![]() ![]() ![]() It is the job of the elites, therefore, to receive a cultural education from the people and use it to introduce civilization into their lives. He then divides societies into “elites” and “the people”, claiming that the former understand “civilization”, while the latter bring “culture” to the table. Turkey, on the other hand, will be positioned for success if it situates itself entirely within Western civilization. Defining a nation as “composed of individuals who share a common language, religion, morality and aesthetics, that is to say, who have received the same education”, Gökalp proceeds to outline a program of Turkism intended to bring Turkey into modernity and make it a significant player on the global scene.Īfter wading through some definitional issues, Gökalp engages in a discussion about the failures of Ottomanism, which culminates in the argument that a “nation is either Eastern or Western” and that the empire’s Tanzimat reforms could never have achieved success because they refused to let go of Eastern civilization. ![]() ![]() Published one year before his death, today it stands as a framing document for Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s development of modern Turkey and as a rallying call and philosophical foundation for Turkish nationalism. Ziya Gökalp’s The Principles of Turkism is, in essence, a collection of the teachings and philosophies that the author had espoused over the course of his life. ![]()
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