Nearly two weeks after Iran refused to yield to the demand by Germany, France, Britain, Russia, China and the United States that it stop developing nuclear technology that can lead to a nuclear weapon, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will travel to a NATO country for the first time. Turkish President Abdullah Gul will meet the Iranian leader on Thursday in Istanbul. While Iran’s influence as a regional power has undeniably been enhanced by standing against the threats of new sanctions and continuing its nuclear program, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Turkey will further that image.
But what will Turks gain from it? At best, nothing. Furthermore, this visit is likely to cause trouble for Turkey.
Technically, the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members and Germany unanimously agree that Iran should not have nuclear weapons. They differ in their tactics, but they agree that it is absolutely vital that Iran sees no positive side to trying to further its nuclear aims. Turkey’s political leaders, however, have chosen to see these high-level “talks” as a show of “good will” in the name of peace. Mr. Gul has also hosted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who ordered genocide in Darfur, for the same reason. But a Turkish proverb suggests that talking is not always a virtue. Knowing when and how to stay “silent” is.
It’s one thing for Turkey to nurture relationships with its neighbors. No one, be they friend or foe of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) or any other Turkish political party, would deny that, at minimum, a civil relationship with other countries in the region can only be good for Turkey. But this current situation with Iran and the threat of it obtaining nuclear weapons is serious. And Turkey’s leaders, simply, may well be in over their heads.
Curiously, though, AKP is strongly supported by the Bush administration. The U.S. certainly did not remain silent about a Constitutional Court case that decided the future of the AKP. Now that the court has decided not to shutter the AKP, the Bush administration has complimented the strength of Turkish democracy. In fact, there is speculation in Turkey that the AKP must have been in contact with Washington about Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit – though no evidence of such a communication exists. Turkey seems to be acting completely independent. While the White House is likely unhappy about the visit, U.S. officials continue to praise AKP leadership for its pro-active engagement with its neighbors.
In another scenario, it’s also possible that Turkey could sign a natural gas deal with Iran, violating America’s Iran Sanctions Act. If that happens, one can only wonder how Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would react. Alas, she has been an exceptionally strong defender of AKP policies. Yet if Turkey signs that energy deal with Iran, the U.S. could end the November 2007 agreement that opened a new chapter of cooperation and intelligence sharing in the fight against PKK terrorism.
Furthermore, Mr. Gul often boasts that Turkey and Iran have not fought a war since the early 17th century. The facts of the Turkish history, however, suggest differently, like Turkey’s invasion of Tabriz during World War I. Yet Mr. Ahmadinejad has made it clear that unlike every other visiting dignitary, he will not visit the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s founder, who created a secular republic in a Muslim nation. So Mr. Gul capitulated and instead invited him to Istanbul. So while these two leaders represent different forms of governments, they in fact seem to have much in common.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan says that Turkey cannot stay silent on matters related to Iran, especially when fighting could be possible. Turkey refused to be used as a way into Iraq for the United States, and it certainly won’t be used to attack Iran either, Mr. Babacan says. However, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be indicating a different circumstance. Mr. Erdogan admitted during a visit to Washington that he wished Turkey had cooperated with the U.S., because it would have made it easier for Turkey to defend its national security interests.Also, he blamed the opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP, for defeating the measure that proposed cooperation with the United States.
Surely, politicians tend to gravitate toward populist demagogy. We cannot know whether Mr. Erdogan really meant that Turkey should have cooperated on the invasion of Iraq. It is unclear whether he really opposes Iran having nuclear weapons. Those same leaders who argue against the West pressuring Iran say that it’s no different than Israel or Pakistan having nuclear weapons.
Turkey is blundering its way in this complicated relationship, unsure which side it wants to take or how big a threat it sees Iran to be. Turkey’s political leadership believes they can dance with Iran and simultaneously become a major regional player. Let’s hope they’re right. Otherwise, the Turkish people will be merely a casualty of a reckless policy.
