scholarly journals The Ethnic Minority Policy of Turkey

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-285
Author(s):  
Mariam Ashotovna Dashyan ◽  
Andrey A. Kudelin

This article is an overview of the state stance and attitude towards minorities throughout history of the republic of Turkey. It represents the official approach of the republic towards ethnic and religious groups. Though due to actions of the Ottoman Empire, the number of non-Turks in the republic of Turkey already was incomparably small, however their existence could not be ignored. Still Turkey recognizes only three minorities (Greeks, Armenians, and Jews) and for decades adopted the strategy of regarding all minority persons other than Greeks, Armenians, and Jews as Turks. Ethnic variety was considered a threat to territorial integrity of Turkey. Every action was directed to create a unitary nation-state suppressing ethnic identities of non-Turks. In this article state policy towards ethnic groups in the republic of Turkey is examined from the perspective of the Lausanne Treaty provisions and legislative regulations regarding the status and rights of minorities showing to what extent authorities have followed them and rising the controversial points minority representatives face in exercising their rights.

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-177
Author(s):  
Didem Havlioğlu

Since the 1950s, historiographical trends in scholarship have re-considered the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent nation-state building of the Republic of Turkey. The social and political evolution of the imperial system into a nation-state has been alternatively explained through geopolitical pressures, domestic resistance, the expanding economy and modernism in Europe, and the inability of the Ottoman establishment to cope with the rapid changes of the nineteenth century. Constructing one holistic narrative of a vast time period of upheaval is a difficult endeavor for any scholar. In the case of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the Republic of Turkey, ethno-religious networks, two world wars, geopolitical competition between the great powers, regional and pan-regional insurgencies, demographic displacement, nationalist fervor sweeping through the Balkan and Arab provinces and into Anatolia, and finally the Kurdish armed resistance renders succinct historical narratives all but impossible to achieve. Thus, while there are many stories of the end of the Ottoman Empire, an overview of the issues for students and general audiences is a much needed, but audacious, undertaking. Yet for understanding the Middle East and Southeastern Europe today, a critical narrative must be told in all its complexity.


Author(s):  
Wendy Shaw

Held in Istanbul between 1916 and 1951, the Galatasaray Exhibitions were the first annual exhibitions of art established in the Ottoman Empire, remaining an important cultural event during the single-party era of the Republic of Turkey, founded in 1923. During the Great War in Europe, when the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers and the citizens of Entente nations left, many vacated spaces in Istanbul opened to new uses. One of these was the Italian Societa Operaia, which became the dormitory for the nearby Lycée de Galatasaray. Beginning in 1916, the main hall of this dormitory was leased every summer for an annual exhibit, which came to be known as the Galatasaray Exhibitions. Works shown at the inaugural exhibit were naturalist paintings, reflecting no awareness of contemporary modernist movements—a situation that later changed with the development of the modern nation-state of Turkey. The exhibit was juried but open to all artists, and visitors were charged admission. Several works at the 1916 exhibit received prizes from the Ministry of Education and were subsequently purchased as part of the Collection of Decorated Panels, established under the auspices of the Imperial Academy of Fine Art, which included copies of many famous European paintings.


Author(s):  
Nikolay P. Goroshkov

The article analyzes how the personality of the first president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, is reflected in contemporary Turkish art. This year marks exactly 140 years since his birth. To his achievements in the military and political arenas, cultural figures have dedicated many works in the visual arts, architecture, literature and cinema.  The trace of the first president of the Republic of Turkey remained in the works of both his contemporaries and in the works of authors today. Creativity is multifaceted, inspiration has no boundaries, along with them, culture was freed from prohibitions with the beginning of a new page in the history of the country. Her achievements became available to more people, the opportunity to touch the spiritual life and create it opened up along with the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Pasha to wide layers of the population. Immortal works have preserved for posterity the image of the father of the Turkish nation, and a characteristic feature of these works is the author's personal admiration for the deeds of Gazi. This undoubtedly leaves its mark on the work and the way in which a person is shown in the context of history, who took fate and the entire people into his own hands, mired in political, economic, cultural crises. But before giving an answer to the question "Who are you, Father of the Turks?", it is important, in our opinion, briefly to draw attention to the historical retrospective of the development of Turkish culture under the influence of the policy of two states that appeared, flourished and fell into decay on the peninsula of Asia Minor. The article briefly examines some of the features of the cultural policy of the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the first years of the republic.


