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LITERATURE]

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TURKEY

promulgated by imperial iradē; parliament was prorogued for

three months on the 27th, and during the recess the committee of union and progress met at Salonica and modified its own rules (Oct. 23), ceasing thenceforward to be a secret association. This was regarded as an expression of confidence in the reformed parliament, which had laid the foundation of the important financial and administrative reforms already described. On the 13th of September 1909 the Macedonian international commission of finance met for the last time; its members were reappointed to a higher finance board for the whole empire, under the presidency of Djavid Bey. Ch. Laurent had already been nominated financial adviser to the empire (Sept. 16, 1908), while Sir William Willcocks became head of the irrigation department; the reorganization of the army was entrusted to the German General von der Goltz, that of the navy to Admiral Sir Douglas Gamble (resigned Feb. 1, 1910).

The evacuation of Crete by the four protecting powers was followed in 1909 by renewed agitation. Turkey was willing Crete, Greece and Rumania. to concede the fullest local autonomy, but not to abandon its sovereign rights over the island. In July 1909, however, the Greek flag was hoisted in Canea and Candia, and it was only lowered again after the war-ships of the protecting powers had been reinforced and had landed an international force. The Cretan administrative committee swore allegiance to the king of the Hellenes in August, and again, after a change of government, at the end of December 1909. This situation had already given rise to prolonged negotiations between Greece and Turkey. It also contributed towards the conclusion of an entente between Turkey and Rumania in the summer of 1910. Both of these powers were interested in preventing any possible accession of territory to the Bulgarian kingdom; and Rumania (q.v.) had for many years been a formidable opponent of Hellenism among the Macedonian Vlachs. Greece and Crete were thus confronted with what was in effect a defensive alliance between Turkey and Rumania. The Cretans had insisted upon their demand for union with Greece and had elected three representatives to sit in the Greek national assembly. Had this act been ratified by the government at Athens, a war between Greece and the Ottoman Empire could hardly have been avoided; but a royal rescript was issued by the king of the Hellenes on the 30th of September 1910, declaring vacant the three seats to which the Cretan representatives had been elected; the immediate danger was thus averted.

Bibliography.—(1) General Historical Works: The monumental Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, by J. von Hammer Purgstall (1st ed., 10 vols., Vienna, 1827–1835; 2nd ed., 4 vols., Pest, 1840; French trans., by J. J. Hellert, 18 vols., Paris, 1835–1843), is still the standard work until the conclusion of the treaty of Kuchuk Kai'narji (1744), at which date it stops. Founded upon it are Sir E. S. Creasy’s History of the Ottoman Turks (London, 1878) and S. Lane-Poole's Turkey in the “Story of the Nations Series” (London, 1888); Sutherland Menzies’s Turkey, Old and New (2 vols., 1880) is derived chiefly from French sources and is less accurate and unbiased. An excellent and impartial history in Turkish is the Tarikh-i-devlet-i-osmanié, by Abdurrahman Sheref (Constantinople, A.H. 1315–1318 = A.D. 1897–1900). The Balkans, by W. Miller (London, 1899), in the “Story of the Nations Series,” deals with Turkey’s relations with the Balkan states. Halil Ganem’s Les Sultans ottomans (2 vols., Paris, 1902) contains much that is interesting, if not always entirely trustworthy.

2. Monographs: Much information on modern Turkish history and politics will be found in the works dealing primarily with topography, finance, law and defence, which have been cited above. See also S. Lane-Poole, Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe (2 vols., London, 1888); A. Vandal, Mémoires du marquis de Nointel (French ambassador at Constantinople from 1670 to 1678); E. Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat (Paris, 1882); E. Driault, La Question d'orient depuis ses origines jusqu'à nos jours (Paris, 1898); V. Berard, La Turquie et l'Hellénisme (Paris, 1897); idem, Le Sultan, l'Islam et les Puissances (Paris, 1907); idem, La Révolution turque (1909).