The Russian invasion of Georgia has not changed the balance of power in Eurasia. It simply announced that the balance of power had already shifted. The United States has been absorbed in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as potential conflict with Iran and a destabilizing situation in Pakistan. It has no strategic ground forces in reserve and is in no position to intervene on the Russian periphery. This, as we have argued, has opened a window of opportunity for the Russians to reassert their influence in the former Soviet sphere. Moscow did not have to concern itself with the potential response of the United States or Europe; hence, the invasion did not shift the balance of power. The balance of power had already shifted, and it was up to the Russians when to make this public. They did that Aug. 8.
Let’s begin simply by reviewing the last few days.
On the night of Thursday, Aug. 7, forces of the Republic of Georgia drove across the border of South Ossetia, a secessionist region of Georgia that has functioned as an independent entity since the fall of the Soviet Union. The forces drove on to the capital, Tskhinvali, which is close to the border. Georgian forces got bogged down while trying to take the city. In spite of heavy fighting, they never fully secured the city, nor the rest of South Ossetia.
On the morning of Aug. 8, Russian forces entered South Ossetia, using armored and motorized infantry forces along with air power. South Ossetia was informally aligned with Russia, and Russia acted to prevent the region’s absorption by Georgia. Given the speed with which the Russians responded — within hours of the Georgian attack — the Russians were expecting the Georgian attack and were themselves at their jumping-off points. The counterattack was carefully planned and competently executed, and over the next 48 hours, the Russians succeeded in defeating the main Georgian force and forcing a retreat. By Sunday, Aug. 10, the Russians had consolidated their position in South Ossetia.
Georgia Conflict Map
On Monday, the Russians extended their offensive into Georgia proper, attacking on two axes. One was south from South Ossetia to the Georgian city of Gori. The other drive was from Abkhazia, another secessionist region of Georgia aligned with the Russians. This drive was designed to cut the road between the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and its ports. By this point, the Russians had bombed the military airfields at Marneuli and Vaziani and appeared to have disabled radars at the international airport in Tbilisi. These moves brought Russian forces to within 40 miles of the Georgian capital, while making outside reinforcement and resupply of Georgian forces extremely difficult should anyone wish to undertake it.
The Mystery Behind the Georgian Invasion
In this simple chronicle, there is something quite mysterious: Why did the Georgians choose to invade South Ossetia on Thursday night? There had been a great deal of shelling by the South Ossetians of Georgian villages for the previous three nights, but while possibly more intense than usual, artillery exchanges were routine. The Georgians might not have fought well, but they committed fairly substantial forces that must have taken at the very least several days to deploy and supply. Georgia’s move was deliberate.
The United States is Georgia’s closest ally. It maintained about 130 military advisers in Georgia, along with civilian advisers, contractors involved in all aspects of the Georgian government and people doing business in Georgia. It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware of Georgia’s mobilization and intentions. It is also inconceivable that the Americans were unaware that the Russians had deployed substantial forces on the South Ossetian frontier. U.S. technical intelligence, from satellite imagery and signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles, could not miss the fact that thousands of Russian troops were moving to forward positions. The Russians clearly knew the Georgians were ready to move. How could the United States not be aware of the Russians? Indeed, given the posture of Russian troops, how could intelligence analysts have missed the possibility that t he Russians had laid a trap, hoping for a Georgian invasion to justify its own counterattack?
It is very difficult to imagine that the Georgians launched their attack against U.S. wishes. The Georgians rely on the United States, and they were in no position to defy it. This leaves two possibilities. The first is a massive breakdown in intelligence, in which the United States either was unaware of the existence of Russian forces, or knew of the Russian forces but — along with the Georgians — miscalculated Russia’s intentions. The United States, along with other countries, has viewed Russia through the prism of the 1990s, when the Russian military was in shambles and the Russian government was paralyzed. The United States has not seen Russia make a decisive military move beyond its borders since the Afghan war of the 1970s-1980s. The Russians had systematically avoided such moves for years. The United States had assumed that the Russians would not risk the consequences of an invasion.
