Outliving an Empire
Mehmed Ziya, the Former Ottoman Bureaucrat, and His Pension Claim across Post-Ottoman Lebanon and Cyprus in the 1920s
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7150840 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Orçun Can Okan (0000-0001-5125-1158, University of Naples Federico II University of Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1246-1261 |
| Publication date | 2025-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Contemporary European History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0960-7773 • E-ISSN: 1469-2171 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0960777324000225 |
| OpenAlex | W4402619701 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
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 the Ottoman state amidst state succession after the First World War. I focus mainly on the diplomatic and administrative correspondence generated by Ziya's initiatives to examine how he sought to address a pressing, quotidian problem. I stress that nationality, as a pivotal category in the reconfiguration of state–subject relations in former imperial domains, played a key role in shaping how Ziya outlived his empire
Ancient history · Economic history · Immigration · Macedonian · Nationality · Ottoman empire · Pension · Political science · Politics · Cyprus History, Politics, Society · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Turkey's Politics and Society
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |