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An International and Collaborative Research Programme

Seminar Session: February 6, 2023: Malte Fuhrmann

“From Empire to Dromocracy. Building the Infrastructure State in Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, 1839-1908”

February 06, 2023. 16h00-18h00 (Berlin Time). Registration: https://forms.gle/A8AJDvdaQyUiG5qD8

“Infrastructures are critical locations through which sociality, governance and politics, accumulation and dispossession and institutions and aspirations are formed, reformed, and performed” (Appel, Anand, and Gupta, 2018, 3). In particular, roads have developed such a strong influence on society that Dimitri Dalakoglou speaks of “dromocratic society” (society ruled by roads). However, as especially Jo Guldi has shown, the transformative power of infrastructure is not only a product of our times, but has changed politics since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the case of the Ottoman Empire and its breakaway provinces that after 1878 became Bulgaria, the new role of the state as provider of infrastructure was initially planned as a participatory process. However, due to the systematic failure of the Tanzimat state, its administrators either sought to fulfill their infrastructural promise to the subjects by means of multinational capitalism (Âali P.) or statist, but dictatorial means (Midhat P.). After 1878, Midhat’s statist developmental policy was adapted and perfected (Halil Rifat P.), but to serve the Hamidian system and its mistrust of the subject. While the Bulgarian state initially continued Midhat’s infrastructural policy, Bulgarian society managed to more strongly intervene in decision-making concerning road and railroad policy. The process however led to a harsh rivalry between the regions for connectivity and finally hindered the creation of a coherent rail network. The presentation will revisit key moments of road and railroad development policy in both countries to understand the impact of infrastructure on political culture from the reform era to the age of nation states.

Malte Fuhrmann is a historian of the Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Europe, and Turkey in the modern era. He is the author of Port Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. Urban Culture in the Late Ottoman EmpireCambridge: University Press, 2020, and Konstantinopel – Istanbul. Stadt der Sultane und Rebellen, Frankfurt/M.: Fischer 2019.

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An International and Collaborative Research Programme

New Publication:

Naïli (Falestin) (guest ed.), Jerusalem’s Interrupted Futures, Special Issue of Jerusalem’s Quarterly, 92, 2022. Introduction: “Reclaiming the Past, Disrupting the Present” (p.5-9).

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An International and Collaborative Research Programme

2022.12.05: International Workshop

Heritage, archives, conservation, concepts and practices in the mirror of authenticity and the challenges of digitalisation : reflections on the cases of Ghadames, Nefta and Tozeur

December 5, 2022, Online

This workshop is conceived in the continuity of the research questions of the HISDEMAB programme and the discussions held during the international workshop in Berlin in May 2022 on archives, the role of civil society and the challenges of digitalisation. The participants are invited to reflect on the notion of heritage from the point of view of urban morphology and different architectural typologies, as well as from the point of view of the mobilisation of the notions of archive and conservation. It will also be a question of discussing, among other things, the research issues relating to the civic role of associations for the protection of heritage and archives.

How can the existence of local institutions for the conservation of public and private archives, as well as tangible, architectural and intangible heritage, influence the identity of the city and its relationship with the notion of authenticity over time ? How does the consensus around the issue of protection develop, or conflicts persist, and how do collaborative discussions or decisions take place in the various communities within the city ? Are there local processes of institutionalisation of these archival practices and what are their possible limits? Questions relating to the construction of a possible concept for each era and the practice of archival conservation in the past as well as reflections on their future conservation will be examined with a focus on the cities of Ghadames, Tozeur and Nefta, which, while having extremely strong identities of their own, have in some respects comparable issues. The contributors will address the issue from the time of decolonization, while reflecting on the impact of previous historical strata, in order to understand the issues of definition and conservation of these complex heritages.

Following this workshop, a research project with Libyan and Tunisian partners, supervised by Nora Lafi and Suaad Al-Ghafal will be formalized.

