Türkiye in its 100th Anniversary: Roots from the Foundations of Ottoman-Turkish Modernization to Modernism

Abstract

World modernization history and modern age has been the history and era of conflict, and clashes. All these are basically the contradiction between the “old” and the “new”; in other words, this history and era is the fight of the superstitious and fatalistic tradition and the contemporary. Because, it had been witnessed regularly that modernity would inevitably permeate every part of life. Therefore, religion-based tradition, sanctified tradition and traditionalized superstitions had been in direct conflict and conflict with modernity and modernization for centuries. The aim of this study is to reveal the main contexts of this modernism movement that reached the Turkish Republic, historically, socially and politically, by examining the foundations of Ottoman-Turkish modernization that started with the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz. As a matter of fact, the modernization of Republican Türkiye means being contemporary, secular encircling secularism and modernity are its most significant, outstanding and distinctive features. For this reason, Ottoman-Turkish modernism has been a modernization movement open to development and progress from the very beginning, and had reached its highest point, the secular contemporary level, with the Republic of Türkiye and Atatürk’s Revolutions and reforms. As a matter of fact, it is highly likely to see these rationality and developmental impulses, which are the origins of Turkish modernization, in its desire to constantly anticipate and adopt a social life that includes the requirements of the age and a social, political, economic and cultural characteristics compatible with them. Within the scope of the research methodology, this study mainly has adopted the qualitative research methodology, based on the deductive approach, and accordingly benefited from scientific research methods such as document analysis, content analysis, discourse analysis, grouping and comparison.