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Transnational Ottoman Military Officer Families from the Mashriq in the Interwar Period
Abstract
While recent scholarship has illuminated the educational and anticolonial activist actions of networks of Ottoman-trained military officers in the Mashriq during the interwar period, further examination of these officers’ life-writings also provides insight into these officers’ families and households, revealing episodes and trends of marriage, household formation, and mobility across the lands of the former Ottoman Empire. For example, the memoirs of Baghdad-born Ottoman army officer and later Iraqi Army Chief of Staff Taha al-Hashimi contain references to his marriage in Istanbul; the couple’s travel to Damascus in 1920; the birth of their children; searching for a residence; and visits to his family in Istanbul in the 1930s when he lived, seemingly separately, in Baghdad. Meanwhile, the memoirs of Ja‘far al-‘Askari refer to visits to Egypt by his spouse, near the end of the First World War, while later references to his family locate them in Baghdad in the 1920s. Similarly, Laila Parsons examines Fawzi al-Qawuqji’s family in Syria. Furthermore, Noga Efrati identified spouses of Ottoman-trained military officers in interwar Iraqi social and political circles, including the prominent women’s club Nadi al-Nahda al-Nisa’iyya. Examining these disparate primary and secondary sources to study the families and households that constituted the networks of Ottoman-trained military officers can reveal trends in marriage, household formation, and transnational mobility, in addition to an expanded understanding of these networks. Why did the household of Taha al-Hashimi and his spouse, Munawwer, reside in Istanbul, while others resided in Iraq during the interwar period? Could this indicate the existence of diaspora-like communities from Baghdad in Istanbul? How did these communities respond to the “end of empire”? How did these trends change over time, especially during the brief time that many Ottoman-trained officers and their families and households relocated to Damascus in 1920? Further examination of memoirs by Ottoman-trained military officers from the Mashriq will reveal similar glimpses of marriage, household formation, mobility, and interaction in the interwar period. This work will complement and expand upon recent scholarship by Provence, Kayalı, Parsons, Sanagan, and Watenpaugh about the individuals Michael Provence called “the Last Ottoman Generation;” as well as works by Tamari, Fortna, and Deringil that explore life-writings of Ottoman military personnel who were from or who served in the Mashriq; in addition to works by Abou-Hodeib on middle class households in late Ottoman Beirut.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
None
Sub Area
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