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Seferberlik

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Safarbarlik, Safarberlik, Seferberlik, Seferbarlik, (Arabic سفربرلك ) are different ways of spelling the same term, which is primarily associated with the Ottoman Empire’s various wars in early 20th century –s the Balkan war in 1912-1913 and World War I from 1914-1918.

Safarberlik invokes memories of WWI and the various experiences that the Ottoman population endured during the four years of WWI. The term carries a broad range of meanings to different people during different times.

Literary meaning

A linguistice dictionary defines the term Safarberlik as either the “Preparation for war” (تأهب للحرب ) or “Popular conscription” (نفير عام).

Literally, there are various narratives about the origin of the word. In Arabic, “Safar" means traveling, “Barr” means land, and the Ottoman suffix -lik refers to mobilization. Thus, the term could be interpreted as meaning “civilian travel in a time of official mobilization”. In Persian, the term “Seferber” means prepared for war and when combined with the Ottoman suffix –lik the word means “Mobilization in preparation for war”.[1] Other meanings and interpretations are provided in what follows.

Safarberlik in the Official Ottoman language

In a Turkish context, the term Safarberlik was part of official state discourse referring to wartime mobilization either during the second Balkan war or WWI. When Ottoman regional and local officials stood publicly to announce the beginning of the conscription process, they loudly began their announcements with the word “Safarberlik”. Once Safarberlik was announced, conscription for the war would begin and young men were called and collected to be sent to the war front. [2]

Safarberlik as experienced by residents of Greater Syria

The term Safarberlik carries a variety of meanings for different people depending on their war experiences in Greater Syria.

Resistance to conscription

This meaning is directly derived from the official meaning of conscription for the war. The process of conscription did not go without resistance. Young men in Greater Syria did not feel related to or concerned by the rationale for Ottoman wars. Thus, when the Safarberlik was announced they either hid during the process or fled during battles. As a countermeasure to the escaping from conscription or desertion from war fronts, the government sent bounty hunters to roam city streets and catch young men and deserters. It has been said that officials carried ropes with them to encircle, tie up and carry off boys and men on the run. [3]

War

Various memoirs left by Arab Ottoman soldiers used the term Safarberlik to refer to the event of the war itself. In Siham Turjma’s book [['Daughters of Damascus']] chapter on “The Safarberlik,” tells the memories of her father who, according to his tale, was conscripted “to go to the Safarberlik” i.e. the war and worked as a telegrapher and communication officer on the front lines. Also Abdul Fattah Qal3aji wrote his book “Urs Ḥalabī wa-hikāyāt min SafarBarlik” (translated: Aleppine wedding and stories from the Safarberlik). Safarberlik in this book is a synonym for the war and its events.

The experience of Safarbelik in Medina (Saudia Arabia)

Ahmen Amin Saleh Murshid, a historian of Al-Medina, and Zakarya Muhammad al-Kenisi, a historian who specialized in old Ottoman Turkish, disagrees over the general meaning of the term Safarberlik. Saleh Murshid insists that the term connotes the meaning of a collective deportation, especially in the context of the inhabitants of the city of Medina under the leadership of Fakhri Pasha. In addition, Saleh Murshid argues that historians should not rely exclusively on dictionaries and documents to translate Ottoman Turkish terms into Arabic. Lived experiences and popular understandings of these terms are crucial in explaining these terms.[4]

In contrast, Zakarya Muhammad al-Kenisi argues that the term Safarberlik means preparation of the armies for war or a military campaign. He argues that Ottoman Turkish translations regarding the history of Medina contains substantial errors that resulted in different meanings and understandings of Medina’s history.[5]

Although both scholars disagree over the meaning of Safarberlik, they are in agreement about the events that the term Safarberlik describes. In Medina’s memory of the war, Safarberlik refers to the collective deportation of the city’s inhabitants by the famous Hijaz train. According to current research on the topic in Medina, Safarberlik for the original inhabitants of the city invokes memories of humiliation and the destruction of social and familial structure.[6] Families, women and children were dragged to the train and randomly abandoned in Greater Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. According to the same source, only 140 people remained in the city and they suffered from food shortages caused by the Ottoman military leader Omar Fakhr eddin, also known as Fakhri Pasha.

Similar to the meaning of Safarberlik in Greater Syria, Safarberlik in Medina invokes days of hunger and misery as residents struggled to stay alive.

Safarberlik in Arabic Literature and Historiography

Safarberlik and the memories associated with it constitute an important element in Arabic literature. Poets and Authors whose parents endured the hardships associated with Safarberlik received first-hand accounts of war experience and the means by which the war impacted the society in Greater Syria.

These authors and poets have used the material of Safarberlik in various contexts. Some authors used it in novels such as Nadia Al-Ghazzi, Hanna Mina…etc.