2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Edyta Radzewicz

The Irish Travellers, a native, traditionally migratory group, were recently accorded formal recognition in the Republic of Ireland, ending more than three decades of political negation of Traveller ethnicity by the Irish authorities. Awarding the Travellers the status of ethnic minority should lead to changes in state policy, which previously perceived the Travellers and their way of life in terms of a social problem; above all, there should now be hope for a new, more equal social position for the Travellers in today’s increasingly diverse Ireland. The author discusses the mobilization of the Irish Travellers and the circumstances of their being awarded ethnic minority status. She also considers the Travellers’ attitudes to the question, on the basis of her own field work conducted among the Traveller community in Galway in western Ireland.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 587-603
Author(s):  
Erdal Aslan ◽  
Oguz Serin

Education and training in the first year of the Republic had been kept as it was in the period of Empire with its former structure and content. The educational system and programs could be designed after the “Canon for the Unity of Education and Training” in 1924. The first curriculums of the primary and secondary schools have formed by modification on the latest programs of primary and secondary schools of the Ottoman Empire. The object of the research is to determine what kind of transformation has become on the “science education for primary schools” For this purpose, both the last curriculum program for “Mekatib-i İbtidaiyye” (The primary schools in Ottoman Empire)and the latest curriculum program for “İlk Mektepler” (Primary Schools in the Republic of Turkey) are examined by comparison. It is proved that “science education in primary education” had gone into a transformation after commenting on the findings obtained from the comparison of the programs and assessments in the publications on the history of education. The curriculum for “science education” in the first program which was approved by the Republic of Turkey is given by transliteration to the Latin alphabet The study has a feature that has important contribution for the future researches on “science education” in the Era of the Empire and The Era of the Republic with this aspect.  Keywords: Science Education in Primary Schools, Science Education in the Ottoman Empire, the First Science Curriculum of the Republic, History of the Turkish Education. 


Islamovedenie ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-33
Author(s):  
Hasanli Elchin Abbas oglu ◽  

The article examines the history of religious education in Azerbaijan, its place and role in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. In Soviet times, many mosques were closed in Azerbaijan, as in other socialist republics, and religious education was controlled by the state. Starting in the 1940s, the Soviet regime's attitude towards religions, including Islam, began to soften, and some closed mosques were allowed to operate. In Soviet times, there were 17 mosques in Azerbaijan. At the end of the 20th century, after Azerbaijan gained independence, mosques and religious ed-ucational institutions were re-opened, and a number of fundamental laws regulating the activities of Islamic educational institutions were adopted. In this regard, the article reflects educational activities of Islamic institutions currently operating in the country. The activities of the Republic of Turkey to establish a network of religious educational institutions in Baku and other regions are particularly noted. The author considers it inappropriate to leave religious education outside state control, since various radical religious groups may use it for their political purposes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Filiz Meşeci-Giorgetti

The purpose of this study is to determine how the educational rituals changed over the time from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey. This study confines Turkish educational rituals to the rituals Goffman (1967) conceptualized as interaction rituals. Interaction rituals are micro daily events and behaviours, including gestures and facial expressions, clothes and symbols, that safeguard the definition and the holiness of the authority, and therefore act as the differentiator. This paper reveals that as education was modernized and institutionalized in Turkey, the relationship between the student and the teacher became more distant. The hierarchical gap between the student and the teacher became more visible through educational interaction rituals, and the role of the teacher changed within the Republic, from religious authority to soldier citizen.


Itinerario ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Herzstein

The origin of the Saint-Joseph University of Beirut, or USJ, dates back to the Seminar of Ghazir founded by the Jesuit Fathers in 1843. The College of Ghazir, established with the intention of training the local Maronite clergy, was transferred to Beirut in 1875. This centre for higher studies was named Saint-Joseph University. In his audience of 25 February 1881, Pope Leo XIII conferred the title of Pontifical University on the USJ.This article deals with the history of the USJ, the first great French-speaking Jesuit institution in the area which, at the time, bore the name of “Syria”. (The term Syria is used henceforth to represent the geographical entity of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which includes Syria and Lebanon of the present.) The underlying reasons for the creation of Saint-Joseph University of Beirut have to do with its being located in a province of the Ottoman Empire coveted by the future mandatory power, France. By the 1870s, the Ottoman Empire was being preserved chiefly by the competition between the European powers, all of whom wanted chunks of it. The Ottoman territory, like the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, encompassed a great many ethnic groups whose own nationalism was also stirring. Under Ottoman rule, the region of the Levant developed economic and religious ties with Europe. Open to the West, it became a hotbed of political strife between various foreign nations including France, Russia and Britain. These powerful countries assumed the protection of certain ethnic and religious groups, with France supporting the Christian Maronites and Britain supporting the Druzes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mbuzeni Mathenjwa

The history of local government in South Africa dates back to a time during the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. With regard to the status of local government, the Union of South Africa Act placed local government under the jurisdiction of the provinces. The status of local government was not changed by the formation of the Republic of South Africa in 1961 because local government was placed under the further jurisdiction of the provinces. Local government was enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa arguably for the first time in 1993. Under the interim Constitution local government was rendered autonomous and empowered to regulate its affairs. Local government was further enshrined in the final Constitution of 1996, which commenced on 4 February 1997. The Constitution refers to local government together with the national and provincial governments as spheres of government which are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated. This article discusses the autonomy of local government under the 1996 Constitution. This it does by analysing case law on the evolution of the status of local government. The discussion on the powers and functions of local government explains the scheme by which government powers are allocated, where the 1996 Constitution distributes powers to the different spheres of government. Finally, a conclusion is drawn on the legal status of local government within the new constitutional dispensation.


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