Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gokalp

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Ziya Gökalp

Ziya Gökalp (born Mehmed Ziya; March 23, 1876, Çermik, Diyarbakır Province-October 25, 1924, Istanbul) was a Turkish sociologist, writer, poet, and political activist. In 1908, after the Young Turk revolution, he adopted the pen name Gökalp ("sky hero"), which he retained for the rest of his life. As a sociologist, Ziya Gökalp was influential in the overhaul of religious perceptions and evolving of Turkish nationalism.

Gökalp's work was particularly influential in shaping the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; his influence figured prominently in the development of Kemalism, and its legacy in the modern Republic of Turkey. Influenced by contemporary European thought, Gökalp rejected Ottomanism and Islamism in favor of Turkish nationalism. He advocated a Turkification of the Ottoman Empire, by imposing the Turkish language and culture onto all the citizenry. His thought, which popularized Pan-Turkism and Turanism, has been described as a "cult of nationalism and modernization". His nationalist ideals espoused a de-identification with Ottoman Turkey's Muslim neighbors, in lieu of a supernational Turkish (or pan-Turkic) identity with "a territorial Northeast-orientation [to] Turkish speaking peoples"

The Principles of Turkism

His 1923 The Principles of Turkism, published just a year prior to his death, outlines the expansive nationalist identity he had long popularized in his teachings and poetry. The nationalism he espouses entails "a nation [that] is not a racial or ethnic or geographic or political or volitional group but one composed of individuals who share a common language, religion, morality, and aesthetics, that is to say, who have received the same education."

He proceeds to lay out the three echelons of pan-Turkist identity that he envisions:
the Turks in the Republic of Turkey, a nation according to cultural and other criteria;
the Oghuz Turks, referring also to the Turkmens of Azerbayjan, Iran and Khwarizm who... essentially have one common culture which is the same as that of the Turks of Turkey—all these four forming Oghuzistan;
more distant, Turkic-speaking peoples, such as the Yakuts, Kirghiz, Uzbeks, Kipchaks and Tatars, possessed of a traditional linguistic and ethnic unity, having affinity—but not identity—with the Turkish culture.

The second stage was "Oghuzism", and the final stage would be the "Turanism" that he and other nationalist poets had been promoting since before World War I. While this broad conception of "Turkishness", of pan-Turkism, often embraced what Gökalp perceived to be ethnic commonality, he did not disparage other races, as some of his pan-Turkist successors later did.

Legacy

Gökalp has been characterized as "the father of Turkish nationalism", and even "the Grand Master of Turkism". His thought figured prominently in the political landscape of the Republic of Turkey, which emerged from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire around the time of his death. His influence resonated in diverse ways. For instance, his Principles of Turkism had contended that Ottoman classical music was Byzantine in origin; this led to the state briefly banning Ottoman classical music from the radio in the 1930s, because Turkish folk music alone "represented the genius of the nation".

For popularizing pan-Turkism and Turanism, Gökalp has been viewed alternately as being racist and expansionist, and anti-racist and anti-expansionist. These opposite readings of his legacy are not easily divisible into proponents and detractors, as racist and fascist elements in Turkey (such as the "Nationalist Action Party") have appropriated his work to contend that he supported a physical realization of Turanism, rather than a mere ideological pan-Turkist kinship.Some readings of Gökalp contend, to the contrary, that his Turanism and pan-Turkism were linguistic and cultural models,ideals from which a post-Ottoman identity could be derived, rather than a militant call for the physical expansion of the Republic of Turkey. Guenter Lewy writes that "practically all interpreters of Gökalp's thought stress that his notion of Turan or Turanism did not involve any expansionist plans".

For espousing a "homogeneous nation" and rejecting minority rights and minority identity, Gökalp has often been associated with the Armenian Genocide. Historian James Reid has asserted that "What Wagner was to Hitler, Gökalp was to Enver Pasha." Gökalp's writing has more recently figured in nationalist discourse in regards to Turkey's Kurdish minority. Turkish nationalist academics have cited Gökalp in contending "there is no such thing as the Kurdish people".

Works

Principles of Turkism
History of Turkish Civilization
Kızılelma (poems)
Turkism, Islamism and Modernism
History of Kurdish Tribes (Kürt Aşiretleri Hakkında Sosyolojik Tetkikler)

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