Mass Violence in the (Post)Ottoman Lands

Where

University of Newcastle (Australia), Online Symposium

When

Wednesday 6 September 2023

About

From the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire came under the increasing strains of both internal upheavals and external pressure from great power rivals, culminating in the Empire’s disintegration following defeat in the First World War. Increasing acts of mass violence accompanied this political instability, most notably the Armenian Genocide. Hosted by the Centre for the Study of Violence at the University of Newcastle (Australia), this online Symposium interrogates the causes, processes and consequences of mass violence in the (Post-)Ottoman lands. It asks:

  • What were the macro and micro causes of mass violence?
  • Who was targeted for inclusion in the Ottoman state (and its successors), and who for exclusion?
  • What methods did rival nationalists employ to achieve national homogeneity, from co-option and assimilation to exile and extermination?
  • How did ‘everyday’ Ottoman and post-Ottoman subjects respond
  • What role did civilians and other non-state actors play in mass violence?
  • How have the causes of mass violence continued to resonate in post-Ottoman states? and
  • What restrained mass violence at moments when conditions seemingly lent themselves to outbreaks?

Program and abstracts

Symposium Welcome
1.45pm (UTC+10)

Session 1: Interpretations of Mass Violence

2-3.30pm (UTC+10)

Philip Dwyer (Newcastle), ‘Mass Violence, Genocide, and Killing in War: Some Recent Debates’

Roger Markwick (Newcastle), ‘An orientalist Marxism? Leon Trotsky on violence and imperialism in the Balkan Wars (1912-1913).’

Andrekos Varvana (Flinders), ‘Post-British or Post-Ottoman: Mass Violence in Cyprus 1963-1974’

Session 2: Balkan Geographies of Violence

4-5.30pm (UTC+10)

Spyros Tsoutsoumpis (Manchester), ‘The business of war: military enterprising in the late Ottoman Balkans’

Alexander Maxwell (Victoria, Wellington), ‘Contingency and Nationalism in North Macedonia, Or, Why the Extirpation of Macedonian Bulgarians is not Genocide’

Sebastian Meredith and Sacha Davis (Newcastle), ‘Navigating the World-System Periphery: The Recycling of Orientalist Discourse in Zhivkov’s Bulgaria’

Session 3: Mass Violence in Context

6.30-8.30pm (UTC+10)

Hazal Özdemir (Northwestern, Chicago), ‘Undesirable Subjects in and out of the Empire: Mobility, Nationality and Making of an Ottoman Subject’

İlkay Yılmaz, (Freie Universitaet Berlin), Mass Violence and Security Narrative During the Late Ottoman Empire (1894-1907)

Ümit Kurt (Newcastle), ‘Restraint of Mass Violence: The Microdynamics of Intercommunal Relations in Late Ottoman Adapazarı on the Eve of the Balkan Wars’

Hans-Lukas Kieser (Newcastle), ‘A Mental Map for Violence: Dr. Rıza Nur’s Writings on Armenians and Jews’

Download Abstract

Mass Violence Conference abstract (400KB)

Enquiries: Sacha.Davis@Newcastle.edu.au