If this was the case, then it points to the central reality of this situation: The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United States and Europe could not respond. As for risk, they did not view the invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no counter. Economically, Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well — indeed, the Europeans need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them. Politically, as we shall see, the Americans needed the Russians more than the Russians needed the Americans. Moscow’s calculus was that this was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for months, as we have discussed, and they struck.
The Western Encirclement of Russia
To understand Russian thinking, we need to look at two events. The first is the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. From the U.S. and European point of view, the Orange Revolution represented a triumph of democracy and Western influence. From the Russian point of view, as Moscow made clear, the Orange Revolution was a CIA-funded intrusion into the internal affairs of Ukraine, designed to draw Ukraine into NATO and add to the encirclement of Russia. U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton had promised the Russians that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union empire.
That promise had already been broken in 1998 by NATO’s expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — and again in the 2004 expansion, which absorbed not only the rest of the former Soviet satellites in what is now Central Europe, but also the three Baltic states, which had been components of the Soviet Union.
The Russians had tolerated all that, but the discussion of including Ukraine in NATO represented a fundamental threat to Russia’s national security. It would have rendered Russia indefensible and threatened to destabilize the Russian Federation itself. When the United States went so far as to suggest that Georgia be included as well, bringing NATO deeper into the Caucasus, the Russian conclusion — publicly stated — was that the United States in particular intended to encircle and break Russia.
The second and lesser event was the decision by Europe and the United States to back Kosovo’s separation from Serbia. The Russians were friendly with Serbia, but the deeper issue for Russia was this: The principle of Europe since World War II was that, to prevent conflict, national borders would not be changed. If that principle were violated in Kosovo, other border shifts — including demands by various regions for independence from Russia — might follow. The Russians publicly and privately asked that Kosovo not be given formal independence, but instead continue its informal autonomy, which was the same thing in practical terms. Russia’s requests were ignored.
From the Ukrainian experience, the Russians became convinced that the United States was engaged in a plan of strategic encirclement and strangulation of Russia. From the Kosovo experience, they concluded that the United States and Europe were not prepared to consider Russian wishes even in fairly minor affairs. That was the breaking point. If Russian desires could not be accommodated even in a minor matter like this, then clearly Russia and the West were in conflict. For the Russians, as we said, the question was how to respond. Having declined to respond in Kosovo, the Russians decided to respond where they had all the cards: in South Ossetia.
Moscow had two motives, the lesser of which was as a tit-for-tat over Kosovo. If Kosovo could be declared independent under Western sponsorship, then South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions of Georgia, could be declared independent under Russian sponsorship. Any objections from the United States and Europe would simply confirm their hypocrisy. This was important for internal Russian political reasons, but the second motive was far more important.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once said that the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical disaster. This didn’t mean that he wanted to retain the Soviet state; rather, it meant that the disintegration of the Soviet Union had created a situation in which Russian national security was threatened by Western interests. As an example, consider that during the Cold War, St. Petersburg was about 1,200 miles away from a NATO country. Today it is about 60 miles away from Estonia, a NATO member. The disintegration of the Soviet Union had left Russia surrounded by a group of countries hostile to Russian interests in various degrees and heavily influenced by the United States, Europe and, in some cases, China.
Resurrecting the Russian Sphere
Putin did not want to re-establish the Soviet Union, but he did want to re-establish the Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union region. To accomplish that, he had to do two things. First, he had to re-establish the credibility of the Russian army as a fighting force, at least in the context of its region. Second, he had to establish that Western guarantees, including NATO membership, meant nothing in the face of Russian power. He did not want to confront NATO directly, but he did want to confront and defeat a power that was closely aligned with the United States, had U.S. support, aid and advisers and was widely seen as being under American protection. Georgia was the perfect choice.
