Ümit Kurt
Biographic Data
| ID | 1402849 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ümit Kurt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ümit |
| FAMILY NAME | Kurt |
| SIGNATURE | KURT U |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Newcastle Australia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0395-2408 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Life and Death from Yemen to the Euphrates
Known for his rigid policies towards Arab nationalists and Zionists during his posting in Greater Syria, Cemal Pasha and his role in the Armenian genocide has always remained an issue of contention. There are important accounts of Cemal’s activity, particularly during the First World War, which have found him to have had no active role in the deportation and extermination of Armenians—here differing from the other two pillars of the CUP, Enver an…
Turkey’s Violent Formation
In his seminal work, The Age of Extremes, Eric Hobsbawm depicts the period between 1914 and 1991 as a historical context in which a series of historical actions characterized by political and ideological extremes took place. These events were marked by acts of violence on political, economic, ethnic, and cultural grounds. With the two great World Wars, the rise of Bolshevism, Fascism, Stalinism, and Nazism and the devastation these totalitarian i…
Softa and Yafta
This article highlights the importance of softa (medrese or madrasa students) to our understanding of the late Ottoman Empire. The softa, usually depicted as a wholly conservative force, were in fact split between liberal and conservative factions. To ally himself with the Muslim conservatives and undermine the liberal Muslims, Abdülhamid ii condoned violence against the Armenian population. The softa were motivated by diverse ideologies, ranging…
The Fate of Armenian and Greek Properties in the Post-First World War Period
This article examines the practices of the new parliament formed in Ankara and the fledgling republican regime with a particular focus on laws and regulations as of 1922. It discloses how these ‘legal’ mechanisms were employed to thwart Armenians and Greeks to return home and claim their properties back. Finally, this article explores what types of ‘precautions’ the new Turkish nation-state took to not give confiscated properties to Ottoman Chris…
And the Legacies of Genocide
This article discusses the founding of the Republic and the legacy of the Armenian genocide of 1915 in the subsequent decades by scrutinizing two pivotal facets. The first one revolves around the accumulation of capital by the Turkish state through the sequestration of Armenian properties, and the second one is the appointment of mid‐level Ottoman bureaucrats of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) as new civilian bureaucrats of the Republic…
Genocide as Patriotic Work Ethic
This article centers on the life of the late Ottoman and early Turkish Republican bureaucrat Mustafa Reşat to investigate how he turned into a genocide technocrat. It examines his career and decisions at critical junctions and depicts him as an outstanding representative of a category of perpetrators who prepare the propitious infrastructure, ground, and climate for such large-scale violence as the Armenian Genocide. By shifting the perspective t…
David E. Gutman, The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America, 1885–1915
Reviewed by: The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America, 1885–1915: Sojourners, Smugglers and Dubious Citizens by David E. Gutman Ümit Kurt David E. Gutman. The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America, 1885–1915: Sojourners, Smugglers and Dubious Citizens. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. 264 pp. Cloth, $125. ISBN: 978-1474445245. That the principle of equality in the basis for citizenship codified by the 1876 Constit…
The Armenians of Aintab
The Political Micro-Economy of the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1922
After the end of World War I, Armenians who survived the genocide began to return to their homeland by 1918. During this period, concrete steps were taken in terms of legal and administrative measures to return movable and immovable properties deported Armenians were forced to leave behind. Following the government of the CUP, necessary legal mechanisms were introduced to ensure both the return of Armenians from their deportation points and the r…
Reform and Violence in the Hamidian Era
The eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire witnessed numerous massacres of Armenians between 1894 and 1897. Although some specialists have studied the origins, dynamics, extent, and repercussions of massacres in the eastern vilayets, few have studied events in the region of Cilicia (southern Anatolia). Drawing upon primary sources from Ottoman-Turkish, Armenian, British, and missionary archives, as well as memoirs and personal papers, this artic…
The curious case of Ali Cenani Bey
While there exists an extensive body of literature addressing the Armenian genocide, certain gaps persist. The processes and events of the genocide have been unearthed and examined, but genocide is not a phenomenon set in motion by a force of nature. On the contrary, the systematic destruction of Ottoman Armenians was designed and executed by a cadre of individuals, most of whom are little known today. Kurt’s aim here is to recover the story of o…
Theatres of Violence on the Ottoman Periphery
This article explores how and why deportation and elimination of the Armenians of Antep were carried out during World War One (WWI). In particular, it scrutinizes the political and social context in which local authorities, provincial elites, and ordinary Muslims radicalized their views and policies against Armenians. It highlights the crucial role played by local elites and actors who prospered through acquisition of Armenian property and wealth…
Revisiting the legal infrastructure for the confiscation of Armenian and Greek wealth
Properties belonging to Ottoman Armenians and Greeks were seized through various laws, decrees and other legal regulations passed by the Committee of Union and Progress (hereafter CUP) government, and later the cadres of the Republican regime. Both governments concocted ways of making this illegal process look legitimate by using the legal veil of the law. Central to this process were the economic outcomes of violence committed against Armenians …
The Plunder of Wealth through Abandoned Properties Laws in the Armenian Genocide
The state-orchestrated plunder of Armenian property immediately impoverished its victims; this was simultaneously a condition for and a consequence of the Armenian Genocide. A series of laws and decrees as well as complex bureaucratic mechanisms were devised in the Ottoman-Turkish Republican periods concerning the administration of the belongings left behind by the deported Armenians. The aim of this article is to analyze these laws and statutes,…
The Young Turk Historical Imagination in the Pursuit of Mythical Turkishness and its Lost Grandeur (1911–1914)
Based on a comprehensive reading of the 1912–1914 issues of the journal Turkish Homeland, the highbrow intellectualist periodical of the Turkist intellectuals and the ruling Committee of Union and Progress, this article argues that sublime Turkishness envisaged by the Young Turks can be construed as a character build-up. The article also examines how history was utilized as an arsenal from where the sublime ‘Turkish character’ was extracted in a …
The curious case of Ahmed Necmeddin Bey
Ahmed Necmeddin Bey was the kaimakam (district governor) of Aintab in late July 1908. One day, however, Ahmed Necmeddin Bey was beaten by a group of Turks and Armenians in Aintab; his clothes torn, he was dismissed from his post and finally expelled him from the city. But what was the reason for this incident? Within the first year of the declaration of the Constitution, it was the most important event that occurred in the city. This particular i…
TheBalkanWars and the rise of the reactionary modernist utopia in youngTurk thought and the journalTürk Yurdu[Turkish Homeland]
The article examines the rise of the ‘reactionary modernist’ project that developed after the devastating defeat of theBalkan Wars and which was promoted by theYoungTurks by means of articles published inTurkishHomeland, the intellectual platform of theYoungTurks. The article argues that the outlines of this project to a large extent shaped the contours ofTurkish nationalism then, and that they have hence been constitutive ofTurkish nationalism e…
Legal and official plunder of Armenian and Jewish properties in comparative perspective
The state-orchestrated plunder of Armenian and Jewish property immediately impoverished its victims; this was simultaneously a condition for and a consequence of the respective genocides. A series of laws and decrees as well as complex bureaucratic mechanisms were devised in the Ottoman-Turkish Republican and Nazi Germany periods concerning the administration of the belongings left behind by the deported Armenians and Jews. This article analyses …
New Islamic movements and amodern networks
The revival in Islamic studies of interest in explaining social transformation in Muslim societies has stimulated a need for new methodological inquiries. The deployment of informal institutions within daily life is also a rediscovery of the traditional Islamic networks, patterns, values and cognitive forms. The rise of daily life as the major unit of operation for the new Islamic movements directs them to a completely different position vis-a-vi…
The Turkish Military’s Autonomy, JDP Rule and the EU Reform Process in the 2000s
