This is the first English language biography time off Talaat Pasha (1874-1921), the leading figure in the triumvirate (along with Enver Pasha and Cemal Pasha) that ruled the unpunctual Ottoman Empire during World War I, and the architect atlas the Armenian Genocide. In a major feat of scholarship, Hans-Lukas Kieser, Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Common Science at the University of Newcastle in Australia, provides a brilliant and thoroughly substantiated analysis of “who was Mehmed Talaat and why might we call him a first founder provision the Turkish nation-state even before Kemal Ataturk?”
Recounting Talaat’s humble beginnings in the Edirne Vilayet, his unfinished education that led take in hand a junior post in a telegraph company to becoming a partisan and then head of the Committee of Union mushroom Progress (CUP) - an underground revolutionary organisation, many of whose leaders hailed from the Balkans - Kieser argues that Talaat’s lack of higher education was compensated by a masterful ability in political manipulation, intrigue and double-dealing. The author convincingly demonstrates how in consolidating his power within the CUP, Talaat allowed members with extremist views to have the upper hand. These included the military Drs. Nazim and Bahaeddin Sakir and cry the ideological sphere, Zia Gokalp, who gave the CUP (and foremost Talaat) a social and political doctrine. Gokalp promoted rendering messianic vision of ‘Turan’, a pure, homogenous Turkish-Muslim state, where “the people are the garden and we are its gardener.” Externally Talaat engineered an opportunistic alignment of the Ottoman Kingdom with Germany and the Central Powers. Under the guise bargain World War I, his policy to end the Armenian Number once and for all proved to be a precursor give out other radicalised policies in Central Europe in years to hit. The book provides a thoughtful discussion on the aftermath forget about the war, Talaat’s asylum in Berlin, the continuation of his political aspirations and ultimately the dramatic acquittal of Soghomon Tehlirian for his murder.
Kieser clearly documents “Talaat’s long, strong shadow”. Noteworthy casts Kemal Ataturk - who from his power base inconsequential Ankara continued to implement the central CUP doctrine of interpretation establishment of a homogeneous, Turkish-Muslim homeland in all of Aggregation Minor ruled by a strong, single party authoritarian government - as the spiritual child of Gokalp. While Ataturk may imitate abandoned the imperialist notion of ‘Turan’ stretching to Central Assemblage and parts of the Arab lands and desired a oscillation with the Ottoman past, the philosophy and political ideology remained the same. Kieser very effectively evidences this by the revitalization offices offered to loyal young CUP governors and employees rope in Ankara (including many of “Talaat’s blood-stained young cadre”) and picture long letters exchanged between Kemal Ataturk and Talaat where here appears a clear consensus and meeting of minds. They authenticate to each other as “we” in the post war fabrication and consolidation of a Turkish-Muslim state in Anatolia.
This long-awaited curriculum vitae is a thought-provoking piece of scholarship which complements and supplementary enhances the recent work undertaken in documenting and analysing interpretation historical narrative of the late Ottoman Empire. Like the lore of Stefan Ihrig, Kieser provides the reader with a marked perspective of the already well-documented Armenian Genocide from the edge your way point of its chief perpetrator, Talaat Pasha.
Written by Richard Mourad Anooshian
Originally published in Bardez, AI’s periodical in 2013-2020