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The establishment of the Turkish and Irish republics took place nearly simultaneously, under the influence of the nationalist movement. This study discusses the cultural foundations of nationalism that emerged during the independence struggles and the necessity of transferring them to children in comparison. In particular, it is claimed that nations that have fought for independence want to create myths about these difficult times, immortalize them with works such as poetry, stories, and novels, and then pass them to the next generations. This study indicates that although they have different languages, religions, and traditions, these two countries tell fairy tales and epics for children in almost the same period for the same purposes. To illustrate this, two folk narratives of both cultures were compared in this study. In conclusion, these comparisons show that the Irish and Turkish nationalist movements exercise their freedom to 'conceive themselves' and hope to benefit somewhat from reflecting this on children's literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a study of the reception of antisemitism, and its appeal among Turkish nationalists and state elites in the 1930s and 1940s. Based on a closed reading of the investigation of İnkılâp, the first antisemitic journal published in Turkey, by state bureaucrats in 1933, the article argues that antisemitism in the 1930s offered Turkish nationalist actors of competing convictions a tool to legitimize contending versions of Turkish nationalism, as well as a novel language to legitimize already existing antiminority practices explicitly against local Jews. Nationalist actors could thus discriminate against Turkish Jews without reference to religious difference. Finally, this study has detected an increased input of European post-First World War European antisemitism, especially the German post-Versailles conspiratorial 'stab-in-the-back' antisemitic theme and argues that this association had been facilitated by the increased relations between the Ottoman Empire/Turkey and Germany since the late nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to analyse the construction of Turkish national identity as 'we' and 'they' in textbooks taught in the primary schools during the first years of the Republic of Turkey and the beginning of the 2000s in the context of narration of the Turkish War of Independence. The main material of the study consists of history and social studies textbooks. In this scope, four primary school history textbooks taught in the first years of the Republic of Turkey and four social studies textbooks taught at the primary school level at the beginning of the 2000s were selected. In selection of these textbooks care was taken to ensure that they were compliant with the curriculum in force at the time and that they were approved by the authorities responsible for education. Document analysis method was employed to gather subject data from the textbooks in question. The data gathered by this method were analysed using content analysis technique. The result of the analysis identified important and striking differences in the construction of Turkish national identity as 'we' and 'they' in the context of the Turkish War of Independence in textbooks from the two time periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Republic of Turkey of the 1920s and 1930s was a complex place to live. Kemalism came to nurture and embrace a new citizen who had no other choice but that of being a Turk as stipulated by the 1924 constitution. It was particularly challenging for Christian minorities, or what was left of them, because of ultra-nationalism and the highly ideological nature of the one-party regime of the Kemalist era. Many Armenians, who chose to stay or had to stay in Turkey, were not at ease with the existing state of affairs. Most of them were still looking for ways to leave Turkey for safer places. It became a particular matter of contention in the initial years of the Cold War when the Soviet Union launched a policy of encouraging Turkish Armenians to migrate to Soviet Armenia. Based on Russian, Turkish, and Armenian sources, the article presents hitherto unexplored features of that policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cemevis emerged as the spaces of the Alevi identity in contemporary cities of Turkey. On the basis of in-depth interviews conducted in İzmir with the heads of cemevi associations, this study claims that, while cemevis were enforced by the process of urbanization, they have been transforming the Alevi practices and collective organizations and eventually constructing a new type of Alevism as to religious practices, community institutions and collective imagination. Though no legal–political recognition has yet been granted to cemevis as the places of worship, they have established themselves as central institutions of urban Alevis with their extensive use beyond the limited oppositional categorization of culture–religion. This denial of legal status which has been seen as the violation of basic human rights is one of the main