The concept of bourgeoisie in Turkey: In the frame of economic activities of non-Muslims (1908-1945)

This thesis is intended to set forth that the necessities and requirements of capitalism, which is originated from Western Europe, was fulfilled by the non-Muslim minorities of the Ottoman Empire, namely; Rums (Greek of Turkish nationality), Armenians and Jews, during the period started with the Ottoman Empire and continued into the Turkish Republic. Even though the Ottoman non-Muslim minorities do not have the exact same identity and same development process of the western bourgeoisie, they have been involved in economic activities to the extent permitted by the traditional Ottoman economy, or the flaws thereof exploited, which characteristically bourgeois and by doing so they formed a distinct group in that economy. In this thesis, the issues of how the capitalism, which caused great transformations in Western Europe, formed, what is its development stages and what is the corresponding stages of this development in the Ottoman Empire, has been assessed by using secondary sources. The information obtained in this context has been tried to be combined with the data created by using Ottoman-Turkish novels to form a complete analysis. In addition, it was aimed to draw attention to the use of literary texts as a source in economic history studies.