帝国的黄昏

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Book review: Turkey and the Ottomans

书评:土耳其与奥斯曼人

Twilight of empire

帝国的黄昏


The Last Days of the Ottoman empire: 1918-1922. By Ryan Gingeras.

《奥斯曼帝国最后的日子:1918-1922》瑞安·金格拉斯著

As it turned out, more than six centuries of Ottoman rule ended with a whimper rather than a bang, though there had been a racket in the preceding years.

事实证明,奥斯曼帝国六个多世纪的统治并非轰然落幕,而是缓缓落幕的,尽管在之前的几年里曾有过喧嚣。

The old regime was abolished on November 1st 1922 by Turkey’s Grand National Assembly, representing the nationalist forces that had triumphed in the war with Greece—reversing the humiliations that followed the first world war.

1922年11月1日,土耳其大国民议会废除了旧政权,代表了在与希腊的战争中取得胜利的民族主义力量-扭转了第一次世界大战后的耻辱。

The last sultan was soon spirited away on a British warship; he lived on in Italian penury.

最后一位苏丹很快就被一艘英国军舰偷偷带走了;他一直生活在意大利式的贫困中。

Ryan Gingeras, a prolific American chronicler of Ottoman and Turkish history, has marked the centenary of these events with a stimulating book that traces, in rich but digestible detail, the build-up to that furtive exit by Mehmed VI, who was also caliph, or spiritual leader, of all Muslims.

美国作家瑞安·金格拉斯是一名多产的奥斯曼帝国和土耳其历史编年史家,在这些事件过去的百年之际,他写了一本激动人心的书,这本书以丰富但容易理解的细节追溯了穆罕默德六世偷偷离开的过程,穆罕默德六世也是所有穆斯林的哈里发或精神领袖。

Mr Gingeras sets out the broad context: the rise of Europe’s colonising democracies—largely liberal at home but prone to heavy-handed imperialism abroad—at the expense of traditional theocracies, organised around fealty to a sovereign whose power was more than symbolic.

金格拉斯阐述了大背景:欧洲殖民民主国家的崛起--在国内基本上是自由主义,但在国外倾向于高压帝国主义--以牺牲传统神权政体为代价,这些政体是围绕着对一个君主的效忠而建立的,君主的权力不止具有象征意义。

This culminated in a global conflict that doomed the tsars, the Habsburgs—and the sultans.

这最终导致了一场全球冲突,注定了沙皇、哈布斯堡家族和苏丹的灭亡。

The author generally admires the way great geopolitical entities adapt to new circumstances.

作者对伟大的地缘政治实体适应新环境的方式总体上表示赞赏。

His focus is on Turkey, but he describes other shape-shifting regimes, such as the Soviet leaders who assumed the foreign policy of imperial Russia, even as they celebrated its overthrow.

他的重点是土耳其,但他也描述了其他正在改变形态的政权,比如在庆祝俄罗斯被推翻的同时,采取了俄罗斯帝国外交政策的苏联领导人。

As adaptations go, modern Turkey’s was long seen as successful, albeit with terrible costs for Anatolia’s persecuted Christians.

就适应而言,现代土耳其的适应一直被认为是成功的,尽管安纳托利亚遭受迫害的基督徒付出了可怕的代价。

Out of the core of a ramshackle empire, the republic’s founders fashioned a more or less modern statehood, with a secular constitution, universal entitlements and obligations (at least in theory) and intermittent multi-party democracy.

这个共和国的缔造者们从一个摇摇欲坠的帝国的核心出发,建立了一个或多或少的现代化国家,这个国家拥有世俗的宪法,普遍的权利和义务(至少在理论上是这样)和间歇性的多党民主。


Another transformation was in external policy—from a militarised, expansionist Eurasian realm into a compact state that enforced internal cohesion but mostly eschewed foreign adventures.

另一个转变是在对外政策上--从一个军事化、扩张主义的欧亚王国,转变为一个加强内部凝聚力、但基本上避免对外冒险的紧凑型国家。

At least, until the past decade or so, in which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has turned Ottoman nostalgia into a style of governance and a stimulus to military braggadocio.

至少在过去十年左右,总统雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安将对奥斯曼帝国的怀念变成了一种治理风格,刺激了军事方面的自负。

Informing this book is the idea that the Ottoman empire’s downfall was not predestined by backwardness, or even by defeat in a global war.

贯穿这本书的观点是,奥斯曼帝国的衰落并非因为落后,甚至不是因为在全球战争中的失败。

Nor, it suggests, did change inevitably follow the principal catalyst: Greece’s occupation (with international support) of the great multinational port of Izmir, followed by the advance into Anatolia of a Greek expeditionary force.

这本书还表明,在出现主要催化剂——希腊(在国际支持下)占领伟大的多国港口伊兹密尔,随后希腊远征军进入安纳托利亚——之后,变化也并非不可避免。

The republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal, later known as Ataturk, did draw vast authority from routing that force; but that did not automatically exorcise the Ottoman order, whose supporters still resisted change, as the book recalls.

这个共和国的缔造者穆斯塔法·凯末尔(后来被称为阿塔图尔克),确实通过打击那支武装力量获得了巨大的威信;但正如书中回忆的那样,这并没有自动驱散奥斯曼帝国的秩序,其支持者仍然抵制变革。

Arguments about the inevitability of historical developments, or their precise causes, often become circular.

关于历史发展的必然性或其确切原因的争论往往会变成循环论证。

History happened because it happened.

历史之所以发生,是因为它发生了。

What really matters is that the empire did fall.

真正重要的是帝国确实灭亡了。

Or did it?

真的吗?

By way of continuity, some historians note that the empire was itself reforming and modernising, with contested elections and enhanced rights for non-Muslims.

通过逻辑关联,一些历史学家指出,帝国本身也在进行改革和现代化,它举行了激烈的选举,还加强了非穆斯林的权利。

Others see a contrary sort of overlap in the non-liberal aspects of modern Turkey, including the power of the army and state control over religious affairs.

其他人则看到,现代土耳其的非自由主义方面存在相反的重叠,包括军队的权力和国家对宗教事务的控制。

For his part, Mr Erdogan has cultivated imperial sentiment in big and small ways (a television series set in medieval times depicts early Ottomans fighting heroically).

就埃尔多安而言,他从大大小小的方面培养了帝国情怀(一部以中世纪为背景的电视连续剧描绘了早期奥斯曼人英勇战斗的场面)。

For Mr Gingeras, this is more than mood music.

对金格拉斯来说,这不仅仅是在煽动情绪。

He is, after all, a professor of national security at a postgraduate school of the American navy; he has said that a new war between Turkey and Greece is not merely possible, but probable, in view of threats by Mr Erdogan to “come one night” and challenge Greece’s islands.

毕竟,他是美国海军研究生院的一名国家安全教授;他曾表示,鉴于埃尔多安威胁要“在某一天晚上到来”并挑战希腊的岛屿,土耳其和希腊之间爆发新的战争不仅是可能的,而且是很有可能的。

Mr Erdogan may ultimately be swayed by a contest between two competing influences: the restraining power of NATO and the desire of Russia to sow discord among its rivals.

埃尔多安最终可能会被两种相互竞争的影响所左右:北约的克制力量和俄罗斯在对手中挑拨离间的愿望。

In forecasting the outcome, the past—even when so well-chronicled—provides food for thought but no clear answers.

在预测结果时,即使有如此详尽的记载,过去也只能提供思考的食粮,无法提供明确的答案。

History has yet to end.

历史尚未结束。

来源:经济学人

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