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Nation in the Making

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The State and Kurds in Turkey

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Abstract

The Young Turks did not attempt to mold a new identity for the people.1 Consequently, the society that the Republic inherited had hardly a notion of Turkish identity.2 Until the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, there was no name for Turkey in Turkish. The National Pact drawn up in February 1920 by the last Ottoman Chamber of Deputies to express the will of the people to regain their independence, mentioned neither ‘Turkey’ nor ‘Turk’; it merely made reference to the areas inhabited by the Ottoman Muslim majority, which were considered as ‘united in religion, race, and aim’.3 Two months later, in a speech he made at Parliament, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk4, founder of the Turkish Republic, did use the word ‘Türkiye’ (‘Turkey’ in Turkish).5 The word ‘Türkiye’, however, was first used as the official name of the homeland in 1921.6 The founders of the Republic refrained from using the name of the dominant ethnic group.7

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Nation in the Making

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bilkent University, Turkey

    Metin Heper (Professor of Politics)

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  1. Metin Heper
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© 2007 Metin Heper

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Heper, M. (2007). Nation in the Making. In: The State and Kurds in Turkey. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230593602_5

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