Top hat, grey wolf, and crescent

de Hugh Poulton

The Republic of Turkey is a country of crucial importance bridging the Balkans and the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Despite its population of over 60 million being overwhelmingly Muslim, it has since its inception been ostensibly a secular state governed according to the precepts of its founder Kemal Ataturk. However, there have been and remain ideological challenges to Kemalism as well as deep divisions within the country between Islamists and secularists; Sunnis and Alevis (Shias); and Turks and Kurds. Essentially these divisions relate to competing claims over identity, and the nature of Turkish nationalism. While there have been studies in English on the beginnings of Turkish nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as studies of Pan-Turkism beyond Turkey, there have been few analyses of the state-sponsored nationalism of the Kemalist period, its rivals, and its evolution to the present day. This book aims to fill this notable gap.