Archive

Award Topics

The topic for the 2013 award was “Checks and Balances in a Democracy: Turkey in a Comparative Perspective”. The seventh Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards were given at a ceremony held on Wednesday, June 26th, at Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum - the Seed. The ceremony was hosted by Güler Sabancı, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and President Professor A. Nihat Berker. The winners were Meral Uğur Çınar & Kürşad Çınar with their article '' Building Democracy to Last: the Turkish Experience in Comparative Perspective'', Yunus Sözen with his article ''Paradoxes of Liberal Constitutional Democracy and the Populist Challenge'' and Ioannis Grigoriadis wit his article ''Democratic Transition and the Rising Tide of Majoritarianism: Comparing the Cases of Greece and Turkey''.

Winners

Winners of Research Awards:

Meral Uğur Çınar. The New School Department of Political Science and Sociology in New York, USA.
Kürşat Çınar. Ohio State University, Doctorate in Politics in Columbus, USA.
“Building Democracy to Last: The Turkish Experience in Comparative Perspective”

Ioannis N. Grigoriadis. Bilkent University Political Science and Public Administration Department in Ankara, Turkey. “Democratic Transition and the Rising Tide of Majoritarianism: Comparing the Cases of Greece and Turkey”

Yunus Sözen. Özyeğin University International Relations Department in İstanbul, Turkey. “Paradoxes of Liberal Constitutional Democracy and Populist Challenge”.

Special Jury Award: Ergun Özbudun of the Istanbul Şehir University Law School for his publications on prestigious international platforms and his comparative studies on the Turkish case.

Jury

Professor Ayşe Kadıoğlu: Sabancı University
Professor Fuat Keyman: Sabancı University / İstanbul Politikalar Merkezi Direktörü
Assistant Professor Aslı Bali: University of California Los Angeles
Professor Çağlar Keyder: State University of New York ve Boğaziçi University
Emeritus Professor Deniz Kandiyoti: University of London
Elaine Papoulias: Harvard University
Professor Jenny White: Boston University

Winning Articles

This year’s theme of the awards was “Checks and Balances in a Democracy: Turkey in a Comparative Perspective” and the winners:

Meral Uğur Çınar. The New School Department of Political Science and Sociology in New York, USA. Kürşat Çınar. Ohio State University, Doctorate in Politics in Columbus, USA. “Building Democracy to Last: The Turkish Experience in Comparative Perspective”

Ioannis N. Grigoriadis. Bilkent University Political Science and Public Administration Department in Ankara, Turkey. “Democratic Transition and the Rising Tide of Majoritarianism: Comparing the Cases of Greece and Turkey”

Yunus Sözen. Özyeğin University International Relations Department in İstanbul, Turkey. “Paradoxes of Liberal Constitutional Democracy and Populist Challenge”.

Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.

Keynote Speeches

Ergun Özbudun, Faculty of Law, Istanbul Şehir University:
“Democracy is a regime of checks and balances”
Professor Ergun Özbudun, winner of the Special Jury Award, began by saying that the award was one of the proudest achievements of his long career. Ergun Özbudun said, “Checks and balances is a very wise choice as the theme this year considering the current situation in Turkey. Democracy is a regime of checks and balances. The motive behind the constitutional movement is to limit the power of the government and protect the rights of the individual. Separation of powers is essential in achieving this, and the system of checks and balances has been devised and developed as a vital part of all democratic regimes. It is not possible to conceive a democracy without checks and balances.”
“The higher democratic standards are in a country, the better will be the quality and international recognition of work in this area.”
Ergun Özbudun said, “Looking back 50 years, I see that Turkey has gained great distance both in quality and quantity. In the early 1960s, the number of professors and researchers in either social science or political science could be counted on two hands. Today, there are hundreds of scholars in both disciplines, and the increase is not limited to numbers.The studies of Turkish researchers, political scientists and social scientists receive increasing recognition and coverage in international publications. It must be kept in mind that sciences in general, social sciences in particular, and specifically subjects like constitutional law and Turkish politics are closely tied to the level of freedom of thought and the quality of democracy in the country. The higher democratic standards are in a country, the better will be the quality and international recognition of work in this area.”

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Award Topics

The topic for the 2011 award was "New Directions for Turkish Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order: Challenges and Opportunities". The sixth Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards were given at a ceremony held on Monday, June 6th, at Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum - the Seed. The ceremony was hosted by Güler Sabancı, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and PresidentProfessor A. Nihat Berker. The winner was Professor Kemal Kirişci from Boğaziçi University.

Winners

The first prize: Kemal Kirişci. Boğaziçi University. “Turkey’s engagement with its neighborhood: A “synthetic” and multi-dimensional look at Turkey’s foreign policy transformation” .
Second prize: Güneş Murat Tezcur & Alexandru Grigorescu. Loyola University Chicago. “Europeanization Regionalism in Turkish Foreign Policy” .
Third prize: Clemens Hoffman & Can Cemgil. Sussex University “A Pax Turca in the Middle East?” .

Jury

Prof. Dr. Sabri Sayarı: Sabancı University
Prof. Dr. Ustun Erguder : Director, Istanbul Policy Center / Sabancı University
Prof. Dr. Mustafa Aydın: Kadir Has University
Prof. Dr. Riva Kastoryano: Center for International Studies and Research Director, Paris
Associate. Prof. Martin Sampson: Minnesota University
Prof. Dr. Malik Mufti: Tufts University
Dr. Nathalie Tocci: Instituto Affari Internazionali’de Senior Fellow

Winning Articles

Prof. Dr. Kemal Kirişci / “Turkey’s engagement with its neighborhood: A “synthetic” and multi-dimensional look at Turkey’s foreign policy transformation”

Doç. Dr. Güneş Murat Tezcur & Doç. Dr. Alexandru Grigorescu / “Europeanization Regionalism in Turkish Foreign Policy”

Dr. Clemens Hoffman & Can Cemgil / “A Pax Turca in the Middle East?”

Dr. Ioannis N. Grigoriadis / "Turkey’s New Foreign Policy Activism: Evaluating its Political and Economic Underpinnings”

Dr. Alper Kaliber / “Reorganization of Geopolitics: Understanding the New Activism in Turkish Foreign Policy”

Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.

