Defending Turkey on Global Stages: The Young Turk Reşit Saffet’s Internationalist Strategy in 1919
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Carolin Liebisch
Abstract
The article investigates the internationalist activities of a Turkish nationalist during his Swiss exile at the outset of the postwar settlements in early 1919. Reşit Saffet, a devoted Young Turk and Ottoman diplomat on leave, moved in the internationalist milieus in Berne while his agenda remained utterly nationalist. Drawing on pan-Turkic, pan-Islamic, anti-imperialist, socialist, and Wilsonian ideas, he adapted his rhetoric to the internationalist conferences he attended; he thus sought to disguise and to defend his otherwise discredited nationalist cause on these global stages. The article traces Reşit Saffet’s internationalist activities as a strategy to engage with the ‘Paris moment’ and the Ottoman question beyond official politics and governmental discourse. In a time when Ottoman diplomacy was in deadlock as a result of the Empire’s exclusion from the peace conference and Reşit Saffet’s career faced an unknown future in the face of the Ottoman collapse, internationalism seemed a promising option. The case illustrates the increasingly blurred border between state diplomacy and non-governmental influence, and thus questions exclusively state-centered approaches. It reveals the appeal and potential held by civil society internationalism, not only for Western pacifists and socialists, but also for anti-imperialist nationalists confronted with the disappointment of the ‘Wilsonian moment’.
© 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Editors’ Note: Situating Internationalism 1919–1940s
- Defending Turkey on Global Stages: The Young Turk Reşit Saffet’s Internationalist Strategy in 1919
- The Politics of Music in International Organizations in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
- International Experts or Fascist Envoys? Alberto Theodoli and Pietro Stoppani at the League of Nations
- Tourists at the League of Nations. Conceptions of Internationalism around the Palais des Nations, 1925–1946
- “The Muslim World” Question during the Interwar Era Global Imaginary, 1924–1945
- The Red Swastika Society’s Humanitarian Work: A Re-interpretation of the Red Cross in China
- Digesting the League of Nations: Planning the International Secretariat of the Future, 1941–1944
- Book Reviews
- Immanuel Ness: Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class
- Robert D. Kaplan: In Europe’s Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey Through Romania and Beyond
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Editors’ Note: Situating Internationalism 1919–1940s
- Defending Turkey on Global Stages: The Young Turk Reşit Saffet’s Internationalist Strategy in 1919
- The Politics of Music in International Organizations in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
- International Experts or Fascist Envoys? Alberto Theodoli and Pietro Stoppani at the League of Nations
- Tourists at the League of Nations. Conceptions of Internationalism around the Palais des Nations, 1925–1946
- “The Muslim World” Question during the Interwar Era Global Imaginary, 1924–1945
- The Red Swastika Society’s Humanitarian Work: A Re-interpretation of the Red Cross in China
- Digesting the League of Nations: Planning the International Secretariat of the Future, 1941–1944
- Book Reviews
- Immanuel Ness: Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class
- Robert D. Kaplan: In Europe’s Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey Through Romania and Beyond
