| abstract |
The history of Robert College cannot be told without attending to the rich and diverse arrays of intersecting histories from this important region of the world.
The purpose of this dissertation is to consider the larger influence of American founders on Robert College. The problem will be addressed from multiple angles,
the most significant of which are the influence of American educational models, and a consideration of the missionary and native interactions in the context of
the Ottoman Empire. The thesis argues that despite its establishment as a Christian missionary institution, Robert College did not fully progress and reach its
goals until the school developed a broader curriculum gradually shifting away from an exclusively Christian theological curriculum. Robert College reached
its goals by minimizing its explicitly evangelical dimensions by becoming, what the founders claimed, a school that "does not teach theology," but would meet the
broader needs of the society, which at many capacities was a different mission strategy. Conflicts between the goals of the school and the objectives of
American church authorities were frequent, especially in regard to several issues, such as, using of English as the official language of the classrooms, it's
continued evolution toward a modern and independent American-styled school, as well as partisan engagements in regional politics. Were the establishment and
work of Robert College, as parts of the larger Protestant foreign mission enterprise, tools of nationalism, and, by extension abroad, imperialism? The educators
and missionaries attempted multiple approaches to achieve their goals--even accepting serendipitous gunboat diplomacy. To simply call the work done at and by
Robert College "cultural imperialism" is to ignore the more complex role it played in a quickly changing part of the world--sometimes representing an external
power, sometimes pushing back against it. The purpose of this thesis is threefold. First, the thesis attempts to provide an adequate assessment of the
Protestant ideology and functioning of Robert College as a missionary educational institution. Second, it intends to communicate a concise history of Robert
College. The third purpose is to examine the cross-cultural interactions in Constantinople. Orthodox Christians adapted the missionaries' ideology of democracy
and freedom in their embrace of nationalism that pushed Ottomans to radical actions, such as massacres and atrocities to extinguish growing separatism. What
questions do these interactions prompt about the consequences of Protestant cultural projection into the wider world? The dissertation will explain the
distinctly American dimensions of these missionary encounters, the cultural influences they exerted through Bible translations and print culture, and the
consequences for nationalism in the Christian provinces of the Empire.
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