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Stanford Jay Shaw (5 May 1930 – 16 December 2006) was an American
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...
, best known for his works on the late
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
,
Turkish Jews The history of the Jews in Turkey ( or ; ; () covers the 2400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey. There have been Romaniotes, Jewish communities in Anatolia since at least the beginning of the common era. Anatolia's Jewish popu ...
, and the early Turkish Republic. Shaw's works have been criticized for denial of the Armenian genocide, and other pro-Turkish bias.


Biography

Stanford Jay Shaw was born to Belle and Albert Shaw, who had immigrated to St. Paul from
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
and
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
respectively in the early years of the twentieth century.Profile of Prof. Shaw
.
Bilkent University Bilkent University () is a private non-profit research university located in Ankara, Turkey. It was founded by İhsan Doğramacı, the first president of the Council of Higher Education and the head of the prominent Doğramacı family, with th ...
. Accessed 9 June 2011.
He was of Jewish heritage. Stanford Shaw and his parents moved to
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, California, in 1933 because of his father's illness, and they lived there until 1939, first in
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...
, where Stanford went to kindergarten, and then in Ocean Park, a community on the shore of the Pacific Ocean between Santa Monica and Venice, where his parents operated a photographic shop on the Ocean Park pier. The family returned to St. Paul in 1939, where Stanford went to the Webster Elementary School. After his parents divorced, Stanford went with his mother to Akron, Ohio during World War II, where he went to elementary school. Stanford and his mother remained there until she married Irving Jaffey and moved back to St. Paul. Stanford then attended Mechanic Arts High School in St. Paul, where he graduated in 1947, one out of only five students from a student body of 500 who went to college.


Education and early research

He went on to
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
, where he majored in
British history The history of the British Isles began with its sporadic human habitation during the Palaeolithic from around 900,000 years ago. The British Isles has been continually occupied since the early Holocene, the current geological epoch, which star ...
under the direction of Professor Carl Brand, with a minor in Near Eastern history, under the direction of Professor Wayne Vucinich. He received his B.A. at Stanford in 1951 and M.A. in 1952, with a thesis on the foreign policy of the
British Labour Party The Labour Party, often referred to as Labour, is a List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom that sits on the Centre-left politics, centre-left of the political spectrum. The party has been describe ...
from 1920–1938, based on research in the
Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace and formerly The Hoover Institute and Library on War, Revolution, and Peace) is an American public policy think tank which promotes personal and economic ...
at Stanford. He then studied Middle Eastern history along with Arabic, Turkish and Persian as a graduate student at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
starting in 1952, receiving his M.A. in 1955. Subsequently he went to England to study with
Bernard Lewis Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British-American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near ...
and Paul Wittek at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and with Professor H. A. R. Gibb at Oxford University. Following this, he went to Egypt to study with Shafiq Ghorbal and Adolph Grohmann at the
University of Cairo Cairo University () is Egypt's premier public university. Its main campus is in Giza, immediately across the Nile from Cairo. It was founded on 21 December 1908;"Brief history and development of Cairo University." Cairo University Faculty of En ...
and Shaikh Sayyid at the Azhar University, also doing research in the Ottoman archives of Egypt at the Citadel in Cairo for his Princeton Ph.D. dissertation concerning Ottoman rule in Egypt. Before leaving Egypt, he had a personal interview with President Gamal Abd al-Nasser, who arranged for him to take microfilms of Ottoman documents out of the country.


Main research

In 1956-7 he studied at the University of Istanbul with Professors Omer Lutfi Barkan, Mukrimin Halil Yinanc, Halil Sahillioglu, and
Zeki Velidi Togan Zeki Velidi Togan (, , ; 1890 – 1970 in Istanbul), was a Turkish- Bashkir historian, Turkologist, and leader of the Bashkir revolutionary and liberation movement, doctor of philosophy (1935), professor, honorary doctor of the University of Man ...
, also completing research on his dissertation in the Ottoman archives of Istanbul, where he was helped by a number of staff members, including Ziya Esrefoglu, Turgut Isiksal, Rauf Tuncay, and Attila Cetin, and in the Topkapi Palace archives, where he was provided with valuable assistance and support by its director, Hayrullah Ors and studied with Professor
İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı (23 August 1888 – 10 October 1977) was a Turkish politician, educator and historian, who was a member of parliament and the Turkish Historical Association. In the early 1950s he was one of the contributors of ...
. He received his Ph.D. degree in 1958 from Princeton University. His dissertation was titled "The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517–1798," which was prepared under the direction of Professor Lewis Thomas and Professor Hamilton A.R. Gibb, and later published by the Princeton University Press in 1962. Stanford Shaw served as Assistant and Associate Professor of Turkish Language and History, with tenure, in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and in the Department of History at Harvard University from 1958 until 1968, and as Professor of Turkish history at the University of California Los Angeles from 1968 until his retirement in 1992.