This article tackles the question of Europeanization in Turkey’s civil‐military relations and the extent to which the EU has served as an anchor in the civilian control over the Turkish Armed Forces. We argue that the EU membership process has necessitated democratization in civil‐military relations; EU support was not sufficient for fully integrated democratic control of the armed forces (DECAF) as there are still problems in the democratization…
Legal and official plunder of Armenian and Jewish properties in comparative perspective
The state-orchestrated plunder of Armenian and Jewish property immediately impoverished its victims; this was simultaneously a condition for and a consequence of the respective genocides. A series of laws and decrees as well as complex bureaucratic mechanisms were devised in the Ottoman-Turkish Republican and Nazi Germany periods concerning the administration of the belongings left behind by the deported Armenians and Jews. This article analyses …
The Armenians of Aintab
Revisiting the legal infrastructure for the confiscation of Armenian and Greek wealth
Properties belonging to Ottoman Armenians and Greeks were seized through various laws, decrees and other legal regulations passed by the Committee of Union and Progress (hereafter CUP) government, and later the cadres of the Republican regime. Both governments concocted ways of making this illegal process look legitimate by using the legal veil of the law. Central to this process were the economic outcomes of violence committed against Armenians …
TheBalkanWars and the rise of the reactionary modernist utopia in youngTurk thought and the journalTürk Yurdu[Turkish Homeland]
The article examines the rise of the ‘reactionary modernist’ project that developed after the devastating defeat of theBalkan Wars and which was promoted by theYoungTurks by means of articles published inTurkishHomeland, the intellectual platform of theYoungTurks. The article argues that the outlines of this project to a large extent shaped the contours ofTurkish nationalism then, and that they have hence been constitutive ofTurkish nationalism e…
New Islamic movements and amodern networks
The revival in Islamic studies of interest in explaining social transformation in Muslim societies has stimulated a need for new methodological inquiries. The deployment of informal institutions within daily life is also a rediscovery of the traditional Islamic networks, patterns, values and cognitive forms. The rise of daily life as the major unit of operation for the new Islamic movements directs them to a completely different position vis-a-vi…
The Turkish Military’s Autonomy, JDP Rule and the EU Reform Process in the 2000s
This article tackles the question of Europeanization in Turkey’s civil‐military relations and the extent to which the EU has served as an anchor in the civilian control over the Turkish Armed Forces. We argue that the EU membership process has necessitated democratization in civil‐military relations; EU support was not sufficient for fully integrated democratic control of the armed forces (DECAF) as there are still problems in the democratization…
Reform and Violence in the Hamidian Era
The eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire witnessed numerous massacres of Armenians between 1894 and 1897. Although some specialists have studied the origins, dynamics, extent, and repercussions of massacres in the eastern vilayets, few have studied events in the region of Cilicia (southern Anatolia). Drawing upon primary sources from Ottoman-Turkish, Armenian, British, and missionary archives, as well as memoirs and personal papers, this artic…
The curious case of Ali Cenani Bey
While there exists an extensive body of literature addressing the Armenian genocide, certain gaps persist. The processes and events of the genocide have been unearthed and examined, but genocide is not a phenomenon set in motion by a force of nature. On the contrary, the systematic destruction of Ottoman Armenians was designed and executed by a cadre of individuals, most of whom are little known today. Kurt’s aim here is to recover the story of o…
The Young Turk Historical Imagination in the Pursuit of Mythical Turkishness and its Lost Grandeur (1911–1914)
Based on a comprehensive reading of the 1912–1914 issues of the journal Turkish Homeland, the highbrow intellectualist periodical of the Turkist intellectuals and the ruling Committee of Union and Progress, this article argues that sublime Turkishness envisaged by the Young Turks can be construed as a character build-up. The article also examines how history was utilized as an arsenal from where the sublime ‘Turkish character’ was extracted in a …
The Turkish Military’s Autonomy, JDP Rule and the EU Reform Process in the 2000s
This article tackles the question of Europeanization in Turkey’s civil‐military relations and the extent to which the EU has served as an anchor in the civilian control over the Turkish Armed Forces. We argue that the EU membership process has necessitated democratization in civil‐military relations; EU support was not sufficient for fully integrated democratic control of the armed forces (DECAF) as there are still problems in the democratization…
New Islamic movements and amodern networks
The revival in Islamic studies of interest in explaining social transformation in Muslim societies has stimulated a need for new methodological inquiries. The deployment of informal institutions within daily life is also a rediscovery of the traditional Islamic networks, patterns, values and cognitive forms. The rise of daily life as the major unit of operation for the new Islamic movements directs them to a completely different position vis-a-vi…
TheBalkanWars and the rise of the reactionary modernist utopia in youngTurk thought and the journalTürk Yurdu[Turkish Homeland]
The article examines the rise of the ‘reactionary modernist’ project that developed after the devastating defeat of theBalkan Wars and which was promoted by theYoungTurks by means of articles published inTurkishHomeland, the intellectual platform of theYoungTurks. The article argues that the outlines of this project to a large extent shaped the contours ofTurkish nationalism then, and that they have hence been constitutive ofTurkish nationalism e…
Legal and official plunder of Armenian and Jewish properties in comparative perspective
The state-orchestrated plunder of Armenian and Jewish property immediately impoverished its victims; this was simultaneously a condition for and a consequence of the respective genocides. A series of laws and decrees as well as complex bureaucratic mechanisms were devised in the Ottoman-Turkish Republican and Nazi Germany periods concerning the administration of the belongings left behind by the deported Armenians and Jews. This article analyses …
The Plunder of Wealth through Abandoned Properties Laws in the Armenian Genocide
The state-orchestrated plunder of Armenian property immediately impoverished its victims; this was simultaneously a condition for and a consequence of the Armenian Genocide. A series of laws and decrees as well as complex bureaucratic mechanisms were devised in the Ottoman-Turkish Republican periods concerning the administration of the belongings left behind by the deported Armenians. The aim of this article is to analyze these laws and statutes,…
The Young Turk Historical Imagination in the Pursuit of Mythical Turkishness and its Lost Grandeur (1911–1914)
Based on a comprehensive reading of the 1912–1914 issues of the journal Turkish Homeland, the highbrow intellectualist periodical of the Turkist intellectuals and the ruling Committee of Union and Progress, this article argues that sublime Turkishness envisaged by the Young Turks can be construed as a character build-up. The article also examines how history was utilized as an arsenal from where the sublime ‘Turkish character’ was extracted in a …
The curious case of Ahmed Necmeddin Bey
Ahmed Necmeddin Bey was the kaimakam (district governor) of Aintab in late July 1908. One day, however, Ahmed Necmeddin Bey was beaten by a group of Turks and Armenians in Aintab; his clothes torn, he was dismissed from his post and finally expelled him from the city. But what was the reason for this incident? Within the first year of the declaration of the Constitution, it was the most important event that occurred in the city. This particular i…
Revisiting the legal infrastructure for the confiscation of Armenian and Greek wealth
Properties belonging to Ottoman Armenians and Greeks were seized through various laws, decrees and other legal regulations passed by the Committee of Union and Progress (hereafter CUP) government, and later the cadres of the Republican regime. Both governments concocted ways of making this illegal process look legitimate by using the legal veil of the law. Central to this process were the economic outcomes of violence committed against Armenians …
The Political Micro-Economy of the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1922
After the end of World War I, Armenians who survived the genocide began to return to their homeland by 1918. During this period, concrete steps were taken in terms of legal and administrative measures to return movable and immovable properties deported Armenians were forced to leave behind. Following the government of the CUP, necessary legal mechanisms were introduced to ensure both the return of Armenians from their deportation points and the r…
Reform and Violence in the Hamidian Era
The eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire witnessed numerous massacres of Armenians between 1894 and 1897. Although some specialists have studied the origins, dynamics, extent, and repercussions of massacres in the eastern vilayets, few have studied events in the region of Cilicia (southern Anatolia). Drawing upon primary sources from Ottoman-Turkish, Armenian, British, and missionary archives, as well as memoirs and personal papers, this artic…