constitutive dynamics in the ongoing debates on Turkey's Alevi question. It is to such an extent that the denial of legal status to cemevis has today come to be identified by Alevi groupings with the denial of Alevi collective identity itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will attempt to develop an in-depth examination of the pivotal role of Islam in the articulation of Turkish nationalism and Turkish official identity by examining the sermons authorized and imposed by the Presidency of Religious Affairs (PRA), the state agency regulating religion, and how the their cosmologies of social, moral and political order are entwined. We will further argue that this role involves a twofold process; firstly, the Muslim identity was imagined as a prerequisite for being considered as a Turk and a Turkish citizen and, secondly, the ‘cultural intimacy’ of Turkish nationalism is grounded on the ‘root paradigms’ inherited and attained from the Islamic tradition and theology. These arguments are particularly pertinent at a time when Islamist JDP (Justice and Development Party) consolidated its power and began to instrumentalize PRA for its priorities and visions of Islam. This, however, does not bring a radical reshuffling of PRA. On the contrary, the continuity from the Kemalist-monitored PRA to the JDP-monitored PRA can be attested not only in its organizational features but also in its ideological make up; especially in terms of its perceptions of society, state and social order. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Our current knowledge on the history of Turkish nationalism during the Cold War is a blend of facts and myths. One of those myths is the argument that the Turks developed a special relationship with Islam following their massive conversion in the eleventh century to the extent that religion has become the most important ingredient in Turkish national identity over time, even more pronounced than ethnic attributes. Secular visions of Turkish nationalism, on the other hand, which emphasize ethnic characteristics, are generally regarded as curious but unimportant exceptions. This article challenges that narrative and maintains that the alleged unimportance of secular nationalism is an invention of the late 1960s. It provides evidence that there was no consensus among Turkish nationalists on the question of Islam; on the contrary, the role of Islam in the making of Turkish identity was the most hotly debated topic among rival nationalist circles. It was not until the turning point in 1969 that a host of factors such as demographic change, anti-Kemalist and anti-RPP sentiments, and electoral behaviour in Cold War Turkey convinced Turkish nationalists to adopt a more Islamic-leaning discourse to be more successful at the ballot box. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The concept of homeland, vatan, the essential part of the nation-state establishing the link between the people and the territory, territorializes the national identity by creating a sense of belonging to the sacred soil and turning the imagined boundaries into physical ones. In Turkey, constructing the borders of the national identity and vatan required the transformation of the Ottoman imperial paradigm into a nation-state. Republican reforms were unprecedented in terms of combining Turkish identity with territoriality. With the establishment of the Turkish nation-state, a sense of nationalism substituted servitude to the sultan with loyalty to vatan. This was revolutionary in that the nation was disassociated from Islam and God as the community of believers and from the Ottoman sultan as his loyal servants and now was anchored to the life-giving vatan. This article examines the change in the pedagogy of space in Turkey from the late nineteenth century to the first three decades of the twentieth century, exploring how the mental maps of Turkish people shifted from an imperial to a national scope. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is an examination of the ‘Kurdish Students’ Hope Society’ – a youth-led Kurdish organization founded in the Ottoman imperial capital, Istanbul, in 1912. The article contends that the foundation of this organization should not be seen simply as a reaction to the gradual ethnic polarization and ‘Turkification’ of Ottoman politics that occurred in the aftermath of the 1908 ‘Young Turk Revolution’. It also needs to be understood in the context of dynamics emanating from within Kurdish society. Specifically, to the backdrop of an increasingly fragmented Kurdish elite, the Kurdish youth were setting out their own path towards national salvation which was neither conformist nor separatist. In short, they were outlining a ‘third way’ between these two extremes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article studies the campaign against the use of non-Turkish languages that was organized by local forces in Izmir in 1934. In contextualizing the campaign within domestic politics and state–society relation, the article attempts to study domestic politics through a local perspective and explore the impact that similar events in the