(Source: book cover)
When I started out on Hive, I figured that it's article-based layout would be very well suited to book reviews. However, after a few months of hanging around and posting, a lack of reviews became on my part became apparent. I've planned to change that today. Since I mostly read non-fiction related to history, religion, peoples and politics, this book seemed a cross between all those things. The book I'll be writing about here, Written by Mark David Baer, is called 'The Dönme: Jewish converts, Muslim revolutionaries, and secular Turks'. I'll shortly go over the matters discussed in this semi-academically written book, with an emphasis on what stood out to me personally.
Who are the Dönme?
Every book starts with an introduction, and in this book it is very much needed as well. Up until a few years ago, I had never heard of the Dönme, and I suppose it's the same for many readers here. So Baer starts by explaining the event that could be marked as the beginning of the Dönme.
It all starts with a Jewish messiah not named Jesus Christ. This messiah (atleast he is styled this way by himself and his followers) is Sabbatai Zevi. On the 16th of october in the year this Jewish messiah does something remarkable: he converts to Islam.
Zevi had made waves among Jews, both within the Ottoman Empire and outside it. The court of the Ottoman Sultan noticed as well, and Zevi was served the ultimatum by Mehmet IV: either convert to Islam, or die. Unlike Jesus, Zevi did not choose martyrdom, but chose conversion. This decision fractured his following: some reverted to original Judaism. Others held out as a Sabbatean (from his first name, Sabbatai) sect of purely religious persuasion.
The third group, which was small at that time (estimated 1000-1500 people), were the Dönme, and they became a people as a consequence of following him. They also followed Zevi into Islam, albeit in a more nominal way. Meaning that they were muslims toward the outside (Ottoman) world, but kept their own peculiar newly found traditions. Baer describes these practices and traditions as a mix/synthesis between Kabbalistic Judaism and Sufi Islam.
But how does a small group of religious peculiars change into a distinct people? A first piece to the puzzle is location. Zevi's followers converged on Salonika (nowadays Thessaloniki, Greece) at the end of the 17th century, and formed as a distinct group there. Salonica at this time was a multi-religious and multi-ethnic affair: Jews formed a majority, with orthodox Greeks and muslim Turks as minorities present.
Apartness
The Dönme lived in the muslim quarter of Salonika, but lived apart from the sunni muslims there as well. This apartness was also a large factor in becoming a distinct people, and fed into their marriage practices: the Dönme-families practiced endogamy, i.e. they only married amongst themselves, and not with any outsiders. Also excluded were the Turks themselves, even though they were also muslims.
This endogamy was also visible in their institutions: Baer goes on (at length) about the schools that were established by and flourished under the Dönme. These schools only used teachers from their own families, and mostly pupils from their own families.
Halfway through the 19th century these schools got a great reputation. The Dönme used didactic techniques imported from Western Europe (rare in the Ottoman Empire at the time), and was more secular in outlook. Being more secular did not mean that there was no time spent on religion, since the Dönme had to teach their distinct religious ways to their offspring. However, much more time was spent on subjects like mathematics, economics, and French than in other schools at that time.
A very famous Turk was sent to one of these schools, namely Mustafa Kemal Ataturk himself. This spawned theories, both within Turkey and internationally, that Kemal himself was a Dönme (he was also born in Salonika). Baer does not subscribe to this vision, though he sees how it could be imagined, due to him being from Salonika and attending a Dönme school.
Geopolitics and troubles on the horizon
The Dönme thrived in the 19th century, but this went into reversed as the 20th century begun. The Ottoman Empire had been known as the 'sick man of Europe' for quite a while, its slow decline was apparent to the Great Powers in Europe. Ottoman instability was personified in the Young Turk revolution of 1908, which led to the deposing of the Ottoman Emperor, Abdulhamid II, a year later. The Dönme were involved on the side of the revolutionaries from their power base in Salonika, as were many of the Jews in that city.
Salonika would not remain an Ottoman city for long: the Greeks conquered it in 1912. This would mean an upheaval for the Dönme (and for sunni muslims) living in what now became known as Thessalonika. They were hindered in their business dealings, and were pressured to leave. A fire in 1917 did a lot of damage to many of their properties as well.
Turkey and the exchange
World War I would become the death-knell for the Ottoman Empire. Out of its ashes, the Turkish Republic would be established with the borders it has today. A devastating war with Greece would be fought in the early 1920s. It would be concluded that it would be best to exchange populations that were residing in each others countries. This meant that Orthodox Greeks in Turkey and muslims in Greece would be moved to be with their compatriots.
This would include the moving of the Dönme, who were considered muslims, out of Thessalonika. In the years 1923-1924 most would relocate to Istanbul. This uprooting was a traumatic experience for the Dönme, who had been in Salonica for about 250 years. They tried to continue their businesses, schools and lives in Istanbul in the same fashion, but were quickly noticed and hindered by the Turkish government in the 20s, 30s and 40s.
Dissolution
A big question remains: why do the Dönme not exist today as a distinct group, if there were tens of thousands of them at the turn of the 20th century? The simple answer given by Baer is intermarriage: Dönme men and women married with Turks, and this loosened the group cohesion they had considerabely. Repeat this tendency for several generations, and the Dönme as a people become only a memory, dissolved into the Turkish people and corresponidng sunni Islam.
Conclusion
I hope this quick overview has sparked your interest for this piece of almost-forgotten history. The writer has put much work into this book: he cites many interviews done in places across Europe, and he visited the corresponding places in both Thessalonika and Istanbul that still show some remains of the Dönme. I've enjoyed this read, and hope you enjoyed reading this. There's always room for comments and questions below. Until the next one,
-Pieter