Keynote Speeches

Martin Sampson

Notes for speech on behalf of the jury at the 2011 Sakip Sabanci Award ceremony at the Sabanci Museum on June 8, 2011

Winner: Kemal Kirişci

Just as it is appropriate and advantageous that Turkey has an ambitious, nuanced, and complex relationship with the outside world, it is advantageous and important that scholarship that seeks to understand these nuances and complexities flourish. That is the purpose of the Sakip Sabanci award, and the diversity and number of papers it has attracted attest to the richness of the subject. There was a time decades ago when a significant part, although not all, of Turkey’s foreign policy was derivative of someone else’s cold war. Two decades ago a time ensued in which many wondered if the end of the cold war meant a strategic marginalization of Turkey that would significantly reduce its importance internationally. Few if any people in that era could have imagined that two decades later Turkey would have significant latitude to find its own way in a number of internationally crucial foreign policy arenas. Few people in that era could have imagined how the topic of Turkish foreign policy would widen from a focus on state activities to a continuation of that focus plus a consideration of impacts various societal and economic groups would play in Turkey’s relationship with the outside world and its foreign policy. The current era is a time in which scholarship has become far more important for understanding and for democratic debate because of these kinds of changes. The existence of this award could not have found a better era, in regard either to the fascination of the topic or the importance of informed debate and discussion. I salute those who created this award. The papers submitted this year present an array of terms which underscore the interest of their authors in the orientation and/or the complexity of Turkey’s relationship with the outside world. “Concurrent repositioning”, “omni-enmeshment”, “neo-Ottoman”, “Pax Turca,” “new foreign policy activisim” are some of them, underscoring the debate on how best to understand the complexities of Turkey’s foreign policy. Some of the papers examined the implications of Turkey’s leverage as that relates to its foreign policy endeavors. There were case studies on narrow but crucial aspects of Turkey’s foreign policy some of which examined how well the policy was implemented in those particular circumstances. There were case studies on highly visible, broader parts of Turkey’s policy. And there was one paper that argued the advantages of an ambiguous foreign policy in a turbulent region. One of the central challenges is to understand the new context in which Turkey is operating. Part of that context is driven by outside factors, such as the overthrow of a Mubarak or the revolt in Syria against the Asad regime. Part of the context, however, is the rise of Turkey’s international presence as a result of Turkey’s own efforts of many kinds. It is not difficult to find evidence. Examples of such evidence include the trivial point that there is Turkish chocolate for sale at the Timbucktu airport or that a finalist and in the eyes of many the best entry in New York City’s contest for a new taxicab came from a Turkish company to the fact that it was Turkey whose embassy in Tripoli was able to mediate the release of reporters despite Turkey’s complex situation of NATO membership plus extensive economic interests in Libya. The evidence is abundant. The difficulties are to understand the major kinds of this evidence, how they add up, and what kinds of implications that has for Turkey’s foreign policy. These are not easy tasks, which is precisely why academics and others who analyze Turkey’s international situation are so valuable and why it is so helpful to have an award that helps stimulate and recognize their scholarship.

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Award Topics

The topic for the 2010 award was "Multiculturalism in the Governance of the European Union and Turkish Accession". Participants studied the issues and challenges that multiculturalism presents for the governance of the European Union. In particular, the authors assessed the benefits and contributions of Turkey’s accession to the EU’s governance in meeting these challenges. The fifth Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards were given at a ceremony held on Tuesday, June 8th, at Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum - the Seed. The ceremony was hosted by Güler Sabancı, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and President Professor A. Nihat Berker. The winner of the first prize was Juliette Tolay from University of Delaware.

Winners

The first prize: Juliette Tolay, University of Delaware, with her essay titled: "Turkey’s Other Multicultural Debate: Lessons for the EU".

Second prize: Dr. Akça Ataç, Çankaya University, with her work titled "Another Brick on The Tower of Babel: Turkey's Possible Challenges and Contributions to The EU’s Language Policy".

Third prize: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Şener Aktürk; Visiting Lecturer, Department of Government, Harvard University; Assistant Professor, Department of International Relations, Koç University, with his work titled "The Impact of Ethno-Religious Demography on Strengthening Secularism and the
Dynamics of Multiculturalism: Turkey’s Accession into the European Union".

Jury

Prof. Dr. Sabri Sayarı: Sabancı University
Joost Lagendijk: Sabancı University
Prof. Dr. Ziya Öniş: Koç University
Dr. Philip Robins: St Antony's College
Prof. Dr. Uffe Ostergaard: Copenhagen Business School
Prof. Dr. Raoul Motika: Universität Hamburg

Winning Articles

Juliette Tolay / Turkey's Other Multicultural Debate: Lessons for the EU

Akça Ataç / Another Brick on the Tower of Babel: Turkey's Possible Challenges and Contributions to the EU's Language Policy

Şener Aktürk / The Impact of Ethno-Religious Demography on Strengthening Secularism and the Dynamics of Multiculturalism: Turkey's Accession into the European Union

Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.

Keynote Speeches

Joost Lagendijk

Notes for speech on behalf of the jury at the 2010 Sakip Sabanci Award ceremony at the Sabanci Museum on June 8, 2010

Winner: Juliette Tolay

Doctoral candidate at the University of Delaware, USA

Title of essay: Turkey’s Other Multicultural Debate: Lessons for the EU

Most of the time in relation between Turkey and EU: Turkey has to adapt to European standards
At two levels: bringing legislation in line with EU acquis (negotiating about chapters) and political reforms necessary to fulfill Copenhagen criteria
One way street: EU asks/demands, Turkey has to change laws/mentality. Therefore the word ‘negotiations’ is totally wrong.
Also on migration: Turkey has to deliver: sign a re-admission agreement (accept returned migrants from Europe), introduce biometrical passports, guard the borders better. EU will assist Turkey the coming years with hundreds of millions euro’s to try and reach these goals. Then, maybe, EU countries will soften their visa policy.
On multiculturalism: EU often lectures Turkey on the lack of rights for ethnic and religious minorities. Situation in EU member states very different + all have problems with dealing with new migrants. Still, again one way street.
That makes this essay so refreshing: two way street approach
It looks at the way Turkey, Turkish society, deals with migrants. Not only the ‘traditional’ ones with Turkic background but also the new ones from Africa and Asia. In a way restoring the multicultural character of the Ottoman Empire that was lost during the Turkish republic.
Have to be careful there with the numbers. In Turkey we are speaking of relatively small numbers, not to be compared with the situation in the Ottoman Empire in the past and the present numbers of migrants in EU member states.
Still, very interestingly, the author looks at the way these new migrants are being seen and treated in Turkey:
Main characteristics:
Few limitations on getting into the country
No official policy on integration
Flexibility in society in accommodating the newcomers
No ‘unhealthy’ debate on multiculturalism
In EU: exactly the opposite
Can EU learn something from Turkey? Again, be careful because magnitude of problems and history of migration politics are totally different.
Still: provocative proposal for the EU to look more carefully at Turkey’s (lack of) migration policy. Is more in line with ‘the nature of the globalized world that is encouraging new forms of mobility’. Maybe the EU should accept migration and multiculturalism as facts of life that can better be handled in a flexible way than try to regulate each and every movement in detail.
It makes you think. It makes you smile. It makes you wonder.
And that makes it a good essay that deserves to win this price.

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Award Topics

The topic for the 2009 award competition was “Pluralism in Contemporary Turkish Society and Politics”. The fourth Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awardswere given at a ceremony held on Tuesday, May 26th, at Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum - the Seed. The ceremony was hosted by Güler Sabancı, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and President Professor Tosun Terzioğlu. The winner of the first prize was the young researcher from the University of Vermont, Kabir Tambar.

