Battles of Cradles: Abandoned Babies in the Late Ottoman Empire

AbstractThe nineteenth century developments on the issue of child abandonment and provisions for them reveal significant traits of the political
agenda, specifically regarding national identity, citizenship, and demographic politics. In the late Ottoman Empire, multi-lingual and multi-religious urban centers shared certain aspects of a cosmopolitan lifestyle. In addition, there was a rather politicized and sensitive concern for strengthening the solidarity and integrity of communities, which felt themselves under the threat of losing their members’ identity, language and religion. The sentiment of dissolution was triggered by reforms for the modernization and centralization of the state. These gave way to many tendencies of a nation-state and threatened the relative autonomy of the communities. Under these circumstances, religion, nationality, and citizenship of abandoned children became a contested terrain, over which arduous efforts were spent by local authorities, missionaries, non-Muslim communities, and the central state. In an unexpected manner, these infants occupied a major role in politics of demography, conversion and national rivalry.