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Im juristischen Sinne basiert die Grenzüberschreitung des Banditentums auf dem Tatbestand des Raubs, der die rechtswidrige Zueignung von Eigentum unter der Anwendung von Gewalt oder der Drohung mit Gewalt bezeichnet. Der Raub des Banditen kann von ihm selbst oder von anderen als eine Herausforderung der herrschenden materiellen Güterverteilung und der sozioökonomischen Gerechtigkeitsordnung dargestellt werden, vor allem dann, wenn asymmetrische Machtverhältnisse in der Gesellschaft als ein strukturelles Problem wahrgenommen werden. Während insbesondere die staatliche Obrigkeit bemüht sein kann, den Banditen zum Straftäter – oder gar Terroristen – zu erklären und somit zu deheroisieren, basiert die populäre Heroisierung von Banditen darauf, dass er für die gewaltsame Umkehrung einer als ungerecht wahrgenommenen Güterverteilung steht, von der bis dahin vor allem die Obrigkeiten profitierten. In der Heroisierung von Banditentum wird also kontextbezogen eine gewaltsame Grenzüberschreitung der normativen Ordnung mit einer erstrebten Umkehrung der sozioökonomischen Gerechtigkeitsordnung verbunden, sodass Banditen als heroische Kippfiguren im typologischen Feld des Heroischen zu verorten sind. Über die Frage nach der Verehrung eines Banditen als Sozialheld oder umgekehrt der Markierung desselben Akteurs als Straftäter lassen sich somit Aussagen über die im Feld der Macht konkurrierenden sozialen Akteure treffen.

The idea of a continued Turco-Arab co-existence under the Ottoman Sultanate might appear counterfactual or marginal – if not nostalgic – from the sober vantage of knowing “the end of history”. The Ottoman Empire neither survived the Great War nor made way for a multinational co-existence of Turks and Arabs. For contemporaries, however, different models of federalism and multinationalism offered solutions to save the Ottoman Empire and safeguard Turco-Arab co-existence. While the federalist ideas of Ottoman Arabs are far better known in the academic literature, in regards to Ottoman Turks, the commonplace interpretations follow the teleology of the Turkish nation-state formation. In order to correct this misperception, I will illustrate the existence of corresponding Turkish voices and visions of federalism and multinationalism. Envisioning Turco-Arab co-existence was a serious feature of policy debates, especially in the years of crisis from the Balkan Wars to the settlement of post-Ottoman nation-states in the aftermath of the First World War.

Until today, commitment to the ‘martyrs’ of the Turkish civil war of the 1970s continues to be a crucial part of Turkey’s political culture. This paper will offer a historical-comparative sociology of state conventions and non-state contentions in defining political cultures of martyrdom during the Turkish civil war of 1970s. First, by outlining the historical semantics and political sociology of the state’s culture of martyrdom, I will argue that the state came to claim a monopoly over legitimate means of dying in the name of the state-nation-religion triad and explain how official martyrdom manifested itself during the civil war. In the second part, this paper will discuss cultures of martyrdom in processes of social mobilisation, collective identification and moral legitimisation in contentious politics, and how the radical-revolutionary left and the ultra-nationalist far-right in Turkey constructed their own cultures of martyrdom. Non-state claims to political martyrdom from the left and right emulated the state’s martyrdom discourse without rejecting its legitimacy. By (de-)legitimising lethal political violence, cultures of martyrdom establish lasting solidarities across people, times and spaces—and in seclusion against ‘others’.

Nuri Pasha, younger brother of Enver Pasha, contributed to Ottoman special operations in Libya against Italy before and during World War I. In 1918, he became the commander of the Islamic Army of the Caucasus during the Ottoman advance into the Caucasus. After the armistice, Nuri commanded Muslim bands against Armenians and Bolsheviks in the Caucasus.

In the aftermath of the First World War, British officials had difficulty understanding the elusive forces behind the Anatolian resistance movement. They anxiously assumed that Kemalists were being controlled by the Unionist leaders in exile and that they were part of an international conspiracy. In this confusion, the fugitive Unionist leaders received disproportionate attention and credit in British intelligence reports, with critical consequences for their political sense-making and decision-making. I argue that the preconception of ‘Young Turks’ in general as well as assumptions about Unionist leaders’ alleged and actual activities after 1918 were crucial for British officialdom's policies towards the Anatolian resistance movement.