Halil Berktay

Infobox academic
name = Halil Berktay
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caption = Prof. Halil Berktay
birth_date = birth date and age|1947|08|27
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nationality = Turkish
ethnicity =
field = Turkish history
work_institutions = Sabanci University, Ankara University, Middle East Technical University, Harvard University
alma_mater = Yale University, Birmingham University
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Halil Berktay is a Turkish historian at Sabancı University [http://people.sabanciuniv.edu/hberktay/eng/?home/index.html Home] , personal Web site, Sabanci University.] and columnist for the daily "Taraf". [ [http://taraf.com.tr/yazar.asp?id=21 Okuma Notlari] , "Taraf".]

Biography

Berktay describes himself as having been born into an intellectual Turkish Communist family. His father, Erdogan Berktay, was a member of the old clandestine Communist Party of Turkey. As a result of this influence, Halil Berktay remained a Maoist for two decades, before becoming "an independent Left-intellectual".cite news|url=http://www.hairenik.com/armenianweekly/ArmenianWeeklyGenocideInsert2007.pdf |date=2007-04-24|accessdate=2008-09-04|work=Armenian Weekly|first=Halil|last=Berktay|page=4|title=A Genocide, Three Constituencies, Thoughts for the Future (Part I) (Talk given at the "Armenians and the Left" symposium on March 31, 2007.)]

After graduating from Robert College in 1964, Berktay studied economics at Yale University receiving his Bachelor of Arts in 1968 and Master of Arts in 1969. He went on to earn a PhD from Birmingham University in 1990. He worked as lecturer at Ankara University between 1969–1971 and 1978–1983. [http://people.sabanciuniv.edu/hberktay/eng/?background/index.html Background] , personal Web site, Sabanci University.] He took part in the founding of the Yale chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society.

Between 1992–1997, he taught at both the Middle East Technical University and Boğaziçi University. He was a visiting scholar at Harvard University in 1997, and taught at Sabancı University before returning to Harvard in 2006.

Berktay's research areas are the history and historiography of Turkish nationalism in the 20th century. He studies social and economic history (including that of Europe, and especially medieval history) from a comparative perspective. He has also written on the construction of Turkish national memory. [http://people.sabanciuniv.edu/hberktay/eng/?researchinterests/index.html Research Interests] , personal Web site, Sabanci University.]

In September 2005, Berktay and fellow historians, including Murat Belge, Edhem Eldem, Selim Deringil, convened at a controversial conference to discuss the fall of the Ottoman Empire. [http://people.sabanciuniv.edu/hberktay/eng/?conferences/index.html Conferences] , personal Web site, Sabanci University.]

Excerpt from a newspaper interview

quote|Preceding the Armenian events is the whole background of the 19th century. (...) With the Allies forcing the Dardanelles [in 1915] , the Ottoman Empire, that had suffered one defeat after the other in the Balkans and that had nothing left but the lands of Anatolia, entered into a psychosis of (...) being cornered and squeezed, of helplessness. [At the same time] , Armenian bands massacred large numbers of Muslims. During such a process, it is impossible to identify anyone as having thrown the first stone, deciding who committed the first crime. Everybody has a story. Turks, Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, everybody. In each of these stories, those who tell them are always in the role of victims. They themselves have never committed injustices against others, and they were the only ones who have suffered. One can remark that the 1915 killings of Armenians are remembered and the Cretan massacres committed against the Turkish Muslim population of the island between 1896-1900 are not remembered. I come from a family of Cretan immigrants myself. I know that two of my great uncles were hanged from the tree in our garden by a band of Greeks.|Halil Berktay|Radikal. [cite news
url=http://www.radikal.com.tr/2000/10/09/insan/erm.shtml
title=Ermenileri özel örgüt öldürdü
work=Radikal
accessdate=2008-09-03
date=2000-10-09
language=Turkish
first=Neşe
last=Düzel
Follow-up interview: cite news|url=http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2000/10/20/entel/ent.html
accessdate=2008-09-03
language=Turkish
title=Serinkanlı olalım
work=Milliyet
section=ENTELLEKTÜEL BAKIŞ
date=2000-11-30
first=Şahin
last=Alpay]

Partial bibliography

* Kabileden Feodalizme, Kaynak Yayınları, 1983
* Cumhuriyet İdeolojisi ve Fuad Köprülü, Kaynak Yayınları, 1983
* Bir Dönem Kapanırken, Pencere Yayınları, 1991
* New Approaches to State and Peasant in Ottoman History / edited by Halil Berktay and Suraiya Faroqhi, ISBN 0714634689

References

External links

* [http://people.sabanciuniv.edu/hberktay/eng/?home/index.html Personal Web site] , Sabanci University en