Navalist blues: a short history of Turkey’s unorthodox navy leagues (1909–2021)
Karakaya M.S.
2025Routledge
Defense and Security Analysis
2025#41Issue 1125 - 144 pp.
This study tracks the shifts in Turkish pro-navalism by writing a short history of the Ottoman and Turkish navy leagues from 1909 to 2021. By studying the continuities and differences between these organisations, this paper makes two key arguments. Firstly, although the Ottoman and later Turkish navy leagues were similar to the ones found elsewhere, they differed with their primary focus being raising funds for naval rearmament projects. Secondly, the appearance of these navy leagues in the Turkish context coincides with periods of increased hostility in between Greece and the Ottoman Empire/Turkey. Periods of “thaw,” however, precluded a Turkish navy league of any sort. This suggests that Turkish pro-navalism and thus state tolerance for openly navalist organisations ebbed and flowed based on the country’s relationship with its Western neighbour. Aside from the scholarship at hand, this study uses documents from both Turkish and American governmental archives to make its case.
militarism , navalism , Navy , navy league , Ottoman navy , Turkey , Turkish navy
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School of Sciences and Humanities, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
School of Sciences and Humanities
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026