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The Formation of Turkish Republicanism
The Formation of Turkish Republicanism
The Formation of Turkish Republicanism
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The Formation of Turkish Republicanism

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Turkish republicanism is commonly thought to have originated with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the founding of modern Turkey in 1923, and understood exclusively in terms of Kemalist ideals, characterized by the principles of secularism, nationalism, statism, and populism. Banu Turnaoğlu challenges this view, showing how Turkish republicanism represents the outcome of centuries of intellectual dispute in Turkey over Islamic and liberal conceptions of republicanism, culminating in the victory of Kemalism in the republic's formative period.

Drawing on a wealth of rare archival material, Turnaoğlu presents the first complete history of republican thinking in Turkey from the birth of the Ottoman state to the founding of the modern republic. She shows how the Kemalists wrote Turkish history from their own perspective, presenting their own version of republicanism as inevitable while disregarding the contributions of competing visions. Turnaoğlu demonstrates how republicanism has roots outside the Western political experience, broadening our understanding of intellectual history. She reveals how the current crises in Turkish politics—including the Kurdish Question, democratic instability, the rise of radical Islam, and right-wing Turkish nationalism—arise from intellectual tensions left unresolved by Kemalist ideology.

A breathtaking work of scholarship, The Formation of Turkish Republicanism offers a strikingly new narrative of the evolution and shaping of modern Turkey.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 18, 2017
ISBN9781400885220
The Formation of Turkish Republicanism

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    The Formation of Turkish Republicanism - Banu Turnaoğlu

    THE FORMATION OF TURKISH REPUBLICANISM

    THE FORMATION OF

    Turkish Republicanism

    Banu Turnaoğlu

    PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

    PRINCETON & OXFORD

    Copyright © 2017 by Princeton University Press

    Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press

    Published by Princeton University Press,

    41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

    In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,

    6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR

    press.princeton.edu

    Jacket art: İnkılap Yolunda (On the Road of Transformation), by Zeki Faik İzer, 1933. From the collection of the Istanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. Courtesy of Professor Ayșegül İzer.

    All Rights Reserved

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Names: Turnaoğlu, Banu, 1983- author.

    Title: The formation of Turkish republicanism / Banu Turnaoğlu.

    Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

    Identifiers: LCCN 2016059881 | ISBN 9780691172743 (hardback : acid-free paper)

    Subjects: LCSH: Turkey—Politics and government. | Turkey—History—Ottoman Empire, 1288-1918. | Atatürk, Kemal, 1881-1938—Political and social views. | Republicanism—Turkey—History. | Islam and politics—Turkey—History. | Liberalism—Turkey—History. | Turkey—Intellectual life. | BISAC: HISTORY / Middle East / Turkey & Ottoman Empire. | HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century. | POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory.

    Classification: LCC DR486 .T875 2017 | DDC 320.45609/03—DC23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016059881

    British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

    This book has been composed in Miller.

    Printed on acid-free paper. ∞

    Printed in the United States of America

    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    For my beloved family

    CONTENTS

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    THIS BOOK IS BASED on my doctoral dissertation written at the University of Cambridge in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS). It has been several years in the making, and during the course of its research and writing, many people and institutions have put themselves out to help me generously. Foremost, I am deeply grateful for the understanding, patience, and lucidity of my supervisor, Professor John Dunn, throughout my efforts to craft, organize, and successfully complete it. His instructive judgment, attentive and patient help, directness, and continued encouragement and faith in my work and ideas have been very much appreciated. I am greatly indebted to him for sharpening and clarifying my thinking by intensive intellectual interaction and for investing huge amounts of time and energy in my academic career. I should also like to extend my gratitude to Professor Şükrü Hanioğlu and Dr. Christopher Brooke for their constructive suggestions and their strong encouragement to turn my dissertation into a book.

