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It introduces a genealogical approach toward Turkish Alevism distinguishing between two major phases in the making of modern Alevism. The first phase, discussed in chapter 1, is marked by the initial discovery of the Kızılbaş by American missionaries and other Western observers who lived and/or travelled in Anatolia since the second half of the 19th century. The Kızılbaş appeared to these Westerners as a strange people whom they had difficulties categorizing in their religious schemes. Speculations about the origins of their particularities soon led to theories about their close relation to Christianity and pre-Islamic Anatolian civilizations.

What would be the long-term impact of the encounter between the Western observers and the Kızılbaş-Alevis in terms of the developing vernacular and transnational knowledge about the latter, as well as in terms of the regional political ramifications of that knowledge? 3 2. That is, the Ottoman provinces at the eastern boundaries of Asia Minor proper, then dominated by Kurdish and Armenian populations, and today part of the Kurdish-dominated eastern and southeastern parts of the Turkish Republic, namely Bitlis, Mamüretülaziz (Elazığ), Diyarbakır, Erzurum, and Van.

The chapter situates the Western/Orientalist discovery of the Kızılbaş within post-Tanzimat regional and international political contexts that were marked by heightened competition over sociopolitical and economic capital, and contributed to a remarkable increase of intercommunal violence. The aim of chapter 2 is to establish the theoretical and historical background that frames the subsequent chapters on the formation of Alevism in the context of Turkish nationalism. Only relatively recently have studies on nationalism begun to question the secular modernization paradigm and to explore the contributions of religions in the formation of nationalisms.