Last years

He was recalled to teach Turkish history at
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
between 1992 and 1997. His final post was at
Bilkent University Bilkent University () is a private non-profit research university located in Ankara, Turkey. It was founded by İhsan Doğramacı, the first president of the Council of Higher Education and the head of the prominent Doğramacı family, with th ...
,
Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...
, as professor of Ottoman and Turkish history from 1999 to 2006. The announcement of his death by his department at UCLA noted that his life was commemorated at Etz Ahayim Synagogue in
Ortaköy Ortaköy (, ''Middle Village)'' is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Beşiktaş, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its population is 9,121 (2024). It is on the European shore of the Bosphorus. it was originally a small fishing villag ...
,
Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
, where his family accepted condolences from friends and colleagues and from Turkish Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gül Abdullah Gül (; ; born 29 October 1950) is a Turkish politician who served as the 11th president of Turkey from 2007 to 2014. He previously served for four months as Prime Minister of Turkey, Prime Minister from 2002 to 2003, and concurrently s ...
and numerous other dignitaries and that he was buried at the Ashkenazi Cemetery in Ulus.Wolf Leslau and Stanford J. Shaw: CNES mourns the passing of Professors Leslau and Shaw
UCLA Center for Near East Studies.


Awards

He was an honorary member of the
Turkish Historical Society The Turkish Historical Society (; TTK) is a research society studying the history of Turkey and the Turkish people, founded in 1931 by the initiative of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, with headquarters in Ankara, Turkey. It has been described as "the Ke ...
(Ankara), recipient of honorary degrees from
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
and the
Boğaziçi University Boğaziçi University (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Boğaziçi Üniversitesi''), also known as Bosphorus University, is a Public university, public research university in Istanbul, Turkey, historically tied to a former American educational insti ...
(Istanbul), and a member of the Middle East Studies Association, the American Historical Society, and the Tarih Vakfi (Istanbul). He also has received
Order of Merit of the Republic of Turkey Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * ...
from the
President of Turkey The president of Turkey, officially the president of the Republic of Türkiye (), is the head of state and head of government of Turkey. The president directs the executive branch of the national government and is the commander-in-chief of the ...
and medals for lifetime achievement from the Turkish-American Association and from the Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) at the
Yıldız Palace Yıldız Palace (, ) is a vast complex of former imperial Ottoman Empire, Ottoman pavilions and villas in Beşiktaş, Istanbul, Turkey, built in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was used as a residence by the List of sultans of the Ottoman ...
, Istanbul. He received two major research awards from the United States National Endowment from the Humanities as well as fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Fulbright-Hayes Committee. He was also a Senior Fellow of the Institute of Turkish Studies.


Criticism


''History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey''

