Cultural and Historical Development of Turkey

Although Turkey is an ancient land dating back to the Hittites (2000 to 1200 B.C.) and the Greeks (4th to 2nd centuries B.C.) and has been the scene of innumerable wars and the seat of several empires, the present day nation owes most of its charac­ter to the revolutionary changes introduced by a group of western-minded reformers under the leadership of Kemal Ataturk in the early 1920s.

Before that, the country had been the centerpiece of a vast Byzantine Empire and the bulwark of Eastern Orthodox Christianity with its great capital Constantinople that lasted for several centuries as a successor to the Ro­man Empire until it succumbed to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

The Ottomans es­tablished an impressive empire across much of the region for more than four centuries, but by the early 20th century it had become a major figure on the Euro­pean chessboard. Finally, the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of World War I. The new government under the dy­namic leadership of Ataturk (“father of the Turks”) quickly set up a strong, responsi­ble, and democratic administration in 1923 and set in motion a host of legislative meas­ures that pushed the nation on a path of westernization and modernization. The administration reduced the dominant cul­tural influence of Islam where it hampered economic and political progress.

The cus­tom of purdah where the women were for­bidden to show their faces in public and permitted only to appear heavily veiled outside the home, and denied education or social intercourse, was outlawed. Men were required to shave off their beards, and were prohibited from wearing a fez. Emphasis was placed on a secular state and society. In 1928, a modified Latin alphabet replaced the Arabic script.

The old Muslim law was replaced by a western legal code. The new western identity was demon­strated by the admittance of women to the national parliament. The capital of the na­tion was moved from Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) to a more secure, in­terior location at Ankara, symbolic of the nation’s new identity.

The modern republic, however, re­tains much of the Muslim heritage, but has been more successful than many other na­tions in keeping religious fundamentalism separated from the political process. With all the attempts to be modern, there is still interest in the ancient glories of the Hit­tites as the founders of the nation.

The moving of the nation’s capital from Con­stantinople to Ankara represents the national pride in a symbolic break-away from the past. Emphasizing its own distinctive iden­tity apart from the Arab culture, Turkey has reduced its formerly close ties with the Arab world, and strengthened its cultural, political, and economic ties with the West.

Culturally, the country is perhaps more European than Asian. It is a member of NATO and an associate member (and eventual candidate for full membership) of the European Community. The country continues to retain geopolitical signifi­cance because of its control of the Straits, although free passage through the Straits is recognized by international agreements (the Straits are closed to warships).

Culturally and ethnically Turkey is now quite homogeneous, and the Turk­ish language is dominant. Most of the minorities—Greeks, Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians (Nestarians), and Circassians— left the country following the century-old local fighting or were liquidated. Follow­ing the Greco-Turkish war of 1922, most Greeks migrated to Greece; most of the Armenians were eliminated from Turkish Armenia (adjacent to the Armenian state, formerly a part of the USSR); and the Kurds are being assimilated.

Turks now form nearly 86 percent of the population. The Kurds are the largest minority repre­senting about 10 percent of the people, but residing primarily in Kurdistan, the moun­tainous region in the southeastern corner of the country adjacent to Iraq and Iran. They are essentially nomadic people, dis­tinct from the Turks in speech and culture. Their identity is being eroded by legal sanctions despite their fierce resistance.

The Arabs account for 16 percent of the population and live mostly along the Syr­ian border. The Aegean coast was predominantly Greek before 1923, but most Greeks moved back to Greece in ex­change for Turkish minorities transferred from Greece to Turkey. The Carcassian, Turkmen, and Georgians are other smaller minorities.