periphery had in the centre's policies, which the literature is usually inclined to comprehendsolelywith reference to state ‘high politics’. The article argues that cases of autonomous mobilization from below, such as the 1934 Izmir campaign, contributed to the evolution of the Turkish political regime in the 1930s by turning the centre towards decisions that would redesign the relationship between the state and the ruling party, and have an impact on state–society relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study discusses the position of Alevi identity and Alevi community with regard to the Turkish national identity-building project. There was a partial compatibility between the Kemalist objective of laicization and nation building and the Alevi practice and understanding of a ‘local’ version of ‘Turkish Islam’. Besides these compatibilities, Alevis faced the challenges of nation-building and homogenization policies, which involved homogenization in ethnic, religious and sectarian domains. Kurmanji- and Zazaki-speaking ethnically Kurdish/Zaza Alevis of Eastern Anatolia had a different experience during the project of centralization and ethnic homogenization, in comparison to Turkish-speaking Turcoman Alevis. This different experience still is a source of division among Alevi communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article probes the transformation of Kemalism to a xenophobic nation-statism with a strong anti-western animus diluting its self-styled westernism and elitism in response to the rise of the reformist-Islamist ruling JDP and its patchy liberal rhetoric and pro-EU stance. The article points to the novel qualities of the Kemalism of the 2000s but also attests to its inherent anti-elitist, anti-liberal and anti-intellectual nature that reigned in the 1930s given that the Kemalist project in the inter-war period involved the denunciation of the Ottoman establishment with its elite and intelligentsia and its replacement with an intelligentsia of its own that is acquainted with anti-liberalism, anti-cosmopolitism and also anti-intellectualism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent years there has been much debate about whether the activities of missionaries were an act of religious altruism or a medium of cultural expansion and a preparation for political involvement. The American expedition occurred during the early years of modern Western – as yet mainly British, French and Russian – penetration of the Ottoman realms. The immediate effect was to draw the East into the rapidly expanding capitalist world economy while containing the ambitions of rival powers in order to prepare for the Sublime Porte's ultimate dismemberment. This phase of missionary activity represented something extraordinary, because the Americans were attempting to impose their kind of Christianity, namely, Protestantism, on communities which had been Christian well before the Christian American identity came into being. This article examines the formation of the American Protestant missionaries' activities in Anatolia; missionaries' evaluations of events within the Empire, and their relations with the Armenians will be the focus of the analysis. In other words, attention will be drawn to how the missionary enterprise fostered Armenian nationalism by introducing Western political ideals and promoting Armenian cultural identity through education and the press discussed. Rather than examining the Armenian Question, this paper will trace the genesis of Armenian nationalism through the Boards' Protestant Anatolia vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade scholarly consensus has moved away from viewing turmoil in Turkey as a product of religious–cultural incompatibility with modernization. Instead, scholars have shown that the rise of an Islamic elite has expanded democracy in Turkey, while often vexing the secularist elite. This article reviews the most important of the new scholarship, but criticizes it for inheriting the assumption that all events in Turkey somehow hinge upon Islamist–secularist antagonism. Alternatively, insights from sociology are employed to argue that domestic Turkish discord is intimately related to industrialization and democratization, and that excessive attention to supposedly religious conflict blinds much contemporary scholarship to the intolerant Sunni-Turkish nationalism cultivated by the Turkish state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with press coverage of the 1942 Wealth tax and focuses on the Turkish press's use of a discriminatory discourse against non-Muslim minorities to designate non-Muslims as other than Turkish. More specifically, this article analyses linguistic and discursive strategies adopted by the press in reporting on the Wealth tax. The press attempted to explain the tax on non-Muslims that aimed to liquidate non-Muslims' wealth as a tax that would establish social justice by making war profiteers and black-marketeers pay the government what was due. By adopting various linguistic devices and discursive strategies, the press played a significant role in the construction of meaning through a