The Rise of Turkish Nationalism

About This Lesson

In this lesson, students will learn about the rise of the Young Turks, an opposition movement that seized power from the sultan in 1908 and promised long-awaited reforms in the declining Ottoman Empire. Students will analyze the events and conditions that led a Turkish nationalist faction of the Young Turks (the Committee for Union and Progress, or CUP) to take control of the party and the Ottoman government from Young Turk leaders who had initially promised equality for all people living within the empire. Understanding the Turkish nationalist takeover and the transformations it brought to Ottoman society lays a foundation for understanding the program of attempted annihilation of the Armenians that the CUP implemented a few years later, which students will learn about in the next lesson.

Essential Questions

• What choices and conditions led to the genocide of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire during World War I?
• How can learning about these choices and conditions help us protect the most vulnerable groups in our society today?

Guiding Questions

• Why did the Young Turks’ initial program of equality for all give way to Turkism, the extreme nationalist belief that the Ottoman Empire was only for the Turks?
• How did Turkism influence the Ottoman Empire’s universe of obligation?
• What did it look and feel like to live in a society transformed by Turkism?

Learning Objectives

• Students will consider the variety of principles, ideas, and emotions that leaders can use to try to unify the people of an empire or country.
• Students will understand the events and conditions that enabled the Committee for Union and Progress, an extreme Turkish nationalist faction of the Young Turks, to seize control of the Ottoman government.
• Students will analyze the effects of the rise of Turkish nationalism on everyday life in the Ottoman Empire.

See the Additional Context & Background section in the Google Doc version of this lesson plan for the essential historical knowledge needed to teach this lesson.

Lesson Plan

Day 1

Activity 1: Reflect on and Discuss What Holds an Empire or Country Together

Begin by sharing with students the insight of one historian into the reasons for the Ottoman Empire’s decline. Vartan Gregorian attributes the decline, in part, to 

the failure of the empire to integrate various nations, peoples and regions into a cohesive whole. As a result, the empire remained . . . without a common, unifying identity or unity of purpose.

Ask students to respond to the following prompt in their journals:

What does it mean for an empire, or a country, to be held together by “a common, unifying identity or unity of purpose”? How might each of the following provide a common identity or unity of purpose for the people of a country? What kind of country might each of these unifying factors create? Choose one or two and explain your thinking:

• Pride in the shared race or ethnicity of the majority
• Belief in a common religion
• The shared hatred of an “other”
• Promises of individual rights and equality
• Commitment to written constitutions and laws
• A different idea of your own

Use Think-Pair-Share to debrief students’ thinking.

Activity 2: Mini-Lecture: Young Turks Take Power and Promote Equality

Explain to students that in this lesson they are going to learn about the Young Turks, a new movement in the Ottoman Empire that deposed the sultan and took power, and the changing strategies they used to reform and unify the empire. Provide some basic information about the Young Turks coming to power by giving a mini-lecture that emphasizes the following points:

• By the 1890s, the Armenians were not the only group demanding changes to the Ottoman government. A broad-based reform movement—including Turks, Arabs, Greeks, Kurds, Armenians, and Jews—had begun to oppose the sultan.
• One of these groups was the Young Turks—a coalition of Turkish groups opposed to the Sultan. Members of the Young Turks held a range of views on how to reform and unite the empire.
• The Young Turks led a military uprising against the sultan in 1908 and took control of the empire.
• In order to reverse the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks searched for a common identity they could promote to bring together people from across the empire. Their options included focusing on one of the following:
  • Religion: They could attempt to unify the empire’s Muslims around their shared religion.
  • Nationalism: They could attempt to unify the empire’s Turkish people around their shared nationality. 
  • “Ottomanism”: They could attempt to unify all of the empire’s people around the ideal of equality for all, regardless of religion or nationality.
• Initially, the Young Turks promoted “Ottomanism,” but within a few years a faction of extreme Turkish nationalists took control of the party and the empire. This group, the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP), ended the promise of equal rights for all and promoted Turkism, the idea that the Ottoman Empire was only for the Turks and no others.  

Activity 3: Examine the Events and Conditions that Empowered the CUP 

Note: Before planning this activity, please see the Teaching Note entitled “Addressing the Massacre at Adana.”

Pass out the viewing guide How Turkish Nationalists Came to Power in the Ottoman Government, which includes a transcript of the clip from the documentary The Armenian Genocide (7:48–13:30). Students can follow the instructions on the handout to annotate the transcript as they watch the clip, and then to list in the spaces provided on the handout three conditions or events that empowered the Committee of Union and Progress to seize control from those who advocated for Ottomanism. The factors that students might identify include the following:

• The empire’s continued loss of territory in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913
• The humiliation of the Ottoman army suffering a major military defeat to the empire’s former subjects in the Balkans
• The heightened fear of the empire collapsing entirely
• The influx of more than 100,000 Muslim and Turkish refugees from the Balkans
• The struggle to settle and care for such a large number of refugees
• The stories from refugees about mistreatment and persecution from Christians

Day 2

Activity 1: Review Responses About What Holds an Empire or Country Together

Ask students to revisit their responses to the journal prompt from the beginning of Day 1: What does it mean for an empire, or a country, to be held together by “a common, unifying identity or unity of purpose”? 

What new thoughts do they have about that question today? Give students a few moments to review the reading The Turkish Nationalist Remaking of Ottoman Society and their other notes from yesterday’s activities. Use Think-Pair-Share to give students the opportunity to discuss what, if anything, has changed and what has stayed the same in their thinking.    

Then tell students that today’s focus will be on the education and socialization of Turkish nationalism by the CUP.

Activity 2: Read about the Process of Turkification

Explain to students that the CUP Turkists promoted a process of “Turkification.” This meant that once in power they implemented policies designed to promote the dominance of Turkish people over others in the empire and to make society reflect Turkish culture and identity exclusively.

For an overview of some of these new policies, read aloud The Turkish Nationalist Remaking of Ottoman Society. After reading, invite students to respond using the S-I-T (Surprising-Interesting-Troubling) strategy. Each student should identify a policy or change described in the reading that they find surprising, one they find interesting, and one they find troubling. Before moving on, give students a few minutes to share their responses, either with the whole group or by turning and talking to their neighbor.

Activity 3: Discuss the Impact of Turkish Nationalism on Everyday Life

Now pass out the reading How Turkish Nationalism Impacted Everyday Life. Explain that this reading includes a recollection from an Armenian girl who grew up at the turn of the twentieth century in the Ottoman Empire about the changes that took place in her life after the Committee of Union and Progress took control of the Ottoman government.

Instruct students to read the text independently. As they read they will identify a “golden line”—one or two sentences that particularly stand out for them. Encourage them to choose sentences that relate to the author’s observations, thoughts, or feelings about the way the Turkification of Ottoman society changed her everyday life. Have students copy their “golden line” into their journals and then explain why they chose it.

After students have finished, invite them to share their “golden line” and their journal response to it with a partner.

Activity 4: Debrief and Connect to Universe of Obligation

Wrap up the lesson with a brief whole group discussion in response to the following questions: 

• What can we conclude from the resources in this lesson about how the CUP shifted the Ottoman Empire’s universe of obligation?  
• What signs would have been noticeable to individuals within the empire that either their status in the empire was improving or that they were becoming more vulnerable?