Kemalism

Question 1

Background

Answer 1

• Treaty of Sevres 1920
• Grand National Assembly formed 1920
• 1922 Turkish Republic formed
• 1923 Treaty of Lausanne
• 1923 Republican People’s Party founded

Question 2

Reforms: Turkification

Answer 2

• Turkish language and alphabet adopted 1928
• Turkish Historical Society founded 1931
• Turkish exclusivity

Question 3

Reforms: Secularism

Answer 3

• March 1923 law of the unification and thus secularisation of education
• Shari’a courts aboloished in April 1924
• Civil Code 1926
• Gregorian calendar adopted 1926 instead of Islamic

Question 4

Reforms: Political

Answer 4

• 1926 Law of the Maintenance order, banning all dissident groups and newspapers. 660 executed as a result
• 1935 RPP passed resolution uniting state and party as one

Question 5

Reforms: women

Answer 5

• 1925 change of headgear and dress
• 1926 Civil Code: polygamy illegal, equal divorce rights, euqal inheritance rights
• 1934 full political rights and voting for women
• However Kemal dissolved Turkish Women’s Union in 1935

Question 6

Failure: minorities

Answer 6

• Early 1920 Kurdish revolt led by Sufi Shaykh Sia of Piran
• 1925 Turkish gov sent 50,000 troops to crush revolt
• 1937 Kurdish revolt heavily put down
• Prejudice against the 120,000 Armenians still residing in Istanbul, only received basic citizenship rights
• Mass firing of non-turks in 1920s

Question 7

Historiography

Answer 7

• William Cleveland argues that roots in the Tanzimat
• Hobsbawm talks about Invented Traditions
• Soner Cagaptay, that nationalism was based on Turkish race