Secularizing Anatolia Tick by Tick

Clock Towers in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8969192
AutoresMehmet Bengü Uluengin (0000-0002-0555-2248, autor de correspondencia)
Año2010
Volumen42
Número1
Páginas17-36
Fecha de publicación2010-01-14
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743809990511
OpenAlexW2137505929
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas16

The last century of the Ottoman Empire saw an intense move to build clock towers in Anatolia. Among the reasons for this move were the central government's desire to advertise its sovereignty in the provinces, its desire to secularize the same periphery, and that clock towers were a means for Christians to erect church towers. Compounding this already complex layering of meanings, these towers were often erected under the pretext that they would help announce the daily times of prayer. After the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, this move continued in a new guise: clock towers were attached to modern-style buildings that advertised the republican project. Using documents from the Archives of the Prime Ministry and other primary sources, this paper attempts to trace the proliferation of clock towers in Anatolia and how the meanings attached to these edifices changed through time

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Combinatorics · Cube (algebra · Decree · Geography · Macedonian · Ottoman empire · Political science · Politics · Pretext · Proclamation · Tower · Turkish · White (mutation · Chemistry · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Mathematics · Ottoman Empire History and Society · Philosophy · Turkey's Politics and Society