European interest in Eskişehir and its meerschaum industry in the nineteenth century

Abstract

The main argument of this thesis is that Eskişehir of the nineteenth century was a subject of the orientalist discourse, which paved the way to its being molded by the "West," facilitating both intentionally and unintentionally commercial pursuits benefiting the "West," as in the concrete example of the city's meerschaum extraction and trade. The dominating effect of orientalism on the city of Eskişehir is analyzed in cultural, textual, and economic terms. The main sources of the thesis are orientalist accounts by European travelers and the orientalist periodicals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The thesis provides a critical reading of these orientalist sources, and attention is drawn to the political qualities and consequences of seemingly impartial orientalist accounts on the city and its surroundings. The orientalists who wrote on Eskişehir are periodized in the chronological categories of pre-modern, mid-nineteenth century modern, and post-1870 modern orientalism. In this way, a description of the role and place of each orientalist in the historical evolution of orientalism is provided. The analysis of the meerschaum extraction and trade of Eskişehir with Austria-Hungary serves as a case study on orientalism's close connection with colonial imperialism in the late nineteenth century. Thus, imperialism is defined in connection with orientalism. The significant price markups on meerschaum, indicating the highly probable existence of large profits of both Austria-Hungary and the merchants of Eskişehir, are pointed out from a perspective of imperialism.