27The poetess Mayy Ziyda (18861941), a contemporary of Malak Hifn Nsif as well
as an admirer and friend, also never married, perhaps because she hosted a salon where
she received male guestssomething no husband would allow. The causes of celibacy in
Mayy Ziyda, who was subject to nervous breakdowns but capable of arousing grand passions, seemed in any case very different from those which motivated Nabawiyya Ms.
28Brckelmann, Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, 139142.
309
While Malak Hifn Nsif did not have children, her role as older sister,
her teaching career, and her charitable work all helped to develop her
ideas on girls education in her writing. She felt that female pupils, as
future wives and mothers, should be educated in housework, since they
were called on to keep house and be responsible for the moral education
of their children.29 Womens education, therefore, should include courses
in the domestic sciences (tadbr al-manzil), in hygiene (qnn al-sihha),
and in pediatrics (tarbiyat al-atfl)the latter in order to combat infant
mortality. But these courses should not be at a level inferior to that of
the boys. On the most basic level of girls education, Malak Hifn Nsif
agreed with Nabawiyya Ms when the latter criticized, in particular, the
quality of the Arabic training she had received. Both also demanded a
well-rounded education founded on morality and ethics which rejected
mere rote learning in favor of critical thinking.30 Malak Hifn Nsif held
that it was necessary to give women a good Islamic education to prevent students slavishly aping Western women: she praised the culture of
Turkish women in this respect and noted their success in marriage with
elite Egyptians who disdained their own uneducated compatriots.31 As
wife and mother, the married woman should not lapse into inert domesticity and content herself with reading novels, but should remain physically active, if not in a sport then in exercise, and live a healthy life as
did the Bedouins and women of the countryside.32 As for reading, useful
books should be preferred over novels.
For her part, Nabawiyya Ms explicitly chose to work, to earn a
living, to be financially independent by earning a salary not only equal
but superior to that of most male colleagues. Her rejection of marriage
was closely linked to her choice of a profession at the highest possible
level. Nabawiyya Ms wrote Women and Employment in 1920, when the
topic was little spoken of in the Egyptian feminist press, and in speeches
she defended womens labor and their equality with men. In contrast to
Malak Hifn Nsif, for whom the feminine ideal remained relatively conventional, Nabawiyya Ms did not call women to the more orthodox pastime of charitable work, and from her pen flowed little of the sweetness
and compassion supposed proper to the ideal woman: she reveals, rather,
29A relatively new idea which appeared around 1895, as underlined by Brckelmann,
Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, 117. Cf. Malak Hifn Nsif, al-Nisiyyt, 69.
30Brckelmann, Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, 122.
31 Brckelmann, Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, 191.
32Malak Hifn Nsif, al-Nisiyyt, 128.
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catherine mayeur-jaouen
the acute sense of being in competition with the men to whom she was
determined to prove her equality. She even opened her memoirs with
a summary of her life as a constant struggle (jihd mustamirr).33 With
regard to girls education, Nabawiyya Ms emphasized competencey in
Arabic and the professional training necessary for a woman, while also
stressing a solid foundation in the Quran and the Sunna as essential to
safeguarding Eastern or Islamic mores (akhlq sharqiyya) and preserving
national identity.
The Veil: For or Against Unveiling
The themes of marriage and employment engaged the whole of society,
but it was the publication of Qsim Amns works in 1899 and 1901 that
made fashionable the debate between partisans of the veil (hijb) and
of unveiling (sufr). Nabawiyya Ms was one of the first female Egyptian Muslims from her social milieu to abandon the face veil (niqb).
She did so in 1909 while directing a girls school in Fayyum well before
Hud Sharws spectacular gesture signaling urbanites to publicly unveil
in 1923. Nabawiyya Ms noted that peasants and the lower classes had
never covered their faces, that the niqb was only a concern of the urban
elite, and that the call to sufr must come in the form of deeds and not
just in words such as those of Qsim Amn. What was the point of the
transparent niqb, she asked, when it still allowed the face, arms, and
neckline to be discerned?
While Nabawiyya Ms chose to reveal her face and hands, hers was
a truly modest sufr, an extremely strict style of dress that hid her neck,
arms, and legsa form of dress that was later refined into one that can
be described as masculine. This was a stand against all those who rhymed
sufr (unveiling) with fujr (immodesty). At the same timeunlike Malak
Hifn Nsifshe refused to shake hands with men, always feigning to
have just made ablutions. Scrupulous in regard to her appointments with
the many men who came to visit, she put a sign above her door announcing, The director will receive men only between 8 AM and 4 PMthat
is, only within working hours. Despite being the only unveiled woman in
her milieu, it was by virtue of her extreme modesty that Nabawiyya Ms
could praise herself for never having given cause for slander. In this way
311
312
catherine mayeur-jaouen
makeup or imitating Western women too closely.36 Veiled when in public, Malak essentially covered herself in black. Together with articles that
pleaded for women to dress conservatively, her choice of dress turned
her into an icon of modest Islamic feminism. In perhaps the first such
example from a woman of her status, she allowed herself to be photographed without her veil. In the published photograph Malak is young,
a bit plump and appearing to be enjoying herself; seated, she is dressed
in Bedouin garb. Her hair is visible under a light veil that frames her fine
features, and she has a pleasant smile with just a hint of coquettery. The
English writer Charlotte Cameron37 described her as a pretty woman who
loved dressing up, and who complained in private of not leading a life of
society or having more occasion to dress a little better. Nabawiyya Ms
herself described Malak Hifn Nsif as a woman in love with, but jealous
of, her husband, and as someone always seeking to please.
We have several photographs of Nabawiyya Ms. Petite, rather unattractive, and always happy to exaggerate her ugliness in the descriptions
that she gave of herself, she claims to have abandoned her femininity
just before the age of thirteen, forever putting away the necklace that her
mother had given her on the occasion of a psychological illness. Puberty
and the entry into the Saniyya School clearly coincided with a deliberate
refusal to act the part of a woman, or at least to resemble other women.
In a public photograph, Nabawiyya Ms appears in a mans collared shirt
and tie, wearing a veil that entirely covers her hair but reveals her face.
Standing there with small glasses, clutching a paper, Nabawiyya Ms
willfully presents herself as an aggressive virago who defies all masculine
authority and sees in women only rivals. She meticulously noted any and
every misogynistic remark made by her brother, her professors, inspectors, and colleagues. Obsessive in her insistence on respect for modesty
(hishma)by female students as by instructorsso that no one could
find fault, she meticulously described her unending combat to force the
admiration, if not the sympathy, of men she encountered on her professional path, men who were to her as adversaries in battle.
36Malak Hifn Nsif, Jaml al-sayyidt, al-Nisiyyt, 123; Brckelmann, Wir sind die
Hlfte der Welt, 191.
37Charlotte Cameron, A Womans Winter in Africa (London: Stanley Paul, 1913), 44 sq.