The HISDEMAB online workshop will take place on Monday (9:00-11:00 Berlin time) as a video conference

Organisers: Suaad Al-Ghafal (University of Tripoli – Leibniz-ZMO Berlin) and Nora Lafi (Leibniz-ZMO Berlin)

Participants :

Suaad AL-Ghafal (Tripoli University and member of the Ghadames Association for the Heritage and Manuscripts AFHM – Leibniz-ZMO Berlin)

Emna Bchir (Ecole Nationale d’Architecture et d’Urbanisme ENAU Tunis)

Nora Lafi (Leibniz-ZMO Berlin)

Nureddine M. H. Althani (Ghadames Association for the Heritage and Manuscripts AFHM)

Aboulquasim Basheer Qassim Youshaa  (President of the Ghadames Association for the Heritage and Manuscripts AFHM)

Abduljabbar  Abdulqader Assaghir Abuzyd (Vice-President of the Ghadames Association for the Heritage and Manuscripts AFHM)

التراث والمحفوظات ومفاهيم الحفظ وممارساته في مرآة الأصالة وتحديات الرقمنة: تأملات في حالات غدامس ونفتا وتوزر

تأتي ورشة العمل هذه في إطار استمرارية الأسئلة البحثية لبرنامج إ س د م ب والمناقشات التي أجريت خلال ورشة العمل الدولية في برلين حول المحفوظات ودور المجتمع المدني وتحديات الرقمنة .المشاركون مدعوون للتفكير في مفهوم التراث من وجهة نظر التشكل الحضري والأنماط المعمارية المختلفة، وكذلك من وجهة نظر تعبئة مفاهيم الأرشفة والحفظ وستكون أيضا مناقشة مسألة قضايا البحث المتعلقة بالدور المدني للجمعيات لحماية التراث والمحفوظات .المشاركون مدعوون للتفكير في فكرة التراث من وجهة نظر التشكل الحضري والأنماط المعمارية المختلفة ومن وجهة نظر تعبئة مفاهيم الأرشفة والحفظ، كما ستكون أيضا مناقشة مسألة مشاكل البحث المتعلقة بالدور المدني للجمعيات لحماية التراث والمحفوظا

كيف يمكن لوجود هيئات محلية للحفاظ على المحفوظات العامة والخاصة ، وكذلك التراث المادي والمعماري وغير المادي ، أن يؤثر على هوية المدينة وعلاقتها بمفهوم الأصالة مع مرور الوقت؟ كيف يتطور الإجماع حول مسألة الحماية ، أو تستمر النزاعات ، وكيف تتم المناقشات أو القرارات التعاونية في المجتمعات المختلفة داخل المدينة؟ هل هناك عمليات محلية لإضفاء الطابع المؤسسي على ممارسات الأرشفة هذه وما هي حدودها المحتملة؟ ستتم دراسة الأسئلة المتعلقة ببناء مفهوم محتمل لكل عصر وممارسة الحفظ الأرشيفي في الماضي بالإضافة إلى الانعكاسات المتعلقة بالحفاظ عليها في المستقبل مع التركيز على مدن غدامس وتوزر ونفطة، والتي في حين أنها تتمتع بقوة كبيرة في هوياتهم الخاصة، في بعض النواحي قضايا قابلة للمقارنة .سيتناول المساهمون هذه القضية منذ نهاية الاستعمار، مع التفكير في تأثير الطبقات التاريخية السابقة، من أجل فهم قضايا تعريف هذه التراثات المعقدة والحفاظ عليه

ستعقد ورشة العمل عبر الإنترنت يوم الاثنين (9: 00-11: 00 بتوقيت برلين) كمؤتمر فيديو

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An International and Collaborative Research Programme

Seminar Session: December 12, 2022: Markus Koller

“Public Debates and Decision-Making Processes in the Ottoman Empire: State Practices of Violence in the 17th and 18th c.”

December 12, 2022. 16h00-18h00 (Berlin Time). Registration: https://forms.gle/A8AJDvdaQyUiG5qD8

In recent years, there has been a marked increase in interest in Ottoman “advice literature,” which had gained importance among Ottoman elites, especially since the 17th century. In their treatises (risâle), the authors discussed, among other things, what a just rule by the sultan or individual governors should look like. Part of the ideal of just rule was that the ruler should be able to protect his subjects from illegitimate violence by state actors. In this context, there was intense debate among Ottoman elites about which violent practices and punishments should be considered legitimate and illegitimate violence. So far, historical research has mainly turned to these elite discussions and has focused less on other milieus of Ottoman society. The lecture will therefore first examine the question of how the use of state violence was discussed in these public spheres, using the written testimonies of Catholic and Orthodox priests as an example. Subsequently, it will be discussed whether and how such debates could have an influence on the state’s use of force.

