Ottoman press as witness

Toplumsal Tarih, the monthly journal published by the History Foundation (Tarih Vakfı), includes a regular section titled ‘This Month, One Hundred Years Ago in the Ottoman Press’. Compiled by Emel Seyhan, the section features selected news items that appeared in the Ottoman press a century ago.

In the 2017 and 2018 issues of the journal, I revisited and reviewed this section in an attempt to identify which leaders of the Bolshevik Party were most prominently featured by the Ottoman press during the 1917 Russian Revolution. In other words, I compiled a record of the Ottoman press’s indirect testimony on the matter.

The attentive reader will have noticed that I characterised the Ottoman press’s testimony as ‘indirect’. At the time, when the Empire was in its death throes, there was no national news agency; almost all published reports reached Istanbul via agencies and newspapers based in Berlin and Vienna. In 1917 and the years that followed, the Ottoman press also lacked the means to dispatch correspondents to Russia to follow developments first-hand. As a result, it was compelled to observe events through the eyes of others.

Moreover, its lack of familiarity with socialism, Marxism, and the social struggles within the Russian Empire left the Ottoman press attempting to relay the dizzying developments in its northern neighbour in a manner not unlike the proverbial blind men describing an elephant.

Moreover, as noted in The Bolshevik Revolution and the Ottomans (Bolşevik İhtilâli ve Osmanlılar) by Uygur Kocabaşoğlu and Metin Berke – to the best of my knowledge, the only academic work in this field – “Fresh and accurate news regarding the October Revolution began to appear in the Ottoman press on 10 November and in the days that followed.” [*]

The table below shows which leaders of the Bolshevik Party featured most prominently in news items published in Ottoman newspapers in 1917 and 1918, based on a review of the ‘This Month One Hundred Years Ago in the Ottoman Press’ section of the Journal of Social History.

