Mehmet Dogar - 2020 cohort

Mehmet Doğar md872@cam.ac.uk

  Turkey

  History, Selwyn College

PhD thesis: A Socio-economic History of Turkey’s Relations with Italy in the Interwar Period

Research interests:

  1. Early Turkish Republican socio-economic history

  2. Ottoman/Turkish diplomatic history

  3. Italian colonialism in the early 20th century

  4. European history in the interwar period

My PhD focuses on socio-economic relations between Turkey and Italy in the interwar period. I am particularly interested in examining the Italian economic presence in Turkey and how networks of influence functioned on the ground. In my research I will also consider the role of propaganda in Turkish-Italian relations and the development of cultural exchanges between the two countries. In so doing, my research aims to offer a new and more nuanced understanding of the relations between the two Mediterranean countries in this period and to shed light on the socio-economic life of the early Turkish Republic.

Who or what inspired you to pursue your research interests?

I was inspired to pursue my research interests while I was working on an undergraduate paper about the stance of the Turkish press on the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. I then wrote my Master’s thesis on Turkish-Italian diplomatic relations in the 1930s, for which I consulted Turkish, Italian and British archival material and contemporary publications. These two research experiences led me to question different aspects of the relationship between Turkey and Italy in the interwar period. In addition, Professor Ebru Boyar and Dr Kate Fleet have always been the greatest inspiration during my studies.