Campos 239Approaching multiple public spheres
Both the challenge of studying an empire that spanned multiple regions,
religions, and languages as well as the hegemony of regional nationalisms
have led some scholars to conclude that Ottoman society was character-
ized by separate and distinct publics divided along confessional or eth-
nic (for some, proto-national) lines. Indeed, earlier understandings of
the Ottoman millet system took the autonomy of religious communities
as self-evident. Likewise, there has been a tendency by scholars to adopt
a static understanding of ethnicity, where “ethnic groups” are not only
assumed to be fixed and unchanging, but are also invested with political
salience.^4 Throughout the twentieth century, studies of the former prov-
inces of the Ottoman Empire have been written in this vein, guided by the
dictates of Turkish, Balkan, and Arab nationalisms.^5
ttoman studies has advanced beyond this essentialist interpreta-O
tion in recent years, due in no small part to the influence of postcolonial
studies, which has forced scholars in the field to reexamine the dynamic
relationship between metropole and periphery as well as the state/society
nexus more broadly.^6 Specifically, while both Arab and Turkish national-
isms based on ethno-linguistic considerations found expression and some
institutionalization in the last decade of Ottoman rule, neither had a sig-
nificant following, appeal, or even audience until after the breakup of the
empire. Furthermore, even the most important movements in the Arab
provinces such as the Beirut Reform Committee and the Decentralization
Party [H izb al-Lamarkaziyya] did not seek complete autonomy from the
Ottoman Empire, but rather aimed for extended cultural rights and privi-
leges within the imperial setting.
nd yet, despite recognition of the limited appeal of local ethnic A
nationalisms, scholarly treatment of Ottoman society as a public remains
somewhat underdeveloped, largely fragmented by the various languages
in use.^7 Newspapers appeared in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Greek,
Armenian, Ladino, Bulgarian, and Hebrew, to name just a few. Each of
these publics has been studied to a greater or lesser degree, but the general
bonds across them remain largely unaddressed. A Syrian Christian might
have read the Ottoman Turkish, Greek, and Arabic press, for example,
or a Sephardi Jew in Palestine the Ladino, Arabic, and Hebrew press, but