    I have had indispensable and prompt aid from many scholars in Cambridge and beyond. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Duncan Kelly for his assistance, encouragement, and kindness. Chapters 6 and 7 are the outcomes of my research as a Research Assistant for his book project on the history of political and economic ideas during World War I at POLIS. I would also like to acknowledge the graciousness and inspiration of several teachers who taught me early on in my career: Dr. Yonca Köksal, who first instilled in me an enthusiasm for Ottoman history and commented on several chapters of this study; Professor Fuat Keyman, Professor Ziya Öniş, and Dr. Şuhnaz Yılmaz, who introduced me to the historical study of political theory and remained a constant and valuable source of guidance over the years; Professor Michael Freeden, who introduced me to academic discussions on republicanism and political ideologies during my MSc at Oxford; Dr. Isabel DiVanna, who taught me much about positivism at Cambridge; and Professor Stuart White and Dr. Karma Nabulsi, who urged me to think further and deeper on radical republicanism.

    A version of chapter 9 of this book appeared as Ideological Struggle during the Formative Years of the Turkish Republic, Middle Eastern Studies 52, issue 4 (2016): 677–96. I am grateful to Professor Ayşegül İzer for the permission to use Zeki Faik İzer’s İnkılap Yolunda (On the Road of Transformation, 1933, from the collection of the Istanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University) for my cover image.

    I should like to acknowledge the assistance of a number of institutions and thank their knowledgeable archivists and staff: the ISAM (Centre for Islamic Studies), Atatürk Kütüphanesi (Atatürk Library), and Koç University Library in Istanbul; Milli Kütüphane (National Library) in Ankara; La Maison d’Auguste Comte and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris; and the University Library in Cambridge. I am grateful to POLIS and King’s College, Cambridge, for providing me with the facilities and conducive conditions for my book. I owe a particularly heartfelt word of thanks to Selahattin Öztürk for responding to my numerous queries and requests with promptness, patience, and kindness; providing me with archival material and rare books; and helping me transcribe the Ottoman texts.

    The final stages of writing owe a great debt to Elizabeth Hubert and Laura Morley, who have thoroughly read, edited, and commented on my book in whole or in part, yielding numerous refinements, and who saved the work as a whole from a number of errors and failings of consistency. The shortcomings that might remain are my own responsibility.

    I am deeply grateful to my friends in a variety of settings for their help, encouragement, and intellectual companionship: Alia Al-Kadi, Nayla Aramouni, İrem Köprülü, Sukhneel Toor, Selin Öztürk Jami, Samir Puri, and especially Victoria Phan, who nudged me in the right direction, shouldered many of my burdens, and selflessly supported me from the beginning until the very last moment of this journey.

    Words cannot express how grateful I am to my family, to whom I affectionately dedicate this book with love. I could not have embarked on this project without the will and stalwart encouragement of my uncle, Ergun Tuncay. I am delighted to thank my cousin and best friend, Gizem Apak, for her unfailing moral support at a very low time. I owe everything to my remarkable parents, Gülgün and Ali Turnaoğlu, and grandparents, Emel and Kazım Tuncay, for what they have given and taught me. Warmest thanks go to my mother for making all the sacrifices on my behalf, providing me with much needed nurture, always keeping things in perspective, and unswervingly supporting me at every stage of its writing. Above all, I am indebted to my grandfather (now passed on), who originally inspired me to study politics, philosophy, and history.

    Cambridge, November 2016

    DRAMATIS PERSONAE

    AĞAOĞLU, AHMED (1869–1939) Azeri-born essayist, nationalist, journalist, statesman. Originally Ahmed Agayef, later Ağaoğlu Ahmed, and after 1934 Ahmet Ağaoğlu. Moved to Paris in 1889. Attended seminars at College de France and came under the influence of Ernst Renan and James Darmesteter. Returned to Azerbaijan in 1894 and moved to Istanbul in 1909, where he joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Promoted Turkish nationalism actively together with Ziya Gökalp, Yusuf Akçura, and Mehmed Emin (Yurdakul). In 1913, was appointed professor of Turkish history at Istanbul University. Elected deputy to the parliament and a member of the Central Committee (Merkez-i Umumi) of the CUP. In 1919, was exiled to Malta. Upon his return in 1921, joined the nationalists in Ankara and became the editor of the new Turkish government’s official propaganda organ, Hâkimiyet-i Milliye (National Sovereignty). Drafted the Constitution of 1924 together with Ziya Gökalp. One of the founders of the short-lived opposition Liberal Party (Serbest Fırkası) of 1930. Following its abolition of the same year, withdrew from political life. Between 1931 and 1933, taught law at the Istanbul Faculty of Law.

