چکیده:
Neo-Ottomanism in recent decades has been among the most controversial political debates in related academies and literature. Frequent references to it by Turkish officials in recent years, multiplied its importance in international relations. The term obviously owes its significance to the Ottoman Empire Era, and accordingly, a sufficient analysis on the challenges of the Empire during its last decades stands prior to any attempts to understand Neo-Ottomanism. The paper thus, aims at analysing the precautions and countermeasures taken by Ottomans against the western political, economic and cultural impacts. According to the results of the analysis, these countermeasures compose major Identity elements, i.e. Being, Muslim, Turk and Modern, embraced and developed by Neo-Ottomanists in Turkey.
خلاصه ماشینی:
The foremost question regarding the subjects is; how Ottomans dealt with destructive challenges, mostly created by the West, in the last decades of their Empire and how did these measurements relate to the Identity elements of Turkish people.
(1808-1839) in which the idea of an Ottoman state began to emerge, a state "composed of peoples of diverse nationalities and religions, based on secular principles of sovereignty as contrasted with the medieval concept of an Islamic empire.
Once the late Ottomans realized the decline of their state vis-à-vis the rising power of the Europeans they embarked on a process of adopting 'western' ways that made the west 'great'.
(Heper, 2004: 267) He explains; "the fact that as compared to the contemporary Islamic states the Ottoman Empire was the least Islamic was also a contributory factor to the ease with which the Turks turned their face to the West.
As references to the 'Eastern Question' of European powers help understand the process of disintegration of the Ottoman Empire at the dawn of the 20th century the concepts of the west and westernization, the latter being a response to the former at domestic front, is a key to analyse the late Ottoman and recent Turkish history.
The western question, that is the way to look at, relate to and imitate the west, became a central debate in the attempt of the late Ottomans to "save the state" against disintegrative pressures of the European powers.