Panel

1908: PERCEPTION OF THE REVOLUTION, EDUCATION AND IDEOLOGY

The MURCIR Panel which took place at Mustafa Necati Conference Hall was chaired by Assoc. Prof. Ahmet Demirel from Marmara University’s Department of Political Science and International Relations and the speakers were Assist. Prof. Özgür Adadağ form Galatasaray University’s Department of Political Science, Prof. Büşra Ersanlı from Marmara University’s Department of Political Science and International Relations and Assist. Prof. Mehmet Ö. Alkan from Istanbul University’s Faculty of Political Sciences’ Department of International Relations.

In his speech, Özgür Adadağ talked about how 1908 Revolution was perceived by the Union and Progress Committee generally and by Ahmet Rıza specifically. He also mentioned on the relation between the 1908 revolution and 1789 French revolution and on the points where Ottoman revolutionaries differed from French revolutionaries. These were the issues of revolution and violence, the maintenance of the social order, the functional perception of the revolution and the negative connotation of the revolution conception when the unity of the revolution is concerned. Adadağ stressed that the points of reference of the Ottoman opposition was not in fact the 1789 revolution itself but the post-1789 ideas.

   

Büşra Ersanlı began her speech by mentioning the necessity to consider the Union and Progress Committee by using political science concepts. Ersanlı mainly talked about how UPC was defined in the textbooks of the Republican Era. She pointed out the similarities and differences among the textbooks of different periods. She also gave examples on how the UPC was defined in the textbooks of countries like Uzbekistan.

Mehmet Alkan started his speech by noting that the official ideology can best be understood by analyzing the Ministry of National Education, textbooks and curriculums and he discussed how the official ideology was transmitted through textbooks from the period of Abdulhamid to the period of UPC. Alkan gave examples of different Abdulhamid definitions during the second constitution period in order to show how the changes in the official ideology were reflected at the textbooks. He also talked about how nationalism is reproduced in the textbooks.