    AHMED RIZA (1859–1930) Leading positivist universalist Young Turk and statesman. Born in Istanbul, educated at the Lycée de Galatasaray. In 1883, went to Paris to study agriculture at Grignon. Joined a French positivist society and attended Pierre Laffitte’s lectures. Formed the Parisian branch of the CUP in 1895. Disseminated positivist universalism and ideas of liberty and Ottomanism through Meşveret in Turkish and Mechveret Supplément Français in French, both founded in Paris in 1895 with the goal of shaping French and Ottoman public opinion. In 1908, following the Young Turk Revolution, returned to Istanbul and became the first president of the Chamber of Deputies. In 1912, appointed president of the Senate. Leading negotiator between France and Turkey during the War of Independence. Fell into opposition with Mustafa Kemal and his followers after the war. Withdrew from political and intellectual life in the 1920s. Died in 1930 in Istanbul.

    ALİ SUAVİ (1839–78) Journalist, controversial pamphleteer, and political activist, born in Istanbul. One of the pioneers of Islamic republicanism. Studied the Islamic sciences at a madrasa. Held various administrative and teaching posts in Istanbul and Bursa. Together with Namık Kemal and Ziya (later Paşa), published Muhbir in London as the official mouthpiece of the Young Ottoman Society, but later because of ideological differences, broke away from them. In 1869, published Ulûm (The Sciences) in Paris. In 1876, returned to Istanbul. Two years later, rebelled against Abdülhamid II, led a few hundred Balkan refugees in an assault against the Çırağan Palace.

    CELAL NURİ (İLERİ) (1881–1938) Turkish modernist, writer, publicist, journalist, and statesman. Educated at the Lycée de Galatasaray and studied Law at Istanbul University. Entered politics in 1919 as a deputy for Gelibolu in the last Ottoman parliament, exiled to Malta. Upon his return to Turkey in 1921, elected to the Grand National Assembly four times. Headed committee that drafted the Constitution of 1924. Editor in chief of İleri from 1919 until 1924. Initially allied with Yunus Nadi and Ağaoğlu, but departed from them later because of his strong criticism of the regime’s authoritarian measures. Died in Istanbul in 1938.

    CEMAL PAŞA (1872–1922) Young Turk soldier and statesman, member of the Triumvirate. Having graduated from the Imperial Military College (Mekteb-i Harbiye) in 1895, commissioned as a captain in the general staff, and posted to the Third Army in Thessaloniki, joined the CUP. Following the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, became a member of the CUP’s central committee (Merkez-i Umumi). After the coups d’état on the Sublime Porte, rose to power. From November 1914 until December 1917, the commander of the Fourth Army, with headquarters in Damascus, and military governor of the Syrian Provinces. In 1918, fled with Enver and Talat from the Empire. In 1922, assassinated in Tbilisi by two Armenians.

    ENVER PAŞA (1881–1922) Young Turk soldier and statesman, Ottoman Turkish general and commander of the Ottoman armies during World War I. Educated at the Imperial Military College (Mekteb-i Harbiye). Joined the CUP in 1906 and initiated a revolt against the Ottoman government in 1908, together with Ahmed Niyazi and Eyyüb Sabri in Macedonia, leading to the Young Turk Revolution. Widely acclaimed as the hero of revolution and liberty. In 1913, carried out a coup d’état on the Sublime Porte with a group of Unionist officers and soldiers, bringing to power a Unionist party cabinet with its long-term effects on authoritarianism and militarism. Main figure behind the Ottoman entry into World War I. Found guilty for war crimes and escaped the country in 1918. In 1922, died in battle in Tajikistan, while organizing Muslims against the Bolsheviks.

    GÖKALP, MEHMET ZİYA (1869–1924) One of the most prominent thinkers of late Ottoman and early Turkish political thought. An essayist, poet, and nationalist, a self-taught sociologist, highly influenced by Durkheim. Known by his pen name Gökalp after 1911. His Three Currents of Thought (Üç Cereyan, 1913) synthesized three competing intellectual currents, Turkism, Islamism, and Westernization. In 1919, convicted in a war tribunal for participating in the Unionist activities and exiled to Malta. Upon his return in 1921, joined the nationalist movement, later participated in the preparation of the constitution and the social and political reform program of the Republican People’s Party. His Principles of Turkism (1923) articulated his nationalist theories.

    HALİDE EDİP (ADIVAR) (1882–1964) A prolific female writer of the late Ottoman and early Republican periods. Born in Istanbul, the first Muslim-Turkish woman to graduate from the American College for Girls in Üsküdar (1901). Close to the inner circle of the CUP, became a regular columnist in the newspaper Tanin (The Voice). Inspired by the Turanist and nationalist ideas of Gökalp, wrote the novel Yeni Turan (New Turan, 1911), and joined the activities of the Türk Ocağı (Turkish Hearth) and published in Türk Yurdu (Turkish Homeland). During the Turkish independence struggle, emerged as a prominent public figure, but after the foundation of the Republic, maintained distance from the Kemalists.

    HÜSEYİN CAHİT (YALÇIN) (1875–1957) Ottoman Turkish author, writer, journalist, and statesman. Editor in chief of Tanin. Leading representative of liberal republicanism. Enrolled in Mülkiye (School of Political Science). Began his career as a man of letters, entered politics after the Young Turk Revolution. In 1908, published with Tevfik Fikret and Hüseyin Kazım Kadri the newspaper Tanin, the official voice of the CUP. Between 1908 and 1912, served as a member of Chamber of Deputies, and became deputy for Istanbul in 1912. Fell into opposition with the CUP and forced to close down Tanin. Exiled to Malta in 1919, returned to Istanbul in 1922. Published Renin, later changed its name back to Tanin. Translated Durkheim’s Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (Din Hayatının İbtidaî Şekilleri, 1924); Pareto’s Les Systèmes Socialistes (Sosyalist Meslekleri, 1924); Mill’s On Liberty (Hürriyet, 1927). Fell into opposition with the Kemalists because of his liberal democratic republican ideas and his critique of the regime’s authoritarian measures. Trailed, exiled, and silenced by the new republican regime. In the 1930s, returned to politics and journalism.

    MEHMET TALAT PAŞA (1872–1921) One of the Triumvirate members and leading Unionist. Joined the CUP in Thessaloniki and founded the Ottoman Freedom Society (Osmanlı Hürriyet Cemiyeti), affiliated with the CUP. In 1908, became a deputy for Edirne in the new Ottoman parliament, and then in 1909, minister of the interior intermittently up until 1917, and then appointed as grand vizier with the rank of Paşa. Found guilty for war crimes and fled to Berlin. Assassinated by an Armenian nationalist there in 1921.

    MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATÜRK (1881–1938) Ottoman military officer during World War I; first president of the Turkish Republic (1923). Born in 1881 in Thessaloniki. Between 1899 and 1902, enrolled in Ottoman Military Academy. Graduated from the Imperial Military College (Mekteb-i Harbiye) in 1905. Joined the CUP in 1907. Led the national struggle between 1919 and 1922. Modernized Turkish society; conducted a political and social revolution in education, secularization, and language. His principles, republicanism, statism, populism, laicism, nationalism, and reformism constituted Kemalism, the regime’s official ideology. Emulated in the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) program of 1935, later in the 1937 constitution, and remained in effect until 1961.

    NAMIK KEMAL (1840–88) Ottoman Turkish journalist, poet, and writer during the Tanzimat era. Leading figure in the Young Ottomans, who spearheaded the constitutionalist movement in the Ottoman Empire. Joined the Young Ottomans in 1862, exiled from the Empire in 1867, and fled to Paris, where he published Hürriyet (Liberty), a chief Young Ottoman propaganda tool. Upon his return to Istanbul in 1870, contributed to the newspapers Diyojen, İbret, and Hadika. Inspired by Montesquieu’s constitutionalism and political liberty, harmonized with Islamic concepts. Along with the other Young Ottomans and Grand Vizier Midhat Paşa, succeeded the opening of the first Ottoman parliament and promulgation of the first constitution in 1876. Exiled by Abdülhamid II to Mytilene, where he died in 1888.