News Headline & Publication Details	Bolshevik Leader(s) Cited	Toplumsal Tarih (Issue / Page No.)
"Socialists Demand an Armistice" / Tanin / 5 April 1917	Lenin (2)	280 / 9
"Lenin's Objections" / Tanin / 20 April 1917	Lenin (6)	280 / 10
"Position of the Russian Provisional Government" / Tanin / 24 April 1917	Lenin (1)	280 / 11
"Lenin's Propaganda" / Tanin / 4 May 1917	Lenin (3)	281 / 8
"Lenin and His Opponents" / Tanin / 7 May 1917	Lenin (3)	281 / 8-9
"May Day in Petrograd" / Tanin / 9 May 1917	Lenin (1)	281 / 9
"Special Reports" / İkdam / 21 June 1917	Lenin (3)	282 / 10
"Policy of the Russian Government" / Tanin / 22 June 1917	Lenin (3)	282 / 11
"Important Revelations" / Tanin / 8 July 1917	Lenin (1)	283 / 8
"Appeal by Lenin and Trotsky" / İkdam / 29 July 1917	Lenin (3), Trotsky (3)	283 / 11
"Counter-Revolution in Russia" / İkdam / 12 September 1917	Lenin (1)	285 / 9
"Important Resolutions of the Workers' and Soldiers' Council" / Tanin / 18 September 1917	Kamenev (1)	285 / 10-11
"Victory of the Maximalists"[**] / Tanin / 14 October 1917	Trotsky (1)	286 / 12
"Maximalists Seize Government" / Sabah / 10 November 1917	Lenin (2), Trotsky (1)	287 / 6
"Russia Presents Peace Ultimatum to Allies" / İkdam / 11 November 1917	Lenin (3), Trotsky (3), Zinoviev (1)	287 / 6-7
"How the Revolution Happened" / Sabah / 11 November 1917	Lenin (1)	287 / 7
"Lenin Challenges Buchanan" / Sabah / 14 November 1917	Lenin (2)	287 / 7
"Internal Conflict in Russia" / Tanin / 16 November 1917	Lenin (1)	287 / 7-8
"Lenin's Speech" / Sabah / 24 November 1917	Lenin (2)	287 / 8
"Trotsky's Notification to Allied Ambassadors" / Tanin / 25 November 1917	Trotsky (3)	287 / 8
"Lenin's Government Grows Stronger" / Tanin / 28 November 1917	Lenin (1), Trotsky (2)	287 / 9
"Allies' True Intentions Revealed" / Tanin / 28 November 1917	Lenin (2)	287 / 9
"Revolution in France Like the Bolsheviks" / Tanin / 1 December 1917	Lenin (1), Trotsky (1)	288 / 8
"Russia's Policy and Its Allies" / İkdam / 1 December 1917	Trotsky (1)	288 / 8
"Statement by Our Foreign Minister" / Sabah / 4 December 1917	Lenin (1), Trotsky (1)	288 / 9
"Nobel Prize for Lenin and Trotsky" / Tanin / 11 December 1917	Lenin (3), Trotsky (3)	288 / 10
"Declaration of General Peace Terms" / Tanin / 12 December 1917	Lenin (1)	288 / 10
"Lenin Says" / İkdam / 30 December 1917	Lenin (1)	288 / 11
"Negotiations to Continue" / Sabah / 7 January 1918	Trotsky (1)	289 / 6-7
"Assassination Attempt on Lenin" / Sabah / 18 January 1918	Lenin (2)	289 / 7
"Britain Recognises Lenin's Government" / Sabah / 19 January 1918	Lenin (1), Trotsky (1)	289 / 7
"Anarchist Agitation" / Sabah / 19 January 1918	Lenin (1), Trotsky (1)	289 / 7
"Situation in Russia" / Sabah / 22 January 1918	Lenin (4), Trotsky (5)	289 / 8
"Lenin's Publications" / Sabah / 2 March 1918	Lenin (2)	291 / 8
"Peace with Russia" / İkdam / 3 March 1918	Lenin (3)	291 / 8
"Lenin's Statement" / Tanin / 10 March 1918	Lenin (1)	291 / 9
"Situation in Russia" / Sabah / 11 March 1918	Lenin (1), Trotsky (1), Bukharin (1), Radek (2)	291 / 9-10
"Lenin's Influence" / Sabah / 11 March 1918	Lenin (2)	291 / 10
"Trotsky's Red Army" / İkdam / 31 March 1918	Trotsky (2)	291 / 11
"Lenin's Manifesto" / Tanin / 6 June 1918	Lenin (2)	294 / 12
"Counter-Revolution in Siberia" / Sabah / 3 July 1918	Lenin (4)	295 / 12
"Lenin's Statement" / Sabah / 18 July 1918	Lenin (2)	295 / 14
"Lenin's Manifesto" / Sabah / 6 August 1918	Lenin (5)	296 / 12-13
"Allies Described as Bandits" / Sabah / 11 August 1918	Lenin (1), Trotsky (1), Chicherin (1)	296 / 13-14
"Trotsky's Stirring Speech: The Russian Homeland in Danger" / Tanin / 13 August 1918	Trotsky (4)	296 / 14
"Trotsky at the Front" / Sabah / 18 August 1918	Trotsky (2), Kamenev (1)	296 / 14-15
"Assassination Attempt on Lenin" / Tanin / 2 September 1918	Lenin (6)	297 / 14
"Russo-German Supplementary Treaties: Trotsky's Statement and Military Situation" / Tanin / 6 September 1918	Trotsky (3)	297 / 14

In this modest sampling study based on the ‘This Month One Hundred Years Ago in the Ottoman Press’ section of the Journal of Social History, we find that Lenin was mentioned 85 times in news reports published in the Ottoman press in 1917 and 1918; Trotsky 38 times; Radek twice; and Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, and Chicherin each once. Strikingly, Stalin’s name is not mentioned even once during the period in question.

[*] Uyğur Kocabaşoğlu and Metin Berke, Bolşevik İhtilâli ve Osmanlılar, İletişim Yayınları, 2nd ed., 2018, Istanbul, p. 96.
[**] “Owing to an error originating in the Western press, the term ‘Maximalist’ was, for a time, used in the Ottoman press to refer to the Bolsheviks.” Ibid., p. 93.