There are books that make you feel, while reading, that you are tracing not only the past but a state of mind. In these texts, history moves beyond a mere chronology. It acquires a voice, a face and at times reveals itself through silence. Published by Ketebe, professor Ali Şükrü Çoruk’s "Empire in Collapse: Society and Politics" is one of those works that invites readers to approach the final years of the Ottoman Empire through this very sensibility.
Rather than restricting the story of the empire’s collapse to political actors, battlefronts or treaties, the book widens its lens to include newspaper columns, caricatures, festive days, myths, stories of sacrifice and the voices of the university. As the author notes in the preface, during the long period from the Second Constitutional Era to the National Struggle, the press moved beyond simply reporting events and became a laboratory in which modern politics was actively shaped.
Within this space, society at times laughs, at times falls silent and at times raises its voice in protest. Drawing on a wide and carefully assembled body of sources, the book reflects a work of meticulous scholarship. This essay does not seek to encompass the study in its entirety. Instead, it lingers on a number of scenes that reveal the different languages through which society related to politics during the empire’s collapse, because at times a caricature can speak louder than a speech and a celebration more powerfully than an official proclamation.
The years of World War I were a time when not only battlefields but minds were mobilized. As a result, the language of propaganda moved beyond words, turning instead to images, drawings and caricatures. The visual world that took shape around the newspaper Karagöz offers valuable insight into how the war was perceived from the Ottoman perspective. In these caricatures, the Ottoman soldier is depicted as agile and clever, often outwitting his opponent, while the enemy appears confused, clumsy or even comical. Rendered through line and image, war is made lighter and the sense of defeat subdued. The images raise a smile, yet at the same time convey a quiet call to resilience.
However, the book also shows that this visual mobilization did not rely solely on humor. The chapter titled “The Sacred Deer of the Committee of Union and Progress” reveals how politics came to be framed in a mythological and untouchable language. The “deer” narrative that emerged around Niyazi Bey soon moved beyond a symbol of resistance and took on a sacred meaning. The deer came to stand for freedom, innocence, and a sense of chosenness. Yet it is precisely at this moment that politics stops being a space of discussion and turns into a system of belief that demands loyalty. In this sacred language, criticism is treated as improper and dissent is cast almost as betrayal.
One of the clearest objections to this mythic language comes from Ahmet Samim. Rather than grounding freedom in legends, Samim defends it as a moral principle. His critique, articulated through the image of the “sacred deer” being confined to a cage, stands as a genuine call of conscience against the reduction of freedom to a mere spectacle. That he paid such a heavy price for this stance makes plain how little room a sacralized politics leaves for dissent.
The form that public holidays took during the years of defeat reveals another facet of this collective spirit. Celebration was no longer about festivity, but about not falling apart, about holding on to a shared sense of destiny. Observed with restraint and without display, these days reflected a society’s effort to remain standing without denying its losses, as well as its capacity for patience. In this way, the holiday ceased to be a moment of cheer and became a threshold where morality, memory, and a sense of continuity were carefully preserved.
Another aspect the book draws attention to is the stories of individual sacrifice. Figures such as Abdullah Çavuş show how courage and loyalty on the battlefield were transformed into heroic narratives in the public imagination. Through these figures, we gain a clearer sense of how values such as justice, courage and responsibility took human form during the empire’s disintegration.
All these indirect forms of resistance grew into a more open and organized response in the face of the possibility that Istanbul might be lost. The reactions emerging around Istanbul University show that the issue was understood not merely as the loss of a city, but as a matter of sovereignty, historical continuity and collective memory. In this process, the university came to serve as a space of conscience, speaking on behalf of society. Protests, declarations, and speeches underscored Istanbul’s central place in Turkish history.
In the background of this intellectual climate, the reflections of Yahya Kemal Beyatlı on Istanbul play a defining role. For Yahya Kemal, Istanbul is the embodied form of history, identity, and the idea of sovereignty. His poem “26 August 1922” shows that victory stands as a threshold etched into collective memory. In his poetry and thought, the city ceases to be merely a place and becomes a trust to be safeguarded.
"Empire in Collapse: Society and Politics" is a valuable book precisely for this reason. It shows us not only what was destroyed, but also how society carried this collapse, which symbols it leaned on and around which values it chose to resist. It tells the story of a society that laughed through caricature, was tested through myths, held on through shared rituals, and raised its objections through the university. In doing so, the book offers a genuine historical sensibility that invites us to understand the present without confining the past to nostalgic sorrow.
