From Empire to Republic

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Acknowledgements

The origins of this work lie within my search for a possible research topic in American-Turkish relations that I could develop into my master’s thesis. I wanted to analyse the relationship from a historical perspective, thus my research started with US-Ottoman Empire encounters. As I progressed, I realized that American missionaries played a significant role in the development of American-Ottoman diplomatic relations. Hence, I broadened my scope to include American missionaries. Furthermore, by bringing history and religious studies together, my thesis would fit the interdisciplinary approach that is taken at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies. Later the book that I received from my friend Patricia Temiz called Fifty Years In Constantinople And Recollections of Robert College by George Washburn gave me the idea of analyzing American missionaries within the context of their schools, thus also adding education to the subject areas under consideration. Robert College is one of the most long-standing products of American missionary activity that still continues to admit students. Robert College is also significant as it was the first American higher education institution to be established outside of the United States. The methodology of the thesis is desk research undertaken in the American Research Institute in Istanbul and at the Bosphorus and Bilkent University libraries. The thesis includes primary sources such as memoirs, letters, annual reports, catalogues, newspapers as well as secondary sources including academic journals, books and Master’s and PhD theses. Apart from archival research, the thesis also retrieved the primary sources via secondary sources due to limited access online. Primary sources played a strong role in this thesis as they provided figures, dates and depicted the conditions of American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire and later Turkish Republic.

This work is the result of my MA thesis and there are many institutions and individuals to thank. At the top of my list of acknowledgments must be Heidelberg Center for American Studies which offered me an academic home and intellectual encouragement and enabled me to realise my academic aims that I had formulated when I was an undergraduate at the University of Bilkent. Special thanks are due to the Leonie Wild Foundation ← 9 | 10 → whose financial support immensely assisted me during my graduate studies in Heidelberg. I would like to thank the archival staff at the American Research Institute in Turkey whose help enabled me to gain access to numerous works in my research area. I must also thank my friends and family, whose support encouraged me to continue on this journey. I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Detlef Junker and Dr. Anne Sommer who guided me throughout my graduate studies. I am indebted to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Jan Stievermann, who agreed to take on this challenge and guide the development of my work. The advice and kind words also provided by Dr. Anja Schüler, who became my second reader in this project, were invaluable. I would like to specifically thank Patricia Temiz for her insight and proof-reading, and the encouragement which helped me to complete this thesis. I also would like to thank the faculty of American Culture and Literature at Bilkent University: Prof. Dr. Lale Demirtürk, Dr. Edward Kohn, Dr. Jennifer Reimer, Dr. Dennis Bryson, Dr. Daniel Johnson whose teaching during my undergraduate studies in Ankara contributed to my academic aspirations.