AKSOY ÖZCAN, Berna

English

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Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences www.kspjournals.org Volume 2                                June 2015                             Issue 2  Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: A”Sacred Synthesis”, Palgrave McMillan, 2012, 166 pp, $72 Hardcover.  By Berna AKSOY ÖZCAN †  Book Review oing research in Turkish foreign policy as an academician, we see that both Turkish and Greek communities understanding of nationalism with religious elements in politics are adopted as a result of the detection of conservative policies. The purpose of this book review realizes the determinants of foreign policy innationalism-religion criteria onview of Greek academicianhow I'm wondered. Ioannis N. Grigoriadisis a faculty member in the department of Political Science and Business Administration at Ankara Bilkent University. His research fields are European and Middle Eastern energy politics, nationalism and democratisation. He is also a writer in the newspaper Taraf. In his published bookin 2013 named "Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: the Sacred Synthesis" he has studied several cases between two neighbouring nations how identified religion and nationalism as a similar factor. The readers of this book are Turkish researchers who are interested in foreign policy, readers who are interested in religion and politics, researchers who are interested in internal politics of the religious factors of Turkish and Greek communities. Author's purpose in writing the bookis to show the effect of religion to identify the identities of both Turkish and Greek nationalism in playing of parallel manner (Grigoriadis, p.24). The author examines the issue of the two communities’ nationalism starting in the era of Ottoman Empire inrealizing the impact of religion invarious cases. Grigoriadis explaines the causes of synthesizing Turkish and Greek nationalism around Christianism and Islamism by helping of concept of “sacred synthesis”. The author emphasized the importance of religion in national identity that emerged as the most important strengthfor blending both Turkish and Greek national identity as a catalyst. (Grigoriadis, p.25)  1. Where Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: A”Sacred Synthesis Excels The author not only gives samples of facts and historical events but also gives the views of some thinkers to support the study theoretically. These are Elie Kedourie, Anthony Smith, Rogers Brubaker as Western thinkers like as well Adamantios Korais, one of the pioneers of the formation of the Greek identity and † Nişantaşı University, FEAS, Department of International Relations, İstanbul, Turkey.  . berna.aksoy.ozcan@nisantasi.edu.tr D  Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences Ziya Gokalp and Gaspirali İsmail of the pioneers of the formation of the Turkish identity. Therefore, the author, by explaining the concept of the sacred synthesis extensivelyhas offered to readers explaininghistoric facts and events in the views of the Turkish and Greek side in a parallel manner. Grigoriadis, have tried to give the reader a parallel perception of religion and nationalism in Turkish and Greek communities and succeeded thesufficient level on this matter. Grigoriadis’ book makes an important contributionto the discussion of the relation between religion and politics in political science. He has searched the issue in three chapters. At first chapter, the author has emphasized the Christianism how affected the Greek identity of growing nationalism in the period of Ottoman Empire. Grigoriadis has analyzed the formation of the Greek identity under the management of Ottoman Empire and Greek Orthodox people not only have a common languagebut also have common religion, lived an identical confusion in the meaning of determining Byzantine and Greek identity after 1789 French Revolution. Then he has addressed the synthesis of Greek-Christian and ancient Greek thought and talked about the role of the Greek languagein the formation of the Greek identity. As explaining the role of the Orthodox Church in nationalization of Greeks and non-Greeks, Grigoriadis has mentioned the role of Balkan people: Vlaches, Bulgarians, Albanians which merged with the Greeks cause of common religion and common churchagainst Ottoman Empire, despite having different language, in the formation of national identity. Also, he has added the importance of learning Greek language between these Balkan people for making a language association as an effect of nationalization. Grigoriadis, finished this chapter several consequences of evacuation of the Greek Orthodox and Turkish Orthodox from Anatolia to Greece according to the agreement of 1923 population exchange.  In the second chapter of the book, referring to the formation of the Turkish identity is described in the influence of the Islamic religion on Turkish nationalism. Grigoriadis claimed that in the early years of the Republic of Turkey Ataturk aimed at removing Islam from the public domain especially to control the secularization of religious programs to create a synthesis of Islam under Turkish citizenship. Then he has proved his argument with the immigration of Orthodox Gagauz Turks and Karamanlis to Greece, despite their Turkish identity.  At this chapter, Turkish-Islamic synthesis is studied for the development of the various cases from 1923 to present.  2. Where Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: A”Sacred Synthesis Alters The content of the book is not theoretical, is more factual. Although the author mentions of Elie Kedourie’s theoretical worksin introduction, butnot mentioned in other sections of the book, only mentioned a theoretical analysisin the conclusion. Thus, some facts and events which affect the relationship between religion and nationalismis much more searched chronologically than theoretical aspectsin the content of the book. The approach of the authorto the subject is analytical,  he also makes some deductions while examining historical and political eventsin shaping for both Turkish and Greek national identity offers the reader an analytical aspect. In this book, Grigoriadishas mainly focused on the concept of “sacred synthesis”of the Turkish and Greek communities, but extensively  the effects of Islamic facts on Turkish national identity.He claims thatthe process of the “sacred synthesis”of Greek community has completed (Grigoriadis, p.25) and not much related issues and historical and political facts  about Greek identity and religious effects on Greek  community are given in this book until today.Also Grigoriadis  JSAS, 2(2), S. İncaz. p.93-95. 94 Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences has mentioned that in Turkey starting the secularization process by Ataturk making Islam removing from public administration has not been recognized adequately in general only succeeded in elite level of community (Grigoriadis, p.99). Although he mentions that Ataturk marginalized Islam by reforming education and many other religious institutions for secularizing republic of Turkey (Grigoriadis, p.93) he insists on Ataturk has a Turkish-ıslamic synthesis on formulating the community by exchanging population of Gagauz Turks and Karamanlis to Greece in 1923. (Grigoriadis, p.122) But he also has mentioned this is a paradox, but  has not given some  arguments to prove it. So Grigoriadis has not mentioned the fear of division in the post-Ottoman society, the society is not in a position to adopt the concept of citizenship in ethnic diversity at the beginning of Turkish republic so the Islam is combined the society for succeeding independence war to many ethnic groups and nations which are under the rule of Ottoman Empire like Greek and non-Greek but Orthodox people for getting independence to Ottoman Empire.  3. Conclusion There is a little lack in the content of the book for reader. As we see many details about the political and historical attempts to the effects of religion to education and Turkish foreign policy in second chapter, but not see the effects of religion to Greek foreign policy in first chapter. So making a comparison between two countries around the effects of religion and nationalism would not be adequate for the reader. But the book's most important contribution to political science is between the Turkish and Greek communities the relationship of religion and nationalism concepts which appeared together in parallel manner is studied. The other books of Grigoriadis is subjected to Trials of Europeanization, Turkey-European Union Relations. So this book has an important place of a different study field for Ioannis Grigoriadis. When we look at the written other books on this subject, the two neighboring countries’relationship of religion and nationalism is not really studied as by giving historical, political and identical factors combined together periodically in this study.          Copyrights Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0).   JSAS, 2(2), S. İncaz. p.93-95. 95 

Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: A”Sacred Synthesis”

Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences 

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Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: A”Sacred Synthesis”

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