    TEKİNALP (MOİSE COHEN) (1883–1961) A leading theorist of Pan-Turkism and Kemalism. Born in Serres near Thessaloniki to an Orthodox Jewish family. After completing his education, moved to Istanbul, started his career as a journalist, and joined the nationalist circles. Published articles in İslam Mecmuası (Journal of Islamic Review), Bilgi Mecmuası (Journal of Knowledge, 1913–14), and Yeni Mecmua (New Journal, 1917–18). Between 1914 and 1918, taught political economy and law at Istanbul University. As an enthusiastic nationalist and supporter of the Mustafa Kemal’s republican principles, wrote Türkleştirme (Turkification, 1928) and presented the ideology of the new regime in Kemalizm (Kemalism, 1936).

    VELİD EBÜZZİYA (1884–1945) Turkish Ottoman journalist, leading advocate of liberal republicanism. Born in Istanbul as a son of Ebüzziya Tevfik, a prominent journalist and member of Young Ottomans. Educated at the Lycée de Galatasaray and Saint Benoit, studied law at Istanbul University, and later earned a doctorate degree in Law at the Sorbonne. Upon his return to Istanbul in 1912, started his career as a journalist at his father’s newspaper Yeni Tasvîr-i Efkâr. In 1920, exiled to Malta. Upon his return to Istanbul in 1921, published his new newspaper, Tevhid-i Efkâr. Criticized the authoritarianism of the radical republicans and fell into opposition with the Kemalists. In 1925, he was tried in the National Independence Tribunals along with Hüseyin Cahit and others, for creating social unrest. Banned from journalism for the rest of his life. Briefly in 1935 formed the newspaper Zaman, but died in 1936.

    YUNUS NADİ (ABALIOĞLU) (1879–1945) Turkish writer, publicist, journalist, and statesman. Editor of the early Republic’s propaganda newspaper Cumhuriyet. Leading representative of radical republicanism. Educated at the Lycée de Galatasaray and studied law at Istanbul University. In 1908, joined the CUP and started his career as a journalist in İkdam and Tasvir-i Efkâr. In 1912, became a deputy for Aydın. In 1918, established the newspaper Yeni Gün after leaving Tasvir-i Efkâr because of disagreements with Velid Ebüzziya. In 1920, moved to Ankara; the same year, formed Anadolu’da Yeni Gün, supporting the War of Independence. Established the Anatolian Agency in 1920 with Halide Edip in order to inform the public about the national struggle. The same year, joined the Grand National Assembly as deputy for Izmir, and later for Muğla. Upon Mustafa Kemal’s request, formed Cumhuriyet and remained as its editor in chief until 1936. Died in Geneva in 1945.

    YUSUF AKÇURA (AKÇURİN OR AKÇURAOĞLU YUSUF) (1876–1935) A Tatar-origin nationalist, leading essayist, and historian. Entered the Harbiye Mektebi (Military College) in 1895, then moved to Paris in 1899 to study science politique and history at the L’Ecole Libre under Émile Boutmy and Albert Sorel. In 1903, returned to Russia and joined the Jadidist movement. Published a series of articles Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset (Three Ways of Policy) in the journal Türk (Cairo) in 1904, regarded as the manifesto of Turkism. Moved to Istanbul following the 1908 Revolution and supervised the publication of leading nationalist periodicals Türk Yurdu (Turkish Homeland, 1911), Halka Doğru (Towards People, 1912), and İslâm Mecmuası (Islamic Review, 1912). Established nationalist organizations like Türk Derneği (Turkish Association, 1908) and Türk Ocağı (Turkish Hearth, 1912). Upon the foundation of the Republic, became a member of the Turkish parliament, and in the 1930s, worked as a professor of the Turkish Historic Society, shaping the official narrative of national history of Turkey.

    ZİYA PAŞA (BORN ABDÜLHAMİD ZİYAEDDİN) (1829–1880) Young Ottoman essayist, poet, and statesman. In 1867, fled to Paris with Namık Kemal, and then moved to London, where initially they published Hürriyet (Liberty) together. Later took the newspaper alone to Geneva. Translated Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Émile ou de l’éducation into Turkish. Upon his return to Istanbul in 1871, took on several roles in executive and legislative branches of the government. Collaborated with Namık Kemal in the Constitution Commission. In 1877, assigned by Abdülhamid II as governor to Syria and then to Konya and Adana, where he died in 1880.