313
Conclusion
Destiny finally separated the two heroines journeys one last time. On
17 October 1918, Malak Hifn Nsif died of Spanish influenza at age thirtytwo. The many speeches given in her honor along with written and
published homages attest to the great emotion prompted by her death,
which was regarded as much a loss for the world of letters as it was for
the cause of women. Malak Hifn Nsif died too early to witness any of the
decisive transformations of the inter-war period, and we can never know
what she would have thought of these, most notably the unveiling of
urban Muslim women after 1923. Nabawiyya Ms survived her peer by
many years, leaving memoirs, for example, dating from 1937, in which she
looked back on developments in the womens cause. Despite flashes of
pride in a long career of accomplishments, a sharpness in her tone seems
to imply that her struggle for liberty and for the entrance of women into
modernity was above all a personal one.
Leila Ahmed suggests that it was the premature death of Malak Hifn
Nsif, coupled with the organizational and political success of Hud
Sharw and her feminist organization founded in 1923, that led to an
identification of feminism with westernization, while the rather more
reformist, Muslim, and less clearly westernized mode embodied by Malak
Hifn Nsif was ultimately abandoned.38 This opposition is, perhaps, too
simplistic: Malak Hifn Nsif spoke French, English, Arabic, and Turkish,
was inspired by the ideas of Herbert Spencer, cited Victor Hugo and
Charles Darwin, and associated with English and American women. She
never invoked the woman question in terms of religion; it was not an
issue that called on one to cite verses from the Quran or the hadiths of
the Prophet. Malaks brother Majd al-Dn was a member of Sharws
Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU), and it is not unlikely that Malak herself
also joined. In 1924, a commemoration for Malak Hifn Nsif on the seventh anniversary of her death was presided over by Hud Sharw herself.
Malaks younger sister Kawkab took part in the Egyptian movement to
remove the veil at the end of the 1920s. And Nabawiyya Ms, who with
her defense of Islamic mores was never suspected of excessive westernization, supported the movement of Hud Sharw, even accompanying her
at the World Womens Conference in Rome in 1922 and participating in
the founding of the EFU.
38Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, 175.
314
catherine mayeur-jaouen
By the end of the 1920s a current of thought was emerging that was
both hostile to the intermingling of the sexes while calling, at the same
time, for the improvement of womens life conditions on a clearly Islamic
basis.39 Although proponents of that current, and later Islamists, claimed
Malak Hifn Nsif and Nabawiyya Ms for their own, it is not clear that
this appropriation is entirely justified. Malak Hifn Nsifs work calls out
with the vibrant pain of a woman fully conscious of the tragic situation of
women in her country, while Nabawiyya Ms claimed liberty and independence in a world dominated by men.
39Cf. Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, La question fminine vue par la revue no-salafiste alFath la fin des annes 1920: lavnement des ides dune petite bourgeoisie musulmane,
in Modernits islamiques. Actes du colloque organis Alep loccasion du centenaire de la
disparition de limam Muhammad Abduh, ed. Maher al-Charif and Sabrina Mervin (Damascus: Institut franais du Proche-Orient, 2007), 5377.
315
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Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Amn, Qsim. al-Aml al-kmila. Edited by Muhammad Imra. Cairo: Dr al-Shurq,
2006.
Badran, Margot. Feminists, Islam and Nation, Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt.
Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1996 [1995].
Baron, Beth. The Womens Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society and the Press. New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1994.
Brckelmann, Susanne. Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, Zaynab Fawwz (18601914) und
Malak Hifn Nsif (18861918). Wrzburg: Ergon Verlag-OIDMG, 2004.
Cameron, Charlotte. A Womans Winter in Africa. London: Stanley Paul, 1913.
Cooper, Elisabeth. The Women of Egypt. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1914.
Goldschmidt, Arthur. Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt. Boulder, CO: Lynne
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Hatem, Mervat. Through Each Others Eyes: The Impact on the Colonial Encounter and
European Women, 18621920, in Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, edited by Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel, 3558. Bloomington: Indiana
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Hifn Nsif, Malak. al-Nisiyyt, majmat maqlt nasharat f l-jarda f mawd al-mara
al-misriyya. Cairo: Multaq l-mara wa l-dhkira, 1998 [1910, 1925].
Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University
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Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine. La question fminine vue par la revue no-salafiste al-Fath
la fin des annes 1920: lavnement des ides dune petite bourgeoise musulmane,
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de la disparition de limam Muhammad Abduh, edited by Maher al-Charif and Sabrina
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Muhammad, Fathiyya. Balghat al-nis f l-qarn al-ishrn. Cairo: Husayn Hasanayn, 1925.
Ms, Nabawiyya. al-Mara wa-l-amal. Cairo: al-Haya al-Misriyya al-mma li-l-Kitb, 2004
[1920].
. Trkh bi-qalam. Cairo: Multaq l-Mara wa-l-Dhkira, 1999 [1937].
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Reid, Donald M. Cairo University and the Making of Modern Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge
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Sharw, Hud. Harem Years, the Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist. Translated and introduced by Margot Badran. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2003 [1987].
Stern, Daniel. Mmoires, souvenirs et journaux de la comtesse dAgoult. Paris: Le Temps
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Tucker, Judith. Women in Nineteenth-century Egypt. Cambridge, London, and New York:
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Chapter Fourteen
1 My thanks to Anastasia Falierou, Emre ktem, Nikos Sigalas, and zgr Tresay,
without whose assistance this article would not have come to light.
2Sefer E. Berzeg, Kafkas Diasporasnda Edebiyatlar ve Yazarlar Szl [Dictionary
of authors and writers in the Caucasian diaspora] (Samsun: Kafkasya Gerei, 1995), 125.
In his note (125), Sefer Berzeg puts the year of birth at 1896, though this seems improbable
when one takes into account the fact that Hayriye Melek began to publish in womens
reviews in 19081909.
318
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noble clan, the Hun, who were founding members of the village. Hayriye
Meleks father, Kasbolat Bey, belonged to the generation expelled from the
Caucasus, and he mobilized Circassian horsemen in the Manyas region
to form a voluntary auxiliary unit against the Russians during the RussoOttoman war of 18771878. This mobilization demonstrates the influence
of the family among the Circassian immigrants.
As members of the elite class the family possessed slaves and extensive
lands; these gave the family the material means to educate the subsequent
generation, and Ali Sait, Hayriye Meleks half-brother, was able to enter
Harbiye military school in Istanbul.3 Hayriye Melek was one of the few
Muslims who studied at the Catholic girls school of Notre Dame de Sion
in Istanbul.4 The young girl already knew several languages and dialects
of the northwest Caucasus, and attending the school gave her an education in French. Little is known of her years in school. She seems to have
had some psychological or emotional problems5 but was blessed with a
rich imagination and possessed a strong, somewhat rebellious character,
reminiscent of heroines in the novels of Pierre Loti.
