An Important Document Center For Military And Political History Researches: Atase Archive Foundation, Publications And Document Collections

Archiving of documents related to military activities in Turkey and studies establishing a special archive in this sense extend to the period of Second Constitutional Monarchy. The organization operating under different names since this period, took the name of Directorate of Military History and Strategic Studies (ATASE) in 1978. This name was changed to General Staff ATASE and Inspection Directorate in 2004. Depending on the General Staff, today it continues still to the works of archives and publications with the same name. The archive located within this organization is very important and has a rich content covering many ammunitions and documents related with the portion of Turkish military and political history from the 1853-1856 Crimean War to the present day. At the beginning, growing with the collection of documents relating to the Turkish military history, the archive studies have extended with a variety of books and periodicals activities based on these documents in subsequent periods. The documents in the archive are grouped under the following headings: Ottoman-Russian (Crimean) War (1853-1856), Ottoman- Serbia Montenegro War (1875-1877), the Ottoman-Russian (93) War (1877-1878), Ottoman - Greek War (1897), the Ottoman- Italian War (1911-1912) , Interior Uprisings in Ottoman Period (1896-1914), the Balkan War (1912-1913), First World War (1914-1918), War of Independence (1919-1922), Republican Period Internal Revolt (1923-1938), Peace Operations, Ataturk Collection, Korean War (1950-1953), the Martial Law Documents, the Cyprus Peace Operation (1974), the Gulf War (1991), Histories, CENTO Collection , Maps – Albums. About three -quarters of the ten million documents taking place in archive are in Ottoman language. There are also documents in English, French, German and Russian languages. ATASE archive draws a dynamic image. Taking into account the continuously advancing technological medium, the archive of documents within the organization are continued to the classification studies. The classification studies seem to have reached to a level that the researchers can view documents on computer. However, all of the ammunition collections existing in the archive have not been opened yet to researchers. The prior authorization must be obtained for doing research in the archive of General Staff ATASE. Beside the petition stating clearly the research goals, the contents of the subject to be examined by the researchers, a reference letter received from the requesting institution is also among the documents required for the granting of permission to study. In addition to these documents, it is also required the addition of some credentials. To be able to work in the archive, the requirement of prior authorization is a major limitation faced by researchers. Besides, the limited number of documents to be submitted to the researcher is also another problem required to be solved. The number of documents limited to 50 at the graduate level and 100 at the PhD level, which can be given to academic researchers can cause problems for people who want to work in this field. Among the main reasons for the limitations in the number of documents available to researchers, the uncompleted classification studies occupy also an important place. Because of this, the accelerating and completion of classification studies will make it easier for researchers who want to work in the archive. The high degree of precision in the working conditions of ATASE Archive must have been a situation arising from the featured documents related to military history and the fact that some of them still remain some degree of privacy. Despite all investigations that we have done, no having seen any study that we can obtain satisfactory information on the ATASE Archive is a result of this situation. Albeit, there are encountered in the name of two master's thesis made on ATASE Archive in 1995, as being one directly and other indirectly, these studie

Keywords

ATASE Archive, Archives in Turkey, Turkish History, Turkish Military History.