By invading Georgia as Russia did (competently if not brilliantly), Putin re-established the credibility of the Russian army. But far more importantly, by doing this Putin revealed an open secret: While the United States is tied down in the Middle East, American guarantees have no value. This lesson is not for American consumption. It is something that, from the Russian point of view, the Ukrainians, the Balts and the Central Asians need to digest. Indeed, it is a lesson Putin wants to transmit to Poland and the Czech Republic as well. The United States wants to place ballistic missile defense installations in those countries, and the Russians want them to understand that allowing this to happen increases their risk, not their security.
The Russians knew the United States would denounce their attack. This actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior leaders are, the greater the contrast with their inaction, and the Russians wanted to drive home the idea that American guarantees are empty talk.
The Russians also know something else that is of vital importance: For the United States, the Middle East is far more important than the Caucasus, and Iran is particularly important. The United States wants the Russians to participate in sanctions against Iran. Even more importantly, they do not want the Russians to sell weapons to Iran, particularly the highly effective S-300 air defense system. Georgia is a marginal issue to the United States; Iran is a central issue. The Russians are in a position to pose serious problems for the United States not only in Iran, but also with weapons sales to other countries, like Syria.
Therefore, the United States has a problem — it either must reorient its strategy away from the Middle East and toward the Caucasus, or it has to seriously limit its response to Georgia to avoid a Russian counter in Iran. Even if the United States had an appetite for another war in Georgia at this time, it would have to calculate the Russian response in Iran — and possibly in Afghanistan (even though Moscow’s interests there are currently aligned with those of Washington).
In other words, the Russians have backed the Americans into a corner. The Europeans, who for the most part lack expeditionary militaries and are dependent upon Russian energy exports, have even fewer options. If nothing else happens, the Russians will have demonstrated that they have resumed their role as a regional power. Russia is not a global power by any means, but a significant regional power with lots of nuclear weapons and an economy that isn’t all too shabby at the moment. It has also compelled every state on the Russian periphery to re-evaluate its position relative to Moscow. As for Georgia, the Russians appear ready to demand the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. Militarily, that is their option. That is all they wanted to demonstrate, and they have demonstrated it.
The war in Georgia, therefore, is Russia’s public return to great power status. This is not something that just happened — it has been unfolding ever since Putin took power, and with growing intensity in the past five years. Part of it has to do with the increase of Russian power, but a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the Middle Eastern wars have left the United States off-balance and short on resources. As we have written, this conflict created a window of opportunity. The Russian goal is to use that window to assert a new reality throughout the region while the Americans are tied down elsewhere and dependent on the Russians. The war was far from a surprise; it has been building for months. But the geopolitical foundations of the war have been building since 1992. Russia has been an empire for centuries. The last 15 years or so were not the new reality, but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being rectified.
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EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – EU foreign ministers on Wednesday (13 August) agreed to send peacekeepers to help supervise the fragile Russia-Georgia ceasefire, putting off discussions on potential diplomatic sanctions against Russia until next month.
“The European Union must be prepared to commit itself, including on the ground,” the EU joint statement said, asking EU top diplomat Javier Solana to draft more detailed proposals for the ministers’ next meeting on 5 September.
EU police in Bosnia – it is unclear what the EU peacekeeping mission in Georgia would consist of (Photo: The Council of the European Union)
“Many countries have said that they are ready to join in,” French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said, adding that any EU move would require a UN mandate. “We are encouraged by what we saw this morning, but we have to go through the United Nations.”
Ministers did not specify if the EU mission will compose EU-badge wearing soldiers, policemen or civilian monitors. It also remains unclear if it would be part of a wider force involving the UN and the OSCE, or when deployment might start.
“You call it peacekeeping troops, I don’t call it that…but controllers, monitors, European facilitators, I think the Russians would accept that,” Mr Kouchner told reporters.
The Georgian government has called for an EU presence in its rebel-held Abkhazia and South Ossetia provinces for at least three years, but the EU has always maintained that Russia and the Russian-backed separatists must agree first.