Meleks first works appeared in Mehasin, an illustrated review (September 1908November 1909),6 and in the womens press that blossomed
after the Young Turk revolution in 1908. Here she published at least7 five
3On Ali Sait, see Sefer E. Berzeg, Trkiye Kurtulu Savanda erkes Gmenler. II.
[The Circassian migrants during the Turkish liberation war. II] (Istanbul: Nart Yay., 1990),
2425.
4Saadet zen, Yz Elli Yln Tan. Notre Dame de Sion [A hundred-fifty-year testimony. Notre Dame de Sion] (Istanbul: Yap Kredi, 2006). The first requests from Muslim
families to enroll their children in the school date from 1857; but it was not until 1886 that
the first Muslim students were accepted. They remained very few until 1908: 2 of the 46
who enrolled in 1886; 1 of 33 in 1890; 2 of 37 in 1900; 1 of 63 in 1906. They were exempted
from mass and religion classes and their schooling was sometimes much shorter than that
of the other students. The lag between the first requests and the enrollment may be due
to the fact that the nuns were afraid of possible accusations that they were proselytizing
among Muslims.
5She attempted suicide as an adolescent. This was communicated to me by Zeynep
Aksoy, who is studying Circassian associations of the Second Constitutional monarchy at
Bosphorus University. To get an idea of Hayriyes idiosyncrasy, look at the three chapters
in Mnevver Bir Trk hanm Ressam Naciye Neyyal Hanmefendinin Mutlakiyet, Merutiyet
ve Cumhuriyet Hatralar [Souvenirs of absolutism, Second Constitutional monarchy and
Republic by an intellectual Turkish painter, Naciye Neyyal Hanmefendi] (Istanbul: Pnar
Yaynlar, March 2000), 216249.
6Tlay Keskin, Feminist / Nationalist Discourse in the First Year of the Ottoman Revolutionary Press (19081909): Readings from the Magazines of Demet, Mehasin, and Kadn
(Salonica), MA thesis (Bilkent University, Ankara, 2003). Twelve issues came out during
this period.
7One cannot exclude the fact that certain of her works were published under a
pseudonym.
319
literary works, short stories, and poetry.8 In 1910 she published a novel,
Zhre-i Elem [The sorrow of the shepherds star]. Other works followed in
various journals. If there is little proof that Melek participated in womens
associations that flourished at the time, it is certain that she did join the
erkes ttihad ve Teavun Cemiyeti (Circassian Association for Union and
Mutual Aid) created in 1908. She appears to have contributed to the associations social and cultural activities: collecting money for a Circassian
school; helping in the development of a Circassian alphabet in non-Arabic
letters, and contributing to the publication of books on the Circassians
and their culture.
Melek also contributed to Guaze [The guide], a review published in 1911
by the Circassian Association. Included in its first issue is her piece, Bir
Sava Hikyesi [A war story]. This and other articles on the Caucasus wars
can mostly be categorized as patriotic literature, but some, like Kabileler
Arasnda [Among the tribes] have true political significance. In it she
compares the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar with that of the Caucasus
by the Russians, paying particular attention to the divisions and internal
struggles among the tribes that facilitated the work of conquest. In the
issues of Guaze that I was able to consult, I did not encounter any articles
by Melek devoted to the subject of women, except in advertisements in
the review Kadn [Woman], and of course in Zhre-i Elem, Meleks novel.
Unlike those written by the male editors of Guaze (Rza hab, Met Yusuf
zzet Paa, Yusuf Suat), Meleks novel was not serialized.
Traces of Hayriye Melek can be found, throughout World War I, in
the activities of various cultural associations and committees created by
northern Caucasians. In September 1918, she appears as cofounder and
president of a Circassian womens mutual aid society, erkes Kadnlar
Teavn Cemiyeti. A pilot Circassian school was opened near the palaces
of Dolmabahe and Yldz, in Akaretler, in the Beikta district. Though
she did not teach courses herself, Melek was involved in the schools
founding. Despite her engagement in community activities, she maintained involvement in the woman question and never left the circle of
female writers and journalists with whom she had been acquainted before
the war. In August 1918, even before the war had finished, she published
8rpnlar [The beating of wings], Mehasin 5 (Kanun-i Sani 1324), 336342; Firar.
Hikye [The escape. A national story], Mehasin 7 (Mart 1325), 521529; nkisar- Hayal
[Broken dream], Mehasin 8 (Temmuz 1325), 569570, and An- Zaaf. [A moment of weakness], Mehasin 8 (Temmuz 1325), 585589; iir-i Girizan [Girizans poem], Mehasin 11
(Terin Evvel 1325), 782786.
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321
then the USSR). The couple stayed in France until 1942. Melek helped her
husband in his research on the history and folklore of the North Caucasus.
In 1942, Namitok left Paris for Berlin to join other political migrs in conducting anti-Soviet activity under German protection. In the aftermath of
the war, he was captured and imprisoned by the Americans. Melek also
left France in 1942, to find herself once again in a rural Turkish-Circassian
village in the Manyas region. In 1949 Namitok rejoined Melek in Turkey.
In the modest and humorous account of Muza Ramazan, a Dagestani
travel companion, Namitok received no warm welcome from a wife who
reproached him for his long absence, for having sent little news in the
intervening years, and for seeming insufficiently excited to have found
her again.
The couple settled in Istanbul, and Melek threw herself into work for
the North Caucasus associations that had reappeared in Istanbul after the
end of World War II, with the development of a multi-party system and
the beginning of the Cold War. She assisted Professor Georges Dumzil
with his work in linguistics. She passed away at the end of October 1963,
and was buried in Karacaahmet Cemetery.
The Dialectic of Impossible Love and Necessary Respect
Hayriye Melek broached the theme of impossible love in Firar, a work
appearing in Mehasin, and first published in 1908 (but curiously, or erroneously, dated April 1906/1322). The work starts with some general considerations on women, and is followed by a letter from a mother to her
daughter that ultimately tells a story of many voices. The young, educated Ulvi (a nephew of the letters author) and the unschooled Rengin
are in love with each other. It is the Hamidian period, and youth is being
stifled by the regime. In secret, Ulvi shares politically subversive works
with Rengin: Namk Kemals Celal, Ziya Paas Rya, Tercih-i Bend, and
Terkib-i Bend. He shares with her his enthusiasm for revolutionary ideas,
particularly those of the French Revolution. In his rather literary conception of love, women are to him as fragile flowers. For the two lovers there
is no antagonism between love and political ideas; in fact, the former is
sublimated by the latter. Ulvi compares his lover to a Jeanne dArc facing the despotic (istibdat) Hamidian army that has swept over the land.
