The Army and the Founding of the Turkish Republic

1959 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dankwart A. Rustow
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Army Officers ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Military ◽  
Kemal Ataturk

Modern Turkish history furnishes numerous examples of active participation by the military in politics. The so-called “Young Turk Revolution” of 1908, in fact, may well be regarded as the prototype of Near Eastern military coups of this century. A decade later, Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk] and other army officers took the lead in creating a nationalist Turkish Republic out of the ruins of the multinational Ottoman Empire. Since the proclamation of the Republic in 1923, however, the Turkish army has abstained from any such obvious role on the political stage.

Kemal Atuturk in the art of republican Turkey

2021 ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Nikolay P. Goroshkov
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Military ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Kemal Ataturk

The article analyzes how the personality of the first president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, is reflected in contemporary Turkish art. This year marks exactly 140 years since his birth. To his achievements in the military and political arenas, cultural figures have dedicated many works in the visual arts, architecture, literature and cinema.  The trace of the first president of the Republic of Turkey remained in the works of both his contemporaries and in the works of authors today. Creativity is multifaceted, inspiration has no boundaries, along with them, culture was freed from prohibitions with the beginning of a new page in the history of the country. Her achievements became available to more people, the opportunity to touch the spiritual life and create it opened up along with the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Pasha to wide layers of the population. Immortal works have preserved for posterity the image of the father of the Turkish nation, and a characteristic feature of these works is the author's personal admiration for the deeds of Gazi. This undoubtedly leaves its mark on the work and the way in which a person is shown in the context of history, who took fate and the entire people into his own hands, mired in political, economic, cultural crises. But before giving an answer to the question "Who are you, Father of the Turks?", it is important, in our opinion, briefly to draw attention to the historical retrospective of the development of Turkish culture under the influence of the policy of two states that appeared, flourished and fell into decay on the peninsula of Asia Minor. The article briefly examines some of the features of the cultural policy of the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the first years of the republic.

THE RECASTING OF THE OTTOMAN PUBLIC DEBT AND THE ABOLITION OF THE CAPITULATIONS REGIME IN THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ACTION OF TURKEY LED BY MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATÜRK

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierluigi SIMONE
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Public Debt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
International Debt ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Republic Of Turkey ◽  
Kemal Ataturk

The recast of the international debt contracted by the former Ottoman Empire and the overcoming of the capitulations regime that had afflicted Turkey for centuries, are two of the most relevant sectors in which the political and diplomatic action promoted by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk has been expressed. Extremely relevant in this regard are the different disciplines established, respectively, by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 and then by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. After the Ottoman Government defaulted in 1875, an agreement (the Decree of Muharrem) was concluded in 1881 between the Ottoman Government and representatives of its foreign and domestic creditors for the resumption of payments on Ottoman bonds, and a European control of a part of the Imperial revenues was instituted through the Administration of the Ottoman Public Debt. At the same time, the Ottoman Empire was burdened by capitulations, conferring rights and privileges in favour of their subjects resident or trading in the Ottoman lands, following the policy towards European States of the Byzantine Empire. According to these capitulations, traders entering the Ottoman Empire were exempt from local prosecution, local taxation, local conscription, and the searching of their domicile. The capitulations were initially made during the Ottoman Empire’s military dominance, to entice and encourage commercial exchanges with Western merchants. However, after dominance shifted to Europe, significant economic and political advantages were granted to the European Powers by the Ottoman Empire. Both regimes, substantially maintained by the Treaty of Sèvres, were considered unacceptable by the Nationalist Movement led by Mustafa Kemal and therefore became the subject of negotiations during the Conference of Lausanne. The definitive overcoming of both of them, therefore represents one of the most evident examples of the reacquisition of the full sovereignty of the Republic of Turkey.

scholarly journals Educational transformations in the process of transition from the Ottoman period to the republic

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 09-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yahya Akyüz
Keyword(s):  
Elementary Education ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Social Life ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Political Aspect ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Military

