ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the known, the unknown, the disputed, and the desired in the historiography of Eastern Turkey, through an incomplete but focused examination of the state of the art of the scholarship, and future research desiderata. ‘Eastern Turkey’ is a relatively well-circumscribed region corresponding roughly to the area east of the line Adana-Giresun, more or less bounded by the former Ottoman provinces of Sivas, Erzurum, Trabzon, Van, Bitlis, Mamuret-ul Aziz, Aleppo, and Diyarbekir. The Turkish-nationalist assault on the Kurds deepened existing grievances and accentuated conflicts across generations. Kurdish elites, who initially saw themselves as Muslims or Ottomans, were now constructed, treated, and deported as Kurds and as such, made into Kurds. Eastern Turkey needs a postcolonial research strategy, with the literatures, experiences, and oral histories of locals incorporated profoundly in microhistories, as well as integrated studies.