The two young people announce to their respective parents their love
and desire to marry. In the midst of the wedding preparations, Behin,
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Rengins elder sister, falls gravely ill and faints; it becomes clear that she
also loves Ulvi. Rengin calls off the marriage and goes so far as to tell Ulvi
that she no longer loves him. The political and sentimental idealism of the
young lovers is shattered by the family order, specifically by the presence
of elders.
Zhre-i Elem, published in 1910, depicts a tableau of impossible love,
built upon a classic framework common to novels of the constitutional
period. Osman Hamdi, a young officer of Circassian origin, is in love with
Beria, who happens to be distantly related to him. Their union is impossible, however, endogamy being strictly prohibited by Circassian tradition.
Sabia, another male character, is likewise in love with Beria, though he
would prefer to marry a rich widow with connections at the imperial palace. If love-based marriage, here, is unattainable, it is principally because
of society, its moral norms, and the material inequalities that keep the
lovers apart. Marriage is an unreachable condition, a sort of mirage.
Two short stories that Melek published in Mehasin in 1908 include portraits of unsatisfied and disenchanted married women. There is symmetry
in these stories of women disappointed by love: they are two halves of a
whole. In An- Zaaf, the female narrator bitterly describes her failure
in marriage. She tells how for some months after the wedding she loved
sincerely, romantically, and unreservedly, the man she had married. In
return, her boorish husband neglected her and treated her as an object,
a mere decoration. The profound disillusionment that followed transformed her psychologically. She became semi-hysterical, over-reactive;
sometimes she burst into laughter for no reason at all; just as often she
was thrown into a sort of imagined ecstasy that rendered her delirious. It
seemed she would lose control of her body, and was frequently overcome
with trembling. Despite the state of her health, she resigned herself to
her fate, though she repaid her husband with crushing material demands,
tinged with hate. Looking back, however, she no longer despised him, but
regarded him with a sort of sober, clear-eyed pity.
In iir-i Girizn, the heroine and narrator is the object of the platonic
love of a man who admires and idealizes her, and speaks to her only in
the language of poetry. The lover is paralyzed, and his feelings never pass
from words to deeds. He is incapable of understanding her expectations,
and she remains alone with her tears.
In these two pessimistic works a shared love seems impossible; these
stories are part of Meleks critique of a literary and idealistic conception
of love. In both cases the women are unable, or do not know how to for-
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but in vain, for consolation in Western arts (particularly in music), but her
efforts do nothing to improve her state, and in fact only make it worse.
Love is absent. Its existence is not impossible, but society does not allow
it to flourish. When love does succeed it is only at the cost of a womans
respectability. A womans choice is thus between love (ak) and respect
(hrmet). All in all, confesses Fatma to her friend, if love is impossible, she
prefers to be respected within the sad confines of her family circle.
Marriage and Education
Marriage was the only possibility open to women, though it did not come
without cost. In Firar, Melek returns to this question. In a letter from a
woman to her daughter, Melek advances the idea that women marry and
produce offspring almost automatically, by instinct, without knowing anything of motherhood or childrens education. Their husbands, who do not
understand them and with whom they have to struggle to communicate,
do not make the least effort to educate their daughters. She proceeds to an
examination of two cases, both representing extremes condemned by the
author: the family-arranged marriages of young girls; and the uninhibited
choice of husbands by free, but uneducated, women.
Melek explains that in marriage, as a general rule, females are not
expected to have opinions, nor do they have the freedom to choose their
husbands. When she reaches the age of sixteen, suitors begin to compete
for her hand, and if a girl is rich her chances are greatly improved. Such
girls, however, concerned solely with their appearance, invariably understand nothing of the game. Yet leaving the choice to the girls would not
improve things: as in the well-known proverb, a girl might well choose a
penniless musiciana clarinet (zurna) or drum (darbuka) player. Free
and hard-headed girls, in revolt against their families, unwisely throw
themselves into relationships that can only lead to misery and failure. At
all costs, they must be educated in morality and the love of family, and
they must wait until twenty-two or twenty-three to marry. This, according to Melek, would be the best way to render women useful to society,
and mistresses of their households. Marriage must not be based on mere
feeling, hazardous by definition. If marriage is a professional relationship in which love is a contract, it must not be based on rash decision or
passing fancy, but on a calm, sober dialogue of mutual understanding. In
the event that women receive good educations, they must be left free to
choose their marriage partners.
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alexandre toumarkine
the object of their reflections, argued Melek, but conceived a generic, universal woman, the woman. Womens true condition was entirely misunderstood in studies restricted to generalities and written by authors that
had limited access to Ottoman society. The author establishes a three-part
typology: the woman of Istanbul, of Anatolia, and of Syria. The first category of Stambuliots was further subdivided into three groups: those who
have the status or the means to afford education (terbiye) and instruction
(tahsil) to the extent that these are possible in the Ottoman Empire; those
who have some access to knowledge (malumat) but have not experienced
transformation (tahavvl) in their domestic lives or in their education;
and finally, the ignorant. This classification is clearly based on the function and degree of education.
The first of these Stambuliot sub-categories was that of female intellectuals (mnevver). It was a specific class not to be found, to such a degree,
anywhere else in the Empire. The social model of Istanbul women was
seen as a model for emulation. Yet these women shared only a similar level
of education, and did not form a coherent group. They had overthrown
tradition and belief, had revolted against religion, morality, and family,
against all that had previously been sacred. But because this revolt was not
directed at a precise target, it could be expressed as no more than everyday
resentment. Such women expected a rapid transformation (tahavvl) of
their social and family position and imagined that only superficial differences divided them from Western women. They devoted all their energy
to dressing well and appearing as beautiful as possible. While intelligent,
refined, and disposed to change (tahavvl) and imitation (taklid), these
women were weak-willed and superficial. If they formed part of a small
circle in which women were allowed to accompany their husbands, it was
a circle closed to the rest of society: in the public gardens, theaters, and
restaurants that would tolerate a Christian man with a woman on his arm,
the door was closed to a Muslim man accompanied by his wife. A woman
who had no role to play in public areas and places of entertainment could
earn neither a living nor a place in the public sphere. Women who, upon
reflection, came to understand the truth of their situation, bcame fixated
on the idea that people, society, and even nature acted unjustly toward
them; that they must no longer be reduced to obedience to masculine
laws and a society that permitted them to taste nothing but despotism
(istibdat) and humiliation (mezellet).
Whereas Meleks Hamidian-era heroines dreamed of a double liberation in the political and moral orders, the mnevver feminists of the
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The second, who had often received a primary education at the rdiye
schools, were aspiring, ambitious, and sought to improve themselves as
autodidacts. Melek explained that for this group there was no brusque
and violent (edit) change (tahavvl), no revolt or upheaval, but rather a
natural (tabii) and gradual (tedrici) evolution (tekaml). More tied to the
past, more conservative in spirit, they suffered less of the confusion of cultivated women. Their ideas were simpler, but their spirits more balanced,
their nerves more solid and their wills stronger. They devoted themselves
to their children, and while they were satisfied with neither society nor
their condition, they were not victims of the morbid impotence (marazi)
of the women of the upper class. Melek concluded by saying that if these
women could overcome their inexperience and dissatisfaction, if they
could complete the process of self-improvement, there was a chance they
could become the most useful group of women to the nation, its most
qualified and capable members.