Markus Koller is Professor at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Fakultät für Geschichtswissenschaft, Historisches Institut, Lehrstuhl für die Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches und der Türkei (ORT). He is also the Director of the Zentrum für Mittelmeerstudien at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Among his publications: Mediterranean Rivers in Global Perspective, Ed, with J. C. Bernhardt and A. Lichtenberger, Leiden: Brill, 2019; Das osmanische Europa : Methoden und Perspektiven der Frühneuzeitforschung zu Südosteuropa, (ed. cum al.), Leipzig, Eudora, 2014; Eine Gesellschaft im Wandel die osmanische Herrschaft in Ungarn im 17. Jahrhundert (1606 – 1683), Sturrgart, Steiner, 2010; Bosnien an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit : eine Kulturgeschichte der Gewalt (1747-1798), Munich, Oldenbourg, 2004; “Das Papsttum und die osmanische Expansion in Südosteuropa in der zweiten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts”, Zur Debatte. Themen der Katholischen Akademie in Bayern 44,1 (2014, Special Issue), pp. 8-11; Living in the Ottoman Ecumenical Community: Essays in Honour of Suraiya Faroqhi (Ed. with V. Costantini), Leiden, Brill, 2008.

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An International and Collaborative Research Programme

September 25-29, 2022: Hisdemab Workshop in Hammamet

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An International and Collaborative Research Programme

Hisdemab Team at Insaniyyat Tunis 2022

The Hisdemab team is in Tunis for the Insaniyyat 2022 conference with two panels: “Institutions in Crisis reflections on possible democratic practices and organizations” on September 19, 11h00-13-13h00 and “Arrêt réflexif sur les études ottomanes aujourd’hui“, on September 22, 14h00-16h00.

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An International and Collaborative Research Programme

Hanover 2022: Keynote by Nora Lafi

On September 13, 2022, Nora Lafi presented a Key Note lecture entitled “Berlin, Europe, the Middle-East: on the Entanglement of Historical Research, Humanitarian Issues and Politics” in the framework of the Herrenhausen conference “Governing Humanitarianism” in Hanover. Organizers: University of Oxford, University of Exeter, University of Cologne, Leibniz-Institute of European History Mainz, Volkswagen Foundation.

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An International and Collaborative Research Programme

Hisdemab Sessions at DOT Berlin 2022

The HISDEMAB team is present at DOT Berlin 2022 with 2 panels:

Crossed memories and ambiguous regimes of historicity: debating the public use of history (organized by Ulrike Freitag, Habib Kazdaghli and Nora Lafi) (September 12, 2022, 14h30h-16h30, with papers by Robin Schmahl, Nora Lafi, Anandita Bajpai and Falestin Naili)

and Reflexions on the Historicity of Democracy in the Arab and Muslim Worlds (organized by Nora Lafi) (September 15, 2022, 11h30-13h30, with papers by Nora Lafi, Abdelqader Amer, Robin Schmahl and Ahlem Hajaji)

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An International and Collaborative Research Programme

Seminar Session: July 11, 2022: Ulrike Freitag

“Consultative mechanisms and institutions in late Ottoman Jeddah and their afterlife”

July 11, 2022. 16h00-18h00 (Berlin Time). Registration: https://forms.gle/A8AJDvdaQyUiG5qD8

Abstract:

This presentation reflects on different types of consultation in late Ottoman Jeddah, the major port of the province of the Hijaz. The presentation will not only engage with the question of how Ottoman reforms at the urban, provincial and imperial levels were implemented and who were the beneficiaries of these reforms, which provided for particular portions of elected members in various bodies. It will also point to less conspicuous forms of consultative and elective mechanisms, namely when it came to the organisation of the urban quarters, but also within bodies such as the guilds. An interesting issue is the afterlife, and temporary revivals, of some of these practices in Saudi Arabia.