Winners

The first prize: Dr. Kabir Tambar of University of Vermont, with his essay titled: "Paradoxes of Pluralism: Ritual Aesthetics and the Alevi Revival in Turkey".

Second prize: Nora Fisher Onar, doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford with her work titled "Beyond Binaries: 'Europe', Pluralism, and a Revisionist-Status Quo Key to Turkish Politics".

Third prize: Murat Somer, Associate Professor of Koç University with his work titled "Democracy (For Me): Religious and Secular Beliefs and Social and Political Pluralism in Turkey".

Jury

Professor Sabri Sayarı: Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Professor John Waterbury: Former President of the American University of Beirut Faculty of Political Sciences, Lebanon; Emeritus Professor of Political Sciences, Princeton University
Professor Nilüfer Göle: Director, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Centre d'Analyse et d'Intervention Sociologiques, France
Professor Fuat Keyman: Koç University, Professor of International Relations
Professor David Shankland: University of Bristol, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, UK
Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis: University of Oxford, Professor of International Relations

Winning Articles

Kabir Tambar / Paradoxes of Pluralism: Ritual Aesthetics and the Alevi Revival in Turkey

Nora Fisher Onar / Beyond Binaries: 'Europe', Pluralism, and a Revisionist-Status Quo Key to Turkish Politics

Murat Somer / Democracy (For Me): Religious And Secular Beliefs And Social And Political Pluralism In Turkey

Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.

Keynote Speeches

John Waterbury

Keynote Speech by John Waterbury, Princeton University Transcript

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It is a great honor for me to be here and to have been a member of the jury for this year's award ceremony. It is an even greater honor for me to be here before you this evening. I greatly appreciate the privilege and I salute Sabancı University and the Sabancı family for sponsoring this contest- this year devoted to pluralism in Turkish society. I apologize to you all that I am not able to deliver my remarks in Turkish. But I must say that the essays that I read were all written in English and in English better than my own.
Indeed those eight essays that we the jury considered were all of very high quality. I learned from them all and I appreciate the opportunity to read them all. I want to make a few summary remarks about those essays- at least my personal impressions of them. And then a few general remarks about pluralism itself. I should warn you that I am not- I do not consider myself a student or an expert on pluralism. I speak more as someone who simply lives in society whether it is in the US or here in the Middle East. And one who worries about diversity, pluralism and the respect for a wide range of opinions and practices.
The essays, with the exception of one, I think I can say fairly, did not spend a lot of time on what we would call the theory of pluralism. Only one seemed to engage that topic in some detail. Rather the essays plunged into what I would call into the mechanics of pluralism. That is how in Turkish society do various groups that may not share in the dominant ideology and paradigm of the country try to find their place, try to gain legitimacy and respect and indeed try to gain legal status in the system. So the essays moved rather quickly from the question of what is pluralism and why it is important and how in a theoretic way do we try to protect it to the actual mechanics: What our different groups are doing to try to carve out a place for themselves in Turkish society and Turkish politics. And they addressed what I think would probably the authors more pressing concerns in academic terms. Some were looking at an issue that is called social movements and how social movements form and establish themselves. Some were interested and using a methodology of either survey research that is public opinion or opinion research and content analysis of newspapers. Some employed an anthropological approach to try look right at the grassroots level. And indeed the winner of the contest was looking at the grassroots level from an anthropological, sociological point of view of how a group in current temporary Turkey seeks to carve and nurture itself. And at least one of the essays was very concerned with general political attitudes of the Turkish political elite. So very diverse approaches to this issue. But as I say it seems to me the common thread was looking at the mechanics rather than the general theory of pluralism in contemporary Turkish society and Turkish politics.
What struck me in reading across these papers was the sensitivity of the authors to certain paradoxes, certain contradictions that are merged in this study of mechanics and I'll just mention three or maybe four. One for instance, indeed I think the winner, I hope I don't abuse his own really profound analysis, looked at a paradox of the Alevis. Asserting their dead identity through a performance which is characterized as folkloric and using- and that was acceptable in a folkloric sense acceptable to present to a non-Alevi public. But in so doing, in a way, the Alevis debased their own religious identity which was the very thing they sought recognition for. So it was kind of a paradox in the sense that they had to go through a public folkloric presentation in order to gain official recognition of their religious identity. But in so doing they in a way debased that religious identity. There is the paradox mentioned in some papers of secularist Turks who feared the pressure coming from Europe to keep the military totally out of politics and in so doing perhaps jeopardizing what they, the secularists saw, as the last defense of their secularism. They were caught between two pressures and in a way have not yet reconciled that contradiction. A third that I noticed in at least two or three of the papers was in fact the role of the AKP which I think fascinated many of the authors where what does this represent. Presented as a challenge to what we might call the Kemalist paradigm prevailing in Turkey since the founding of the republic but at the same time perhaps borrowing one of the tenets of the Kemalist paradigm which either explicitly or implicitly has been that Sunni Islam is the religion of state. So AKP sets itself up as the alternative to the Kemalist paradigm but yet maybe borrows one of the basic pillars of it. So I am gonna conclude my remarks on those papers just saying that mechanics of pluralism are not clear cut in Turkey, the agendas of different groups are not consistent at all times. There are contradictions and paradoxes that either a student of this phenomenon or a practitioner must appreciate or I think take some delight in.
Let me move to some more general remarks on pluralism itself and I again emphasize that I am not an expert or a student. So I ask these simply as an observer. And, the first that, the first generalization that I would make is that at least in Western political theory, the concern for pluralism and the protection of pluralism, I believe arises out of a much deeper concern with what we might call the tyranny of the majority in democracies and this comes out of ancient democratic theory- a fear that majorities, even though they practice in a democratic system, may impose short term solutions that are highly destructive to society. In other words, there is an ancient and deep mistrust of the majority even if it expresses its voice in a democratic way. And therefore there must be constitutional, institutional protections for minorities. I think there are so many examples in history that show the stupidity of the majorities, the viciousness of majorities. We do not need to dwell on this terribly long but I just would say two examples familiar I think to most of you. Adolf Hitler was the product of a democratic process. There can be circumstances in which popular passions are aroused and brought to a point where they do extraordinary harm. Perhaps on a lesser scale but one of the most shameful periods in my own country's history, the US, again came under a period of very high stress, Pearl Harbour and the beginning of the World War II at least for the US where the US interned virtually every Japanese citizen, every US citizen of Japanese origin during the duration of the war. We learned later that we needed to have constitutional protections for that, for any minority so that even though with the popular will of the majority of Americans at the time, we needed to have that, the Japanese, at least the Japanese in the US did not have those protections. So I think one of our concerns that lead to our concern with pluralism and pluralist systems, is that the majority can and under stress often does make terrible mistakes.
Diversity and pluralism has been regarded more often as a threat to society than as a blessing and a source of strength. It is seen as a way to tear apart the fabric of a nation, or an empire or some kind of political unit. It is seen as the way that the enemy can enter your society and exploit the differences to their advantage. Therefore, it is often the case that political systems try to contain or suppress pluralism. And that again from one of a political, liberal persuasion, is abhorred and repulsive but it's simply been the general modus vivendi in most societies in the world. But it has been, I think prevalent for understandable reasons, in post-colonial society in the developing countries- those countries that have been subjected to foreign rule. I myself have been a student of the Arab world, of North Africa, and the Arab countries and throughout, scholars from those countries would say that friends, Britain and then in the later phase the US, has exploited our differences they created a kind of artificial sense of identity among different peoples, ethnic groups, religions in our societies in order to divide and rule, divide and conquer, maintain their colonial control. And therefore in order to build our nations as the way they should be, we cannot tolerate these differences. We must- we must build new identities that overcome these old identities.
And so I would say since the World War II, in many societies, those that are from minorities- they may be ethnic minorities, they may be religious minorities, they may hold different political views- they have been regarded as not only as dangerous but as, in some sense, traitors. As agents of powers, external powers, that want to dominate the local society. So it is an uphill battle to develop pluralist systems. And I take it as a great sign of encouragement that here in Turkey and here at Sabanci University, there seems to be a strong will to explore pluralist systems, understand how they function and how they can be an element of strength rather than perceived as an element of weakness. Thank you again for allowing me this opportunity to address you. It has been a great honour and good evening to you all.

