Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of maps
- Note on transliteration and usage
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Dismemberment of the Ottoman empire, 1878–1913
- 2 Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus, 1914
- 3 Partition plans for Anatolia, 1915–1917
- 4 Borders in the Caucasus, 1918
- 5 The Turkish Republic and the Soviet Union, 1923
- Introduction
- 1 The high politics of anarchy and competition
- 2 Troubles in Anatolia: imperial insecurities and the transformation of borderland politics
- 3 Visions of vulnerability: the politics of Muslims, revolutionaries, and defectors
- 4 Out of the pan and into the fire: empires at war
- 5 Remastering Anatolia, rending nations, rending empires
- 6 Brest-Litovsk and the opening of the Caucasus
- 7 Forced to be free: the geopolitics of independence in the Transcaucasus
- 8 Racing against time
- Epilogue
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Plate section
3 - Visions of vulnerability: the politics of Muslims, revolutionaries, and defectors
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of maps
- Note on transliteration and usage
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Dismemberment of the Ottoman empire, 1878–1913
- 2 Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus, 1914
- 3 Partition plans for Anatolia, 1915–1917
- 4 Borders in the Caucasus, 1918
- 5 The Turkish Republic and the Soviet Union, 1923
- Introduction
- 1 The high politics of anarchy and competition
- 2 Troubles in Anatolia: imperial insecurities and the transformation of borderland politics
- 3 Visions of vulnerability: the politics of Muslims, revolutionaries, and defectors
- 4 Out of the pan and into the fire: empires at war
- 5 Remastering Anatolia, rending nations, rending empires
- 6 Brest-Litovsk and the opening of the Caucasus
- 7 Forced to be free: the geopolitics of independence in the Transcaucasus
- 8 Racing against time
- Epilogue
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
Strapped for resources and confronting multiple internal and external challenges, the Ottoman empire could not hope to mount against its Russian rival either a comparable military threat or an effort at subversion. Its armed forces could pose no credible threat, and for subversion it lacked the resources and funds to foment turmoil inside Russia and challenge the Russian state's authority. Nor did it possess the international clout that might have permitted it to exploit Russia's own internal fractures in diplomatic arenas. Nonetheless, the Ottomans were not wholly incapable of projecting influence into the Russian empire. The Russian empire had some fifteen to twenty million Muslim subjects; more, in fact, than lived under the sultan. But the Ottoman empire was the world's greatest independent Muslim state, and as such it could not but perform as a symbol and barometer of the well-being of Islam for Muslims around the world. In addition, the Ottoman sultan had a claim to be the caliph, the successor to the Prophet Muhammad as the head of the community of Sunni Muslims, i.e., the great bulk of Muslims in the world and in Russia outside Azerbaijan. Sultan Selim I first claimed the mantle of caliph for the Ottomans in 1516 when he came upon a descendant of the last Abbasid caliph living among the Mameluks whom he had just defeated.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Shattering EmpiresThe Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908–1918, pp. 82 - 106Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
- 2
- Cited by