Fuat Dundar and the Deportation of the Greeks
Ahmet Efiloglu
article (Uluslararası, Hakemli) | Yazar(lar): Ahmet Efiloglu | Yıl: 2014 | Dergi/Kurum: MIDDLE EAST CRITIQUE — Özet: A review of the controversial book by Turkish historian Fuat Dundar, Modern Turkiye' nin Sifresi, Ittihat ve Terakki' nin Etnisite Muhendisligi [The Code of Modern Turkey: The Committee of Union and Prog
A review of the controversial book by Turkish historian Fuat Dundar, Modern Turkiye' nin Sifresi, Ittihat ve Terakki' nin Etnisite Muhendisligi [The Code of Modern Turkey: The Committee of Union and Progress' Ethnic Engineering], published in 2008. The main thesis of the book is that the fundamental aim of Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) government was to Turkify Anatolia through the deportation and re-settlement of its non-Turkish population. Dundar deals primarily with the deportation of the Armenians. He believes that the Unionists had been exerting their utmost effort toward Turkifying Anatolia since 1913. 1 The CUP master plan was to deport the Armenians, thus cleansing them from Anatolia. Dundar claims that in 1915 the CUP even found it necessary to massacre the Armenians in some regions. 2 However, this review examines only the section of his book on the deportation of the Greeks, a topic that does not garner as much attention as the Armenian deportations. This review attempts to show how Dundar addressed this topic, how he used the documents, and how well he managed to deliver on his aim of interpreting the documents in a way that sheds new light on the deportations of Greeks. He views the deportation and resettlement of the Greeks as a development that came about after the beginning of World War I, when the CUP entered into an alliance with Germany, and references documents that he studied in the Ottoman archives to support his argument.