The Caucasus, a Literary Motif?
As described above, Zhre-i Elem recounts the impossible love of two
relatives, Osman Hamdi and Beriya, both Circassians. The youth and the
young girl, each in his/her room, seek imaginary escape in reading and
dreaming of the Caucasus. As Osman Gndz notes, in literature of the
Second Constitutional monarchy the Caucasus had become a nostalgic
memory and was no longer a real place; when evoked it was in reference to throwing off enslavement and the struggle for the abolition of
slavery. smail Parlatr argues that these themes were not original, but
in fact a reprise of Tanzmt period literature, in particular the works of
Samipaazade Sezai (Sergzet) and Ahmet Midhat Efendi (Esaret, Firkat,
Faik Bey, etc.). As Melek intended her work for a larger public not limited to the Circassian community, it is not surprising that the Caucasus
and its countryside served as little more than a decorative element; it is
more astonishing, however, that this same treatment was widespread in
the journal Guaze as wellthus this attitude was not peculiar to Melek
alone but also applied to other Ottoman writers of Circassian origins who,
like her, had been educated in Western culture.
Seventeen years later, in 1927, Hayriye Melek published a story entitled La Voix du Vautour [The cry of the vulture] in Promthe, a French
journal organized by political migrs from Russia. The story recounts the
wandering of its female narrator in the solitude of the splendid forests
329
of the Caucasus, in search of scattered traces of a past life. An apparition in the form of a young girl in traditional Circassian dress invites her
into a house. From there she hears the foreboding cry of a vulture coming
from Mt. Elbrouz, and the rattling of Prometheus chains from the cave
where he was imprisoned. In the future, the Caucasus would be empty
of its inhabitants and nature is called upon to evoke a past life, a world,
now disappeared, that had existed before mass emigration to the Ottoman Empire. The death of Circassian civilization echoes in the cry of the
vulture. If one day Prometheus were to break his chains it would be as
the breaking of the entire worlds chains. The legacy of Circassian civilization is that of teaching liberty to mankind. It is in accomplishing this
universal mission, in liberating the worlds peoples, that the descendents
of the mountain Circassians of the Caucasus would rediscover the sense
of their lost civilization.
Meleks article echoes one published previously by Ahmet Midhat
Efendi in the journal Krkambar that praises the Ciracassians love of liberty, form of government, and way of life, in a critique of the unjust Ottoman order, its abuse of authority. Elite Circassian Ottomans came from a
society strictly regulated by a code of relations, the xabze, in which the status of women (provided they were not slaves) and the relations between
the sexes seemed much more egalitarian and moderntherefore more
Westernthan that of the Ottoman society around them. These Circassians often had divided feelings, combining this bridge toward modernity
with a backward-looking instinct to preserveif not return tothe past.
This ambivalence is reflected in the conservative moral tendencies in
Hayriyes writings.
The Circassian National Cause
On 12 March 1920, Hayriye Melek, as editor-in-chief, authored the front
page editorial for Diyane [Our mother], the new organ of the Circassian
Womens Mutual Aid Society (erkes Kadnlar Teavun Cemiyeti). That
issue included a lengthy essay by Meleks husband, Met zzet, on connections between Circassian culture and Hittite civilization and Greek
mythology, and an article on the social role of women by Sezah Poh, the
young and tomboyish daughter of the journals owner, Nazmi Paa. Meleks
editorial recounts the long struggle of the Circassians against the Russians
and the martial qualities they demonstrated. It emphasizes that while her
peoplea small nation, courageous yet weakwaged a vital battle for
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survival, it had to be fought by means other than violence. It was the mission of Circassian women to temper that masculine tendency to choose
war as the means of confrontation in the national endeavor. Melek argues
that the greatest victories would not be those of the battlefield but won in
other areas and with other arms, namely those of culture and education.
Melek invited Circassian youth to study, publicize, and promote their
nation in all cultural domains (history, linguistics, arts, music, social life,
etc.); that she had in mind the sort of heroic literature she had published
in Guaze cannot be doubted. The war did not incite this feminist to harden
and militarize her discourse, rather the contrary. She had seen with her
own eyes the predicament of the North Caucasian diaspora community
which, having lost interest in the geographical homeland tore itself apart
during the national struggle that had erupted in Turkey, with Circassians
fighting on both sides as partisans of the Sultan and of the Kemalist rebellion. Unfortunately, not a single issue of the journal remains.
The Circassian womens association created in 1918 by five Circassian women9 and headed by Melek, and the Circassian school opened in
Beikta (Akaretler) are known more for their reputations than for their
activities. The authorities in Istanbul from the start regarded the association with some distrust and it seemed to serve as a screen for Circassian
political activism, particularly after the closure, in 1919, of the North Caucasus Association (imali Kafkasya Cemiyeti) by the English occupation
force, on charges of colluding with Turkish unionists. The school, for its
part, received and sheltered Circassians who had landed in Istanbul with
the remnants of Wrangels White Army in 19221923.
School and Education, Matrices of the National Project
In addition to political activism, the association devoted its energies also
to its avowed purpose, namely education and social aid, mainly through
the Circassian school opened in Beikta.10 The school was closed in 1923
9Beside Hayriye Melek and Sezah Poh, three names are of interest: Emine, the wife
of retired Ottoman general Reit Paa; Faika, wife of an Egyptian paa, erkes shak; and
Makbule, wife of an Ottoman deputy, Mazhar Mfit. Emine became the general secretary
of the association and Sezah Poh the treasurer.
10The school in Beikta comprised six grades (in total 150180 students) and was innovative in three regards: it was practically coeducational, it offered a nursery school for
children of four to six years of age, and it taught the Circassian language using the Latin
alphabet, an accomplishment of the erkes Ittihad ve Teavun Cemiyeti in 1908. The subjects (language, literature, geography of the Caucasus, and history) concerning Circassian
331
culture were taught in the Circassian language; the others, including Ottoman and French
languages, geography, drawing, music, dance, and gymnastics, in Ottoman. The school also
housed a confectionary that employed Circassian women in need.
11 The law for wearing hats was issued on 25 November 1925. This law (cf. Article 1) provides that Members the Great National Assembly of Turkey, officials and the employees
in public, private and local administrations, are obliged to wear the hat that the Turkish
nation has adopted. The general headgear of the people in Turkey is the apka (hat), and
the persistence of any habit in opposition to the hat is prohibited by the government.
(Cf. TBMM Zabt Ceridesi (1925)).
