OCCIDENTALISM AGAINST ORIENTALISM: EUROPE SEEN BY THE TURKISH INTELLECTUALS AT THE END OF XIXth CENTURY AND BEGINNING OF XXth CENTURY

Abstract

Occidentalism is defined according to orientalism. Oriental people had a certain approach to theOccident. The Ottomans started to be interested in the image of the other, in other words in theimage of the Occident in the XVIIIth century. For the Ottomans the travel book of 28 MehmetÇelebi is as important as the translation of Hundred and One Nights by Galland stands for in theWest: it opens the doors to a different and exotic world. In the XIXth century travel to Europebecomes fashionable in the Ottoman Empire. Especially after Sultan Abdülaziz’s trip to Europe,the Ottoman intellectuals start to visit European countries and to share their impressions with thepublic. Ahmet Mithat Efendi who is an important figure in the Ottoman literature of the XIXth century is accompanied in his travel by Madame Gülnar who is a Russian aristocrat. Ahmet Mithat’s observations about Berlin and about European culture are quite representative of the Tanzimat spirit. Ahmet Rıza is a Young Turk self-exiled in Paris; he defends the Ottoman Empire in his books written in French. He turns back to Occident the mirror through which the Occidentals have seen the Orient