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Award Topics

In 2008, the topic of the competition was "The Ottoman Legacy for Contemporary Turkish Culture, Institutions, and Values". Participants studied the reflections of the Ottoman heritage on the culture, institutions and values of contemporary Turkey. The first prize went to Amy Singer, professor of Ottoman History in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University, with her essay, "The Persistence of Philanthropy".

Winners

First Prize: Amy Singer, aAsst. Prof. of Ottoman History in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University, with her essay, "The Persistence of Philanthropy".

Second Prize: Maureen Jackson, doctoral candidate at the Washington University Comparative Literature Department, with her essay "Crossing Musical Worlds: Jews Making Ottoman and Turkish Classical Music".

Third Prize: Olivier Bouquet, Asst. Prof. at the Nice Sophia-Antipolis University, and research fellow at the Modern and Contemporary Mediterranean Centre in Nice, with his essay "Old Elites in a New Republic: The Reconversion of Ottoman Bureaucratic Families in Turkey (1909-1939)".

Honorable mentions: Zoe Griffith, CASA fellow at the American University in Cairo, with her essay "Calligraphy and the art of statecraft in the late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkish Republic" and
Denise R. Gill, doctoral candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Ethnomusicology and Women's Studies Department with her essay "Performing Mesk, (re)Articulating History: Legacies of Transmission in Contemporary Turkish Musical Practices".

Jury

Prof. Dr. Sabri Sayari: Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabancı University.
Prof. Dr. Resat Kasaba: Professor at the University of Washington, The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.
Prof. Dr. Sukru Hanioglu: Professor at University of Washington, The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.
Prof. Dr. Fikret Adanir: Professor at Sabancı University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
Prof. Dr. Sevket Pamuk: Professor at Bogazici University.
Prof. Dr. Jacob Landau: Professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Political Science.
Dr. Caroline Finkel: Author.
Prof. Dr. Jenny White: Professor at Boston University, Department of Anthropology.

Winning Articles

Amy Singer
Department of Middle Eastern & African History
Tel Aviv University
First Prize - 2008 Competition
The Ottoman Legacy for Contemporary Turkish Culture, Institutions and Values The Persistence of Philanthropy
One of the most profound Ottoman legacies to contemporary Turkey is the central role of private philanthropy as a vehicle for shaping culture and society. Two principle legacies of Ottoman philanthropy exist in Turkey today. The first is cultural, apparent in the thriving practice of elite philanthropy; the second is physical, readily discovered in the urban fabric of most Turkish cities. It is the Ottoman philanthropic tradition and its impact on Turkey that claim our attention in the present study, particularly with respect to the city of Istanbul. Both continuities and changes are apparent from imperial to republican times: in the identity of the donors, the sources and locus of wealth, the importance of foundations, the motivations for giving, the choice of projects, the physical impact of donations, and the identity of the beneficiaries.
Yet today's dynamic culture of private charitable giving in Turkey is not solely the result of inherited Ottoman ideology and practices, just as Ottoman philanthropic practices were themselves the result of combined Muslim, Turco-Mongol, Byzantine, and Arab influences. For Turkey, the example of philanthropy in some European countries and the United States also had an impact beginning in the nineteenth century. Since 1923, however, the specific Turkish experience has transformed philanthropy in Turkey into practices that are at the same time identifiably local and emphatically global.
Gift giving, a universal of human societies, is the larger sociological framework within which the study of philanthropy offers insights for understanding human history more generally. According to sociologist Marcel Mauss, it is the continuous exchange of gifts between individuals that creates social order and stability, and charitable giving is a special case of gift exchanges. An investigation of philanthropy in any society reveals much about its organization, the loci of wealth and power, and the distribution of responsibility for social welfare and public services.
The evidence of large-scale elite philanthropy can hardly be missed in the Turkish landscape today, whether the projects are historical or contemporary. Some further aspects of this philanthropy endure, such as a common sense of elite obligation, the participation of men and women, and the engagement of philanthropy in the competition for status and influence. Today, the economic elite has replaced the sultans and pashas as premier benefactors, with personal or corporate donations even rivaling government sources of assistance.
The motivations for contemporary philanthropy echo the Muslim consciousness of Ottoman donors, although philanthropy no longer functions to ensure the political legitimacy of the ruling house. It does, however, serve to legitimize wealth, and notably so in the context of the early Turkish republic where profit-making was not necessarily well-regarded. Yet several Turkish donors specifically characterize their donations as using their wealth for the well-being of society, giving back to the society that made them wealthy. Philanthropy remains the means to contribute to a wider community, whether it is the community of Turkish citizens, of Muslims or another confessional group, of a town, a neighborhood, or a profession.
While the wealth of Turkey's philanthropists derives from sources rather different from those of their Ottoman predecessors, their projects reflect partial continuity. The focus remains on institutions of social welfare, like education and health. However, the contemporary vision of the purpose of education and health care is often of capacity building and social justice rather than only the preservation of a religious or legal tradition. Scholarships, dormitories, primary schools, and universities are designed according to a conscious program of social engagement alongside a curriculum intended to make Turkey and Turkish students competitive in science, technology and the arts. Education is a tool of individual empowerment and community formation, as well as of national economic development. At the same time, the creation of museums and the funding for performing arts - such as that provided by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and the Arts established by the Eczacıbaşı Foundation - signify changing visions of what is good and beneficial for society. As in Ottoman times, the beneficiaries are not limited to the materially poor and needy. Rather, private elite philanthropy contributes to many segments of society and in this reflects the manifold motivations for giving.
Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.
© Amy Singer, 2008

