The political ideas of Derviş Vahdeti as reflected in Volkan newspaper(1908-1909)

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2486532_(Table of contents)

The aim of this study is to reveal and explore the political ideas of Dervis Vahdeti (1870-1909) who was an important and controversial actor during the first months of the Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918). Starting from 11 December 1908, Vahdeti edited a daily newspaper, named Volkan (Volcano), until 20 April 1909. He personally published a number of writings in Volkan, and expressed his ideas on multiple subjects ranging from politics to the social life in the Ottoman Empire. His harsh criticism that targeted the policies of the Ottoman Committee of Progress and Union (CUP, Osmanlı Ittihâd ve Terakki Cemiyeti) made him a serious threat for the authority of the CUP. Vahdeti later established an activist and religionoriented party, named Muhammadan Union (Ittihâd-ı Muhammedi). Although he was subject to a number of studies on the Second Constitutional Period due to his alleged role in the 31 March Incident of 1909, his ideas were mostly ignored and/or he was labelled as a religious extremist (mürteci). Though this portrayal has been questioned by a limited number of scholars recently, details of Vahdeti’s ideological stance still remains unexplored. This study intends to fill this gap by examining Vahdeti’s numerous writings that were published in Volkan