Volkan (Ottoman Turkish: Volcano) was a short-lived daily newspaper published in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire. The paper was in circulation between 1908 and 1909 and was one of the Islamist publications which were launched in the Second Constitutional period.[1]

Volkan
TypeDaily newspaper
Founder(s)Derviş Vahdeti
Editor-in-chiefDerviş Vahdeti
Founded11 December 1908
Political alignmentPan-Islamist
LanguageOttoman Turkish
Ceased publication20 April 1909
HeadquartersConstantinople

History and profile

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Volkan was started by Derviş Vahdeti in Constantinople on 11 December 1908.[2][3] Vahdeti asked for financial support from Sultan Abdulhamit before launching the paper.[4] However, this request was not accepted.[4]

The publisher of Volkan was Derviş Vahdeti.[5] He edited the daily until 20 April 1909 when he was arrested.[3] At the beginning the paper was supportive of the new constitution and relatively liberal.[2] However, following the establishment of the Mohammadan Union by Vahdeti on 5 March 1909 the paper became its organ and an ardent critic of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).[6][7] The political program of the Union was featured in the paper on 3 March.[6]

Volkan published the articles by Said Nursî, future leader of the Nur movement.[8] The paper began to feature articles in a militant style over time.[4] It presented a synthesis of mysticism and popular Islam and opposed to the secularism of the government.[9][10] It also criticized the influence of the minorities and foreign representatives in the Empire.[9] Vahdeti argued in Volkan that the CUP should obey the Islamic principles.[11][12] The paper also featured anti-Semitic materials written by Derviş Vahdeti and other contributors.[13] All these were in sharp contrast to the ideology of the CUP making the paper a device for the counterrevolution.[9] On 12 April 1909, eight days before its closure, Volkan made a call for a riot against the CUP rule arguing that the CUP leaders should leave the country.[14] The paper produced a total of 110 issues during its run.[15]

Spin-offs

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In the 1940s a magazine with same name was published in Istanbul which shared the political stance of the paper.[16]

References

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  1. ^ Ceren Sözeri (2019). "The transformation of Turkey's Islamic media and its marriage with neo-liberalism". Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. 19 (1): 156. doi:10.1080/14683857.2019.1579413. S2CID 159250681.
  2. ^ a b Feroz Ahmad (January 1991). "Politics and Islam in Modern Turkey". Middle Eastern Studies. 27 (1): 4. JSTOR 4283411.
  3. ^ a b Talha Murat (2020). The political ideas of Derviş Vahdeti as reflected in Volkan newspaper (1908-1909) (MA thesis). Sabancı University. Archived from the original on 28 November 2021.
  4. ^ a b c David Farhi (October 1971). "The Şeriat as a Political Slogan: Or the 'Incident of the 31st Mart'". Middle Eastern Studies. 7 (3): 283. doi:10.1080/00263207108700182.
  5. ^ Jeremy Salt (Spring 2015). "Turkey's Counterrevolution: Notes from the Dark Side". Middle East Policy. XXI (1): 123. doi:10.1111/mepo.12118. hdl:11693/24192.
  6. ^ a b Feroz Ahmad (July 1968). "The Young Turk Revolution". Journal of Contemporary History. 3 (3): 26. doi:10.1177/002200946800300302. JSTOR 259696. S2CID 150443567.
  7. ^ Christine M. Philliou (2021). Turkey. A Past Against History. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. p. 52. doi:10.1525/9780520382398-fm. ISBN 9780520276390. S2CID 241883383.
  8. ^ Şükran Vahide (2003). "Toward an Intellectual Biography of Said Nursi". In Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi' (ed.). Islam at the Crossroads: On the Life and Thought of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7914-8691-7.
  9. ^ a b c Renée Worringer (2014). Ottomans Imagining Japan. East, Middle East, and Non-Western Modernity at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 175. doi:10.1057/9781137384607. ISBN 978-1-137-38460-7.
  10. ^ Stanford J. Shaw; Ezel Kural Shaw (1977). History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 280. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511614972. ISBN 9780511614972.
  11. ^ Renée Worringer (2004). "Sickman of Europe or Japan of the Near East?: Constructing Ottoman Modernity in the Hamidian and Young Turk Eras". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 36 (2): 217. doi:10.1017/S0020743804362033. S2CID 156657393.
  12. ^ Kasuya Gen (2006). "The influence of al-Manar on Islamism in Turkey: the case of Mehmed Âkif". In Stephane A. Dudoignon; Komatsu Hisao; Kosugi Yasushi (eds.). Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World. London: Routledge. p. 72. doi:10.4324/9780203028315-10. ISBN 9780203028315.
  13. ^ Marc David Baer (Fall 2013). "An Enemy Old and New: The Dönme, Anti-Semitism, and Conspiracy Theories in the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 103 (4): 531. doi:10.1353/jqr.2013.0033. S2CID 159483845.
  14. ^ Selim Sezer (August 2022). "'A pretty bad reputation': reflections of 'the 31 March incident' on Ottoman Syria, its background, and its immediate consequences". Middle Eastern Studies. 59 (3): 396. doi:10.1080/00263206.2022.2108803. S2CID 251682869.
  15. ^ M. Ertuğrul Düzdağ. "Volkan". Encyclopaedia of Islam. Archived from the original on 22 January 2021.
  16. ^ Gavin D. Brockett (August 2009). "Provincial Newspapers as a Historical Source: Büyük Cihad and the Great Struggle for the Muslim Turkish Nation (1951-53)". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 41 (3): 443. doi:10.1017/S0020743809091545. JSTOR 40389256.