12erkes Ethem (18861948), Ethem the Circassian, was the founder and leader of a
militia force, Kuvayy Seyyare (Mobile forces), fighting, in 19191920, the Greek Army that
had landed on the shores of western Anatolia. His militia also repressed local revolts
some of them paradoxically conducted by North Caucasiansagainst the Anatolian uprising headed by Mustafa Kemal. Ethem refused to put his forces under the authority of
Ankaras National Assembly and merge with the regular army. He tried in vain to continue
fighting as an independant force but finally surrendered to the Greek army and was therefore stigmatized by Ankara as a traitor.
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alexandre toumarkine
whose family-oriented feminism supported reform but not through coercive means, was wary of the new Kemalist regime while approving some
developments, for example, in womens education.
The Preface to Zeynep: Speaking of Egypt to Speak of Turkey?
It was with Zeynep, a strange book published in 1926, that Melek broke
her silence. Remarkably, this book did not deal with the Caucasus or the
Turkish Republic; nor did the author choose the final years of the Ottoman Empire as a background. Rather the story takes place in Egypt in
1919. In a long preface, Melek retraces the history of Egyptian nationalism
and the struggle for the rights of Egyptian women. She outlines the official genealogy of the national movement, beginning with Mustafa Kmil
Paa, then Mehmet Ferit (Mohammed Farid) Bey, and finishing with Saad
Zaghll, who is presented as not the head of a party (the Wafd), but of a
nation, and with whom Melek was said to have become acquainted while
in Egypt. The struggle for the rights of women is presented as a modest,
but real, part of the Egyptian national movement.
For the author, there existed in Egypt a real class of educated women,
intellectuals (mnnever) conscious of their mission and willing. Her
choice of words recalls an article published in Trk Yurdu in August 1918
during the Second Constitutional monarchy, in which she had reached
the opposite conclusion. In passing, Melek invokes the work of Qsim
Amnthe Ottoman public knew him from a translation of his Hrriyet-i
Nisvan [Womens freedom] published in Istanbul in 1913signaling to
readers familiar with the history of Ottoman feminism that Egyptian
feminism also had a remarkable history. But above all, she highlights the
numerous women, many whom she claimed to have met, who played a
pioneering role in Egyptian feminism: in the front rank was Malak Hifn
Nsif (18861918), who represented women at the Egyptian National Congress of Heliopolis (1911), followed by reformers like Hud Sharw, Saiza
Nabarawi, Nabawiyya Ms, or even Ester Fanous.
The Egyptian womens movement is praised for its contribution to
what Melek calls the events (hadisat), or revolution (ihtilal), of 1919. She
means, of course, the massive demonstrations of March 1919, an uprising
that began in Cairo and then spread to the rest of the country (leaving
800 dead), and that led the British to exile Zaghll to Malta. As mentioned
above, Melek had joined Halide Edip in the 1919 demonstrations in Istanbul protesting the landing of the Greeks at Izmir. Given the omission of
333
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335
was, if not her guide, at least a point of reference, she managed to produce
real coherence between the nationalistic engagement and the womens
cause. In both domains she defended the necessity of fighting for education and culture by political means, not by force of arms. The ten years
of military conflict from the Balkan Wars to World War I to the War of
Independence did not turn this nationalist feminist into a helmeted Amazon, calling on mothers to sacrifice their children. But in the manner of
her last heroine, Nadia, she bore the sorrow of those who are exiles from
the homeland. Parallel to institutional activities her commitment to education in and promotion of Circassian culture also manifested itself in
her choice of marriage partners and paradoxically in her literary silence
and exile in France, showing that she never renounced the quest for a
vanished past while insisting on the necessity of liberty.
336
alexandre toumarkine
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Notes on Contributors
Elif Ekin Akit is an associate professor at the Department of Political
Science and Public Administration in Ankara University and currently
teaches Ottoman, Turkish, and womens history. She completed her PhD
at the Department of History of Binghamton University with the thesis
Girls Education and the Paradoxes of Modernity and Nationalism in the
Late Ottoman Empire and Early Turkish Republic. She is the editor of a
feminist e-journal: -fe journal. Akits current research and publications
concern the gendered significance of space in historical neighborhoods
and female readership of heroic stories. Among her recent publications
are The Womens Quarters in the Historical Hammam, Gender, Place,
Culture, 18, (2011); Harem Education and Heterotopic Imagination,
Gender and Education 23, (2011); The Usage of Film in Womens History,
Womens Memory: The Problem of Sources, (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011); Politics of Decay and Spatial Resistance, Social &
Cultural Geography 11, (2010); Fatma Aliyes Stories: Ottoman Marriages
Beyond the Harem, Journal of Family History 35, (2010).
Anastasia Falierou is adjunct professor in the Faculty of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies, University of Athens. She received her PhD in history
from the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales (HSS) in Paris.
She has worked as a fellow in the French Institute for Anatolian Studies
in Istanbul (IFA) and as an instructor in the University of Baheehir,
Istanbul. Her scholarly interests concern Ottoman social and cultural history, gender history, Balkan history, history of Modern Turkey and the
Middle East. Her recent publications are From the Ottoman Empire to
the Turkish Republic: Ottoman Turkish Womens Clothing between Tradition and Modernity, in From Traditional Attire to Modern Dress: Modes of
Identification, Modes of Recognition in the Balkans (XVIthXXth Centuries),
ed. C. Vintil-Ghiulescu (New Castle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2011), and La rvolution jeune-turque de 1908, une rvolution
de la condition fminine dans lEmpire ottoman? in Livresse de la libert:
la rvolution de 1908 dans lEmpire ottoman, ed. F. Georgeon (Belgium:
Peeters de Louvain, 2012).
Franois Georgeon is retired Director of Research at CNRS and Director
of UMR-8032, Turkish and Ottoman Studies (CNRS-EHESS-Collge de
340
notes on contributors
France). He has been teaching Ottoman history in the cole des Hautes
tudes en Sciences Sociales since 1985 and has written several books and
articles on the history of the Ottoman Empire. Among his recent publications are Abdlhamid II. Le sultan calife (18761909) (Paris: Fayard, 2003)
[Turkish translation, 2006]; Abdrrechid Ibrahim, Un Tatar au Japon. Voyage en Asie (19081910), translated from Ottoman Turkish, presented and
annotated in collaboration with Ik Tamdoan (Paris: Sindbad-Actes Sud,
2004); Sous le Signe des Reformes. tat et Socit de lEmpire Ottoman
la Turquie Kemaliste (17891939) (Istanbul: ISIS, 2009); Les Ottomans et
Le Temps (edited volume with Frderic Hitzel) (Leiden: Brill, 2011); and
Livresse de la libert: la rvolution de 1908 dans lEmpire ottoman, ed.