Given the scarcity of accessible sources, as well as their variety, the presentation will stress the types of materials consulted, as these point to the necessity for historians to cast their nets very widely.

Ulrike Freitag is the director of Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin and Professor at Freie Universität Berlin. She is director of Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient and professor for Middle Eastern History at Freie Universität Berlin since 2002. After finishing her PhD on Historiography in Syria in the 20th century, she has held lecturerships at FernUniversität Hagen and SOAS. Her more recent work has engaged with translocal connections in the Indian Ocean world (Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut, Leiden 2003) and urban history with a focus on the Arabian Peninsula (A History of Jeddah, Cambridge 2020).

Full 2020-2021-2022 programme of the HISDEMAB seminar

Next Session: Fall 2022

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An International and Collaborative Research Programme

17-19 June 2022: International Workshop in Amman

The Workshop, part of the HISDEMAB resarch project of the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft collaborative excellence programme, takes place at the Institut Français du Proche Orient (IFPO) Amman.

Friday June 17, 2022

Excursion to Petra (optional).

Group dinner (19:30 – 22:00).

Saturday June 18, 2022

09:00 – 15:00

Welcoming words by Julie Bonnéric, Abdul Hameed El Kayyali, Falestin Naili and Nora Lafi

Discussion and Reflection on the concept of Historicity and on Democracy“, chaired by Nora Lafi (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin and Hisdemab Project Leader). Contributions by Abdel Qader Amer, Falestin Naili, Abdul Hameed El Kayyali, Khaled Bashir, Frank Bösch, Elisabeth Kimmerle, Robin Schmahl, Simon Baumann, Habib Khazdaghli, Ahlem Hajaji, Matthieu Rey and Manfred Sing.

Sunday June 19, 2022

09:00 – 15:00

Approaches to political participation in the early 20th century” Chaired by Abdul Hameed El Kayyali (Institut français du Proche-Orient, Amman, IFPO Amman)

Abdul Majeed Al-Shunnaq (Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Jordan), “Political participation in Jordan in the early 20th century”.

Muhammad Muthaffar Al-Adhami (Professor of modern and contemporary history), “The Parliamentary Experience in Iraq in the early 20th century: The Ottoman Era and the British Mandate”.

Habib Kazdaghli (Director of the Laboratoire Régions et Ressources Patrimoniales de Tunisie and Professor at Université de la Manouba in Tunis), “Political participation in the early 20th century in Tunisia. The Tunisian Youth Movement 1907-1914”.

Mohammed Arna’ut (Professor at the Institute for Oriental Studies, Prishtina- Kosovo), “Concept and practice of democracy in Syria in the early 20th century”.

Ahlem Hajaji, “Elections within the deliberative bodies of the Jewish community in Tunis during the colonial period

Nora Lafi (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient), “Ottoman legacies of participative and deliberative decision making processes in 1925 Irak and Syria”

1925 was a year of intense and violent repression in the regions of the Middle East under French and British colonial occupation. In the wake of the establishment of Mandates of the League of Nations and of their immediate interpretation in a colonial way, populations protested against the violence, injustice and illegality of colonization, and in some occasions, revolted. The object of this article is to analyse such protests and revolts under the light of their civic and organisational link with previously existing practices of participation, deliberation, negotiation and protest during the Ottoman era. While such forms of participation were being minimized, cancelled or intrumentalized by colonial powers, they continued to express and channel deliberations, opinions, protests and calls for help by local populations. As Ottoman administrative, territorial, legal and political structures had been dismantled, petitions, the usual channel of institutionalized negotiation in an Ottoman context, were sent to Geneva, the seat of the League of Nations. Such petitions, found in the archives of the League of Nations, illustrate how the legacy of Ottoman deliberative practices, made of petitions, but also local elections, systems of institutionalized mediation and defence of recognized rights, continued to fuel civic activism under colonial occupation. Petitioning to Geneva in 1925 against colonial violence in Irak and Syria however, was vain: under pressure by France and the United Kingdom, no office was created in order to treat the petitions, and local voices expressing deliberations, participation, the civic sphere and maybe a form of local early democracy, were never heard. In that sense, the paper is also a reflection on how colonial occupation destroyed possible early democratic practices and violently cancelled existing forms of deliberation, negotiation, protest and conflict resolution. Such European violent influences had huge consequences later in the 20th century and maybe continue today to shape debate on the roots and nature of democracy in the region.

