Vol. 14 No. 34 (2008): Journal of Cyprus Studies

Editorial

This archival issue was prepared by our guest editors Emre Aykoç, Sanem Yamak and Suat Söylemez. The issue is entirely devoted to documents from the Republic of Turkey Prime Ministry Archives dating from 1923 to 1967. It consists of a compilation of documents including reports of communications and newsletters, letters and telegrams from foreign and domestic state officials as well as ordinary citizens and civil society organizations from both Turkey and Cyprus, reacting to Cyprus issues. The documents are categorized chronologically into three periods of which we are publishing the first two, namely 1923-51 and 1952-60 due to practical reasons. The third section, 1960-67, will be published in our next archive issue. We
have also provided scanned images of some of the earlier documents, where they were available in Ottoman script only, without transcriptions. These documents relating to the modern history of Cyprus will be invaluable for those who work on social, political and economic aspects of the history of the island. Together with JCS’s two previous archive issues, the documents collected in the current issue could shed more light on the rise of nationalism on the island, in so far as they provide insight into immediate and contemporaneous reactions to various periods of the ‘Cyprus problem’. A short introduction by our editors provides information on the content, intent and importance of the documents. The editors have also provided us with
scanned images of some documents to give an idea about their original format and layout. As in our previous archive issues, for the sake of accuracy and future scholarship, the text has been carefully edited in order to remain as faithful as is practically possible both to the documents’ language and original layout. At the end of the two sections an index has been provided to give the reader some of the keywords, names and concepts to be found in these documents. We are grateful to Aykoç, Yamak and Söylemez. We would also like to acknowledge our debt to Nihal Sakarya, and to the staff of the Eastern Mediterranean University printing house.

Özlem Çaykent