F. Georgeon (Belgium: Peeters de Louvain, 2012).
Catherine Mayeur Jaouen is agrege in history and professor of modern
and contemporary Islamic history in the Institut National des Langues et
des Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), Paris. Her research interests focus
on the cult of saints in the Muslim world, Muslim reformism in connection with the Arabic language, the family in Islam and the womens question in the Arab world from the end of the nineteenth century to the
1940s. Among her publications are Plerinages dgypte, Histoire de la pit
copte et musulmane (XVeXXe sicles) (Paris: Editions de lcole des hautes
tudes en sciences sociales 107, 2005); LAnimal en islam, in collaboration
with Mohammed Hocine Bekheira et Jacqueline Sublet (Paris: Les Indes
Savantes, 2005); Le corps et le sacr en Orient musulman, REMMM ns 113
114, Edisud, November 2006 (in collaboration with Bernard Heyberger).
M. Erdem Kabaday obtained his BSc in economics from Middle East Technical University, Ankara in 1995, and his MSc, in the same discipline, from
the University of Vienna in 1999. Since April 2006, he has been working in
the History Department of Istanbul Bilgi University and has completed his
PhD dissertation on Ottoman labor history at the Middle Eastern Studies
Department of Munich University (2008). He is now an associate professor at the same institution. Kabadays research currently focuses on statesubject relations in the late nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire with a
special emphasis on labor and ethno-religious history.
Hasmik Khalapyan holds a PhD in history from the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. The topic of her dissertation was Womens
Question and Womens Movement among Ottoman Armenians, 1875
1914. Her recent publications include Womens Education, Labour or
notes on contributors
341
Charity: Significance of Needlework Among Ottoman Armenians, Womens History Magazine (Summer 2006) and Kendine Ait Bir Feminizm:
Zabel Yesayann Hayat ve Faaliyetleri [A feminism of her own: Zabel
Yessayans life and activism], trans. Maral Aktokmakyan, in Bir Adalet
Feryad: Osmanldan Trkiyeye Be Ermeni Feminist Yazar 18621933 [A
cry for justice, five Armenian feminist writers from the Ottoman Empire
to the Turkish Republic, 18621933], ed. Lerna Ekmekcioglu and Melissa
Bilal (Istanbul: Aras Yaynlar, 2006).
Duygu Kksal is an associate professor at the Atatrk Institute for Modern
Turkish History, Boazii University, Istanbul. She received her PhD in
political science at the University of Texas at Austin and has written on
the social history of Turkish Republican literature, early Republican cultural policy and plastic arts, as well as the history of early Republican
women. She is currently working on the social history of late Ottoman
women and children, and modernism in early Republican culture.
Elif Mahir Metinsoy received her PhD from the department of Cultures
et Socits en Europe at the Universit de Strasbourg (France) and the
Atatrk Institute for Modern Turkish History at Boazii University in
2012. She wrote her dissertation on Ottoman Turkish womens everyday
politics during World War I. Her current research is on the social and
economic effects of the continuous wars from 1912 to 1922 on Ottoman
women and on the impact of modernization and nationalism on Turkish
etiquette, Ottoman womens fashions, and Turkish feminism from 1908
to 1945.
Rachel Simon received her PhD from Hebrew University at Jerusalem. Her
research focuses on the late Ottoman period, with special reference to
Libya, Palestine, gender, and education. Among her numerous publications are the books Libya between Ottomanism and Nationalism (1987) and
Change Within Tradition among Jewish Women in Libya (1992). She is currently one of the editors of the second and online edition of the Encyclopedia on Jews in the Islamic World (Brill). Among the entries she contributed
to the encyclopedia are Printers and Printing Houses, Journalism, and
a list of Jewish journals in the Islamic world.
Burcu Pelvanolu is a faculty member at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul. She received her PhD in contemporary Turkish art at Mimar
Sinan Fine Arts University. She has several publications on the history of
342
notes on contributors
the plastic arts in Turkey and contemporary art. Among her more recent
publications is A Turning Point of Turkish Plastic Arts: Hale (Salih) Asaf
(Istanbul: Yap Kredi Yaynlar, 2007) and Fsun Onur, Documenta 13 Publications (Kassel, 2012).
Alexandre Toumarkine is currently a research fellow at the Orient Institut
in Istanbul. He is an agrg in history and has worked as the scientific
director of the French Institute for Anatolian Studies in Istanbul (IFA).
He received his PhD from Paris IV-Sorbonne University. He has studied
the history of the Ottoman Empire and contemporary Turkey, focusing on
migrations in the Ottoman Empire in the Black Sea and Caucasus regions.
His current areas of interest include the social history of war in the Ottoman Empire, the relationship between state and society in contemporary
Turkey, and the history of science and its relation to history.
D. Fatma Tre is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration in Ankara University. She received her
PhD from the Atatrk Institute for Modern Turkish History at Boazii
University; and her MA from the Department of Turkish Literature and
Language at the same university. The title of her PhD dissertation is
Images of Istanbul Women in the 1920s. Her recent publications include
Cinsel Politika Kuram ve Kadn Sylemi [Sexual politics and female narrative], Szden Yazya: Edebiyat ncelemeleri (Istanbul: Boazii niversitesi Yaynlar, 1994), 717; Alafranga Bir Hanm [An la Franca woman],
Toplumsal Tarih (Istanbul: Tarih Vakf Yurt Yaynlar, 1997), 4246; zgrlkle Gelen Mstehcenlik [Obscenity out of freedom], Tarih ve Toplum
(Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 1999); and Mahrem Tarih [Secret history]
Tarih ve Toplum, 2001.