related set of assumptions about non-Muslims and Turkishness embedded within news reports on the Wealth tax. This critical analysis of power and inequality in language reveals the dominant discriminatory discourse of Turkish nationalism as manifested in the coverage of the Wealth tax and the role of the press in the reproduction of the hegemonic discourse connected to Turkish national identity and the criteria governing exclusion from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Greek and Turkish nationalisms have followed diverse historical paths, they share several features. Following the model of Zimmer, this study explores how inclusive and exclusive boundary mechanisms have shaped Greek and Turkish national identity and which symbolic resources were utilized in these processes. It is argued that a shift from the use of voluntaristic to that of organic boundary mechanisms has characterized both Greek and Turkish nationalisms and influenced the definition of national 'self' and 'other'. This study aims to track a pattern of historic-political conditions which favour a shift from voluntaristic towards organic models of defining the nation and discuss possible future trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article maintains that the Kurdish identity is determinant in almost all areas of Turkey's foreign policy. It discusses this significance by using in general the instruments of constructivism and in particular the instruments of rule-oriented constructivism of Nicholas Onuf. In this context, it puts forward three claims. First, Kurdish identity leads to the construction of a collective identity which determines Turkey's relations with its neighbours and near environment. Second, as the subject of a human rights question it causes a negative identification regarding Turkey and thus affects its relations with western states and institutions. And finally, involving the construction process of the Turkish national identity, it excites Turkish nationalism and hence inserts the foreign policy decisions and behaviours in a nationalist framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the Young Ottomans and their main publication Hüriyyet (Freedom). The scope of investigation includes references to the former Grandvizier Reshad Pasha, the relevance of the Shari'a and the ambiguous attitude towards the Tanzimat laws as well as the question of equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depictions of Arabs and Islam in the Turkish historiography of the 1930s clearly indicate the secular and nationalist character of the new Turkish republic. However, if one looks at the official publications from the 1930s and 1940s, not only the textbooks, the image of Arabs and Islam does not appear simple and coherent. This article reviews the image of Arabs and Islam in Kemalist Turkish historiography and demonstrates the diverse and sometimes conflicting depictions with reference to the various official texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the interplay of religion and nationalism in Turkey in the post-1990 period and discusses the prospects and pitfalls of religious nationalist movement by focusing on Gulen's Turkish Muslimhood. It is believed that the instrumental relationship between Islam and nationalism in Turkey as exemplified in the modernist religious nationalism of Gulen will help reveal that Islam has always been an indispensable element of the discourse of nationalism in Turkey and will force us to rethink the role or religion in Turkish society and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The definition of Turkish nationhood after the founding of the Republic has been evaluated and labelled very differently by various scholars. The classical view paralleled the official representation of Republican policies in describing Turkish nationhood as being based on a civic and territorial understanding of nationality. More recent and much more critical scholarship, which enjoys a near-hegemonic position in the study of Turkish nationalism today, claims that the official definition of Turkish nationhood has a clearly identifiable mono-ethnic orientation, manifest in a series of policies and institutions. This article argues that the definition of Turkish nationhood as manifest in state policies is neither territorial nor mono-ethnic, but rather ironically for the adamantly secular Turkish republic, the definition of Turkish nationhood is mono-religious and anti-ethnic, in striking continuity with the Islamic millet under the Ottoman Empire. The reason critical scholars perceive Turkish nationhood as mono-ethnic might stem from the dichotomous view of nationalisms as civic versus ethnic, a dichotomy that has recently been repudiated by some of its erstwhile proponents. Supremacy of the religious over ethnic categories in Turkey, as a historical legacy of the Ottoman millet system, might be applicable to most post-Ottoman states in the Islamic Middle East and North Africa, in contrast to the interplay of ethnicity and religion in Western Europe. This view of Turkish nationhood is confirmed by a dozen interviews that the author conducted with