Riza Tevfik, Ottoman Turkey, and the First Universal Races Congress of 1911

This paper will explore the ideas of Dr. Riza Tevfik (1869-1949) about the history and identity of the Turks in a diverse imperial polity and modernizing cosmopolitan order.  He was a medical doctor, philosopher, statesmen, and poet during the Second Constitutional Government of the Ottoman State following the Young Turk Revolution of 1908.  An Ottoman delegate to the First Universal Races Congress of 1911, he contributed an essay on “Turkey” to Gustav Spiller’s Papers on Inter-Racial Problems.  This essay shows considerable sophistication about the mosaic of cultures that made up the Ottoman Empire as well as familiarity with contemporary European social theory.  Its significance only grows when we consider the stakes.  The URC took place within a complex web of British-Ottoman diplomacy, at a time when the Young Turks of the Committee of Union and Progress were trying to preserve the empire and rework it into a modern state, while holding at bay the territorial ambitions of the European Powers.