WHAT SPIRIT DOES NURETTİN TOPÇU’S“SPIRITUAL ANATOLIAN SOCIALISM” CONTAIN?

Abstract

Nurettin Topçu, who is considered as one of the few original thinkers of the recent Turkish thought, reveals a systematic of thought with an idealistic character by placing morality at the center of his intellectual adventure. Topçu, sharply criticizes the current political economy of the period in which he lived. Topçu wanted to develop a moral economic-political theory centered on the Anatolian geography. Topçu expresses this model with concepts such as spiritualist socialism and Anatolian socialism. A discussion on Topçu and his ideas requires a different perspective that goes beyond the conventional scheme. The present study aims to contribute to the topic of socialism, which is an important topic of discussion in Topçu’s journey of thought, by bringing up a memoir-text, which is an important document about Topçu and published in a local magazine for the first time. In the study, the main question of the discussion is where the emphasis on socialism stands in Topçu’s general thought system, and whether the interest in socialism is an integral part of Topçu’s thought system. Ultimately, Topçu’s spiritualist-Anatolian socialism takes its formation from his own intellectual adventure and seems to consist of a critique of the elites of his time. In the study, it was concluded that Topçu’s socialism had an Islamic spirit shaped by the tradition of Anatolia’s mystical wisdom and at the same time consisted of a very modern protest attitude that included criticisms of the period in which he lived.