Hale Yılmaz, Becoming Turkish: Nationalist Reforms and Cultural Negotiations in Early Republican Turkey, 1923-1945

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Becoming Turkish is a social history of the nationalist reforms implemented in the early
Turkish Republic from the birth of the state in 1923 through the establishment of a two party
system of government in 1945. The author presents the personal experiences of a wide array of
Turkish citizens and their varied perceptions, evolving ideas, and utilitarian coping mechanisms
formed in response to Kemalist reforms. In addition, she shows the agency of citizenship
through primary sources such as petitions and letters that seemingly influenced government
decisions. Not focusing on the resistance or suppression of the Kemalist reforms, Yılmaz
employs oral histories, letters, and archival data to reveal diverse reactions that did not simply
fall into two polarizing choices of brutal resistance or absolute acceptance. The uneven and
incomplete way in which new Turkish citizens experienced and perceived the four areas of
reform detailed by Yılmaz was mirrored by legislative and governmental inconsistencies in the
implementation and interpretation of these laws. The four reforms used to explore “state-society
relations” in the early Turkish Republic include: “men’s clothing, women’s clothing, language,
and national celebrations.” The author exemplifies how Turks from various economic, cultural,
and demographic categories converged with the state in “meeting grounds” and how “dialogue
between the state and society” shows a true reflection of how Turks lived and experienced these
reforms.

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