Basiret

Basiret
TypeDaily newspaper
FounderAli Efendi
Editor-in-chief
Ali Efendi
Founded1869
Ceased publication
1879
Political alignment
  • Pan-Islamist
  • Pan-Turkism
LanguageOttoman Turkish
HeadquartersConstantinople
CountryOttoman Empire

Basiret (Ottoman Turkish: Insightfulness) was an Ottoman daily newspaper which was published in Constantinople from 1869 to 1879. It was one of the most widely read newspapers of that period and had a pan-Islamist approach.

History and profile

Basiret was established by Ali Efendi, a journalist, in 1869, and the first issue appeared on 23 January 1870. He was also the publisher of the paper and began to be known as Basiretçi Ali Efendi due to the popularity of the paper. He was financed by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in getting printing machines to launch the paper.

Basiret sold 40,000 copies in its first year. Then it enjoyed both high levels of circulation and influence among the Turks living in the Empire. The readers of the paper were mostly conservative Muslims. Major contributors included Ali Suavi, Namık Kemal and Ahmet Mithat. Basiret covered critical articles about the bureaucratic structure of the Ottoman Empire.

Basiret had links to the Young Ottomans movement. During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1871 the paper supported the Germans. It became a platform for the pan-Islamist and pan-Turkist figures, shifting away from its objective approach at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877.

References

  1. ↑ Kasuya Gen (2006). "The influence of al-Manar on Islamism in Turkey: The case of Mehmed Âkif" (PDF). In Stéphane A. Dudoignon; et al. (eds.). Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World. Transmission, Transformation and Communication. London; New York: Routledge. p. 80. ISBN 9780415549790. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 April 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 Onur İşçi (2014). "Wartime Propaganda and the Legacies of Defeat: Russian and Ottoman Newspapers in the War of 1877-78". Russian History. 41 (2): 190–191. doi:10.1163/18763316-04102005.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Tuba Demirci; Selçuk Akşin Somel (September 2008). "Women's Bodies, Demography, and Public Health: Abortion Policy and Perspectives in the Ottoman Empire of the Nineteenth Century". Journal of the History of Sexuality. 17 (3): 410. doi:10.1353/sex.0.0025. JSTOR 20542700. PMID 19263614. S2CID 7721368.
  4. ↑ M. Kayahan Özgül. "Periyodiklerin İstanbul Kültürüne Etkileri" (in Turkish). İstanbul Tarihi. Archived from the original on 5 November 2021. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
  5. 1 2 Mustafa Gencer (2014). "The Congress of Berlin (1878) in Context of the Ottoman-German Relations" (PDF). Tarihin Peşinde. 12: 298. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 November 2020.
  6. 1 2 Murat Cankara (2015). "Rethinking Ottoman Cross-Cultural Encounters: Turks and the Armenian Alphabet". Middle Eastern Studies. 51 (1): 6. doi:10.1080/00263206.2014.951038. S2CID 144548203.
  7. ↑ Howard Eissenstat (2015). "Modernization, Imperial Nationalism, and the Ethnicization of Confessional Identity in the Late Ottoman Empire". In Stefan Berger; Alexei Miller (eds.). Nationalizing Empires. Budapest: Central European University Press. p. 448. ISBN 978-963-386-016-8. JSTOR 10.7829/j.ctt16rpr1r.
  8. ↑ Cevat Fehmi Baskut (February 1964). "Prominent Figures in Turkish Journalism". International Communication Gazette. 10 (1): 85. doi:10.1177/001654926401000113. S2CID 144350383.