Finnish foreign minister Alexander Stubb voiced optimism that Russia will now back the new initiative. “I’m convinced at the end of the day we will find an international peacekeeping [force] in the region, with the EU at its heart,” he said, according to AFP.
Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt told Reuters he was less sure. “There are no signs of the Russians letting in anyone else…I don’t really see it happening – at the moment the Russians are firmly in control.”
The EU statement avoided any criticism of Moscow, despite widespread feeling among EU members that Russia’s massive assault on Georgia has overshadowed Georgia’s initial attack on the rebel town of Tskhinvali.
On Wednesday night, Russian soldiers continued to attack abandoned Georgian military facilities while Ossetian paramilitaries burned ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia and looted the Georgian town of Gori.
“I do not think we should get lost today in long discussions about responsibility or who caused the escalation of the last few days,” German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said.
Russia sanctions debate
A discussion on the potential suspension of talks on a new EU-Russia strategic pact or other diplomatic sanctions against Russia has been scheduled for the next EU foreign ministers meeting in September.
“We will speak very specifically about that,” France’s Mr Kouchner said.
“The European Union will want to consider how it proceeds with the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement,” UK foreign minister, David Miliband, said. “The sight of Russian tanks in Gori, Russian tanks in Senaki, a Russian blockade of Poti, the Georgian port are a chilling reminder of times that I think we had hoped had gone by.”
The Polish and Lithuanian ministers echoed the British position.
“Of course some consequences must appear of the aggression,” Lithuanian foreign minister, Petras Vaitiekunas, said. “There was clearly disproportionate force used by the Russians,” Poland’s Radoslaw Sikorski added.
In a separate event in Warsaw on Wednesday, the leaders of four former-communist EU states went further by calling for NATO to put Georgia firmly on the path to membership in order to “prevent similar acts of agression and occupation” in future.
The presidents of Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and the prime minister of Latvia also criticised the EU’s endorsement of the six-point Russia-Georgia peace plan, saying “the principal element – the respect of teritorial integrity of Georgia – is missing.”
The UK and eastern European states stand close to an increasingly hostile US line on excluding Russia from “the international system” and “international institutions” in punishment for the war.
‘This is not 1968’
“This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it,” US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said on Wednesday, before flying to Paris and Tbilisi this week.
Meanwhile, Russia is blaming the US for training and arming Georgian forces in a geopolitcal “project.”
“It is clear that Georgia wants this dispute to become something more than a short if bloody conflict in the region,” Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said.
“For decision-makers in the NATO countries of the West, it would be worth considering whether in future you want the men and women of your armed services to be answerable to [Georgian president] Mr Saakashvili’s declarations of war.”
The escalating conflict in Georgia–with its unexpected military developments and great humanitarian losses–seems to have caught Azerbaijani officials and the public off guard. Azerbaijanis are not new to the world of Russian political games in the Caucasus. Baku itself suffered greatly from Russian intervention in 1990 and after that from the military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Yet, the rapid and aggressive style of Russian intervention in Georgia in the past few days has created far greater security and economic dilemmas for Azerbaijan than even the most pessimistic analysts in the country could have predicted only a week ago.
Russian jet fighters have bombed both civilians and military airports in Georgia, forcing all airlines, including Azerbaijani Airlines (AZAL), to stop flights. Moreover, for several days in a row the Russians bombed the Black Sea port of Poti, which serves as the main terminal for the export of Azerbaijani energy products as well as other cargo. With the explosions on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline last week, Azerbaijan was looking for Georgian railways, ports and pipelines as an important alternative for the export of Caspian energy supplies to Western markets. All of this has stopped, putting both Georgia and Azerbaijan in economic difficulties. Nonetheless, there is little fear in official circles in Baku that Russia will bomb the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and other energy-related infrastructures to destroy the successful East-West transport and energy corridor between Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Azerbaijan is Georgia’s strategic ally. Both countries are united not only by geopolitical interests and world-class pipelines, but also by the regional security organization GUAM. GUAM, although passive for most of the decade, has lately been re-energized and even played with the idea of establishing its own peacekeeping and security forces. Under such a situation, it seems like GUAM would be a convenient venue to express support and solidarity with the Georgians.
