AN EXAMPLE OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN IMPERIALIST POLITICS AND ORIENTALIST STUDIES: BRITISH ORIENTALISM

The British Empire pursued its imperialist and colonialist policies in the Middle East, America, Asia, Australia and Africa for many years. In order to maintain the dominance of the Empire and the British Crown on these continents, individuals affiliated with political, military, religious, commercial and scientific organisations fought hard. The main goal of these individuals was to protect, develop and glorify the imperialist policies of their states against enemy states. Institutions acted in unison in pursuit of this goal, and at times undertook initiatives in support of each other. Scientific, commercial, political and religious organisations received the necessary support through this co-operation and served the imperialist policies of the state. The organisations in question sent orientalists to Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East to conduct research. Orientalists carried out studies on the history, archaeology, geology, botany and geography of the regions they visited. Under the umbrella of science(!), orientalists served the political and military interests of their countries. In this study, the contribution of British imperialist policy to orientalist institutions and studies and the ways in which British orientalists supported the imperialist policy of their country with their researches are analysed. In addition, while preparing this research, various works in the field of social sciences were analysed in order to reach the basic findings and the relationship between imperialism and orientalism was tried to be revealed.