Maureen Jackson
Washington University
Comparative Literature Department
Second Prize - 2008 Competiton
Crossing Musical Worlds: Jews Making Ottoman and Turkish Classical Music This paper investigates the multiethnic art world enabling Turkish Jewish religious music to parallel broader musical practices in the Ottoman empire and Turkey. It seeks to explain why Hebrew classical music continues to be performed in Istanbul, given the diminished size of the Jewish community in Turkey today. While research has been conducted on the musicological relationships between Hebrew religious music and Ottoman classical forms, scholars have paid less detailed attention to how, on a socio-historical level, such confluences developed. Focusing primarily on the Maftirim repertoire (Hebrew religious compositions that closely parallel Ottoman classical suite forms), this study is part of a larger dissertation project encompassing the late Ottoman and Republican eras as dynamic periods of musical and social change. Through several biographies of late Ottoman/early Republican Jewish composers in the framework of an "art world," it is possible to conceptualize a classical music world in Jewish and non-Jewish musicians met regularly in relatively inclusive spaces in the city, thus developing a common classical music practice across religious lines. The Mevlevi lodge and palace represented important spaces, owing to their centrality to classical music education, with longterm historical evidence of musical interchange between lodge and synagogue, and invitations for Jewish composers to teach or perform at the palace. Later, at the turn of the 20th century other musical venues developed, such as music stores and schools, as well as recording studios, where diverse musicians would meet. Specifically, it was Jewish composers who also held positions of authority in the synagogue (chief rabbi, head of a single congregation or prayer leader) who served as primary cultural carriers of classical music between synagogue and broader musical culture, owing to their status to circulate among certain places and people, and their role in transmitting the music in the synagogue.
If we combine evidence from these Jewish biographies with the extensive documentation of broader patterns of Ottoman music-making, it is clear that such multiethnic musical meetings and activities were not random, but rather that Jews and other minorities were integrally involved in a broader classical music culture. In addition to cohesive socio-economic patterns, such as palace patronage and division of musical labor, master-pupil relationships were particularly significant to this world, because the task of orally transmitting complex pieces established uniquely intensive reciprocal relations between master and pupil. Through numerous examples of long-term teaching relationships between Jewish and non-Jewish musicians, we can see that Ottoman and Turkish chains of master-pupils were essentially multireligious. In the Republican period, given the cultural distancing from things Ottoman, as well as important European-leaning and secularizing social and legal reforms, what happened to this Ottoman music world? In addition, given the gradual out-migration of Turkish Jews over the course of the 20th century, what happened to its Hebrew forms? Diverse changes in the Republic did adversely affect the music and musicians, such as closure of Sufi lodges, debates about an appropriate national music, and increasing contention between European ('alafranga') and Turkish ('alaturka') cultural forms, with state funds shifting from Turkish to European music education programs. However, in the two or three decades before 1923, the recording industry and gazinos (nightclubs) had become so well-established that they partially offset these impacts by providing alternative spaces and patrons for Turkish classical music in all its forms. Moreover, numerous minorities were involved in these commercial enterprises, as agents for European or American record companies based in Istanbul, or as owners of gazinos. Since the commercial sphere was responding to tastes on the street, not those of reforming minority, the 1920s witnessed a rise rather than fall in popular Turkish classical and Hebrew religious music-making in the new Republic. It is in the 1930s that there are increasing pressures on both Ottoman classical music and on minority musicians such as Jews. On the one hand, Jewish composer-leaders began to leave Turkey, and on the other, the state began more seriously to develop European-style music conservatories through hiring European artists. The life-story of Isak Algazi, a prominent Jewish composer and prayer leader who was supportive of the Republic, is helpful in tracing artistic and economic reasons for such Turkish-Jewish departures through his experiences of exclusion (from civil service and record contracts) in a time of civil employment discrimination and changing Republican musical tastes. Concomitantly, in the early 1930s the state began to develop European-style conservatories by hiring German and Austrian artists, who were often Jewish and fleeing Nazi Germany, to establish music curricula and to teach in Turkey. Paul Hindemith represents the most famous example (his wife was Jewish), while others helped to establish Turkish opera, ballet and symphony in the following decade. Commonly discussed in separate scholarship, these two episodes in juxtaposition reflect how movements of Jewish artists, whether Turkish or European, participated in bearing important musical changes in the Turkish Republic by developing 'alafranga' over 'alaturka' cultural forms.
In the end, for Jewish classical musicians remaining in Turkey who did not circulate in the commercial music industry and official service, it is in civil society realm that they continued to participate in classical music making. One of the spaces of interaction with non-Jewish musicians is the ev toplantiları (home sessions), which, as musical gatherings with Ottoman precedence, took on significance in the Republic as places where classical artists sought to sustain traditional classical music against commercialization and lack of state educational funding. Given the evidence, these regular weekly or monthly meetings at homes of patrons represented diverse gatherings where traditionalist classical musicians learned and performed music, as well as engaging in intellectual, and sometimes religious, discussion.
In this way, through friendships and meeting places such as home gatherings, Jewish classical musicians networked with others musicians in ways not unlike their late Ottoman counterparts. At the same time they circulated in a more contested and divided music world than in the past: the dichotomy and hierarchy between 'alafranga' and 'alaturka' music had disadvantaged Ottoman classical music for a period of time, and an arguably trifurcated music world (official, commercial and civic spheres) had developed to include or exclude certain kinds of music and musicians. In a context of the attenuation of both a musical genre and the minority Jewish population of Turkey, it is the civic sphere of classical music, its friendships and meeting-places, that has helped to sustain Hebrew classical music-making into the 21st century. Thus, one of the dimensions of Ottoman classical music-making that implicitly motivated nationalizing music reforms - its multiethnic character - was not entirely suppressed, but sustained itself despite musical change and minority losses in the Turkish Republic.
Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.
© Maureen Jackson, 2008
This paper is based in part on research conducted in Istanbul through a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for International Dissertation Research, 2005-06. In Istanbul I am grateful to many people, including Rav Leon Adoni, Cem Behar, Bensi Elmas, Lina Filiba, Mehmet Güntekin, David Sevi, Karen Gerson Şarhon, and Abdurrahman Nevzat Tırışkan. I am also indebted to the scholarship of a number of researchers, including Cem Behar, Aaron Kohen, John Morgan O'Connell, Edwin Seroussi, and Cemal Ünlü. I thank those who commented on versions of this work, especially Münir Beken, Reşat Kasaba, Sarah Stein, and the Turkish Studies Group at the University of Washington. Please do not cite or reproduce this paper without permission of the author.
