Becoming Turkish: National Reforms and Cultural Negotiations in Early Republican Turkey, 1923-1945

HALE YILMAZ, Becoming Turkish: National Reforms and Cultural Negotiations in Early Republican Turkey, 1923-1945 (Syracuse University Press, 2013). Pp. 328. $ 39.95 cloth.Studies of the Republic of Turkey have tended to be "macro histories" of the new regime. In such studies, authors have examined the life of its founder, the role of the army, the Republican People's Party, the constitution of the new state, its parliament, laicism (secularism) and the new legal system, to mention some of the principal areas. Hale Yilmaz has chosen to focus her doctoral thesis, now the book under review, on how ordinary people experienced the process of what came to be known as the Kemalist reforms. "This book," she writes, "explores the ways in which the meaning of the Kemalist reforms was negotiated between individuals, communities, and the state" (p. 1). In short, the book is an attempt to study the society, culture, and politics of Republican society in the years from 1923 to 1945. To achieve her goal, she focuses her analysis on "men's clothing, women's clothing, language, and national celebrations" (p. 2).Before Hale Yilmaz gets on to these topics she discusses the question of whether the Republic of Turkey was marked by continuity with the Ottoman Empire and society or a complete break. While she doesn't see what the Kemalists did as a revolution, she is not on the side of those who argue for continuity either. "I see not a total break...but at least a partial break or rupture after 1922...." (p. 5). Hers is also a surprising position given that the Kemalists chose to establish a nation, and not a dynastic state envisaged by the Palace. They abolished the dynasty and exiled all members of the Ottoman family, and theyabolished the caliphate, which they had to do in order to carry out all the secularizing reforms that followed. The revolution was the foundation on which the reforms were built: no revolution no reforms, not even in clothing, language, or festivals.It is also worth emphasizing that the Kemalists described the republic they established as "the Republic of Turkey" and not the Turkish Republic; the assembly was called the "Grand National Assembly of Turkey," a practice that continues to the present. That followed the Ankara Assembly's adoption of the National Pact of Misak-i Milli on 17 February 1920. The meaning was clear: the nation to be created required a territorial reference. Four days later the Hakimiyet- (21 February 1920) published an article clarifying the intentions of the Assembly: The borders established by the armistice lines defined nationalism; all those who lived within these borders-not just Turks-were members of the nation. The Republic was to be "inclusive" with a nationalism based not on ethnicity but on territorial patriotism.When she begins analyzing "Dressing the Nation's Citizens" in chapter 1, Hale Yilmaz's book assumes true originality, discussing men's clothing reform, its acceptance by the people as well as resistance to it. …