members of the political and intellectual elite of different ideological orientations in Turkey. It is then demonstrated how the new efforts at reformulating modern Turkish identity with reference to Ottoman and Islamic conceptions lead to new inclusion-exclusion dynamics with the Kurds and the Alevis, suggesting that a truly inclusive reformulation has to follow secular and territorial principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ottoman claims to universality - embodied in Ottoman imperialism, Ottoman Islam, and Ottoman cosmopolitanism - were undermined and ultimately shattered by the encounter with ascendant Europe. Following near-dismemberment after the First World War, Mustafa Kemal categorically rejected Ottoman universalism in favour of a non-irredentist, secularist nationalism. His brand of Turkish particularism shaped national identity and foreign policy for much of the twentieth century. Since the 1980s, however, a growing number of Turks have begun to revisit the Ottoman past. They are drawn to one or another of the three dimensions of Ottoman universalism which they use to make alternative national and foreign policy claims. This study provides a brief, schematic account of the later years of the Ottoman Empire and early years of the Turkish Republic in order to trace the metamorphosis of Ottoman universalism into Turkish particularism. It then explores how Kemalists, Islamists, liberals, and ultranationalists appropriate Ottoman universalism today in their attempts to redefine national identity and foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Said Halim Pasha whose writings have been revived as well as interest in himself. Said Halim Pasha was a prince of the Egyptian royal family, a thoughtful writer and scholar on topics that agitate Middle East. He also occupies many ministerial positions in the highest echelons of the Ottoman administration during First World War. Said Halim took a tough look at the roots of his civilization and sought refuge in the supra-national appeal of Islam during the time nationalisms of Muslim and non-Muslim groups were tearing the Empire apart. His works also are applicable and current in scope and content.

The article focuses on the decline of nationalism in Turkey. A survey conducted by the Eurobarometer in Turkey found out that only 43 percent has a positive image of the European Union showing that it falls from 60 percent six months earlier. Nationalist protests and campaigns are increasing which targets the liberal or left-wing intellectuals and the Kurds. The Nationalist Action Party (NAP) are even blamed by right-wing groups for the alleged passivity and betrayal of Turkish nationalism. Recreation of the racist Turkism which distance itself between Islam and Turkism could result to radicalization or moderation can reshape the form conventional dialectic of radical right and center-right politics in Turkey.

The article discusses the role of Kurdish women with nationalism in Turkey and the Kemalist Revolution in 1923. The most important characteristic of the Kemalist modernization project is the fact that it aimed to create an ethnically, and culturally homogeneous nation. Kurdish women became marginalized primarily because their ethnic identity was severely crushed and became underprivileged compared to their Turkish counterparts who were able to benefit from modernizing Republican reforms.

Discusses the origins of linguistic nationalism in Turkey. National identity of Turkey; Assessment of the bond between language and nation; Functions of languages.

The article discusses the relation between Turkish nationalism and minorities in the 1930s and examines the extent to which race shaped nationalism throughout the period. In 1930, the idea that the Turks were a glorious nation rose to prominence in Turkey. As late as the 1920s, Turkishness had been mostly defined independently race. In 1922, Turkey was liberated, and in 1923, a republic was established. Thus, in the 1930s, the rise of the notion of race ushered in questions: how would this phenomenon affect the practices of the state vis-a-vis the minorities. The "Turkish History Thesis," which marked the ascent of race under Turkish nationalism, emerged in 1930-31.

Analyzes the relevance of citizenship to nation-building in Turkey. Significance of citizenship in legitimizing a republic; Implications of heritage ideologies on nationalism; Privileges of citizenship; Impact of globalization on Turkish nationality; Identification of diverse Turkish citizens.

Discusses the underpinnings of Turkish nationalism and the construction of official identity. Role of strong state tradition in civil society; Westernization of Ottoman elites; Need to balance modernity and tradition; Republican elites' attempts to create an ideology.

Discusses the significance of nationalism and the rise of Muslim sentiment in Turkey. Heritage of the Turks; Opposition Nation Party and Democratic Party; Prime Minister Turgut Ozal's foreign policy; National Salvation Party; Activities of the Diyanet or the Ministry of Education; Growth of the Refah (Prosperity) Party; Viability of nationalism.