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National History as a Contested Site: The Conquest of Istanbul and Islamist Negotiations of the Nation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2001

Alev Çinar
Alev Çinar
Affiliation:
Bilkent University
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Abstract

On May 29, 1996, travelers visiting Istanbul witnessed a rather peculiar celebration. A group of burly men dressed in Ottoman military clothing, some wearing false moustaches, were dragging a decorated sailboat along the asphalt road toward the central Taksim Square. Although it was no easy task to drag the sailboat uphill under the hot sun and the curious gaze of tourists on this summer day, the laboring men nevertheless displayed a solemn attitude of resolve and austerity, as if to remind the observing public of the grave significance of the historical event they were commemorating.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , April 2001 , pp. 364 - 391
Copyright
© 2001 Society for Comparative Study of Society and History

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Footnotes

All Turkish-to-English translations are the author's unless indicated otherwise. The author thanks Anne Norton, Beshara Doumani, Srirupa Roy and Jamal Malik for their comments on earlier versions of this paper; the 1998 fellows and participants of the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University, where a version of this paper was presented; and Huseyin Besli, Hatice Oncul and Irfan Ciftci of the city administration of Istanbul for their time and assistance.