Anthropological Horizons, Histories of Ethnology and Folklore in Turkey

These include social Darwinism and evolutionism and materialism, but also, later, discourses on nationalism – philosophical and ideological trends which the Ottoman elite discussed in a variety of intellectual circles. The interactions between European anthropological landscape and that of the Ottoman Empire were more than ‘travelling theory’ or theory travelling one way to the Muslim State. In any case, Turkish scholars had to navigate new scientific ideas within the context of a Muslim society ruled by the Ottoman sultan, who was also the caliph, i.e. the uppermost representative of the Islamic community. This is particularly interesting when one thinks about the despotism of Sultan Abdulhamid II, who ruled from 1876 to 1909, and who was toppled by the Young Turks, but also about the later political developments and disciplinary trajectories in the following years. Ethnological sciences in the Ottoman Empire, as later in the Turkish Republic, must be understood in relation to a political history in which various actors and institutions actively produced anthropological knowledge from a specific habitus. In this framework, the borders of politics and the disciplines became extremely porous since the intelligentsia and political leaders worked hand in hand, facilitating knowledge transfer between different but interconnected actors, sources, sites and institutions.

Despite earlier interactions with Europe and the European anthropological landscape in the Ottoman Empire, the intricate and interesting history of anthropology, folklore and ethnology in Turkey have been insufficiently documented. It must be underlined that, at the end of the 19^th century, anthropology in Turkey was mostly understood through terms corresponding to ethnology and ethnography. The ethnographic component, although not openly spelled out, was present through the use of descriptive elements on human diversity, revealing a “cosmopolitan” view that fitted into Ottoman concepts. As for the term Antropolociya (anthropology), it referred to physical anthropology.

With the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, most of the administration and political cadres followed Turkish nationalism (Toprak 2012), which caused a long-lasting impact on anthropology – that is, on what was then termed ethnology – taking it from a cosmopolitan, humanist and open vision to that of a local, national and introverted one. This paradigm, with minor revisions, still holds true for some anthropological studies even today. Around the same time, particularly from its institutionalization in 1925, physical anthropology became the flagship of Turkish nation-building to which certain anthropologists contributed through peculiar arguments such as the Sun-Language Theory and the Turkish History Thesis, promoting linguistic ethno-nationalism or the “superiority of the Turkish race” after defeat in the First World War. Folklore studies also helped solidify these claims and fired the idea of a homogenous nation from within. A certain version of nationalism is what connected these disciplines following the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, but on the other hand, it became a divisive factor concerning the kinds of labour and the genres that were considered appropriate within or claimed by each discipline.

While the racist version of nationalism was the leading paradigm for physical anthropology in the 1930s, it started to decline by the 1940s. Curiously, since the late 1940s, “ethnology” in Turkey, used in the modern sense, developed from the physical branch of anthropology; it meant, again, a comparative study of cultures. This was the beginning of several disciplinary truces among anthropology, folklore and ethnology. The 1950s marked the loosening of ties to continental physical anthropology, mainly the French and German traditions, and a decline in the racist paradigm. By this time, anthropology in Turkey gained a broader sociocultural meaning and was geared towards the British functionalist school, while also leaning on theories of culture from Britain, the United States and France (Birkalan-Gedik 2013). On the other hand, nationalism remained the main source of folklore, as its scholars turned to philological texts, collecting and publishing them. Actually, nationalism has not lost its effect on folklore and anthropology until the present.

Within BEROSE Encyclopedia, the theme of Anthropological Horizons, Histories of Ethnology and Folklore in Turkey is taken in its widest sense and suggests working within an “anthropological landscape” that encompasses anthropology, folklore, ethnography and ethnology. Certainly, these are different terms with different genealogies and sources, which have been effectively used and contested in this landscape. Furthermore, the Turkish case calls for detailed analyses that go beyond the dichotomy of “national” versus “imperial” anthropologies (Stocking 1982). The deductive categorization of “great” or “major” anthropological traditions have been complicated by bringing a distinct focus to a “peripheral”, albeit dynamic, anthropological tradition wherein the anthropological landscape and an emergent nation-state were mutually constructed after the decline of the empire.

Our themes
– Ethnographers and anthropologists: scholars, amateurs, missionaries, learned individuals, and collectors; intellectuals who are historically tied to anthropology.
– Anthropological institutions and journals; e.g. ethnographic museums, scholarly societies, learned societies, scientific bodies, universities, and institutions of higher education; scientific meetings, conferences.
– Anthropological traditions, themes, concepts and oeuvres.

Hande Birkalan-Gedik
Abdurrahim Ozmen

See also Birkalan-Gedik, Hande, 2019. “A Century of Turkish Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (v. 1850s-1950s)” , in BEROSE – International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris.