Orçun Can Okan
Biographic Data
| ID | 4048816 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Orçun Can Okan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Orçun Can |
| FAMILY NAME | Okan |
| SIGNATURE | OKAN O C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5125-1158 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 7 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Stakes of origins: How interactions with states (un)made a family in the interwar eastern Mediterranean
Spanning the 1880s to the 1930s, this article examines the experiences of a family in the eastern Mediterranean whose ‘origins’ acquired new legal significance amid state efforts to categorise and homogenise former Ottoman populations after World War I. In the 1920s and 30s, disputes emerged over whether this Orthodox Christian, immigrant merchant family of late Ottoman Mersin – a port city in southern Turkey – was Greek natives of Turkey or Arab…
Guiding differently for travelling like them: The Egyptian-Ottoman publicist Safa and his 1913 Arabic guidebook to the late Ottoman capital
This article examines an Arabic guidebook on the late Ottoman capital (present-day Istanbul), published in 1913 with the title Guide to Asitana [ Dalil al-Asitana ]. A rich textual and visual narrative on the city as the capital of a caliphate, the guidebook's author was Muhammad Safa who fled to Ottoman Turkey from Egypt under British control in the 1890s and sought to navigate a publishing career in a vast political space across and beyond the …
Outliving an Empire: Mehmed Ziya, the Former Ottoman Bureaucrat, and His Pension Claim across Post-Ottoman Lebanon and Cyprus in the 1920s
This article examines how a former Ottoman bureaucrat claimed his retirement pension in interactions with state officials in post-Ottoman Turkey, Syria–Lebanon and Cyprus in the 1920s. Born in Cyprus in 1856 and in Ottoman state service for more than three decades until 1916, Mehmed Ziya had to make renewed efforts to continue receiving his pension until he died in 1936. His troubles were largely due to the need to reconfigure enduring links to t…
Competing to Protect: Repatriation and Legal Protection of Syrians in Istanbul under Allied Occupation (1918–1923)
This article examines interstate competitions over “Syrians” whose legal status as Ottoman subjects was not yet terminated by a peace treaty at the end of World War I. Focusing mainly on occupied Istanbul, it traces French efforts to protect or bring Syrians back home to a “Syria.” Given that Syria was still in the making, the stakes here were high and determined postwar reconfigurations that connected Istanbul and Beirut. I argue that competitio…
Back Home: The Return of Adnan and Halide Edib (Adivar) to Istanbul in December 1922
Adnan Bey and Halide Edib Hanım returned to Istanbul in December 1922 as two leading figures of the national struggle centered in Ankara. Drastic changes had taken place in Istanbul and the country at large since their escape from the city about three years prior. This article examines the couple's return to Istanbul in order to shed new light on what was essentially a moment of uncertainty for the Ankara government despite its victories on the b…
Projections of Xenophobia: The Capitulations, Employment, and Anglo-Turkish Relations in the 1920s
Some tensions remained painfully unresolved between Turkey and the Allies at the end of World War I, even after the peace treaty that was signed in 1923 at Lausanne. This article aims to unpack these tensions by examining descriptions and manifestations of xenophobia in post-Lausanne Turkey. It focuses on Anglo-Turkish encounters over employment in Istanbul in 1926, within a timeframe that extends from the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 to Turkey’…
The Treaty of Lausanne and the Construction of the Arab Middle East
The Treaty of Lausanne and the Construction of the Arab Middle East Orçun Can Okan (bio) KEYWORDS Diplomacy, Empire, Governance, Nationality, State Succession In July 1923, Turkey and the Allied Powers signed the Treaty of Lausanne. As stated in the Treaty's preamble, they signed it with the desire to end "the state of war which has existed in the East since 1914."1 There is by now a large and highly useful body of scholarship on this Treaty.2 Ho…
Projections of Xenophobia: The Capitulations, Employment, and Anglo-Turkish Relations in the 1920s