3. Official Publications and Collections of Treaties: Sir E. Hertslet’s Treaties Regulating the Trade, &c., between Great Britain and Turkey (London, 1875) presents a summary of all the principal treaties between Turkey and other states; see also Gabriel Effendi Noradounghian, Recueil d'actes internationaux de l'empire ottoman, 1300–1789, t. i. (Paris, 1897). Much valuable information is to be obtained from parliamentary papers. These are too numerous for detailed mention, but the following periods may be cited as the most interesting: 1833–1841 (Egyptian question); 1849–1859 (Crimean War and the events by which it was preceded and followed); 1868–1869 (Cretan insurrection); 1875–1881 (Bosnian and Herzegovinian insurrection, Russo-Turkish War, Berlin treaty and subsequent events); 1885–1887 (union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria); 1889–1890 (Cretan disturbances); 1892–1899 (Armenian and Cretan affairs); 1902–1907 (Macedonia); 1908–1910 (revolution and reform). Some analysis of the unpublished documents in the record office, for the period 1815–1841, by W. Alison Phillips, will be found in the bibliographies to chs. vi. and xvii. of vol. x. of the Cambridge Modern History. (X.)

Literature.

In all literary matters the Ottoman Turks have shown themselves a singularly uninventive people, the two great schools, the old and the new, into which we may divide their literature, being closely modelled, the one after the classics of Persia, the other after those of modern Europe, and more especially of France. The old or Persian school flourished from the foundation of the empire down to about 1830, and still continues to drag on a feeble existence, though it is now out of fashion and cultivated by none of the leading men of letters. These belong to the new or European school, which, in spite of the bitter opposition of the partisans of the old Oriental system, has succeeded, partly thiough its own inherent superiority and partly through the talents and courage of its supporters, in expelling its rival from the position of undisputed authority which it had occupied for upwards of five hundred years. For the present Old School. purpose it will be convenient to divide the old school into three periods, which may be termed respectively the pre-classical, the classical and the post-classical. Of these the first extends from the early days of the empire to the accession of Suleimān I., 1301–1520 (700–926); the second from that event to the accession of Maḥmūd I., 1520–1730 (926–1143); and the third from that date to the accession of ‛Abd-ul-‛Azīz, 1730–1861 (1143–1277).

The works of the old school in all its periods are entirely Persian in tone, sentiment and form. We find in them the same beauties General Character of Ottoman Literature. and the same defects that we observe in the production of the Iranian authors. The formal elegance and conventional grace, alike of thought and of expression, so characteristic of Persian classical literature, pervade the works of the best Ottoman writers, and they are likewise imbued, though in a less degree, with that spirit of mysticism which runs through so much of the poetry of Irān. But the Ottomans did not stop here: in their romantic poems they chose as subjects the favourite themes of their Persian masters, such as Leylī and Mejnūn, Khusrev and Shīrīn, Yūsuf and Zuleykhā, and so on; they constantly allude to Persian heroes whose stories occur in the Shāh-Namā and other storehouses of Iranian legendary lore; and they wrote their poems in Persian metres and in Persian forms. The mesnevī, the ḳasīda and the ghazel—all of them, so far at least as the Ottomans are concerned, Persian—were the favourite verse-forms of the old poets. A mesnevī is a poem written in rhyming couplets, and is usually narrative in subject. The ḳasīda and the ghazel are both monorhythmic; the first as a rule celebrates the praises of some great man, while the second discourses of the joys and woes of love. Why Persian rather than Arabian or any other literature became the model of Ottoman writers is explained by the early history of the race (see Turks). Some two centuries before the arrival of the Turks in Asia Minor the Seljūḳs, then a mere horde of savages, had overrun Persia, where they settled and adopted the civilization of the people they had subdued. Thus Persian became the language of their court and government, and when by-and-by they pushed their conquests into Asia Minor, and founded there the Seljūḳ Empire of Rūm, they carried with them their Persian culture, and diffused it among the peoples newly brought under their sway. It was the descendants of those Persianized Seljūḳs whom the early Ottomans found ruling in Asia Minor on their arrival there. What had happened to the Seljūḳs two centuries before happened to the Ottomans now: the less civilized race adopted the culture of the more civilized; and, as the Seljūḳ Empire fell to pieces and the Ottoman came gradually to occupy its place, the sons of men who had called themselves Seljūḳs began thenceforth to look upon themselves as Ottomans. Hence the vast majority of the people whom we are accustomed to think of as Ottomans are so only by adoption, being really the descendants of Seljūḳs or Seljūḳian subjects, who had derived from Persia whatever they possessed of civilization or of literary taste. An extraordinary love of precedent, the result apparently of conscious want of original power, was sufficient to keep their writers loyal to their early guide for centuries, till

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