Stefan Winter (UQAM)
"The Arab 'Alawis (Nusayris) of Cilicia, Hatay and Syria from WWI to the Turkish War of Liberation"
Mercredi 10 juin 2015 à 18h à l'IFEA
Intervention en anglais

The Arab 'Alawis (Nusayris) of Cilicia, Hatay and Syria from WWI to the Turkish War of Liberation

The history of Syria’s ‘Alawi (Nusayri community) has become a key topic of Ottomanist research in recent years, due in no small part to the increasing sectarianization of the country’s civil conflict. Much of this research has drawn on the central Ottoman archives in Istanbul to concentrate on the community’s changing relationship with the Ottoman state in the nineteenth century, and in particular on its inclusion in the tashih-i akaid (“rectification of belief”) initiative under sultan Abdülhamid in the 1890’s. This paper, part of a larger project on the secular history of this ‘Alawis from the tenth to the twentieth century, will begin by considering late Ottoman policy towards the ‘Alawis as one of social integration rather than religious discrimination, and concentrate especially on the community’s situation during and immediately after World War One. Drawing on Arabic chronicles, local accounts from Cilicia, French diplomatic reports as well as papers from the ATASE (military) archives in Ankara, it will show that the ‘Alawis were willing to forego their ties with the Arab nationalist movement and instead seek the support and leadership of the Kemalist movement during the Turkish War of Liberation (Kurtuluş Savaşı) in an attempt to maintain a maximum of autonomy in both northwestern Syria and southern Turkey after the dislocation of the Ottoman Empire.