In addition, authors of cities or villages popular history during the early 20th century mentioned Safarberlik in regards to the war, and it was depicted as an essential event in the history of this period. A substantial amount of historical books were produced, including Ṭarāʼif wa-ṣuwar min tārīkh Dimashq or “Anecdotes and pictures from the history of Damascus” by Hānī Khayyir and Siham Turjman’s book Ya Mal el-Sham “The Daughter of Damascus.”

Jamal Pasha and Safarberlik

Almost all stories about Safarberlik include the name of the commander of the Ottoman Fourth Army, Ahmed Jamal Pasha, who was appointed as the military governor of Greater Syria from 1914-1917.[7]. Siham Turjman's story of the Safarberlik retells her mom’s memories of the famine and Jamal Pasha’s name was an essential element in the story. Other prominent authors such as Najat Qassab Hasan mentioned the callousness of Jamal Pasha in regards to food availability among the people of Greater Syria.

Jamal Pasha is described as Al-saffah (The Bucher) in order to demonstrate his cruelty and the harsh measures he took during WWI in Greater Syria. His food distribution policies during WWI and the execution of Syrian and Lebanese nationalists in Damascus and Beirut on May 16th 1916 made Jamal Pasha a significant part of the scene of misery of the Safarberlik and an active driver of the duress that people endured throughout the war.

In order to provide food for the Ottoman army and deprive European armies in the eastern Mediterranean of Syrian grain, Jamal Pasha banned grain exports from the inland provinces of Aleppo and Damascus to the coastal cities. Coastal cities in Lebanon and Palestine, already suffering from the French and British naval blockade, suffered the more as a result of this policy.[8]. Another policy by Jamal Pasha that complicated food supplies was the purchase of grains from producers at fixed government prices that were far below the prices of the free market. Such measures pushed peasants and entrepreneurs to hide their harvests and removed farmers’ incentives to plant due to fears that the government would confiscate their produce.[9]

Safarberlik as famine and separation from the beloved

Stories told by older generations about the Safarberlik are mainly descriptions of the famine that overran Greater Syria, especially Mont Lebanon, during the harsh times of WWI. In documented oral history, Safarberlik became a synonym for the WWI famine. The Syrian journalist Abd al-Ghani al-Utri in his book I’tirafat Shami ‘atiq; sira dhattyya wa suwar dimashqiyya (translated: confessions of an old Damascene, biography and Damascene pictures) suggests that Syrians have sanctified bread even since the Great War. The diary of a Palestinian Ottoman soldier, Ihsan Turjman, during WWI clearly describes the scarcity of foodstuffs and the overpricing sugar, rice and grains.[10]

20the century Arabic's literary associates the term Safarbelik with hunger and famine. Novelists, journalists, and playwrights used the oral accounts of those who lived and experienced WWI, and the Safarberlik famine to produce an impressive body of literary and drama production. Safarberlik scenes report on the miserable circumstances people lived through. In al-Ghazzi’s book Shirwal Barhum, during Safarberlik people were depicted as fighting over lemon and orange rinds while children pick watermelon rinds from the mud. Siham Turjman tells the account of her mother who was then 14 years old and tells that during the Safarberlik everything was expensive, people would line up in front of the bakery at midnight to buy the following morning coal-like, burnt, and overpriced bread.

The famous Rahbani Brothers produced in the 1960s a war film called Safar Barlik (سفربرلك), which depicts the story of young women suffering from separation from her fiance who was forcefully conscripted into the war. In the 1990s, a Syrian drama series Ikhwat al-Turan (translated: Brothers in Soil) by the director Najdat Anzour shows the process of conscription to the Saraberlik and the separation of soldiers from families and loved ones.

Cannibalism

Either metaphorically or literally, Safarberlik came to be understood in the same context as cannibalism during the war’s famine. Memoirs and reports published shortly after the end of the Great War gave an account of the horrific scenes of famine that filled Lebanon’s streets. In Antun Yamin’s Lubnan fi al-Harb--a two-volume history published in 1919— a section entitled “Stories that Would Shake Rocks” gives a detailed report of moments when people attacked corpses of dead animals and children and ate them. Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).