Olivier Bouquet
Washington University
Comparative Literature Department
Second Prize - 2008 Competiton
Crossing Musical Worlds: Jews Making Ottoman and Turkish Classical Music This paper investigates the multiethnic art world enabling Turkish Jewish religious music to parallel broader musical practices in the Ottoman empire and Turkey. It seeks to explain why Hebrew classical music continues to be performed in Istanbul, given the diminished size of the Jewish community in Turkey today. While research has been conducted on the musicological relationships between Hebrew religious music and Ottoman classical forms, scholars have paid less detailed attention to how, on a socio-historical level, such confluences developed. Focusing primarily on the Maftirim repertoire (Hebrew religious compositions that closely parallel Ottoman classical suite forms), this study is part of a larger dissertation project encompassing the late Ottoman and Republican eras as dynamic periods of musical and social change. Through several biographies of late Ottoman/early Republican Jewish composers in the framework of an "art world," it is possible to conceptualize a classical music world in Jewish and non-Jewish musicians met regularly in relatively inclusive spaces in the city, thus developing a common classical music practice across religious lines. The Mevlevi lodge and palace represented important spaces, owing to their centrality to classical music education, with longterm historical evidence of musical interchange between lodge and synagogue, and invitations for Jewish composers to teach or perform at the palace. Later, at the turn of the 20th century other musical venues developed, such as music stores and schools, as well as recording studios, where diverse musicians would meet. Specifically, it was Jewish composers who also held positions of authority in the synagogue (chief rabbi, head of a single congregation or prayer leader) who served as primary cultural carriers of classical music between synagogue and broader musical culture, owing to their status to circulate among certain places and people, and their role in transmitting the music in the synagogue.
If we combine evidence from these Jewish biographies with the extensive documentation of broader patterns of Ottoman music-making, it is clear that such multiethnic musical meetings and activities were not random, but rather that Jews and other minorities were integrally involved in a broader classical music culture. In addition to cohesive socio-economic patterns, such as palace patronage and division of musical labor, master-pupil relationships were particularly significant to this world, because the task of orally transmitting complex pieces established uniquely intensive reciprocal relations between master and pupil. Through numerous examples of long-term teaching relationships between Jewish and non-Jewish musicians, we can see that Ottoman and Turkish chains of master-pupils were essentially multireligious.
In the Republican period, given the cultural distancing from things Ottoman, as well as important European-leaning and secularizing social and legal reforms, what happened to this Ottoman music world? In addition, given the gradual out-migration of Turkish Jews over the course of the 20th century, what happened to its Hebrew forms? Diverse changes in the Republic did adversely affect the music and musicians, such as closure of Sufi lodges, debates about an appropriate national music, and increasing contention between European ('alafranga') and Turkish ('alaturka') cultural forms, with state funds shifting from Turkish to European music education programs. However, in the two or three decades before 1923, the recording industry and gazinos (nightclubs) had become so well-established that they partially offset these impacts by providing alternative spaces and patrons for Turkish classical music in all its forms. Moreover, numerous minorities were involved in these commercial enterprises, as agents for European or American record companies based in Istanbul, or as owners of gazinos. Since the commercial sphere was responding to tastes on the street, not those of reforming minority, the 1920s witnessed a rise rather than fall in popular Turkish classical and Hebrew religious music-making in the new Republic.
It is in the 1930s that there are increasing pressures on both Ottoman classical music and on minority musicians such as Jews. On the one hand, Jewish composer-leaders began to leave Turkey, and on the other, the state began more seriously to develop European-style music conservatories through hiring European artists. The life-story of Isak Algazi, a prominent Jewish composer and prayer leader who was supportive of the Republic, is helpful in tracing artistic and economic reasons for such Turkish-Jewish departures through his experiences of exclusion (from civil service and record contracts) in a time of civil employment discrimination and changing Republican musical tastes. Concomitantly, in the early 1930s the state began to develop European-style conservatories by hiring German and Austrian artists, who were often Jewish and fleeing Nazi Germany, to establish music curricula and to teach in Turkey. Paul Hindemith represents the most famous example (his wife was Jewish), while others helped to establish Turkish opera, ballet and symphony in the following decade. Commonly discussed in separate scholarship, these two episodes in juxtaposition reflect how movements of Jewish artists, whether Turkish or European, participated in bearing important musical changes in the Turkish Republic by developing 'alafranga' over 'alaturka' cultural forms.
In the end, for Jewish classical musicians remaining in Turkey who did not circulate in the commercial music industry and official service, it is in civil society realm that they continued to participate in classical music making. One of the spaces of interaction with non-Jewish musicians is the ev toplantiları (home sessions), which, as musical gatherings with Ottoman precedence, took on significance in the Republic as places where classical artists sought to sustain traditional classical music against commercialization and lack of state educational funding. Given the evidence, these regular weekly or monthly meetings at homes of patrons represented diverse gatherings where traditionalist classical musicians learned and performed music, as well as engaging in intellectual, and sometimes religious, discussion. In this way, through friendships and meeting places such as home gatherings, Jewish classical musicians networked with others musicians in ways not unlike their late Ottoman counterparts. At the same time they circulated in a more contested and divided music world than in the past: the dichotomy and hierarchy between 'alafranga' and 'alaturka' music had disadvantaged Ottoman classical music for a period of time, and an arguably trifurcated music world (official, commercial and civic spheres) had developed to include or exclude certain kinds of music and musicians. In a context of the attenuation of both a musical genre and the minority Jewish population of Turkey, it is the civic sphere of classical music, its friendships and meeting-places, that has helped to sustain Hebrew classical music-making into the 21st century. Thus, one of the dimensions of Ottoman classical music-making that implicitly motivated nationalizing music reforms - its multiethnic character - was not entirely suppressed, but sustained itself despite musical change and minority losses in the Turkish Republic.
Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.
© Maureen Jackson, 2008
This paper is based in part on research conducted in Istanbul through a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for International Dissertation Research, 2005-06. In Istanbul I am grateful to many people, including Rav Leon Adoni, Cem Behar, Bensi Elmas, Lina Filiba, Mehmet Güntekin, David Sevi, Karen Gerson Şarhon, and Abdurrahman Nevzat Tırışkan. I am also indebted to the scholarship of a number of researchers, including Cem Behar, Aaron Kohen, John Morgan O'Connell, Edwin Seroussi, and Cemal Ünlü. I thank those who commented on versions of this work, especially Münir Beken, Reşat Kasaba, Sarah Stein, and the Turkish Studies Group at the University of Washington. Please do not cite or reproduce this paper without permission of the author.
