A Muslim/Turkish Minority in Ottoman Constantinople: The Muslim/Turkish Students of Robert College (1866–1925)

Abstract

Robert College, founded by American Protestant missionaries in Constantinople in 1863, started its first academic schools with students belonging to a variety of nationalities, no Turks or Muslims among them (the first were enrolled in the school year of 1866-1867), while in the ninety-second academic year (1954-1955) the Turkish students numbered 780 out of the total number of 1051, that is, they constituted 74 percent of Robert College’s student body. The college attracted students of various nationalities such as Armenians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, and others as well. However, due to a variety of reasons, these nationalities were not present on equal level throughout Robert College’s history. In the very beginning the Armenian and the Bulgarian students prevailed, then during the first two decades of the twentieth century the Greek students outnumbered the others, and finally, as of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the Turkish students became more numerous at the expense of all the other nationalities which had previously dominated in terms of number.1 In other words, during the Ottoman period of Robert College’s history the Turkish students, despite the gradual increase of their number, always constituted a minority. Since the overwhelming part of these students came from Istanbul proper, they must have actually found themselves in an ethnic-religious composition, which was completely reverse to that of the then city. As a matter of fact, it became true only in the last quarter of the nineteenth century since by the late 1880s more than half of the city’s population was non-Muslim. In the first two decades of the twentieth century the number of Muslim inhabitants reached and surpassed 70 percent.2 Hence the Turkish/Muslim students of the Ottoman Robert College constituted a minority in a Christian and non-Turkish speaking milieu, regardless the fact that they came from a society, in which the faith and language of their fathers were dominant.

Robert College, founded by American Protestant missionaries in Constantinople in 1863, started its first academic schools with students belonging to a variety of nationalities, no Turks or Muslims among them (the first were enrolled in the school year of 1866-1867), while in the ninety-second academic year (1954-1955) the Turkish students numbered 780 out of the total number of 1051, that is, they constituted 74 percent of Robert College’s student body. The college attracted students of various nationalities such as Armenians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, and others as well. However, due to a variety of reasons, these nationalities were not present on equal level throughout Robert College’s history. In the very beginning the Armenian and the Bulgarian students prevailed, then during the first two decades of the twentieth century the Greek students outnumbered the others, and finally, as of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the Turkish students became more numerous at the expense of all the other nationalities which had previously dominated in terms of number.1 In other words, during the Ottoman period of Robert College’s history the Turkish students, despite the gradual increase of their number, always constituted a minority. Since the overwhelming part of these students came from Istanbul proper, they must have actually found themselves in an ethnic-religious composition, which was completely reverse to that of the then city. As a matter of fact, it became true only in the last quarter of the nineteenth century since by the late 1880s more than half of the city’s population was non-Muslim. In the first two decades of the twentieth century the number of Muslim inhabitants reached and surpassed 70 percent.2 Hence the Turkish/Muslim students of the Ottoman Robert College constituted a minority in a Christian and non-Turkish speaking milieu, regardless the fact that they came from a society, in which the faith and language of their fathers were dominant.