Political expediency and historical scholarship some remarks on Stanford and Ezel Kural Shaws' History the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol.II
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Abstract
Some contemporary specialists in Turkish studies who do research into
historical developments within the Greek and Turkish geographic regions
neglect the Greek bibliography and subordinate the research to political expediency at the expense of the Greek element in history and so they come to
partial and wrong conclusions. Professor Stanford Shaw’s work History of
the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey demonstrates such a prejudice in his
research work, by not taking into account basic scholarly publications on
subjects concerning the relations between Greeks and Turks, the Greek regions of which he speaks, the contribution of the Greeks in all fields of the
Ottoman Government’s activity etc. Other factors that increase the reservation as regards the objective contents of the work under consideration is the
oversight by the author of the systematic violation of the human rights of
Greeks, Armenians and other peoples in Turkey, and especially the most crucial problems arising from this violation within and outside Turkey in the last
years. So the unsuspecting reader, who is unaware of the imprisonments, tortures and persecutions of the Kurds in Turkey, gets the impression from Shaw’s book that neither the Articles of the Turkish Constitution, nor any Treaty
concerning minorities and-their rights, are violated. This is why the two-volume survey entitled History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey cannot be put forward in any way as a textbook or definitive work in the field.
historical developments within the Greek and Turkish geographic regions
neglect the Greek bibliography and subordinate the research to political expediency at the expense of the Greek element in history and so they come to
partial and wrong conclusions. Professor Stanford Shaw’s work History of
the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey demonstrates such a prejudice in his
research work, by not taking into account basic scholarly publications on
subjects concerning the relations between Greeks and Turks, the Greek regions of which he speaks, the contribution of the Greeks in all fields of the
Ottoman Government’s activity etc. Other factors that increase the reservation as regards the objective contents of the work under consideration is the
oversight by the author of the systematic violation of the human rights of
Greeks, Armenians and other peoples in Turkey, and especially the most crucial problems arising from this violation within and outside Turkey in the last
years. So the unsuspecting reader, who is unaware of the imprisonments, tortures and persecutions of the Kurds in Turkey, gets the impression from Shaw’s book that neither the Articles of the Turkish Constitution, nor any Treaty
concerning minorities and-their rights, are violated. This is why the two-volume survey entitled History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey cannot be put forward in any way as a textbook or definitive work in the field.
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