Master Thesis Defense: Hatice Sezer
"Notions of "Medeniyet","Terakki", and "Asabiyet" in the Context of Ottoman Modernization Process: An Attempt to Understand the Reformist Horizon of Ahmed Cevdet Paşa"
Hatice Sezer
History, MA Thesis, 2015
Thesis Jury
Selçuk Akşin Somel (Thesis Supervisor), Yusuf Hakan Erdem, M.Talha Çiçek
Date &Time: August,5th 2015 – 14:30
Place: FASS 2054
Abstract
In this thesis, the reformist horizon of the eminent nineteenth century intellectual
Ahmed Cevdet Paşa is analysed. This was the time period when the Ottoman modernization
process was already widely accepted as being composed of developments both in the military
technologies and in the intellectual environment. In this process, instead of favouring the
direct adoption of the modernizing socio-political system that has been developed in the West,
Cevdet was mainly supporting the organic change of societies. As a result of the analyses we
made by looking into several projects Cevdet worked in such as the Mecelle project, the
Târih-i Cevdet, the Tezâkîr and the Ma’rûzât, we concluded that Cevdet’s understanding of
the three concepts; “medeniyet”, “terakki” and “asabiyet” can be held representative of his
reformist horizon.
Throughout the study, we subjected Cevdet’s reformist horizon, which revolves
around the understanding he makes out of these three concepts, to two different
understandings on modernity, which are both the Weberian analyses of different types of
behaviours that he considers led to the formation of the modern social order, and the
Foucauldian theory on the “art of governmentality”. While the Weberian understanding is
instrumentalized in observing Cevdet’s intellectual inclinations, the Foucauldian one is used
in seeing his tendencies as to the way he considers better in the governance of the Ottoman
Empire. In the end it is argued that Cevdet was both as an intellectual and as a statesman was
a thorough reformist who was partially progressive and totally for gradual change..