Subject peoples’ nationalism provoked the Turkish imperial majority into its own nationalism

Evidence

But the non-Turkish peoples of the Empire, increasingly conscious of their own separate national identities, did not respond to pan-Ottomanism, and it is not surprising that their example impelled even the masters of the Empire to seek nationalist self-expression. Turkism, the beginnings of which were already discernible in the preceding era, developed and found expression in other jour­ nals, books and pamphlets. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 2020

Categorization

• QUESTION: A striking inversion: the imperial ‘masters’ derive their own nationalism from emulating the nationalism of their subject minorities. Worth checking whether this reactive-Turkism thesis survives later scholarship.