Ottoman Children And Youth During World War I

Described by historians as a "total war," World War I was the first conflict that required a comprehensive mobilization of all members of society, regardless of profession, age, or gender. Just as women became heads of households and joined the workforce in unprecedented numbers, children also became actively engaged in the war effort. Adding a new dimension to the historiography of World War I, Maksudyan explores the variegated experiences and involvement of Ottoman children and youth in the war. Rather than simply passive victims, children became essential participants as soldiers, wage earners, farmers, and artisans. They also contributed to the propaganda and mobilization effort as symbolic heroes and orphans of martyrs. Rebelling against their orphanage directors or trade masters, marching and singing proudly with their scouting companies, making long-distance journeys to receive vocational training or simply to find their families, they acquired new identities and discovered new forms of agency. Maksudyan focuses on four different groups of children: thousands of orphans in state orphanages (Darüleytam), apprentice boys who were sent to Germany, children and youth in urban centers who reproduced rivaling nationalist ideologies, and Armenian children who survived the genocide. With each group, the author sheds light on how the war dramatically impacted their lives and, in turn, how these self-empowered children, sometimes described as "precocious adults," actively shaped history.

This innovative book reveals children's experiences and how they became victims and actors during the twentieth century's biggest conflicts.

Using the newest sources, this book reveals the experience of Ottoman Muslim women during World War I.

History books often weave tales of rising and falling empires, royal dynasties, and wars among powerful nations. Here, Maksudyan succeeds in making those who are farthest removed from power the lead actors in this history. Focusing on orphans and destitute youth of the late Ottoman Empire, the author gives voice to those children who have long been neglected. Their experiences and perspectives shed new light on many significant developments of the late Ottoman period, providing an alternative narrative that recognizes children as historical agents. Maksudyan takes the reader from the intimate world of infant foundlings to the larger international context of missionary orphanages, all while focusing on Ottoman modernization, urbanization, citizenship, and the maintenance of order and security. Drawing upon archival records, she explores the ways in which the treatment of orphans intersected with welfare, labor, and state building in the Empire. Throughout the book, Maksudyan does not lose sight of her lead actors, and the influence of the children is always present if we simply listen and notice carefully as Maksudyan so convincingly argues.

This volume explores the variety of ways in which childhood was experienced, lived and remembered in the late Ottoman Empire and its successor states. The period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a time of rapid change, and the history of childhood reflects the impact of new expectations, lived realities and national responsibilities on the youngest members of societies undergoing monumental change because of ideological, wartime and demographic shifts. Drawing on comparisons both within the Balkans, Turkey and the Arab lands and with Western Europe and beyond, the chapters investigate the many ways in which upheaval and change affected the youth. Particular attention is paid to changing conceptions of childhood, gender roles and newly dominant national imperatives. Contributors include: Elif Akşit, Laurence Brockliss, Nazan Çiçek, Alex Drace-Francis, Benjamin C. Fortna, Naoum Kaytchev, Duygu Köksal, Kathryn Libal, Nazan Maksudyan, Heidi Morrison, and Philipp Wirtz. This title, in its entirety, is available online in Open Access.

At the turn of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire straddled three continents and encompassed extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity among the millions of people living within its borders. This text provides a concise history of the late empire between 1789 and 1918, turbulent years marked by incredible social change.

A century after the Great War, the experiences of civilians and soldiers in the Middle East during those years have faded from memory. A Land of Aching Hearts traverses ethnic, class, and national borders to recover the personal stories of those who endured this cataclysmic event, and their profound sense of sacrifices made in vain.

Bread from Stones, a highly anticipated book from historian Keith David Watenpaugh, breaks new ground in analyzing the theory and practice of modern humanitarianism. Genocide and mass violence, human trafficking, and the forced displacement of millions in the early twentieth century Eastern Mediterranean form the background for this exploration of humanitarianismÕs role in the history of human rights. WatenpaughÕs unique and provocative examination of humanitarian thought and action from a non-Western perspective goes beyond canonical descriptions of relief work and development projects. Employing a wide range of source materialsÑliterary and artistic responses to violence, memoirs, and first-person accounts from victims, perpetrators, relief workers, and diplomatsÑWatenpaugh argues that the international answer to the inhumanity of World War I in the Middle East laid the foundation for modern humanitarianism and the specific ways humanitarian groups and international organizations help victims of war, care for trafficked children, and aid refugees.Ê Bread from Stones is required reading for those interested in humanitarianism and its ideological, institutional, and legal origins, as well as the evolution of the movement following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the advent of late colonialism in the Middle East.