This is the first English language biography of Talaat Pasha (1874-1921), the leading figure in the triumvirate (along with Enver Pasha and Cemal Pasha) that ruled the late Ottoman Empire during World War I, and the architect of the Armenian Genocide. In a major feat of scholarship, Hans-Lukas Kieser, Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle in Australia, provides a brilliant and thoroughly substantiated analysis of “who was Mehmed Talaat and why might we call him a first founder of the Turkish nation-state even before Kemal Ataturk?”
Recounting Talaat’s humble beginnings in the Edirne Vilayet, his unfinished education that led to a junior post in a telegraph company to becoming a partisan and then head of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) - an underground revolutionary organisation, many of whose leaders hailed from the Balkans - Kieser argues that Talaat’s lack of higher education was compensated by a masterful skill in political manipulation, intrigue and double-dealing. The author convincingly demonstrates how in consolidating his power within the CUP, Talaat allowed members with extremist views to have the upper hand. These included the military Drs. Nazim and Bahaeddin Sakir and in the ideological sphere, Zia Gokalp, who gave the CUP (and foremost Talaat) a social and political doctrine. Gokalp promoted the messianic vision of ‘Turan’, a pure, homogenous Turkish-Muslim state, where “the people are the garden and we are its gardener.” Externally Talaat engineered an opportunistic alignment of the Ottoman Empire with Germany and the Central Powers. Under the guise of World War I, his policy to end the Armenian Question once and for all proved to be a precursor to other radicalised policies in Central Europe in years to come. The book provides a thoughtful discussion on the aftermath of the war, Talaat’s asylum in Berlin, the continuation of his political aspirations and ultimately the dramatic acquittal of Soghomon Tehlirian for his murder.
Kieser clearly documents “Talaat’s long, strong shadow”. He casts Kemal Ataturk - who from his power base in Ankara continued to implement the central CUP doctrine of the establishment of a homogeneous, Turkish-Muslim homeland in all of Asia Minor ruled by a strong, single party authoritarian government - as the spiritual child of Gokalp. While Ataturk may have abandoned the imperialist notion of ‘Turan’ stretching to Central Asia and parts of the Arab lands and desired a break with the Ottoman past, the philosophy and political ideology remained the same. Kieser very effectively evidences this by the high offices offered to loyal young CUP governors and employees in Ankara (including many of “Talaat’s blood-stained young cadre”) and the long letters exchanged between Kemal Ataturk and Talaat where there appears a clear consensus and meeting of minds. They refer to each other as “we” in the post war shaping and consolidation of a Turkish-Muslim state in Anatolia.
This long-awaited biography is a thought-provoking piece of scholarship which complements and further enhances the recent work undertaken in documenting and analysing the historical narrative of the late Ottoman Empire. Like the scholarship of Stefan Ihrig, Kieser provides the reader with a different perspective of the already well-documented Armenian Genocide from the vantage point of its chief perpetrator, Talaat Pasha.
Written by Richard Mourad Anooshian
Originally published in Bardez, AI’s periodical in 2013-2020