    THE FORMATION OF TURKISH REPUBLICANISM

    Introduction

    THE TURKISH REPUBLIC has undergone recurrent political crises of internal and external origin since its establishment, but today it faces the greatest challenge.¹ It is in the nature of politics, John Dunn insists, that new political challenges should arise all the time. But some such challenges are manifestly far more formidable than others.² Because a political crisis is itself an important political phenomenon, it is pertinent to study its sources and potential consequences. To determine how far, and in what sense the Turkish Republic is today in crisis, it is necessary to consider whether the crisis comes principally from ideas or facts. This book will argue that its source is inherently intellectual.

    The Republic was established following the Turkish Revolution of 1923. The postrevolutionary regime forged a new social and political order by breaking sharply with its recent historical past. Caught between the conflicting demands of order and change, innovation and stability, religious orthodoxy and laicity, national unity and ethnic diversity, the young Republic became an ideological battleground. Kemalism emerged as the victor and became the dominant state ideology, characterized by fundamental principles of nationalism, secularism, populism, statism, revolutionism, and Westernization. In 1931, with the incorporation of these principles into the Republican People’s Party program (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP, founded by Mustafa Kemal in 1923) in the form of six arrows (altı ok), republicanism became a partisan engagement. Unlike its French counterpart,³ Turkish republicanism was championed and preserved by a particular formation of military, political, and intellectual elites, but failed to permeate wider society.

    Over the course of its history, Kemalist republicanism has proven itself an inelastic ideology. To maintain national cohesion, republican governments have adopted authoritarian measures, excluding liberal, socialist, conservative, and Islamic challenges. This inflexibility has served to inhibit the development of a strong democratic culture and prevented the recognition of different minority groups and demands. Political opposition has at times been suppressed through the dissolution of political parties; military interventions in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997; and police violence, particularly against leftists in the 1970s.

    In the late 1980s, the rise of political Islam in Turkish politics posed the greatest threat to date to Kemalist values, and particularly to that of laicity. It highlighted the governing authority’s inability to renew its ideology to accommodate the demands of religious and traditionalist groups for political representation. The rise of the conservative Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in the new millennium, and its recent electoral victory in 2015, deepened the ideological crisis, pitting the Kemalists against the Islamists. The new government set out its own vision of democracy and republicanism. The former exists merely as an electoral process, a competition between parties, and gives its victors the absolute authority to govern by all means. The sovereignty of the nation is supplanted by a system of government by self-serving elites; instead of distancing religion from politics, the AKP actively uses religion to serve political goals; and in the place of democratic institutions, there exists only the power of the president, Tayyip Erdoğan. Being supremely confident in his power and in the order of egoism,⁴ he protects the interests only of those who vote for the AKP, and of the media, press, and businesses, which side only with them. The current government has weakened both Kemalist opposition and the influence of the military in politics. It has used its leverage over the media to limit public debate about government actions, punished journalists and media owners who disputed government claims, curtailed individual liberties, exerted tight control over economic policy, policing, the media, and has been involved in bankruptcy and bribery, all of which have deepened the country’s political and social polarization. The sense of crisis thus incorporates and reflects a series of new and formidable challenges to the military, religion, democracy, and, most significantly, republicanism.

    Revival of Turkish Interest in Republicanism

    The current crisis has led to a resurgence of debates on republicanism in Turkish academia. The terms republican and republicanism have had a high valence in Turkish politics, but their meaning remains ambiguous. In Turkish political thought, the word cumhuriyet (republic) retains a powerful emotive significance, but it carries no singular connotation of what the Republic was or how it came into existence. In one sense, the term republic merely evokes images of a fatherland at risk of partitioning, rescued by General Mustafa Kemal and his followers from the traitor Sultan Vahdettin (r. 1918–22) and its Western enemies. In another sense, the word’s meaning is purely institutional, and in contrast with its antonym Ottoman monarchy, Turkish Republic has been understood as the highest and most civilized form of government.