It is important to study and find out the transformations in education during the transition from the last periods of the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic. Education was not only contributing to the still lifestyle of the Ottoman society until the end of the 18th century, but it was also affected by that lifestyle. The most common educational institutes of the period were elementary schools and madrassas. In Ottomans, the function of education as a transformer of the society was preceded by the education itself being transformed. In this process, the military and political events had been influential. To this end, starting with 1776, first the military schools were started to be opened. Until the period which commenced with the proclamation of the Tanzimat in 1839, the view in the Ottoman society toward the child, youngster and their education had a feature of being religious and traditional. For example, in Sultan Mahmut the Second's edict which made elementary education mandatory, the reason to make elementary education mandatory was cited as children's need to first learn their religion. In the Tanzimat (Reformation) period which started in 1839, the views that see the families' and the state's educational duties as only religious and traditional started to weaken, and these duties were started to be considered from the aspect of their responsibility toward children and the society. This development was rooted on several statesmen's, authors' and educationists' self-criticism and recognition of societies' lack of knowledge and having stayed backward, and seeing this traditional view of education as a primary reason for the state's decline. From the political aspect, in this period, the ideal of being "Ottoman" was attempted to be infused in children and youngsters of the day. This was to be achieved in schools. Namık Kemal's following thoughts in this topic are of utmost importance: "If children from various races and ethnicities are educated together in schools, in time, the desired fusion of peoples in the nation can be achieved. This may be resembled to the impossibility of separating out trees whose saplings have grown together embracing each other..." A very important transformation toward children and teenagers in the pre-republic period was seen in the second Mesrutiyet period which started in 1908. The central aspect of this transformation, which was especially caused by defeat in the Balkan Wars in 1912-1913, was: The defeat of the Ottomans against smaller Balkan countries was attributed to the prevalent ignorance in the Ottoman society and the high value placed at being civil servants for the state. According to the intellectuals who violently criticized the society as well as themselves, education should stop pursuing the goal of developing civil servants; it should instead focus on science, art, technology, trade ... and produce specialists and entrepreneurs who can be successful in these areas. However, as a result of wars and social tragedies in this period new regulations in education could not be realized. Despite this, the second Mesrutiyet period, due to various ideological discussions and arguments became a laboratory for the Republic era. Since the Ottomans, some state administrators have been very influential in transformations in education as well as transformations in society through education. The foremost of these is Atatürk. Having spent his entire educational life in the last period of the Ottoman Empire, he keenly observed the educational roots of the collapse of the Ottoman state. Atatürk attributed this collapse primarily to the education system which trained non-nationalistic, passive individuals, and that which did not aim to develop knowledge and behaviors necessary for life. He desired the Republic to have a completely different system of education and he gave the responsibility of upbringing virtuous, hardworking, active, nationalistic generations to the teachers. He wanted education to be national as well as scientific. With the Unification of Education Law in 1924, revolution of the alphabet in 1928, and revolutions of mixed education and women's rights in those years, very significant transformations transpired in both educational and social life. Atatürk also set a goal for all of us to advance our nation to a level above the western civilization.

DIN-U DEVLET ALL OVER AGAIN? THE POLITICS OF MILITARY SECULARISM AND RELIGIOUS MILITARISM IN TURKEY FOLLOWING THE 1980 COUP

2002 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Religious Parties ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Guardian ◽  
Two Sides

Current discussions on the political developments in Turkey frequently frame the struggles between the military and religious parties as a war between secularism and Islam and draw out incommensurable differences between the two sides. Indeed, the military establishment, which casts itself as the guardian of the secular republic, succeeded in 1997 in having the Supreme Court ban the Welfare Party, the first openly religious party ever to form a government in the Turkish Republic. The generals justified this seemingly undemocratic move by claiming that that this party was trying to reinstate the sacred shari[ayin]a law.

Pens, Politics, and Swords

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Ricketts
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Military Reform ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Army Officers ◽  
The Military ◽  
Institutional Order

The final chapter discusses in parallel the political histories of Spain and Peru in the final years of imperial rule in South America. Peru did not experience a long national struggle and lacked large elites committed to independence. As in the old metropolis, a constant and violent struggle between men of letters and military officers dominated. After decades of military reform and war, army officers with experience in command and government felt entitled to rule. Old subjects and new citizens were also accustomed to seeing them lead. Men of letters, on the other hand, found limited opportunities to exercise their new authority despite their ambitions. Additionally, both in Spain and Peru, liberal men of letters failed to create a new institutional order in which the military would be subjected to civilian rule. It would take decades for both parts of the former Spanish monarchy to accomplish that goal and allow for peace.

