This article investigates the representation of Ottoman Aleppo through the orientalist perspective of British intelligence officer William John Childs, who journeyed across Asia Minor, reaching Aleppo in 1911. Against a backdrop of geopolitical unrest preceding the First World War and the Empire’s eventual disintegration, Childs’ travelogue frames Aleppo as a culturally distinct entity, diverging from Ottoman identity and history. Focusing on Ottoman Aleppo of the early twentieth century, a city positioned outside the borders of modern Turkey, this study explores the complex fascination and apprehension that the East inspired in Western travellers. Childs’ depiction of Aleppo presents it as a land of mystery and unknowability, a characterization that reflects the Western observer’s sense of both allure and cultural estrangement. This analysis reveals how Childs strategically portrays Aleppo as a non-Ottoman polity, distancing it from the Ottoman imperial framework. Through an orientalist lens, his narrative constructs an idealized, imagined East, shaped by preconceived notions and European stereotypes. Aleppo, already romanticized in the English imagination, is represented as an exotic and impenetrable landscape, embodying a mystique that symbolizes Western limitations in fully understanding the East. By casting Aleppo as the other, Childs also aligns with a European bourgeois mindset that defines itself by demarcating what it considers inferior—dirty, chaotic, and foreign. His portrayal thus reinforces both class and cultural hierarchies, with the East serving as a foil for European superiority. To conclude, this study examines how such orientalist representations of Aleppo contributed to sustaining colonial ideologies, presenting the East as a space that both fascinated and revolted the European imagination and reaffirming imperialist narratives of Western dominance.
Gökhan ALBAYRAK (Thu,) studied this question.