    A particularly prominent misconception has been the equation of republicanism with Kemalism. Numerous studies of the foundations of Turkish republican thought stress the personal ability and commanding force of Mustafa Kemal. Their narrative promulgates the idea that the Republic and its doctrines emerged abruptly in 1923 without an intellectually substantial foundation.⁵ This orthodox interpretation persists even in the most recent scholarship on the subject, and continues to have serious ramifications in contemporary politics. Yet this orthodoxy is historically and intellectually incoherent. In the history of political thought, no such moment of sudden transition can be observed.⁶ The main purpose of the present book is to uncover the origins of republican thinking and conceptions of the state in Turkey, and situate their development within the prerepublican intellectual and political context of the Ottoman Empire.

    Republicanism as a Political Tradition

    To gain a better grasp of Turkish republicanism, it is necessary to understand what republicanism means. There has been extensive Western academic debate over republicanism’s historical identity, intellectual content, and trajectory through time and space. Many adjectives—neo-Roman, neo-Athenian, perfectionist, civic, liberal, communitarian—have been employed to qualify it,⁷ but there is no consensus on how to define these categories best, or distinguish it from competing political doctrines like liberalism, communitarianism, or socialism. There is strong disagreement about its core conceptions. Many authors have emphasized the importance of freedom as its core value,⁸ while others prioritize the role of civic virtues,⁹ the community,¹⁰ or the struggle against domination.¹¹

    It is most illuminating to see it as a historical tradition, a train of thought with aims and objectives defined anew in each generation, but transmitted across generations. It comes in a variety of shapes, and the principal challenge for its analysis is to trace areas of continuity and discontinuity and identify how it changes and adapts over time while retaining its central tenets of liberty, the common good, political participation, and virtue.¹² Classical and modern republicanisms have in common a deep concern with the design of durable political institutions for allocating power among different social groupings and channeling its exercise to maintain a lasting public good.¹³

    Republicanism had its origins in Roman political thought. Ancient Roman republicanism was concerned essentially with the special value of a nonhereditary and nonmonarchical government. Liberty was its central tenet, as manifest in the notion of living freely in a free state.¹⁴ A free person was the antonym of a slave, defined in the Digest as someone who, contrary to nature, is made into the property of someone else.¹⁵ A free state, for its part, was a political entity in which citizens were not subjected to the arbitrary power of a ruler, a monarch, and that was not dominated by a foreign power.¹⁶

    After the fall of imperial Rome, republicanism was overshadowed for centuries by Christian monarchism, but it revived in the late medieval Italian city-states, which prepared the ground for classical republicanism. As Quentin Skinner has shown, the Italian republicans drew on their own political experience and on a series of Roman sources, particularly the works of Cicero, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, to elaborate and understand the principles of political organization and secure a free way of life.¹⁷ Liberty was contrasted with slavery and seen as the source of virtue, which encouraged iustitia, cultivated commune bonum, produced concordia and pax, and enabled the state to seek gloria.¹⁸

    Drawing from the experience of these self-governing, prehumanist Italian city-states, Machiavelli and his contemporary Renaissance republicans reworked this vision of a free political life, and turned to Roman historians and moralists in search of the conditions through which the Republic could be secured, and for a formulation of vivere libero to engender grandezza.¹⁹ In his Discorsi, Machiavelli argued that the free way of life required political participation as a necessary condition to protect political institutions from corruption and stagnation, motivate citizens to commit themselves to the common good, and display a high degree of civic virtue.²⁰

    Following the demise of the Renaissance city-states, republican theory took fresh political life as a challenge to absolutist monarchies throughout Europe. The Dutch overthrew their monarch Philip II in 1581,²¹ and successfully established a federated republic, while the English executed their king, Charles I, in 1649 during the Civil War, and set up a Commonwealth and Free State.²² English republican theorists Marchamont Nedham, John Milton, and James Harrington also consulted Roman sources for inspiration and preserved or adapted elements of Italian Renaissance humanism. Their usage of the terms republic and commonwealth, nonetheless, was not quite like the classical use of these concepts as antonyms of monarchy. It signified a representative government, held in check by a mixed constitution to secure liberty and limit the arbitrary will of the king or the House of Lords.²³