Turkey: The Rise and Fall of the Influence of the Military in Politics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Acar Kutay
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The continued influence of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) on politics characterized the political history of the Turkish Republic, until such influence was first bridled and then ultimately broken by the Justice and Development Party governments during the 2000s. When the new regime was established in 1923, the military identified itself with its founding ideology, namely Kemalism, which was built on the ideas of modernism, secularism, and nationalism. Because the TAF assumed the roles of guardian of the regime and vanguard of modernization, any threat to the foundational values and norms of the republican regime was considered by the military as a threat to the constitutional order and national security. As a self-authorized guardian of the regime and its values, the TAF characterized itself as a non-partisan institution. The military appealed to such identity to justify the superiority of the moral and epistemological foundations of their understanding of politics compared with that of the elected politicians. The military invoked such superiority not only to intervene in politics and take power (1960, 1971, 1980, 1997, and 2007). They also used such identity to monitor and control political processes by means of the National Security Council (established after the 1960 military intervention) and by more informal means such as mobilizing the public against the elected government’s policy choices. In the context of the Cold War, domestic turmoil and lasting political polarization helped legitimate the military’s control over security issues until the 1980s. After the end of the Cold War, two threats to national security drew the TAF into politics: the rising power of Islamic movements and the separatist terrorism of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which posed threats to the constitutional order. Turkey’s EU membership bid is one of the most important aspects that bridled the influence of the TAF on politics. Whereas the democratic oversight of the military and security sector constituted a significant dimension of the EU reforms, events that took place around the nomination of the Justice and Development Party’s candidate, Abdullah Gül, for the presidency created a rupture in the role and influence of the military on politics. Two juristic cases against members of the TAF in 2008 and 2010 made a massive impact on the power of the military, before the ultimate supremacy of the political sphere was established after the coup attempt organized by the Gülenist officers who infiltrated the TAF during the 2000s.

scholarly journals Issues of Complementing the Political and Civic Culture in the Conditions of the Democratic Transition of the Republic of Armenia

wisdom ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 172-181
Author(s):  
Mariam MARGARYAN ◽  
Marine MOVSISYAN
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Civic Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Effective Development ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Relationship

In this article, the authors have investigated the issues of complementarity of political and civic cultures in the Republic of Armenia and the importance of participation in their effective development. It has been stated that in the conditions of a democratic transition, participatory democracy can be false or marginal in nature, due to which it can be perceived as irresponsible freedom, but the reality is different. The mani­pu­lative and philosophical bases of participation were also studied. It has been substantiated the approach that in the absence of a consolidation, the new democratic space formed due to the active participation of the masses does not solve the problem of political stability, but on the contrary, deepens the crises of poli­tical development. It emphasizes that the effectiveness of the process of overcoming crises in the condi­ti­ons of democratic transition of the Republic of Armenia requires scientific-analytical management based on the principles of consolidation, the professionalism of the strategic elites; especially after the “Velvet Revoluti?n”. The relationship between democracy and demarchy were also studied.

Potholes in the Democratic Road, 1936–1958

Iraq ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeed Dawisha
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Army Officers ◽  
The Military ◽  
Political Scene ◽  
Ideas And Institutions

This chapter analyzes political developments in Iraq from 1936 to 1958. Any growth of democratic ideas and institutions that had been achieved earlier came to an abrupt halt in 1936 following the military coup. Army officers, custodians of political power between 1936 and 1941, cared little, if at all, about democratic institutions and practices. They were succeeded by civilian governments, openly abetted by the Palace, which systematically interfered in the workings of the country's supposed representative institutions. Political parties and groupings operating within the straitjacket of military government and martial law had all but disappeared from the political scene. And successive governments made certain to emasculate Parliament of even the flimsiest pretense of independence and impartiality.

Money and politics: the fate of British business in the new Turkish Republic

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-38
Author(s):  
Kate Fleet
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
First World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Financial Control ◽  
British Government ◽  
World War ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

AbstractThis article examines the relations between the Ankara government and British financial circles in the period between the collapse of the Ottoman empire at the end of the First World War and the establishment of the new Turkish Republic in 1923. Highlighting the difficulties experienced by British business interests due to the political stance of the British government, it also calls into question the ability of such business circles to operate effectively within the new Turkey and demonstrates the new line adopted by the nationalists to British capital and to foreign financial control in the new Republic.

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