Shiny Things and Sovereign Legalities: Expropriation of Dynastic Property in the Late Ottoman Empire and Early Turkish Republic

Karamursel, Ceyda

Abstract

This article probes the legal expropriation of dynastic property in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic. Focused on the period from Abdülhamid II's deposal in 1909 to the decade immediately following the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, it takes parliamentary debates as entry points for exploring how this legislative process redefined the sovereign's relationship with property. Although this process was initially limited only to Yıldız Palace, the debates that surrounded it heuristically helped to shape a new understanding of public ownership of property that was put to use in other contexts in the years to come, most notably during and after World War I and the Armenian genocide, before establishing itself as the foundation of a new ownership regime with the republican appropriation and reuse of property two decades later.

Citation

Karamursel, C. (2019). Shiny Things and Sovereign Legalities: Expropriation of Dynastic Property in the Late Ottoman Empire and Early Turkish Republic. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 51(3), 445-463. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743819000382

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 30, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jun 3, 2019
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Feb 22, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 22, 2019
• Journal: International Journal of Middle East Studies
• Print ISSN: 0020-7438
• Electronic ISSN: 1471-6380
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 445-463
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743819000382