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The Ottoman afterlife in Jordan and Iraq. Politics of Remembering and Forgetting in New Arab Nation-States (1920-1958)

Research Project
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01.10.2020
 - 30.09.2025

Who remembers what, why, where and when? While the dominant Hashemite (Arab) nationalist and colonial narrative has long attempted to erase the Ottoman imprint on modern politics, culture, diplomacy and education in Iraq and Jordan, this research project examines the production of (counter-) memories on the Ottomans in various layers of society, between the collapse of the Empire after the First World War and the establishment of two Hashemite sister monarchies, until the failure of the Arab federation of Iraq and Jordan in 1958. The main objective of this research project is threefold: 1- identify typologies, profiles and group formations of people who produced their own narratives on the Ottomans, 2- examine the impact of the surrounding social and political context in the production of these memories, and 3- discuss their motives. A number of factors are taken into account, among which the socioeconomic, generational, colonial, educational, ethno-religious, and the gender factor. Members of the research team analyze periodicals, memoirs, textbooks and historiographical production in Iraq and Jordan, as well as official correspondences, reports and legal documents, available in various archival institutions and libraries, in the Middle East, Europe and the USA. Dealing with memory from the standpoint of the present in which it is produced - rather than as natural remains of an uncontested past - offers a new and innovative way to look at the mandate and early state period when the modern Middle East as we know it today took shape, as it constitutes a privileged insight into societal values and concerns of the period examined.

Funding

The Ottoman afterlife in Jordan and Iraq. Politics of Remembering and Forgetting in New Arab Nation-States (1920-1958)

SNF Eccellenza (GrantsTool), 10.2020-09.2025 (60)
PI : Schlaepfer, Aline,Schläpfer, Aline.

Publications

Schlaepfer, Aline (2020) ‘La lettre de suicide du Premier Ministre ”Abd al-Muḥsin al-Sa’dūn. Vie et mort d’un nationaliste irakien de langue turque’, Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 148, pp. 87–110. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4000/remmm.15195.

URLs
URLs

Schlaepfer, Aline, Bourmaud, Philippe and Hassan, Iyas (2020) ‘Fantômes d’Empire: Persistances et revendications d’ottomanité(s) dans les espaces post-ottomans’, Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 148, pp. 9–32. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4000/remmm.15098.

URLs
URLs

Members (3)

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Aline Schläpfer

Principal Investigator
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Jasmine Benhaida

Project Member
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Fares Damien

Project Member