    Although the distinctive appeal of republican government remained a vivid presence in the intellectual history of Western Europe, for a long time it had limited political effect. By the middle of the eighteenth century, none of the most dynamic and militarily powerful states of Europe was still a republic. But the dawn of the nineteenth century witnessed a pronounced shift in favor of republicanism. Still rare in Western Europe itself, this system of governance gained momentum among populations on the eastern seaboard of North America.²⁴ Inspired by a rich corpus of Enlightenment thinking and practice, republicans in America had since the eighteenth century challenged the British theory of virtual representation, and in 1776 they declared their independence from Britain in the name of greater political freedom and civic equality. Their revolution showed clearly and in the end conclusively that instead of being the preserve of small city-states, republican institutions and the mechanisms of limited government could be combined to guarantee the prosperity and security of a larger national territory.²⁵

    The burgeoning impetus for republicanism soon returned to European shores, and most prominently and significantly to France. The sudden collapse of the French monarchy paved the way for a republican solution that only a few years earlier would have appeared utopian. Radically different from the classical republican tradition, the new bourgeois liberal republican model combined the principles of the separation of powers and the representation of popular sovereignty.²⁶ Departing from classical republicanism’s emphasis on expansive military power and the quest for grandezza, this new model proclaimed a vision of a peaceful world, in which all nations would be bound together by commerce and through the universal values of liberty, equality, and fraternity.²⁷ The French Revolution set in motion further republican revolutionary events, on the Continent and beyond, spreading to the Caribbean and Latin America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, inflaming Polish insurrections and the Spring of Nations in 1848, and contributing to the Turkish Revolutions of 1908 and 1923. This broad array of republican movements had a profound influence on the way republican traditions cohered and evolved worldwide.

    The bourgeois liberal republican model has become the most common form of government in today’s world, but, as Dunn has contended, its endurance is a measure of the failure of alternatives in the twentieth century with the collapse of numerous monarchies after World War I, and of Marxism in the 1990s, far more than an indication of the model’s own decisive practical success.²⁸ As there exists today more than one type of republic, there are many conceptions of republicanism, with unique histories that developed and evolved in different contexts. Despite this variety, studies of republicanism have been limited largely to the Anglophone world, and typically present it merely as a European and American phenomenon. In the extensive works of J.G.A. Pocock on Anglophone republicanism,²⁹ and in the multivolume analysis of European republicanism edited by Quentin Skinner and others,³⁰ there is virtually no mention of republicanisms elsewhere. The role played by republics and republican values in the formation of the modern state has been discussed only within the confines of Europe, and the histories of non-Western republican states and their own traditions have not so far not been studied systematically and carefully.

    This study of the evolution of the Turkish republican tradition from its Ottoman intellectual foundations seeks to transcend the conventional geographical boundaries between Western and non-Western political thought by illustrating the striking and highly consequential exchange of ideas between these spheres. Studying political history in this way helps us to rethink republicanism, and understand political thinking as an interaction between ideas from different settings across the world. It undertakes to recognize political thinking in its full plurality, trace the complex process involved in the formulation of ideas, and widen the scope of Western history of political thought, which is still very far from enjoying such a cosmopolitan vision.³¹

    This book uncovers the rich intellectual heritage of Turkish republican thinking and the resources through which the change from the monarchy to the Republic came about, and elucidates how and why this change occurred. The works of Feroz Ahmad, Bernard Lewis, Şerif Mardin, Stanford Shaw, and Tarık Zafer Tunaya³² have acknowledged the debt of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reforms, the political thinking of the Young Ottomans and Young Turks, and intellectual developments in the Second Constitutional period (1908–18), which Tunaya saw as the laboratory of the republic.³³ These works, nevertheless, remain limited by their singular focus on Westernization as a response to external pressure, and fail to appreciate the full intellectual richness and originality of Ottoman thinkers. Erik Zürcher and Zafer Toprak have illuminated the institutional links between the Empire and the Republic, but neglect the latter’s intellectual foundations.³⁴ Niyazi Berkes’s account, on the other hand, maps the process of modernization and secularization from the eighteenth century that generated the Republic. His narrative, unlike these other treatments, proceeds through a range of categories, but ultimately presents a teleological account of a procession of social changes that reached their

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