Azerbaijan, however, finds itself in a very difficult situation. On the one hand, there is enormous public support for Georgia throughout Azerbaijan. In private conversations, almost all Azerbaijanis blame Russia for aggression and express frustration with the imperialist policies of the Kremlin in the South Caucasus. A group of intelligentsia went to the Russian embassy on August 10 to protest against the military actions in Georgia ). This was repeated by members of youth organizations (www.day.az, August 11). The main opposition party Musavat issued a statement on August 11, calling for “respect of the territorial integrity of Georgia and an immediate stop to the aggressive policy of Russia” (Musavat party press release). The party called on the Azerbaijani government to show a “principled position” on the conflict. A similar statement came from the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan.
For its pro-Georgian coverage of the events, the most popular Azerbaijani news website www.day.az was attacked by Russian special forces on August 11 and had to cease its activities temporarily (www.day.az press release, August 11). Elnur Baimov, the editor in chief of www.day.az said on August 11 that “we all saw the diplomatic loss of Russia.”
Government officials have been relatively calm about the situation, considering the fragile relations between Moscow and Baku and the desire of the latter not to ruin bilateral relations between the two countries. The spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Khazar Ibrahim told journalists on August 8, however, that “Azerbaijan favors the solution of the South Ossetia conflict based on the territorial integrity of Georgia and Georgian adherence to international law” (www.day.az).
On August 11, ANS TV reported that 50 Azerbaijanis had gathered in Georgia’s Azerbaijani-populated provinces to go to the war for the defense of their country. It is noteworthy that Russians have bombed Azerbaijani populated areas of Georgia for three days in a row, killing four and wounding dozens. The possibility is not excluded that this was done in hopes of fomenting strife between Azeris and Georgians.
The present situation in Georgia presents huge security concerns for official Baku. If Russia manages to squeeze Georgia, then it would put an end to the economic independence of Azerbaijan as well. Many analysts in Baku believe that the real purpose of the pressure on Georgia is the Kremlin’s desire to control Azerbaijan.
Thus, it is vital for Azerbaijan to provide all necessary assistance to its strategic ally. Considering the political realities between Baku and Moscow, it is unlikely that the Azerbaijani government will provide any military assistance to Georgia. Economic and humanitarian assistance, however, is definitely an option. Azerbaijan remains the only viable international outlet for Georgia, and many Georgians have already started using the territory of Azerbaijan to travel abroad.
Azerbaijani political analysts believe that the war in Georgia is a long-term loss for the Kremlin. By showing its neo-imperialist face, Russia may have lost the Caucasus forever. The political analyst Ilgar Mammadov says that “If Georgia stays strong for few more days, we will all see the defeat of Russia from the Caucasus.” Another analyst Vugar Seidov says “The departure of Russia from Abkhazia and South Ossetia is historically inevitable” (Regnum, August 10).
Istanbul: It was a surreal moment. At Istanbul’s modern international airport passengers due to board Turkish Airways flight 1382 to Tbilisi were watching their homes burn on TV news.
Three families from Georgia had been holidaying in Turkey when Gori was attacked and were desperately trying to get back into Georgia even though they knew that returning to Gori was out of the question. Other families had given up trying to get back and decided to extend their stay in Turkey for as long as their money could last.
“What choice do we have? We want to get back to Georgia but on Saturday we saw the place where we live had been attacked by Russian jets. We want to get to Tbilisi at least but it doesn’t look good,” they told Gulf News.