Also, Hanna Mina in Fragments of Memory tells the childhood memories of his father: “What are they supposed to do during the famine?…People will eat each other when winter comes, they are not to be blamed, during the Safarberlik, mothers ate their children and they became like cats and ate their children”





References

  1. ^ Al-Qattan, N. (2004). Safarbarlik: Ottoman Syria and the Great War. In T. Philipp & C. Schumann (Eds.), in From the Syrian Land to the States of Syria and Lebanon
  2. ^ Al-Qattan, N. (2004). Safarbarlik: Ottoman Syria and the Great War. In T. Philipp & C. Schumann (Eds.), in From the Syrian Land to the States of Syria and Lebanon
  3. ^ Al-Qattan, N. (2004). Safarbarlik: Ottoman Syria and the Great War. In T. Philipp & C. Schumann (Eds.), in From the Syrian Land to the States of Syria and Lebanon
  4. ^ Al-Taweel, K. (2010b). الوطن أون لاين ::: مرشد: “سفربرلي” تعني التهجير الجماعي وليس ما ذهب إليه الكنيسي< Murshid: Safarberlik means collective deportation and not what Al-Kenisi said it means. Al-Watan online. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from http://www.alwatan.com.sa/Culture/News_Detail.aspx?ArticleID=5271&CategoryID=7
  5. ^ Al-Taweel, K. (2010a). الوطن أون لاين ::: خبير بالعثمانية القديمة: ترجمات خاطئة تناولت تاريخ المدينة> ), Expert in Ottoman Turkish: Wrong Translations in writing the history of Madina. Al-Watan online. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from http://www.alwatan.com.sa/Culture/News_Detail.aspx?ArticleID=4992&CategoryID=7
  6. ^ مرشد, ا. أ. أ., & الطويل, ا. ا. خ. (2007). القصة الكاملة لكارثة التهجير العثمانية “سفر برلك” قبل 93 عام, The complete story of the catastrophy of Ottoman deportation Safarberlik. منتدى القصة العربية. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from http://www.arabicstory.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=6474
  7. ^ Phillipp, T., & Schaebler, B. (1998). The Syrian Land: Processes of Integration and Fragmentation. Bilad al-Sham from the 18th to the 20th Century (p. 405). Franz Steiner Verlag
  8. ^ Schilcher, L. S. (1992). The Famine of 1915-1918 in Greater Syria. In hn P. Spagnolo (Ed.), Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspective (pp. 229–258). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  9. ^ Schilcher, L. S. (1992). The Famine of 1915-1918 in Greater Syria. In hn P. Spagnolo (Ed.), Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspective (pp. 229–258). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  10. ^ Tamari, S., & Turjman, I. S. (2011). Year of the Locust: A Soldier’s Diary and the Erasure of Palestine's Ottoman Past (p. 214). University of California Press.
  • Al-Qattan, N. (n.d.). Remembering the Great War in Syrian and Lebanon, everything including the plague.
  • Al-Qattan, N. (2004). Safarbarlik: Ottoman Syria and the Great War. In T. Philipp & C. Schumann (Eds.), in From the Syrian Land to the States of Syria and Lebanon, (pp. 163–173). Beirut: Beirut: Argon Verlag Wurzburg.
  • Al-Taweel, K. (2010a). الوطن أون لاين ::: خبير بالعثمانية القديمة: ترجمات خاطئة تناولت تاريخ المدينة> ), Expert in Ottoman Turkish: Wrong Translations in writing the history of Madina. Al-Watan online. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from http://www.alwatan.com.sa/Culture/News_Detail.aspx?ArticleID=4992&CategoryID=7
  • Al-Taweel, K. (2010b). الوطن أون لاين ::: مرشد: “سفربرلي” تعني التهجير الجماعي وليس ما ذهب إليه الكنيسي< Murshid: Safarberlik means collective deportation and not what Al-Kenisi said it means. Al-Watan online. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from http://www.alwatan.com.sa/Culture/News_Detail.aspx?ArticleID=5271&CategoryID=7
  • Mina, H. (1975). Fragments of Memory: A Story of a Syrian Family (Interlink World Fiction): Hanna Mina, Olive Kenny, Lorne Kenny: 9781566565479: Amazon.com: Books. Damascus. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Fragments-Memory-Syrian-Interlink-Fiction/dp/1566565472
  • Phillipp, T., & Schaebler, B. (1998). The Syrian Land: Processes of Integration and Fragmentation. Bilad al-Sham from the 18th to the 20th Century (p. 405). Franz Steiner Verlag. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/The-Syrian-Land-Fragmentation-Islamstudien/dp/3515073094
  • Schilcher, L. S. (1992). The Famine of 1915-1918 in Greater Syria. In hn P. Spagnolo (Ed.), Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspective (pp. 229–258). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Tamari, S., & Turjman, I. S. (2011). Year of the Locust: A Soldier’s Diary and the Erasure of Palestine's Ottoman Past (p. 214). University of California Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=nvVs1EdJBRIC&pgis=1

مرشد, ا. أ. أ., & الطويل, ا. ا. خ. (2007). القصة الكاملة لكارثة التهجير العثمانية “سفر برلك” قبل 93 عام, The complete story of the catastrophy of Ottoman deportation Safarberlik. منتدى القصة العربية. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from http://www.arabicstory.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=6474

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