Zoe Griffith
American University
CASA Fellow
Honorable Mention - 2008 Competition
Calligraphy and the Art of Statecraft in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkish Republic Statecraft and nationalism have been widely examined in the context of both the Ottoman Empire and the modern Turkish Republic. The overemphasis of the role of the state and major political figures in the intentional molding of Turkish cultural, political, and social life, however, has tended to obscure the important role played by those outside of the dominant circles of power in shaping what we might call a Turkish "national identity."
This paper hopes to suggest one alternative lens through which to view changes in state institutions and identity construction during an extended period of dramatic change in Turkey. From the final decades of Ottoman rule and through the 20th century, Islamic calligraphy has contributed and been subject to some of the major state policies that have dramatically influenced Ottoman and Turkish society. At the same time, however, calligraphy and calligraphers have always retained an important distance from state control. It is this distance that has permitted Islamic calligraphy to flourish in Turkey even in times of deep state crisis. It also allows us to explore the interactions of the state with non-state actors in the delicate process of negotiating a national identity.
Islamic calligraphy enjoyed unique prestige under the Ottomans, and is also widely recognized as having reached new heights of achievement under their patronage. However, that the art continued to flourish and innovate even during the empire's final decades is noteworthy for showcasing the degree to which calligraphy existed independently from the state. The master-apprentice system by which calligraphy is traditionally taught has preserved the art in a non-institutional context that was less subject to major upheavals in state institutions.
Also noteworthy is the survival of calligraphy and its continued appreciation and relevance in the modern Turkish Republic. Calligraphy and calligraphers had to contend with the concerted efforts of the Republican regime to distance Turkey from its Ottoman-Islamic past, of which Islamic calligraphy was a powerful visual reminder. Even more foreboding for the fate of calligraphy was the ban in 1928 of the use of the Arabic script for writing the Turkish language. That Islamic calligraphy continues to be practiced and recognized in modern Turkey, then, clearly runs counter to the declared intentions and attempts of the early Republican state to engineer a new state identity for the Turkish people. This continuity signals a resistance on the part of certain segments of society to the denial of this important cultural achievement on the grounds of its association with Islam and the Ottoman state. As such, it becomes clear that modern Turkish history could not be divorced from the history of the 600-year-old empire that preceded it, even when the state made doing so a top priority.
Many factors played a role in calligraphy's continued relevance in modern Turkey. Some of them were incidental, such as the impossibility of removing monumental calligraphy from iconic Ottoman buildings. Some, however, were more intentional, as we have seen, since the 1930s, repeated calls for the recognition of the Ottoman Turkish contribution to the art of Islamic calligraphy. Moreover, the strength of the master-apprentice system in passing down the calligraphic tradition has served to carry the art through periods in which no major sources of patronage were available, such as the early republican era. New sources of support, such as collectors, museums, and catalogues of Ottoman calligraphy have emerged in recent decades and aim to remind an ever-growing audience of this long-standing and vibrant tradition. The combined result of these many factors contributes to a more complete and coherent identity for modern Turkey than one that would have erased the Ottoman period from the Turkish memory.
Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.
© Zoe Griffith, 2008
Denise R. Gill
University of California
Santa Barbara's Ethnomusicology and Women's Studies Department
Honorable Mention - 2008 Competition
Performing Meşk, (re)Articulating History:
Legacies of Transmission in Contemporary Turkish Musical Practices
Without love, no mastership can be attained
In contemporary Turkey, individuals deploy proverbial expressions (atasözü), such as the one above, in everyday contexts to illuminate or explain specific feelings and worldviews. Throughout my fieldwork, this one particular proverb was consistently given to me by my teachers, consultants and friends. Yet I heard this proverb couched in a variety of different contexts-from everyday speech acts meant to celebrate, to use in music lessons as a pedagogical tool, to being published as the title a book by Cem Behar (2003 [1998]). More obscure was my stumbling upon conflicting understandings of the proverb when I asked my teachers, consultants, and friends to explain what "Aşk olmayınca, meşk olmaz" actually meant. After looking over my field notes from formal interviews, archival research, field conversations, and comfortable discussions in between lessons, at gatherings and rehearsals, at formal parties with fasıl entertainment, and at the içki masası (drinking table), I realized that the polysemy of this proverb illuminates the very struggles that Turkish classical musicians engage with in their everyday life, in dealing with (dis)continuous senses of historical consciousness. What does the language and understanding(s) of this proverb disclose about Ottoman legacies in contemporary Turkish identity practices? What histories and memories does this proverb perform?
This essay focuses on one word: meşk. In Ottoman contexts, meşk referred to the prescribed unfolding of transmission over a long period of time between a master (usta) and an apprentice (çırak). In contemporary Turkey, multiple conflicting definitions and understandings of meşk coexist as performances and narrations of history and memory. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Istanbul during 2004 and 2005, I examine interpretations of meşk as performances directly engaged with musicians' historical situatedness. The existence of conflicting understandings of meşk within the distinctive discursive realms of the master-apprentice system, state-sponsored places, and consumer circuits indicates competing discourses that illuminate the workings of different hegemonic power structures.
Practices and products of Turkish classical music have undergone extreme and often violent changes, from the cultural policies of the nation-state, to the various institutions that maintain and (re)create specific hegemonic ideologies. In all of these performative statements of meşk, individuals are doing more than simply articulating practices of musical transmission or worldviews-they are in the world through their understandings of meşk. Performances of meşk work to place individuals in a tradition in which their past, present, and future are all fused together in their understanding and social identity. In a way, the maintenance and recreation of meşk shows what is most poetically true about the struggle of the historical composition of being: the memory of the past does not lead smoothly into the present.
Meşk thus sheds light on how history is narrated in formal and informal (institutional) discourses and performed as identity. I argue that utterances, definitions, appropriations, and articulations of meşk are performances directly engaged with the constant (re)creation of history. Individuals live history through performative utterances of meşk. In this essay, I therefore unpack identity practices (how individuals position themselves through interpretations of meşk), performances (how individuals perceive and narrate themselves as belonging to history), and engagement with the work of art (Turkish classical music and practices of transmitting the same) to come to an enlarged understanding of the historical composition(s) of being in contemporary Turkey.
Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.
© Denise R. Gill, 2008

