Languages and educational reforms play a pivotal role in the intricate process of nation-building (Anderson 2005), yet the historical exploration of transnational contexts within this framework remains notably neglected. A region and temporal window that stand out for their explicit relevance to the transformation processes toward nation-states is Southeast Europe in the early 20th century. Marked by various conflicts and internal reform endeavors of the Ottoman Empire, especially the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 – regarded as the initiation of a protracted transformation from sultanic rule to the establishment of a Turkish nation-state (Osterhammel 2009, p. 800) – this era witnessed a profound reorganization resulting in distinct nation-states with diverse languages.

In the same year, the inception of the German and French-language daily newspaper “Osmanischer Lloyd” occurred under the auspices of the Foreign Office and the German Embassy in Constantinople. Aligned with one of the German Empire's global strategies in the Wilhelmine era – to construct a shared cultural and economic sphere “from Berlin to Baghdad” – the newspaper served as a propagandistic press organ for an international audience. It delved into a myriad of contemporary issues, including educational and language policies. The publication engaged in discussions encompassing the Greek, Turkish, Albanian, and Jewish languages; deliberations on the “Turkish language reform” and the “purification of the Turkish language”; inquiries into population literacy; and examinations of the Greek, Latin, and Arabic alphabets alongside their histories and the intricate relationship between religion and language (Osmansicher Lloyd 2.173, 2.219, 3.28, 3.39, 3.67, 4.42, 9.6, 11.81 etc.). Co-founder and deputy editor-in-chief Friedrich Schrader formulated a prevailing premise: "A new era needs a new language. This is a truth that emerges from the literature of all nations." (Osmanischer Lloyd 24.05.1914, p. 1). The predominant horizon of experience are (academic) and social socialization contexts and the historical experiences of the formation of the German nation state, which serve as the basis of the argumentation. And yet it is remarkable that the magazine appeared to act as an independent medium within the contemporary discourse of the metropolis and dealt with these topics with thematic depth and connections to other historical actors and print media.

In my contribution, I analyze this source's portrayal of the imagined vision of a “modern” and “economically successful” nation-state within the context of the language-related articles of the years 1908 to 1918. How are different languages assessed and categorized? What language, teaching methods, and educators does a modern (nation) state require at the outset of the 20th century for "success" in scientific and economic terms? To what extent are reform proposals articulated? With this approach I like to contribute both to tracing contemporary transnational entanglements and deconstructing the semi-colonial notions of the medium.

The theoretical framework of this study draws from Michel Foucault’s discourse concept, conceptualizing it as a historically specific space of knowledge and sayability entangled with power (Foucault 2015). Additionally, my research aligns with the immediate context of postcolonial studies, informed by Edward Said’s Orientalism. Here, the representation of “the other” and certain knowledge stocks emerges as a self-assurance and empowerment strategy shaping collective identity, even in Germany (Said 2003). Consequently, the articles statements must be scrutinized under the lens of self-representation. It is therefore particularly interesting to look at the extent to which statements on the relationship between nation and language are evaluated. The authors' arguments are based on the European-German horizon of experience and the evaluations thus follow certain deterministic and Eurocentric logics that must be deconstructed.

From a discourse-analytical and postcolonial perspective, I examine how educational and cultural policy problems regarding languages and educational reforms were negotiated in the “Osmanischer Lloyd” as a transnational medium of circulation of knowledge. The essential concept for my study is the Historical Discourse Analysis of Achim Landwehr (Landwehr 2018). Following this, subjects of investigation are the genesis of social knowledge, its constitutive conditions and the historical references. All of these are requirements for the possibility of producing the regularly occurring statements of the discourse. To approach the research questions, the newspaper articles are examined with the historical-critical method. First, the sources were obtained from archives and digitized and then the relevant articles were identified through cursory reading and keyword searches. I analyze the arguments along different themes and through the single articles. In doing so, historical and discursive events of particular relevance are highlighted. The examination of knowledge is carried out through constant examination of related sources and relevant, historical and theoretical secondary literature. Overall, a twofold level of analysis must be taken into account: On the one hand, the historical discourse around and about languages and educational reforms in the Ottoman Empire and Southeast Europe. On the other hand, the level of the European-German imagination and evaluation standards within the arguments and the function of these. In doing so, I draw on Spivak's (1985) concepts of "othering", according to which changes and attribution processes produce dichotomous constructions (“other” – “own”) in the first place.

I aim to answer the above-mentioned questions concerning the imaginations, idealizations and historicizations, in the context of Languages, Educational Reforms and Nation-building in the source material. It can be assumed that the knowledge presented provides insights into the relationship between nation-state formation and languages, which had an impact far beyond the period and the region. In addition, the journal explicitly participates in contemporary discourse, classifies statements and positions itself as a medium, which has not yet been analyzed from the perspective of educational history. A cursory reading and exemplary analyses have already shown that the German perspective assesses languages in a significantly different manner: Regarding “Turkish”, it is consistently recommended to undertake a Latinization of the alphabet and promote a linguistic transformation that makes the language more accessible (for rural populations and foreigners). Furthermore, the authors advocate, for a more comprehensive elementary school system in the Ottoman Empire. Contrary, language reforms in Greece receive less progressive evaluations, with a reform of the Greek alphabet, for example, never being a topic of discussion. Certainly, the eurocentric and Western background of the authorship is evident here, showcasing certain preferences influenced by their humanistic education. Apart from one publication on the source as a publication organ (Farah 1993), there are no historiographical analyses. With my research try to fill this research desideratum and point out the source. It is interesting to see which nations and languages are considered "modern" and "successful" and which are not. Are there allocations to Europe and exclusions? All these evaluations-schemes which include or exclude certain nations from “modern” or “western world” are also common practice in nowadays political und public discourse. Overall, the article is part of a research project (on German-Turkish history of education) and uncovers parts of the largely forgotten imagination and historical interdependence between the German Empire and Southeast Europe.

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