When neighbors become aggressors
The local tensions behind the expulsion of Jews from Eastern Thrace in 1934
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6093971 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Burak Basaranlar (0000-0002-2878-2695, Kadir Has University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 72 |
| Pages | 132-150 |
| Publication date | 2025-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New Perspectives on Turkey (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0896-6346 • E-ISSN: 1305-3299 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/npt.2024.20 |
| OpenAlex | W4405201111 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
This article examines the local context that led to the expulsion of Jews from Eastern Thrace in 1934. Going beyond the conventional state-centric narratives, it unearths the local socio-economic tensions that triggered the locals to target their Jewish neighbors. It highlights three major factors that fueled already-existing nationalist sentiments in the region: some Jewish merchants’ involvement in usury, Turkish–Muslim agricultural producers’ growing indebtedness due to the devastating impact of the Great Depression, and the government’s failure to support producers with appropriate credit policies. Faced with the danger of indebtedness and dispossession, the locals in this context deemed the small Jewish community as “the easy target,” scapegoating it for their ongoing problems amid Turkey’s nationalist political climate in the 1930s
Archaeology · Context (archaeology · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Islam · Judaism · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scapegoating · Sociology · State (computer science · Usury · Balkans: History, Politics, Society · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Turkey's Politics and Society
The Making of Modern Turkey
Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey
Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey
Talaat Pasha – Father of Modern Turkey. Architect of Genocide
Extremely Violent Societies
Disengaging from the Muslim Spirit”
The anti-Jewish pogrom in Eastern Thrace in 1934
The journal İnkılâp and the appeal of antisemitism in interwar Turkey
The state tradition in Turkey
Reconsidering State, Party, and Society in Early Republican Turkey
Fragile Hegemony, Flexible Authoritarianism, and Governing From Below
Politics of Discontent in the Midst of the Great Depression
Excesses of nationalism
Legal and official plunder of Armenian and Jewish properties in comparative perspective
Anatolian Peasants in the Great Depression 1929–1933
Crossing the Aegean
Agriculture and the state
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |