YÖN JOURNAL AND İLHAN SELÇUK İN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF KEMALISM

Abstract

This study focuses on the problem of how Kemalism was reinterpreted in İlhan Selçuk's articles published in the journal Yön in the sixties. Kemalism is the name of the system of ideas that founded the Turkish Republic and built the modern Turkish nation. The dominant position of Kemalism in the Turkish thought system has led it to be evaluated within the framework of different interpretations and meanings. Especially the beginning of the Cold War and its transformative role in the Turkish politics have led to the emergence of different meanings of Kemalism. Yön journal, which forms the conceptual framework of the current study, is a leftist journal that reinterpreted Kemalism in the sixties and brought together the important intellectuals of the period. In this study, in which content analysis forms the methodological framework, the articles published by İlhan Selçuk between the years 1961-1965, which corresponds to the first period of the journal Yön, are examined. Three elements stand out in the reinterpretation of Kemalism in these articles: ideology, identity and method. As an ideology, it is seen that Kemalism is defined as a socialist nationalism inherent in anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism. As an identity, right-wing movements and ideologies are positioned as the other against Kemalism. The method, on the other hand, is a counter-revolution emphasis adorned with democracy skepticism and the vigorous forces that are the actor that will realize it. As a result, Selçuk constructs the left interpretation of Kemalism in the literature with the ideological and identity approach in his writings, and draws a strategy of gaining power over it with the method.