Worshiping the Turk

Türke Tapmak Book Description Onur Atalay calls on the reader to re-evaluate the "spiritual" foundations on which the young republic would rise throughout the 1930s. The author discusses the specific weight of discourses, concepts and symbols in the process of formation of a common narrative around which the nation would be built, and how they were shaped in interaction with the totalitarian regimes of that time. Could civilization have taken over the place in minds that God used to occupy? Was science seen by the founding team as a magic wand that would turn the country into paradise? Did science, civilization or Turkishness have temples, mujahids, martyrs or even prophets? What kind of country panorama would emerge as a result of the gradual re-enchantment of secular concepts? Worshiping the Turk is the narrative of the "transfer of sanctity" from the universe of traditional religion to Kemalist concepts, and ultimately the rise of Kemalism as a civil religion, and even as an unfinished political religion... How the concepts of civilization, science, nation and eventually the chief were surrounded by the halo of holiness, Explaining how the "new man" of the Republic was fermented through them, and how the feeling of spiritual emptiness created by the break with the Ottomans and the traditional belief system was replaced in a different way, Atalay explains only the first years of the Republic of Turkey with his rich use of sources and meticulous research on the relationship between religion and politics. not (From the Promotional Bulletin)