Obituary for Franz Kangler CM (May 27, 1950–February 23, 2021)

Franz Schmidt and His Report on German Scholars to be sent to Dar al-Funun. The relationship between Turkey and Germany dates back to late 19th century. This common history, which features intense financial exchanges, political agreements, military alliances and consequently cultural interactions, has reached its peak in the Second Constitutional Era. After the Second Constitutional Era, during World War I, Turkey was undergoing a cultural reformation. Concurrently, German side did not confine their relations with Turkey to the fields of military and economy but extended to education and culture. Dar al-Funun from which Istanbul University originated, is one of the centers the education branch of this interaction took place. This article is the first Turkish work to provide information on the report about the activities of German scholars sent to Dar al-Funun and its rapporteur, Franz Schmidt. To be able to know the innovations arrived at Istanbul University with the first and second wave of German scholars, the historical sequence should be observed. Thus one can add a historical perspective to their knowledge on the education held in Istanbul University. This fact makes the report of Franz Schmidt so crucial.

The chapter attends to the debates and practical initiatives that, during the late 2000s and early 2010s, formulated political responses to the legacies of violence in Turkey, particularly the Armenian genocide of 1915-16. These have been increasingly approached within a larger discursive frame of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (“confronting the past”) that brings into view a transnational field featuring Germany as an important actor. Von Bieberstein formulates a critical analysis of Vergangenheitsbewältigung that approaches it not as a normative set of criteria whose realization could be scientifically verified, but as an assemblage of rhetoric, political rationalities, and technologies put to the service of both critical and hegemonic political projects in Turkey and Germany. This assemblage carries the promise of democratization as well as the enduring force of nationalism.

The Construction of Turkish Identity with The Success of Turkish Origin Scientists during COVID-19 Pandemic, 2021

It is aimed to make out how the media that reshapes the societies with the discourses affects the construction of Turkish identity that is influenced by the Turkish origin scientists' worldwide success about coronavirus pandemic. By studying the news and images, it is purposed to analyze whether the otherization of Turkey that is generally established with different kinds of many bad images, expressions from past to now is still keeping alive with all the images, discourses, expressions in the media. It is aimed to analyze if there is a different point of view in Germany with successful Turkish origin scientists who are being hope for all the world in the process of coronavirus pandemic. The aim of this study is to demonstrate how Turkey is described after the contribution of the Turkish origin scientists to the world about coronavirus, by examinig the news about Turkey in Der Spiegel International (Germany) throughout four months (October, November, December in 2020 and January in 2021) with using the discourse analysis method.

Manuscript version of my chapter appearing in Muriel Mirak-Weissbach, ed., Wolfgang Gust zum 80. Geburtstag: “Was hat der Mensch dem Menschen Größeres zu geben als Wahrheit?” (ISBN: 978-3-934997-73-8). Fine volume for a great man with contributions in German, english, and French from, e.g., Richard Hovannisian, Taner Akçam, Tessa Hofmann, Raymond Kévorkian, Rubina Peroomian, Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Eric Weitz, Matthias Bjørnlund, Vagharshak Lalayan, Rouben Paul Adalian, Robert Mirak, Marc Mamigonian, Raffi Kantian, George Shirinian, Serdar Dincer, Ragıp Zarakolu, Dogan Akhanli, Fatih Akin, Cem Özdemir, Archi Galentz, Bea Ehlers Kerbekian, and Heide Rieck. http://www.mirak-weissbach.de/Publications/offsite/Festschrift/Festschrift.html https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm;jsessionid=45F0E430F2BABACFE65B6ECBE3F73293.prod-worker4?method=showFullRecord&currentResultId=Woe%3D131413309%26any&currentPosition=0 http://www.wolfgang-gust.net/ http://www.armenocide.de/armenocide/armgende.nsf/WebStart-En?OpenFrameset https://mirrorspectator.com/2015/06/04/happy-birthday-wolfgang-gust/

Istanbul Research Institute, 2021

Mode of publication: Worldwide periodical, published annually every December Note to contributors: YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies accepts submissions in English and Turkish. Articles should conform to the usage of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), 17th edition, and to the style guides published on the journal's website. Articles in Turkish conform to a customized CMOS style available at the website. Research articles are subject to review by two anonymous reviewers and the editorial board. All other submissions are reviewed by the editorial board.