الإرث العثماني لعمليات صنع القرار التشاركية والتداولية في العراق وسوريا عام 1925 نورا لافي (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient، برلين)

كان عام 1925 عامًا من القمع الشديد والعنيف في مناطق الشرق الأوسط الواقعة تحت الاحتلال الاستعماري الفرنسي والبريطاني. في أعقاب إنشاء انتداب عصبة الأمم وتفسيره الفوري بطريقة استعمارية، احتج السكان على العنف والظلم وعدم شرعية الاستعمار، وفي بعض المناسبات، ثاروا. الهدف من هذا المقال هو تحليل مثل هذه الاحتجاجات والثورات في ضوء ارتباطها المدني والتنظيمي بالممارسات السابقة للمشاركة والتداول والتفاوض والاحتجاج خلال العهد العثماني، فبينما كانت السلطات الاستعمارية تقوم بتقليص هذه الأشكال من المشاركة أو إلغائها أو تفنيدها، استمرت في التعبير عن المداولات والآراء والاحتجاجات ودعوات المساعدة من قبل السكان المحليين وتوجيهها. ومع تفكيك الهياكل العثمانية الإدارية والإقليمية والقانونية والسياسية، تم إرسال الالتماسات، وهي القناة المعتادة للمفاوضات المؤسسية في السياق العثماني، إلى جنيف، مقر عصبة الأمم. توضح مثل هذه الالتماسات، الموجودة في أرشيفات عصبة الأمم، كيف أنّ إرث الممارسات التداولية العثمانية، المتمثل في الالتماسات، وكذلك الانتخابات المحلية وأنظمة الوساطة المؤسسية والدفاع عن الحقوق المعترف بها، استمرت في تغذية النشاط المدني في ظل الاحتلال الاستعماري. ومع ذلك، فإن تقديم التماس إلى جنيف في عام 1925 ضدّ العنف الاستعماري في العراق وسوريا كان عبثًا؛ فلم يتمّ إنشاء مكتب للتعامل مع الالتماسات بسبب ضغوط فرنسا والمملكة المتحدة، ولم يُسمع قطّ للأصوات المحلية التي تعبّر عن المداولات والمشاركة والمجال المدني، وربما شكل من أشكال الديمقراطية المحلية المبكرة. وبهذا المعنى، تمثّل الورقة أيضًا تأمّلاً في الكيفية التي دمّر بها الاحتلال الاستعماري الممارسات الديمقراطية المبكرة المحتملة، وألغى بعنف الأشكال الحالية للتداول والتفاوض والاحتجاج وحل النزاعات، وقد كان لمثل هذه التأثيرات الأوروبية العنيفة عواقبُ وخيمة في وقت لاحق من القرن العشرين، وربما يستمر تأثيرها اليوم في تشكيل الجدل حول جذور وطبيعة الديمقراطية في المنطقة

Group dinner :19:30 – 22:00

Monday June 20, 2022

09:30 – 11:30

Visits of the Museum of Parliamentary Life, and visit of The Center for Documents and Manuscripts in The University of Jordan in Amman established in 1972 to promote the study of Arabic and Islamic heritage, and to provide researchers with original and primary sources. The CDM library boasts 31,000 manuscripts.

11:30 – 19:30

Visit of the cities of Salt and Irbid. Tours of sites dating back to the late Ottoman period and the Mandate era.

Group dinner (19:30 – 22:00)

Organised by HISDEMAB members based at IFPO Amman: Abdel Qader Amer (IFPO Amman / University of Jordan), Khaled Bashir (HISDEMAB Student Assitant in Amman / University of Jordan), Abdul Hameed El Kayyali (IFPO Amman) and Falestin Naili (Universität Basel).