The evolution of a concept: “vatan” from hometown to shared place

Abstract

This thesis examines the perceptual transformation of the concept of homeland in the Ottoman Empire from the early modern period to the early twentieth century. This study seeks answers to the questions of how the concept of homeland was transformed from a place where one was born and raised in the early modern Ottoman Empire to a place to die for by gaining a sacred and powerful meaning in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also argues that this political, social and spatial transformation of the concept of homeland cannot be explained only by the emergence of nationalism and Turkist policies. This thesis argues that the idea of the homeland came to the forefront as a shared living place, and shared homeland (vaṭan-ı ʿumūmî) in the nineteenth century and strengthened as a place where all the historically integrated constituents of the Ottoman Empire (ittiḥād-ı ʿanâṣır) could live and struggle together. This study demonstrates that one of the most important reasons for the strengthening of the emphasis on the shared homeland was the migration towards the remaining borders of the Ottoman Empire, Anatolia, as a result of the great territorial losses that began at the end late nineteenth century and continued at the beginning of the twentieth century.