History M.A. Student Melahat Fındık's Conference Participation
History M.A. student Melahat Fındık will present her paper titled “Local Reactions to Central Practices: The Barzan Case” at the 27th Annual Middle East History and Theory (MEHAT) Conference which will be held at the Universtiy of Chicago, USA, on May 4-5, 2012.
ABSTRACT
In this study, we investigate the reactions of Barzan Tribe, local tribe lives in the Mosul province, to Ottoman’s reforms that aimed to strengthen the central government during the early Second Constitutional Period based on correspondences between the Barzan Tribe and the Central Government.
The Ottoman Empire experienced a transition from an empire to a modern state at the beginning of 19th century. During this transition period there were several attempts to strengthen the central government through several reforms with the goal of keeping the population under a more strict control by enforcing order and uniformity.
Building uniformity throughout the Empire draws our attention to the relationship between the center and the periphery. While Şerif Mardin is describing this relationship as a confrontation between the center and the periphery, he underlines the “de facto” character of autonomy of peripheral groups. In the case of Ottoman Empire, there were various “peripheral” groups that could not be amalgamated to the Ottoman administrative and political system, because of their religious and cultural characteristics.
This study focuses on the reactions of local leaders of local Kurdish tribes, to the practices of military and administrative representatives of central government. We observe that the government and its representatives were very insusceptible to their complaints about the maltreatment of the Barzan tribe. In this study, while describing the local reactions, we will also share original telegraphs sent by the local leaders to administrative authorities, immediately following the beginning of the Second Constitutional Period. After explaining Ottoman center-periphery relations, we compare these relations with proto-federal Russia, after the fall of the USSR, in 1991, within the context of confrontation.