Teaching Ethno-religious Controversy in the Late Ottoman Empire: Historiographical and Pedagogical Challenges

Historical writings on the Ottoman Empire have mostly emphasized its territorial size, which spanned over three continents, longevity and more recently peaceful coexistence of ethno-religious communities. The Empire’s millet system which was based on the recognition and relative autonomy of religious communities started to crumble with ethno-religious conflicts, and massacres starting with the late nineteenth century. Finally, the Empire witnessed the first genocide of the twentieth century with the deportation and extermination of its Armenian community. The transformation of inter-communal relations from “coexistence” to conflict in the late Ottoman Empire appears as a curious issue for students of history. Class discussion on religious conflict in the Ottoman Empire, however, poses a set of pedagogical challenges. Looking at this final century of the Empire, students generally tend to project this picture to their understanding of the early history of the Empire. Accordingly, there emerges the tendency to see modern conflicts as resulting from ancient hatreds between the communities. Thus a-historicism, anachronism, and teleology appear as immediate conceptual challenges in class discussions on religious conflict in the Empire. I will talk about the possible pedagogical ways to overcome these challenges in teaching ethno-religious controversy within the context of the late Ottoman Empire.