zgr Tresay is currently teaching at Galatasaray University in Istanbul, at the Department of Political Science. He received his PhD from the
Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO, Paris)
in 2008. His dissertation is on Ebzziya Tevfik (18491913), a renowned
Ottoman intellectual of the second half of the nineteenth century. He has
published several chapters and articles on late Ottoman intellectual history in scholarly journals such as Turcica, tudes Balkaniques, Cahiers Pierre
Belon, Anthropology of the Middle East, Tarih ve Toplum Yeni Yaklamlar, Mteferrika, Kebike, and Toplumsal Tarih. His current research is focused on
multiple aspects of the social, political, and intellectual history of the late
Ottoman Empire including topics such as the echoes of the Dreyfus Affair
notes on contributors
343
INDEX
Abduh (Muhammad)302, 314 n. 39
Abdullah Cevdet88 n. 11, 102
Adam74, 195 n. 51
Ahmet Cevdet Pasha136
Ahmet Mithad Efendi156, 160, 328329
Ahmet Rza88 n. 11, 160
Akbaba250251, 256257, 260
Aleppo7 n. 11, 35 n. 20, 118, 334
Alexandria118, 206, 298
Alliance Israelite Universelle [also when
the text has just Alliance or AIU]18,
118123, 125126
America19, 22, 167, 173 n. 1, 281283, 285,
288292, 294, 325
Amn (Qsim)229, 230 n. 15, 297, 303,
306, 310311, 332
Ankara97, 137, 139, 167, 173, 262, 273,
320, 331, 339340, 342
Apollo203
Arevelian Tatron40, 41 n. 40
Arousyak4043
Artemis43
Ak- Memnu156
Athens206, 339
Austro-Hungarian Empires69
Awwd (Victoria)300
Aydede250251, 259, 262, 264, 267, 270,
271 n. 46
Baghdad116 n. 30, 126 n. 67
Beyolu104, 189, 260
Bilgi Yurdu I90
Bin Bir Buse, En en En uh Hikayeler
(a Thousand and One Kisses)179, 185
Bitola206
Bosnia-Herzegovina68
Bosphoris219220
Bosphorus104, 258260, 262, 298, 318 n. 5
Boston167, 206
Brown, Kenneth281, 282 n. 1, 285
Bulgarian Exarchate20, 202, 210
Bulgarians214
Bursa34 nn. 1415, 67, 137, 159 n. 16, 189
Byou Zandyon36 n. 22, 37, 44
Cairo42 n. 51, 72 n. 25, 118, 120, 297299,
301, 304 n. 13, 332333
Calliope203
Cappadocia212
Castelorizo206
Cemal Nadir250
Central School for Girls (Kentriko
Parthenagogeio)208
Cevri Kalfa Mektebi159
Charitable Society of the Ladies of Nevehir
in Constantinople The Resurrection
(Filoptohos Adelfotita ton Kirion tis
Neapoleos stin Konstantinoupoli
I Anastasis Nevehir)212
Chios206
Constantinople34 n. 12, 3536, 40, 42
n. 51, 43, 202, 205, 207 n. 12, 209, 212,
214 n. 33, 219220, 241
Corfu206
Crete206
Dalloportas210
Damascus120
Drlmuallimt136, 159160, 229
Demet88, 191 n. 35, 318 n. 6
Democrat Party147148
Diyogen208 n. 15
Dumas, Alexandre42 n. 51
Dussap, Serbouhi3132
Ebuzziya Tevfik226227, 231245, 342
Edirne67, 118, 206
Efthifron210
Egypt7, 22, 33, 42 n. 51, 91 n. 22, 118, 126
n. 69, 140, 195, 237 n. 45, 297298, 300,
302305, 307, 311, 332333
Elaz138
Emine Semiye87
Erenky99 n. 43, 104
Eurydice20, 202203, 205, 212220
Ev Hocas90, 95
Evangellidou Virginia220
Eve60, 112 n. 18, 189 n. 29, 213, 273, 333
Eyb68
Fcia ve Ak Serisi (Disaster and Love
Series)186
Fatih91
Fatma Aliye87, 102, 133, 135, 160, 229
n. 14, 230, 240, 243
Fausto Zonaro157, 162
346
index
index
Locke, John284
Louys43
Lutf al-Sayyid (Ahmad)43
Macedonia52, 56, 214 n. 34
MacFarlene66
Madamme Rafael159
Magdalene217, 218 n. 44
Malakopi212
Manisa137
Marseille206
Mavrogenis Spyros210
Mehasin88, 185 n. 10, 318, 321322
Mehmed Rauf185
Mehmet Cavid [Minister of Finance]102
Mihri (Mfik) Hanm19, 155, 157,
159162, 164, 166169
Mitilini206
Moliere40 n. 35, 271
Morocco126
Mousouros Stephanos207 n. 14
Ms (Nabawiyya)2223, 298304,
306307, 308 n. 27, 309314, 332
Mustafa Kemal145, 233, 331 n. 12, 333
Muuru Han203
Mfide Ferid160
Mfide Kadri159
Namk Kemal88, 160, 232, 321
Nsif (Hifn)2223, 298314, 332
Nsif (Majd al-Dn)304, 306 n. 21, 313
Nazl Ecevit161
New York167, 241, 281, 293
Nezhe Muhiddin11 n. 18, 91
Orpheus203
Ottoman Empire12, 69, 12, 22, 32 n. 8,
3334, 38, 44, 49, 51, 53, 5657, 6568,
70 n. 20, 71, 73, 79, 8588, 90, 91 n. 22, 92
n. 28, 94 n. 29, 105, 109, 112 n. 20, 113114,
115 n. 25, 116 n. 28, 117118, 120, 122, 127,
133, 145, 155, 201 n. 3, 202, 205206,
207 n. 14, 209, 214, 220221, 225, 228,
233234, 242243, 251, 252 n. 7, 268, 281,
283285, 290, 297298, 302, 326, 329,
332, 339343
Ottoman Theater3940, 41 n. 40, 42
n. 51, 251
Palestine115 n. 27, 116 n. 28, 118 n. 35,
119120, 122123, 124 n. 60
Papazian, Aghavni40
Pera36 n. 22, 44, 102, 208, 252, 274
Phanariot aristocracy206
347
Preveziotou Cornilia220
Prince Islands205, 285
Racine202 n. 5
Ramiz Gke250
Refik Halid250
Rgie49, 52, 5556
Religious and Educational Society of
those from Malakopi the Orthodoxy
(Thriskeftiki ke Ekpedeftiki Adelfotita
Malakopiton I Orhtodoxia)212
Resimli Ay104, 174 n. 2
Rid (Rashd)299 n. 2
Rousseau, Jean Jacques284
Ruuk206
Sabiha Sertel104, 144
Saint Fotini (Hagia Fotini)202 n. 5
Salih Zeki Bey159
Salonika13 n. 26, 206
Samartzidou Euphrosyne208
Samos202 n. 5, 206
Sedad Simavi250
Selanik16, 4853, 5558, 6061, 343
Sharw (Hud)299 n. 3, 300 n. 5, 313
Shafik (Doria)299 n. 3, 304 n. 16
Simi206
Socialist Workers Federation of
Selanik56, 60
Socit anonyme207 n. 13
Society for the Female Education in
Constantinople (Syllogos Iper tis
Ginekeias Ekpedefseos)219
Strike13 n. 26, 51, 56 n. 34, 5758, 60
Sultan Abdlhamid87, 159 n. 18, 164
n. 33, 229
Sultan Mahmud II66
Ss90, 92, 174 n. 2, 175 n. 2, 185 nn. 10, 14
emsettin Sami160
inasi160, 232, 240
kfe Nihl [Baar]90, 9697, 105
kfezr88, 208
Takvim-i Vekayi68
Tanzimat86, 97, 133, 136, 156, 207, 228,
236, 328
Taylorism142143
Terakki47, 85 n. 1, 166, 208, 230
the Golden Horn68, 262
the Ottoman archives (Babakanlk
Osmanl Arivi, BOA)65, 67
the Society for the Employment of
Ottoman Muslim Women79, 262
n. 28
348
index