Keynote Speeches

Amy Singer

Department of Middle Eastern & African History
Tel Aviv University
First Prize - 2008 Competition

The Ottoman Legacy for Contemporary Turkish Culture, Institutions and Values The Persistence of Philanthropy

One of the most profound Ottoman legacies to contemporary Turkey is the central role of private philanthropy as a vehicle for shaping culture and society. Two principle legacies of Ottoman philanthropy exist in Turkey today. The first is cultural, apparent in the thriving practice of elite philanthropy; the second is physical, readily discovered in the urban fabric of most Turkish cities. It is the Ottoman philanthropic tradition and its impact on Turkey that claim our attention in the present study, particularly with respect to the city of Istanbul. Both continuities and changes are apparent from imperial to republican times: in the identity of the donors, the sources and locus of wealth, the importance of foundations, the motivations for giving, the choice of projects, the physical impact of donations, and the identity of the beneficiaries.
Yet today's dynamic culture of private charitable giving in Turkey is not solely the result of inherited Ottoman ideology and practices, just as Ottoman philanthropic practices were themselves the result of combined Muslim, Turco-Mongol, Byzantine, and Arab influences. For Turkey, the example of philanthropy in some European countries and the United States also had an impact beginning in the nineteenth century. Since 1923, however, the specific Turkish experience has transformed philanthropy in Turkey into practices that are at the same time identifiably local and emphatically global.
Gift giving, a universal of human societies, is the larger sociological framework within which the study of philanthropy offers insights for understanding human history more generally. According to sociologist Marcel Mauss, it is the continuous exchange of gifts between individuals that creates social order and stability, and charitable giving is a special case of gift exchanges. An investigation of philanthropy in any society reveals much about its organization, the loci of wealth and power, and the distribution of responsibility for social welfare and public services.
The evidence of large-scale elite philanthropy can hardly be missed in the Turkish landscape today, whether the projects are historical or contemporary. Some further aspects of this philanthropy endure, such as a common sense of elite obligation, the participation of men and women, and the engagement of philanthropy in the competition for status and influence. Today, the economic elite has replaced the sultans and pashas as premier benefactors, with personal or corporate donations even rivaling government sources of assistance.
The motivations for contemporary philanthropy echo the Muslim consciousness of Ottoman donors, although philanthropy no longer functions to ensure the political legitimacy of the ruling house. It does, however, serve to legitimize wealth, and notably so in the context of the early Turkish republic where profit-making was not necessarily well-regarded. Yet several Turkish donors specifically characterize their donations as using their wealth for the well-being of society, giving back to the society that made them wealthy. Philanthropy remains the means to contribute to a wider community, whether it is the community of Turkish citizens, of Muslims or another confessional group, of a town, a neighborhood, or a profession.
While the wealth of Turkey's philanthropists derives from sources rather different from those of their Ottoman predecessors, their projects reflect partial continuity. The focus remains on institutions of social welfare, like education and health. However, the contemporary vision of the purpose of education and health care is often of capacity building and social justice rather than only the preservation of a religious or legal tradition. Scholarships, dormitories, primary schools, and universities are designed according to a conscious program of social engagement alongside a curriculum intended to make Turkey and Turkish students competitive in science, technology and the arts. Education is a tool of individual empowerment and community formation, as well as of national economic development. At the same time, the creation of museums and the funding for performing arts - such as that provided by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and the Arts established by the Eczacıbaşı Foundation - signify changing visions of what is good and beneficial for society. As in Ottoman times, the beneficiaries are not limited to the materially poor and needy. Rather, private elite philanthropy contributes to many segments of society and in this reflects the manifold motivations for giving.

Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.
© Amy Singer, 2008

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Award Topics

The topic for the 2007 award competition was "Perceptions of the Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans and the Middle East". A nine-member international jury reviewed all essays. The first prize went to Dr. Christine Philliou, from Columbia University's History Department, for her essay on "The Paradox of Perceptions: Interpreting the Ottoman Past through the National Present".

Winners

First prize: Dr. Christine Philliou, Assistant Professor, Department of History Columbia University

Essay: : "The Paradox of Perceptions: Interpreting the Ottoman Past Through the National Present"

Second Prize:
a) Dr. Suhnaz Yilmaz, Assistant Professor, Department of International Relations Koc University
b) Dr. Ipek K. Yosmaoglu, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Essay: "Fighting the Specters of the Past: Dilemmas of Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans and the Middle East"

Third Prize: Maximilian Harthmuth, Sabancı University. Student, History Graduate Program.

Essay: "De/Constrducting a 'Legacy in Stone': Of Interpretive and Historiographical Problems Concerning the Ottoman Cultural Heritage in the Balkans"

Honorable Mention: Edin Hajdarpasic, Department of History and Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan.
Essay: "Out of the Ruins of the Ottoman Empire: Reflections on Ottoman Legacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina"

Honorable Mention: Dr. Charles Sabatos, Postdoctoral Fellow, Oberlin College.
Essay: " 'Worse than a Turk': Slovak Perceptions of Ottoman Legacy in Eastern Europe"

Jury

Prof. Dr. Ustun Erguder : Director, Istanbul Policy Center / Sabancı University.
Prof. Dr. Cornell H. Fleischer : Kanuni Suleyman Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies, University of Chicago.
Prof. Dr. Cemal Kafadar : Vehbi Koc Professor of Turkish Studies, Harvard University
Prof. Dr. Metin Kunt : Professor of History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabancı University.
Prof. Dr. Maria Todorova : Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Zachariadou : Program Director, Institute for Mediterranean Studies in Rethymnon, Crete.
Prof. Dr. Sami Zubaida: Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology, School of Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck University of London
Prof. Dr. Walter B. Denny : Professor of Art History, University of Massachusetts.
Prof. Dr. Israel Gershoni : Professor of History, Tel-Aviv University.

Winning Articles

Christine Philliou

The Paradox of Perceptions: Interpreting the Ottoman Past through the National Present

Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.
Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.

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Award Topics

The topic of the first Research Award in 2006 was "Turkey's New Geopolitical Environment: Policy Challenges and Opportunities for Engagement." A seven-member international jury reviewed all essays. The winner was Lerna K. Yanık from Bilkent University's Department of Political Science for her essay on "Beyond 'Bridges,' 'Crossroads' and 'Buffer Zones': Defining a New International Role for Turkey."

Winners

First Prize : Lerna K. Yanik, Professor, Department of Political Science, Bilkent University, Ankara
Essay : "Beyond 'Bridges', 'Crossroads' and 'Buffer Zones': Defining a new international role for Turkey".

Second Prize : Ian O. Lesser, Public Policy Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.
Essay : "Turkey and The United States: From geopolitics to concerted strategy".

Third Prize (a), Demet Yalcin, Assistant Prof. of International Relations, Dept. of International Relations, Koc University, Istanbul
Essay : "The impact of the European Union on democracy in Turkey and its implications for the region".

Third Prize (b), Suat Kiniklioglu, Director, The German Marshall Fund of the U.S., Ankara
Essay : "The Anatomy of Turkish-Russian relations".

Honorable Mention, Leda-Agapi Glyptis, PhD Candidate, Government Department, London School of Economics, London
Essay : "Which way to the Future? Kemalist Westernisation for the New Millenium".

Honorable Mention, Yigit Kargin, M.A. Student, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Public Affairs and Management, Carleton University, Ottawa
Essay : "The forgotten neighbor upstairs: The rising importance of Turkish-Russian in the newly emerging world order".

Honorable Mention, Hugh Pope, Author/Correspondent, Sons of the Turkic World, Istanbul
Essay : "Coming into fashion: Turkey's new edge in the Middle East".

Honorable Mention, Nathalie Tocci and Luigi Narbone, Marie Curie Fellow, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European Univeristy Institute, Florence
Essay : "Ebbs and flows in Turkey's turbulent path to Europe".

Jury

Gilles Andréani, Former Director, Policy Planning Unit, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of France, Paris.
Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister of Sweden.
Dr. Philip Gordon, Director, Center on the United States and Europe, the Brookings Institution.
Strobe Talbott, Former Deputy Secretary of State - President, The Brookings Institution.
Prof. Dr. Ilter Turan, Former President, Istanbul Bilgi University.
Robert Cooper , Director General for Politico-Military Affairs at the EU Council.
Prof. Dr. Ustun Erguder, Director, Istanbul Policy Center / Sabancı University.

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