Politics and the Peasantry in Post-War Turkey Social History, Culture and Modernization

by Yildirmaz, Sinan

• ISBN13: 9781780761138
• ISBN10: 1780761139
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-04-30
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

When the Ottoman Empire collapsed following the First World War, the feudal system which had survived untouched in much of Anatolia began to change. Kemal Atatürk's task of building a nation 'from the people up' meant that the peasantry, by far Turkey's largest ethnographic group, became an important symbol of social cohesion. Here, Sinan Yildirmaz analyses the history of modern Turkey through the material culture of this peasantry – their speeches, social club documents, art and diaries – and reveals a rich social and political life which flowered after the Second World War. Politics and the Peasantry in Post-War Turkey is the first history to show how the changing peasantry laid the foundations for the modern Turkish state, and will be essential reading for students and scholars of the Ottoman Empire and of the History of Modern Turkey.

Author Biography

Sinan Yildirmaz is Assistant Professor of History at Istanbul University and an expert on the cultural history of Modern Turkey.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents:
Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION
II. PEASANTS IN THEORY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL
SOCIOLOGY IN TURKEY
Modernization Theory and the Peasantry
The Development of 'Rural Sociology' in Turkey
III. PEASANTS MOVING TOWARDS CITIES:
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE RURAL STRUCTURE, RURAL MIGRATION AND THE GECEKONDU
The Change in Economic Policies in the Post-War Period Capitalism, Modernization and Urbanization
The Land Reform Law, the Marshall Plan, the Smallholder Peasantry and Migration
The Reasons for the Rural Migration, or Is It Possible to Create a Stereotype in the Analysis of the Rural Migration?
The Peasants in the Cities and the Invention of the 'Gecekondu'
IV. PEASANTRY AS AN ACTIVE COMPONENT OF POLITICS
The Arslanköy Case and the Development of the Rule of Law
The Peasants and Politics during the DP Government
The Village Coffeehouse as a Political Space
The Peasants and Anti-Communism
V. THE MAKING OF THE 'VILLAGE LITERATURE'
Defining the Village Literature
History in the Village Literature
The Making of the Village Literature Canon
From the 'Reality' of the Literature to the 'Reality' of the Country
VI. CONCLUSION