Introduction: Revival of Turkish Interest in Republicanism; Republicanism as a Political Tradition -- Shaping the Empire -- The Age of Transformation in Ottoman Political Thought : The Reigns of Selim III (1789-1807) and Mahmud II (1808-38) -- The Tanzimat Era (1839-76) and Islamic Republicanism of the Young Ottomans -- The Positivist Universalism and Republicanism of the Young Turks -- The Political Thought of the Young Turk Revolution -- Political Thought in the Balkan Wars and the Rise of Authoritarianism -- Ottoman Political Thought during World War I -- The War of Independence (1919-22) : Road to the Independent Turkish Republic -- The Victory of Authoritarian Republicanism -- Conclusion: The Ideology of the Early Republic.
Summary:
"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 Turnaoglu 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, Turnaoglu 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. Turnaoglu 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"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.