Amir Shakib Arslan and his Efforts between the Ottoman and the German Empire

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of views and activities on the eve and during the First World War of the famous Islamic activist Amir Shakib Arslan (1869-1946). The author focuses on studying Shakib Arslan’s cooperation with the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), as well as the short but important period of the Amir’s life, connected with his stay in Germany as an emissary of the Ottoman Empire. The author tries to understand the place and role of Shakib Arslan in the relations between the German and the Ottoman empires in the final stage of the First World War, paying special attention to his propaganda activity during this period. The example of Shakib Arslan confirms the thesis of representatives of the new empire history about the importance of numerous cross-border interconnections for inter-imperial relations. With the beginning of the First World War, on the one hand, additional difficulties around maintain ties between the Ottoman and German empires arose, and on the other, new ties and forms of cooperation were created, with their intensity ultimately increasing during the war. During the First World War, many representatives of national movements followed a similar path (moving to Germany, cooperation with German services, including the use of propaganda). It is important, however, to see and understand not only their personal motives, but also the situational context of interaction, and in general, from a transnational perspective, consider the various links and communities which emerged during as well as after the war. This will help to better understand the influence of the First World War on the dynamics of national post-war and anti-colonial movements. With the end of the First World War, the anti-colonial struggle did not end (on the contrary, in some cases, it received a new impetus), and the networks of interaction, institutions and communities created during the war transformed, and continued to operate in the 1920s and in some cases even in the 1930s.