The inauguration of 'Macar Kardeşler Caddesi (Hungarian Brothers Boulevard)' in Fatih district, Istanbul, in 1917 was an important initiative for the improvement of the neighbourhoods that suffered from fires there and a symbol of Turkish-Hungarian friendship. In light of the fact that the Hungarians, an ally in World War I, had inaugurated an avenue in Budapest named for the Ottoman Sultan of that time, the Istanbul Municipality went into action and took the decision to bestow this name on an avenue stretching from Saraçhane Park to Millet Library. This area encompassed a small portion of the quarter of the city that was largely destroyed by the Çırçır Harik (Çırçır Fire) on 23 August 1908. Although the Istanbul Municipality announced the inauguration of Macar Kardeşler Caddesi with a decision dated 28 March 1916, construction of the avenue took time and finally became a reality thanks to the Ottoman State's Consul General in Budapest, who continually kept the matter of the Municipality's decision on the agenda. Macar Kardeşler Caddesi was opened in a ceremony attended by Turkish and Hungarian officials but the Istanbul public showed little interest in the ceremony. Even though the matter was somewhat important to the local public because of the expropriation actions taking place during the rehabilitation of the burned-out areas, people were living under extraordinary wartime conditions so the issues of city improvement and Turkish-Hungarian friendship were not considered particularly urgent.

2019

Tragically, the crime against humanity was a chance for Turkey. In other words, fleeing Jewish scientist from the Nazi-persecution became a windfall for Ataturk’s determination to modernize Turkey. The select group of Germans and later Austrians with a record of leading-edge contributions to their respective disciplines came to Turkey to transform Turkey’s higher education system and the new Turkey entire infrastructure. Because the Turkey needed the help, Germany could use this situation as an exploitable chit on issues of Turkey’s neutrality during wartime. Thus, the national self-serving policies of two disparate governments served humanity’s ends during the darkest years of the 20th century. Nevertheless, Turkey’s role in helping European Jews during the persecution has been largely ignored. In 1933 about lots of Jews scientists began taking refuge in Turkey. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was in the process of having the University Reform implemented. According to me, these Jewish profe...

European journal of Turkish studies

, Professor Franz Babinger, chair of History and Culture of the Near East along with Turcology at Munich University, * filed an official complaint with the Munich police. A photographer had offered pictures, also suitable as passport-size photos, for 1.50 DM in his shop-windows but inside the shop, attendants asked for 3.50 DM. In his rather idiosyncratic German whose flavour is not easily translatable into English (at least for me), Babinger wrote: This constitutes a gross deception of the public which appears the more shameful as the business, which apparently maintains two other branch agencies, is located close to the main station, and therefore bound to necessarily leave the foulest impression upon all foreigners. For a Bavarian like me the issue does not become more palatable by the circumstance that the tradesmen in question are obviously no locals so that the fault does not fall onto Bavaria. I ask you to intervene immediately by employing the strictest measures and oblige the shop to clearly advertise the different prices of the photographs… 1 This minor incident does not show the professor in a very favourable light: pettifogging, choleric, full of resentment, even authoritarian and apparently obsessed with foreigners, both Germans and those from abroad, be they victims of avaricious tradesmen or avaricious tradesmen themselves. I have chosen to begin this article with such an utterly irrelevant incident because I think that it is indicative of what is at hand if we talk about the history of Turkish studies. After all, Babinger's complaint to the Munich police is not found among his personal correspondence but among that of his department; and the original has apparently been typed on the university's letterhead. 2 In Turkish studies, one deals with a very small world, inhabited by all too few people; and therefore, personal character occupies a very prominent place. Had there been a few hundred people active

Comparativ, 2022

This article highlights shifts and continuities in Ottoman-Germansphere relations by tracing the professional and intellectual activities of two generations of the Mordtmann family that lived in the Ottoman Empire between 1846 and 1918 and played an influential role in the Germanspeaking communities there due to their positions as diplomats, doctors, and Orientalist scholars. By comparing the experiences and attitudes of the family members before and after the foundation of the German Reich, the article illustrates how major political transformations were reflected in complex ways in individual life stories, and how they determined and shaped transimperial encounters on a diplomatic, academic, and interpersonal level.

2012