The transforming effect of Europe on the history perception of the Ottomans an three names of contemporary historiography: Abdurrahman Seref, Diran Kelekyan, Yusuf Akcura

Ottoman modernization began when the Ottomans started to keep up with Europe at the end of the seventeenth century and in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The change in the perception of the Ottomans developed to the extent of their integration with Europe. The perceptual change in the Ottomans arising from a variety of reasons turned their sense of history into an external structure by eliminating their egocentric stance. History education or the perspective of history has been revised and modernized within the framework of such attempt and their pursuit of viewing the Europeans as a role model continued in other fields such as history, historiography, or history education. Serving the aim to give a moral lesson or to learn from the past until the Tanzimat (Reordering), history has played an important role for the Ottomans in getting to know Europe and introducing Europe to the Ottoman intellectuals since that period. In this study, it was put forward that the first intellectual contacts of the Ottoman Empire with Europe, Europe's part in the Ottoman sense of history or their historiography, its impact on history education or history books, and also, the way they studied Europe in the books of General History – which was the beginning of the Ottoman historiography – and Contemporary History are examined. The works of the first and most important Ottoman historiographers of contemporary history, Abdurrahman Seref, Diran Kelekyan, and Yusuf Akcura form the backbone of the study. This is the very first study in literature covering the contemporary European history in Turkey and three names of European historiography in the Ottoman Empire. Bringing the underemphasized parts in contemporary European history and the missing parts of these three names' contemporary European historiography to light, this study utilizes Ottoman Turkish works as a primary source. Also, all the reachable sources related to the parts of the thesis have been scanned. In addition to this, many other works including archival documents, periodicals, primary and secondary sources, abstracts, conferences, etc. have been studied efficiently in the thesis. Keywords: Modernization; Europe; the Ottoman Empire; History; History Education; Historiography; Contemporary history; Contemporary European History; European Historiography; General History; Abdurrahman Seref; Diran Kelekyan; Yusuf Akcura