From: Ioannis Grigoriadis
List Editor: Mark Stein
Editor’s Subject: H-TURK: 1st International Conference of Karamanlidika Studies,University of Cyprus,11-13.09.08 [I Grigoriadis]
Author’s Subject: H-TURK: 1st International Conference of Karamanlidika Studies,University of Cyprus,11-13.09.08 [I Grigoriadis]
Date Written: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:33:02 -0400
Date Posted: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:33:02 -0400
The 1st International Conference of Karamanlidika Studies will be held
from 11 to 13 September 2008 at the “Axiothea” Cultural Centre of the
University of Cyprus. It is organised by the Department of Turkish and
Middle Eastern Studies/University of Cyprus (Nicosia) and the National
Hellenic Research Foundation (Athens). The Conference brings together
scholars from Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Belgium, France, Italy, and Norway
with the aim to explore the always plural and complex stories of the
Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christian population and its cultural product,
the Karamanlidika printed matter.
Karamanlidhes are the Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christian
inhabitants of Anatolia, in a geographical area, which is defined today
as “Cappadocia”, promoted by art history, in the region of the
troglodytic ecclesiastical and monastic communities of the Byzantine
Empire. From the mid-nineteenth century until to the Exchange of
Populations, the term “Cappadocia” was applied to the region that
reached as far as Yosgat in the north, Karaman in the south, just beyond
Kayseri in the east and no further than Isparta in the west.
In the early eighteenth century the Ecumenical Patriarchate sped to
protect these Turcophone Orthodox Christians from conversion to Islam,
and some one hundred years later, from the proselytisation of
Protestants and other missionaries. The appeal of the propaganda of the
various Western Churches in these populations caused the leadership of
the Orthodox Church to worry about its flock in Anatolia, and the
bourgeoisie of Constantinople to deliberate on the unity and the
stability of their economic networks in the Asia Minor hinterland.
Metropolitans and monks, such as Zacharias the Athonite and Seraphim of
Pisidia translated into Turkish and published in Greek characters, that
is in Karamanlidika, Catechisms, Psalms and other religious texts, with
the aim of teaching the doctrine of the Orthodox Church and the
religious duties of an Orthodox Christian to the Christians of Asia
Minor, “since they have forgotten their Greek language, cannot
understand what is read in Church and thus are led far from the way of
God.”
>From the mid-nineteenth century, expatriate Karamanlis played a
decisive role in the publication of Karamanli books and, of course, in
the turn towards the secularization of Karamanli printed works. The
expatriates bore the expenses, organized and participated in
disseminating and distributing the books in the interior of Anatolia,
with subscriptions, because they had a network of mutual support and
their own active rules of communication. Some clerics, but mainly laymen
– teachers, doctors, journalists – who had studied in Athens, Izmir and
Western Europe, supported economically and assumed responsibility for
processing the material, that is translating works from Greek, but
mainly from Western languages, or transcribing works from Ottoman script
into Greek characters. Cappadocians residing in Constantinople and
others living in their native Anatolia participated in Karamanli book
production. They translated French novels, vade-mecums on medicine and
agriculture, manuals on epistolography, legal codes and interpretations
of laws, calendars and almanacs, as well as composing works on local
history. The Karamanli book served the needs of the Turcophone Orthodox
Christian society in the face of the challenges of Tanzimat. Committed
clergymen in the patriarchal milieu and militant laymen undertook the
campaign to enlighten the Orthodox Christians of Anatolia. This was
mainly the circle of Evangelinos Misailidis, publisher of “Anatoli”, the
Karamanli newspaper with the greatest longevity.
A document of Ottoman sovereignty, the Karamanli script transmits
elements of the Ottoman world and of Orthodoxy during the first, the
pre-national stage of long duration, under the aegis of the Patriarchal
printing press initially, and with the activity of misorganizations
subsequently. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, it
functioned as a vehicle for transporting cultural goods produced in
Europe, or, more rarely, it built bridges between the Ottoman world and
Greek education.
