Brief Sketch of the Development of Alevi Studies By Martin van Bruinessen

https://www.academia.edu/146237496/Brief_Sketch_of_the_Development_of_Alevi_Studies?email_work_card=title This is an annotated bibliography of the most significant contributions to Alevi studies, in chronological order from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. It identifies American Protestant missionaries as the earliest category of observers who took a (positive) interest in Alevism as a religion. Somewhat later, European archaeologists looked at Alevi communities as the possible survivors of the old civilisations they studied. European Orientalists combined the study of Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish texts with the findings of the missionaries and archaeologists. In the early twentieth century, Turkish nationalists countered these "foreign" approaches with the study of Alevism as an expression of authentically Turkish traditions. However, because of their difference from mainstream Islam, Alevism was also perceived as a threat to national unity. Sunni theologians followed Turkish nationalists in studies purporting the demonstrate the Islamic and Turkish roots of Alevism. Social changes of the second half of the twentieth century-migration from villages to the large cities and later to Europe, mass education, Sunni-Alevi conflicts-redirected Alevi studies towards the social, economic and political dimensions of Alevism. From the 1970s onwards, anthropologists have also made major contributions to Alevi studies. The Alevi revival, which began around 1990, brought three major new developments: for the first time, it was Alevi intellectuals and academics who made major contributions to Alevi studies. Secondly there was, especially in Turkey itself, a new turn towards the study of the religious dimension of Alevism, rather than just its history and sociology. Thirdly, in the past twenty years, Kurdish Alevism has emerged as a distinct variety, on which especially scholars based in the diaspora have made major contributions. ...