Some tensions remained painfully unresolved between Turkey and the Allies at the end of World War I, even after the peace treaty that was signed in 1923 at Lausanne. This article aims to unpack these tensions by examining descriptions and manifestations of xenophobia in post-Lausanne Turkey. It focuses on Anglo-Turkish encounters over employment in Istanbul in 1926, within a timeframe that extends from the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 to Turkey’…
The Treaty of Lausanne and the Construction of the Arab Middle East
The Treaty of Lausanne and the Construction of the Arab Middle East Orçun Can Okan (bio) KEYWORDS Diplomacy, Empire, Governance, Nationality, State Succession In July 1923, Turkey and the Allied Powers signed the Treaty of Lausanne. As stated in the Treaty's preamble, they signed it with the desire to end "the state of war which has existed in the East since 1914."1 There is by now a large and highly useful body of scholarship on this Treaty.2 Ho…
Back Home: The Return of Adnan and Halide Edib (Adivar) to Istanbul in December 1922
Adnan Bey and Halide Edib Hanım returned to Istanbul in December 1922 as two leading figures of the national struggle centered in Ankara. Drastic changes had taken place in Istanbul and the country at large since their escape from the city about three years prior. This article examines the couple's return to Istanbul in order to shed new light on what was essentially a moment of uncertainty for the Ankara government despite its victories on the b…
Projections of Xenophobia: The Capitulations, Employment, and Anglo-Turkish Relations in the 1920s
Some tensions remained painfully unresolved between Turkey and the Allies at the end of World War I, even after the peace treaty that was signed in 1923 at Lausanne. This article aims to unpack these tensions by examining descriptions and manifestations of xenophobia in post-Lausanne Turkey. It focuses on Anglo-Turkish encounters over employment in Istanbul in 1926, within a timeframe that extends from the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 to Turkey’…
Competing to Protect: Repatriation and Legal Protection of Syrians in Istanbul under Allied Occupation (1918–1923)
This article examines interstate competitions over “Syrians” whose legal status as Ottoman subjects was not yet terminated by a peace treaty at the end of World War I. Focusing mainly on occupied Istanbul, it traces French efforts to protect or bring Syrians back home to a “Syria.” Given that Syria was still in the making, the stakes here were high and determined postwar reconfigurations that connected Istanbul and Beirut. I argue that competitio…
Guiding differently for travelling like them: The Egyptian-Ottoman publicist Safa and his 1913 Arabic guidebook to the late Ottoman capital
This article examines an Arabic guidebook on the late Ottoman capital (present-day Istanbul), published in 1913 with the title Guide to Asitana [ Dalil al-Asitana ]. A rich textual and visual narrative on the city as the capital of a caliphate, the guidebook's author was Muhammad Safa who fled to Ottoman Turkey from Egypt under British control in the 1890s and sought to navigate a publishing career in a vast political space across and beyond the …
Outliving an Empire: Mehmed Ziya, the Former Ottoman Bureaucrat, and His Pension Claim across Post-Ottoman Lebanon and Cyprus in the 1920s
This article examines how a former Ottoman bureaucrat claimed his retirement pension in interactions with state officials in post-Ottoman Turkey, Syria–Lebanon and Cyprus in the 1920s. Born in Cyprus in 1856 and in Ottoman state service for more than three decades until 1916, Mehmed Ziya had to make renewed efforts to continue receiving his pension until he died in 1936. His troubles were largely due to the need to reconfigure enduring links to t…
Stakes of origins: How interactions with states (un)made a family in the interwar eastern Mediterranean
Spanning the 1880s to the 1930s, this article examines the experiences of a family in the eastern Mediterranean whose ‘origins’ acquired new legal significance amid state efforts to categorise and homogenise former Ottoman populations after World War I. In the 1920s and 30s, disputes emerged over whether this Orthodox Christian, immigrant merchant family of late Ottoman Mersin – a port city in southern Turkey – was Greek natives of Turkey or Arab…
Political science (6 works) · History (5 works) · Islamic Studies and History (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Ancient history (4 works) · History (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Turkey's Politics and Society (4 works) · Ottoman empire (3 works)