The curious case of Ali Cenani Bey
While there exists an extensive body of literature addressing the Armenian genocide, certain gaps persist. The processes and events of the genocide have been unearthed and examined, but genocide is not a phenomenon set in motion by a force of nature. On the contrary, the systematic destruction of Ottoman Armenians was designed and executed by a cadre of individuals, most of whom are little known today. Kurt’s aim here is to recover the story of o…
Theatres of Violence on the Ottoman Periphery
This article explores how and why deportation and elimination of the Armenians of Antep were carried out during World War One (WWI). In particular, it scrutinizes the political and social context in which local authorities, provincial elites, and ordinary Muslims radicalized their views and policies against Armenians. It highlights the crucial role played by local elites and actors who prospered through acquisition of Armenian property and wealth…
David E. Gutman, The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America, 1885–1915
Reviewed by: The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America, 1885–1915: Sojourners, Smugglers and Dubious Citizens by David E. Gutman Ümit Kurt David E. Gutman. The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America, 1885–1915: Sojourners, Smugglers and Dubious Citizens. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. 264 pp. Cloth, $125. ISBN: 978-1474445245. That the principle of equality in the basis for citizenship codified by the 1876 Constit…
The Armenians of Aintab
The Fate of Armenian and Greek Properties in the Post-First World War Period
This article examines the practices of the new parliament formed in Ankara and the fledgling republican regime with a particular focus on laws and regulations as of 1922. It discloses how these ‘legal’ mechanisms were employed to thwart Armenians and Greeks to return home and claim their properties back. Finally, this article explores what types of ‘precautions’ the new Turkish nation-state took to not give confiscated properties to Ottoman Chris…
And the Legacies of Genocide
This article discusses the founding of the Republic and the legacy of the Armenian genocide of 1915 in the subsequent decades by scrutinizing two pivotal facets. The first one revolves around the accumulation of capital by the Turkish state through the sequestration of Armenian properties, and the second one is the appointment of mid‐level Ottoman bureaucrats of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) as new civilian bureaucrats of the Republic…
Genocide as Patriotic Work Ethic
This article centers on the life of the late Ottoman and early Turkish Republican bureaucrat Mustafa Reşat to investigate how he turned into a genocide technocrat. It examines his career and decisions at critical junctions and depicts him as an outstanding representative of a category of perpetrators who prepare the propitious infrastructure, ground, and climate for such large-scale violence as the Armenian Genocide. By shifting the perspective t…
Life and Death from Yemen to the Euphrates
Known for his rigid policies towards Arab nationalists and Zionists during his posting in Greater Syria, Cemal Pasha and his role in the Armenian genocide has always remained an issue of contention. There are important accounts of Cemal’s activity, particularly during the First World War, which have found him to have had no active role in the deportation and extermination of Armenians—here differing from the other two pillars of the CUP, Enver an…
Turkey’s Violent Formation
In his seminal work, The Age of Extremes, Eric Hobsbawm depicts the period between 1914 and 1991 as a historical context in which a series of historical actions characterized by political and ideological extremes took place. These events were marked by acts of violence on political, economic, ethnic, and cultural grounds. With the two great World Wars, the rise of Bolshevism, Fascism, Stalinism, and Nazism and the devastation these totalitarian i…
Softa and Yafta
This article highlights the importance of softa (medrese or madrasa students) to our understanding of the late Ottoman Empire. The softa, usually depicted as a wholly conservative force, were in fact split between liberal and conservative factions. To ally himself with the Muslim conservatives and undermine the liberal Muslims, Abdülhamid ii condoned violence against the Armenian population. The softa were motivated by diverse ideologies, ranging…
Political science (17 works) · Law (15 works) · History (13 works) · Turkey's Politics and Society (13 works) · Ancient history (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · Armenian (10 works) · Law (10 works) · History (8 works) · Genocide (7 works)