One of Shaw's most prominent works was a two-volume history on the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
, titled ''History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey''. The first volume, subtitled ''Empire of the Gazis: the Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1280–1808'', published in 1976, was met with generally mixed to negative reviews. Many faulted him for producing a work embellished with numerous historical errors and distortions. Colin Imber, a scholar on Ottoman history, noted in his review that both volumes were "so full of errors, half-truths, oversimplifications and inexactitudes that a non-specialist will find them positively misleading....When almost every page is a minefield of misinformation, a detailed review is impossible." Another reviewer, Victor L. Ménage, Professor of Turkish at the
University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...
, counted over 70 errors in the work and concluded, "One 'prejudice' that has vanished in the process is the respect for accuracy, clarity, and reasoned judgment."Ménage, Victor L.
Review of ''History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey''
" ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London'' 41 (1978): pp. 160–162.
In his extensive review of the first volume, Speros Vryonis, a specialist in Byzantine and Early Ottoman Studies at UCLA, listed a litany of problems he encountered in the work, such as Shaw's assertion that Sultan
Mehmed II Mehmed II (; , ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (; ), was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from August 1444 to September 1446 and then later from February 1451 to May 1481. In Mehmed II's first reign, ...
's forces did not subject Constantinople to a full scale sack and massacre upon its capture and his account of the treatment of the Greeks of Cyprus following the Ottoman conquest in 1571. Vryonis also charged Shaw for largely failing to consult the proper primary sources of the period and therefore presenting a distorted picture of the formation of the
Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...
and Greek/Eastern Orthodox ''
millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most millets belong to the tribe Paniceae. Millets are important crops in the Semi-arid climate, ...
s''. Vryonis also stated that as much as 90% of the first volume had been lifted from the works of two Turkish historians and a Turkish-language encyclopedia.Lecture delivered by Robert Hewsen. , part of the 2007 Holocaust and Genocide Lecture Series at
Sonoma State University Sonoma State University (SSU, Sonoma State, or Sonoma) is a public university in Sonoma County, California, United States. It is part of the California State University system. Sonoma State offers 92 bachelor's degree programs, 19 master's de ...
(27:24 mark). 17 April 2007. Accessed 17 May 2011.
UCLA declined to investigate the allegations of plagiarism. In the second volume of the ''History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey'', which Shaw co-authored with his wife, Ezel Kural Shaw, and which was published in 1977 with the subtitle ''Reform, Revolution, and Republic: the Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975'', the Shaws denied the
Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...
. Most scholars today believe that the events of 1915 constitute genocide.Why scholars say Armenian Genocide was genocide but Obama won't
''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...
''
However, according to Richard G. Hovannisian the Shaws characterize the Armenians as "the victimizers rather than the victims, as the privileged rather than the oppressed, and the fabricators of unfounded tales of massacre." Hovannisian also criticized the book: "What could have been – what should have been – a valuable text is instead an unfortunate example of nonscholarly selectivity and deceptive presentation." In the bibliography of his general study on modern Turkey, Turkologist Eric J. Zürcher of the
University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange as a Protestant institution, it holds the distinction of being the oldest university in the Neth ...
describes the second volume as "a mine of data," though the information not necessarily being accurate. He highlighted the Shaws' treatment of the reigns of Selim III and Abdülhamit II as the book's strongest parts, but observed that the last one hundred years it covers suffers from a "Turkish-nationalist bias." The second volume caused a stir among Armenian students attending UCLA and the Armenian community of Los Angeles at large. Matters came to a head when on the night of 3 October 1977, a bomb, placed by unknown assailants, exploded at the doorstep of Shaw's home at 3:50 a.m., although no one was hurt. A phone call placed several hours later by a man claimed that the Iranian Group of 28 was responsible for the bombing. Turkey's permanent ambassador to the UN disputed this, however, and alleged that Armenians were behind the attack. Shaw made light of the situation and attributed the bombing to the fact that he had probably assigned too many F's. But he claimed that Armenian and Greek students had threatened him over the previous two years and canceled the rest of his classes for the remainder of the quarter. With the controversy unabated ten years later, Shaw would claim Armenians were persecuting him not because of his scholarly views but for
anti-Semitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
, a charge that was disputed by Jewish organizations, including the UCLA chapter of Hillel, on campus, as well as a number of Jewish public figures and scholars. According to Yves Ternon, Shaw not only presented and published the Turkish version of the events of 1915-1916, he also used his academic and editorial influence to prevent the works of his opponents from being published in English: when he was a member of the reading committee of the University of California editions, the translation of a collection of documents proving the reality of the Armenian genocide was refused on the pretext that it was a propaganda pamphlet. Genocide scholar Israel W. Charny classifies Shaw as a Type 2 Genocide Denier, i.e presenting a "''Malevolent Denial of the Facts of a Genocide and Innocent Disavowals of Violence''", rather than Type 1, i.e presenting a "''Malevolent Denial of the Facts of a Genocide and Celebration of Violence''". Nevertheless, Charny notes that:
Shaw's work has been characterized as a "vehemently anti-Armenian and Hellenophobic interpretation of modern Turkish history," and it has been said that "he makes clear his identification with the genocidal policy of the Turkish republic that minorities (Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Kurds) would be tolerated only to the extent that they agreed to be virtually invisible...assimilating wholly into the Turkish nation." Shaw is so shoddy in his scholarship and so infuriating in his denials that one might argue that the metameaning of his work is indeed to celebrate the genocidal violence against the Armenians. Nonetheless, at this point, because of what I interpret as an overall absence of more direct statements celebrating the genocide, I classify him here in Type 2.


