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Mourning Fallen Brothers-in-Arms and Lost Youth in the Ottoman First World War
Abstract
Utilizing memoirs, diaries, poetry, war stories in soldiers’ newspapers, and what we might call “commemorative pamphlets” produced by Ottoman soldiers during the First World War and by former soldiers in the post-war period, this paper will explore how these men mourned for the loss of fellow soldiers or brothers who fell on the battlefield. On the one hand, this is a study of how individual soldiers privately mourned their fallen comrades as individuals. On the other, it examines communal mourning of soldiers; once the expressions of grief were shared with other comrades at graveside ceremonies, in conversations, and in poems for others’ eyes or ears, they became part of communal memory and mourning for the dead. In most cases and with the distinct exception of “commemorative pamphlets,” words and acts of mourning were not necessarily intended to be shared outside of the soldierly community. No matter where they were recorded, these words of mourning were expressed both in lament and in praise of the dead. Understandably, mourning involved shedding manly tears—clearly distinguished from “cowardly” tears—for the dead, but, I will argue, the tears shed were also meant for the mourners themselves. Part of a larger project which deals with how soldiers’ own sense of suffering and sacrifice in the First World War allowed them to challenge and redefine normative Ottoman and Turkish masculinities, this paper suggests that rituals of mourning became arenas of articulation for the surviving soldiers to advance claims for the recognition of their own suffering and sacrifice. In other words, mourning for the dead also served to lament for the survivors’ lost youth on battlefields and in enemy prison camps.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Ottoman Empire
Sub Area
None