For more information, please contact the organisers of the conference:
Matthias Kappler, University of Cyprus / Nicosia ([email protected])
and
Evangelia Balta, National Hellenic Research Foundation / Athens
([email protected])
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Thursday, 11th September 2008
20.00 Opening Ceremony
Welcome addresses:
Anastasia Nikolopoulou (Dean School of Humanities)
Martin Strohmeier (Chairman Department of Turkish and Middle Eastern
Studies)
Evangelia Balta
Introductory speech
Thomas Korovinis & Ensemble, Salonika
Greek and Turkish Songs from Cappadocia
A reception will follow
Friday, 12th September 2008
Chairperson: Evangelia Balta
10.00 Aspects of History
Christos Hadziiossif, University of Crete & Institute for Mediterranean
Studies / Rethymno
The Ambivalence of Turkish in a Greek-speaking community of Central
Anatolia
Irini Renieri, Institute for Mediterranean Studies / Rethymno
‘Xenophone Nevşehirlis… Greek-souled Neapolitans’: the persistent yet
hesitant dissemination of the Greek language in the Turcophone
environment of Nevşehir
Anna Ballian, Benaki Museum of Islamic Art / Athens
Villages, churches and silver liturgical vessels: the case of Karamanlı
patronage in the 18th-19th c.
11.30 Coffee Break
Chairperson: Martin Strohmeier
12.00 Aspects of History
Sia Anagnostopoulou, Panteion University / Athens
Greek perceptions of the Turkish-speaking Cappadocians: the Greek
diplomatic sources
Stefo & Foti Benlisoy, Istanbul Technical University & Boğaziçi
University / Istanbul
Reading the identity of Karamanlides through the pages of Anatoli
Şehnaz Şişmanoğlu, Sabancı University/ Istanbul
The Anatoli newspaper: the heyday of the Karamanlı press
Michalis Michail, University of Cyprus / Nicosia
>From Cilicia to Cyprus: Turcophone Orthodox pilgrims during the Ottoman
period
14.00 Lunch
Friday, 12th September 2008
Chairperson: Christos Hadziiossif
16.00 Sources
Giampiero Bellingeri, University Ca’ Foscari / Venice
Venetian sources and significations of ‘Caramania’
Ioannis Theocharidis, University of Cyprus / Nicosia
Unexploited sources on Serafeim Pissidios
Stavros Anestidis, Centre for Asia Minor Studies / Athens
The Centre for Asia Minor Studies and books printed in Karamanlı. A
contribution to the compilation and the bibliography of a significant
literature
Saturday, 13th September
Chairperson: Giampiero Bellingeri
09.00 Literature
Johann Strauss, University Marc Bloch / Strasbourg
Karamanlı literature – part of a ‘Christian Turkish literature’?
Anthi Karra, Brussels
>From Polypathis to Temaşa-i Dünya, from the safe port of translation to
the open sea of creation….
Julia Chatzipanagioti-Sangmeister & Matthias Kappler, University of
Cyprus / Nicosia
Thoughts on the Turkish verses in Phanariote anthologies (1750-1821)
M. Sabri Koz, Yapı ve Kredi Yayınları / Istanbul
Türk Halk Hikâyelerinin Karamanlıca Baskıları Üzerine
Karşılaştırmalı
Bibliyografik Notlar / Comparing bibliographical notes on Karamanlı
prints of Turkish folk tales
11.00 Coffee Break
Chairperson: Matthias Kappler
11.30 Linguistic Topics
Eftychios Gavriel, University of Cyprus / Nicosia
Τranscription Problems of Karamanlidika texts
Bernt Brendemoen, University of Oslo
An 18th century Karamanlidic codex from Soumela Monastery in Trabzon
Ceyda Arslan Kechriotis, Boğaziçi University / Istanbul
Some syntactic issues in Karamanlidika texts
Xavier Luffin, Université Libre / Brussels
Religious vocabulary in Karamanlidika 13.30 Concluding Discussion –
Prospects