''The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic''

In this book Shaw falsely claims, based on purported interviews, that Jews happily paid the 1942 Capital Tax, a discriminatory tax designed to financially ruin non-Muslim citizens of Turkey, and repeats the antisemitic discourse of Jews as war profiteers.


''Turkey and the Holocaust''

In 1991, Shaw's study on the role of Turkey in providing refuge to the Jews of Europe in the years leading to and during the
Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
was published. Shaw claimed that the Republic of Turkey, as a neutral during the greater part of World War II, exerted its diplomatic efforts to the best of its abilities to save Jews of Turkish origins from extermination. The work was particularly receptive among Turkish government circles. It was, however, severely criticized by Bernard Wasserstein in ''
The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
'' for factual and methodological errors. Wasserstein is aghast at Shaw's "tendency to ignore any negative evidence, while exaggerating the positive," for example, Shaw's claims that 90,000 Jewish refugees passed through Turkey on the way to Palestine, however, Wasserstein notes that this number is "150 percent of the total Jewish immigration, legal and illegal, to Palestine from all sources during the war". Wasserstein asks, "How can a supposedly professional historian arrive at such distorted, at times preposterous conclusions?" Shaw's points have been challenged in a more recent study by Corry Guttstadt, who contests that his work has contributed to "an ossified, self-perpetuating myth f Turkish utilitarianismwhich is frequently propagated in international publications," and that Turkey, in fact, passed laws that prevented Jewish immigration and threatened to expel refugee academics if they lacked proper documentation (after their citizenship had been revoked by
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
).Von Bieberstein, Alice.
'Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust,' By Corry Guttstadt
" ''Turkish Review''. 2 January 2014.
Historian Marc David Baer writes that the book was written with the help of Turkish career foreign service personnel and Turkish Jewish leaders. He states that the book " brought together Armenian genocide denial and an updated version of the centuries-old theme of utopian relations between Muslims and Jews in the face of the Christian enemy". Baer faults Shaw for relying on unverified statements by Turkish ambassadors to create a myth of Turkish heroism.


Bibliography

*''The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517–1798'' (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1962) *''Ottoman Egypt in the Age of the French Revolution'' (Harvard University Press, 1964) *''The Budget of Ottoman Egypt, 1005/06-1596/97'' (Mouton and Co. The Hague, 1968) *''Between Old and New: The Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III. 1789–1807'' (Harvard University Press, 1971) *''Ottoman Egypt in the Eighteenth Century'' (Harvard University Press) *''History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey'' (2 volumes, Cambridge University Press, 1976–1977) (with Ezel Kural Shaw) *''The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic'' (Macmillan, London, and New York University Press, 1991) *''Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey's role in rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi persecution, 1933–1945'' (Macmillan, London and New York University Press, 1992) *''From Empire to Republic: The Turkish War of National Liberation 1918–1923: a documentary Study'' (I – V vols. in 6 books, TTK/Turkish Historical Society, Ankara, 2000) *''The Ottoman Empire in World War I'', Ankara, TTK, two volumes, 2006–2008. In addition to the above, Shaw was founder and first editor of the ''International Journal of Middle East Studies'', published by the Cambridge University Press for the Middle East Studies Association, from 1970 until 1980.


Notes


External links


Profile
Bilkent University Bilkent University () is a private non-profit research university located in Ankara, Turkey. It was founded by İhsan Doğramacı, the first president of the Council of Higher Education and the head of the prominent Doğramacı family, with th ...
, Turkey * (under 'Shaw, ... 1930–' without '2006', previous page of browse report)
Ezel Kural Shaw
at LC Authorities, with 2 records {{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Stanford J Scholars of Ottoman history 1930 births 2006 deaths American people of Russian descent Stanford University alumni Cairo University alumni Princeton University alumni Harvard University faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers American orientalists Middle Eastern studies in the United States Historians of Turkey Deniers of the Armenian genocide Academic staff of Bilkent University American people of English descent Historians from Minnesota 20th-century American male writers Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Turkey