Atatürk's Reforms: Realization of a Utopia by a Realist

Özet

Abdullah Cevdet, a well-known Turkish writer of thebeginning of the century, believed, as did many others, that"There is no second civilization; civilization means Europeancivilization, and it must be imported with batlı its roses andthorns".1According to him, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire hadto abandon the policy of "half-way" borrowings and try toadopt so-called Western civilization. In other words, Turkeyhad no other way out, but to integrate herself thoroughly intoEuropean civilization. A series of articles (**) that appearedin his periodical İçtihad in 1912 under the title "A Very WakefulSleep" (Pek Uyanık Bir Uyku), described a visionary view ofthe future for the country that certainly must have appearedfantastic to his contemporaries. The reverie contained such revolutionary novelties as :