Constructing Turkish Identity as the “Other”: The Erasure of a Civilization in Balkan Memory
SOSYOLOJIK BAGLAM DERGISI, cilt.6, sa.3, ss.503-528, 2025 (Hakemli Dergi)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 6 Sayı: 3
- Basım Tarihi: 2025
- Doi Numarası: 10.52108/2757-5942.6.3.6
- Dergi Adı: SOSYOLOJIK BAGLAM DERGISI
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Central & Eastern European Academic Source (CEEAS), Directory of Open Access Journals, Social Sciences Abstracts
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.503-528
- Açık Arşiv Koleksiyonu: AVESİS Açık Erişim Koleksiyonu
- İstanbul Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
This article examines how European discourses that othered the “Turk” were taken up by Balkan nationalisms and translated into violent policies during the transition to nation-states from the late nineteenth century onward. It shows how a Europe-made adversarial frame legitimated this shift and fed practices of forced displacement and mass killing. Methodologically, the study draws on a systematic review of the literature and comparative readings in historiography. Backed by Western and Russian powers, separatist movements targeted the Ottoman legacy, dismantled a long-standing multi-confessional order, and normalised a security politics that accelerated ethnic homogenisation. The findings indicate that claims to legitimacy advanced in step with waves of violence, fracturing cultural and social continuities. Building the post-imperial political architecture on this basis kept the regional order brittle well into the twentieth century, helped trigger genocides, and left durable effects that marginalised minority communities. Without a careful reckoning with this trajectory, Europe’s self-narrative will remain partial and misleading.