Turkey History

Turkey is a new country in an old country. The modern Turkish state – beginning with the founding of the Republic of Turkey in the years immediately after the First World War – was based on a national consciousness that had developed in the late nineteenth century. But the history of nomadic Turkish tribes can with certainty to the sixth century AD, when they wandered the steppes of Central Asia will be traced. Asia Minor, which the Turks invaded in the eleventh century, has a recorded history, which has returned to the Hittites, there flourished in the second millennium BC Archaeological finds from much older cultures in the region, however, shown.

The term Turkey, although sometimes used to signify the Ottoman Empire was not to a particular political entity or geographic area, was assigned to the Republic established in 1923.The conquering Turks called Asia Minor, the large peninsula territory they had wrested from the Byzantine Empire, Greek his name Anatole sunrise (; figuratively, in the east), or Anatolia. The term is also used, Anatolia, when events described that both the region and Turkish Thrace (“data-in Turkey-Europe”) because the two areas are closely linked political, social and cultural development.

Anatolia is a bridge between the Middle East and Europe, and shares in the history of the two parts of the world. Despite the diversity of its peoples and their cultures, and the constantly shifting boundaries of their ethnic card has a history characterized by remarkable continuity Anatolia. Wave after wave of conquerors and settlers have imposed their language and other unique features of their culture on them, but they have also always the customs of the peoples who preceded them assimilated.

The history of Turkey encompasses, first, the history of Anatolia before the arrival of the Turks and the civilizations – Hittite, Thracian, Hellenistic and Byzantine – is the Turkish nation, of which the heir by assimilation or example. Second, it contains the history of the Turkish peoples, including the Seljuks, who brought Islam and the Turkish language in Anatolia. Third, it is the history of the Ottoman Empire, a vast, cosmopolitan, pan-Islamic state, the amirate from a small Turkish in Anatolia developed over centuries and was a world power.

Finally, the history of Turkey that the republic founded in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938), called Atatürk – the “Father Turk.” The creation of the new republic in the heartland of the old Islamic empire was reached in view of internal traditionalist opposition and foreign intervention. Atatürk’s goal was to build patterned on the ruins of the Ottoman Turkey a new country and society directly to Western Europe. He equated Westernization with the introduction of technology, modernization of management and the development of democratic institutions.

The Turkish horsemen who were called in Anatolia in the eleventh century stormed gazis (warriors of the faith), but they followed their tribal leaders to win booty and to take the country and to spread Islam. The Ottoman empire, the conquests of the gazis built, but was not specific Islamic Turkish. Engendered in response to this Ottoman universalism, early Turkish nationalism was often Pan-Turanian, imagination a common destiny for all Turkic peoples. In contrast, Atatürk reduced the focus of his nationalism of the Turks in Turkey. Under his influence, twentieth-century Turkish historiography bypassed the Islamic Ottoman times the Turkish nation with ancient Anatolia in a way that the link Hittites, for example, were recognized as proto-Turks from the modern Turkish descent track. Although modern Turkey is relatively homogeneous linguistically, it is estimated that about 75 percent of the country’s gene pool of non-Turkish origin.

Ataturk’s ideological legacy – known as Kemalism – consists of the “Six Arrows”: republicanism, nationalism, populism, reformism, statism (see Glossary), and secularism. These principles have been enshrined in successive constitutions, and appeals for both reforms and retrenchment have made in their name.

In the late 1940s led Atatürk’s longtime deputy and successor, Ismet Inönü (formerly known as Ismet Pasha), and democratic elections and opened the political system of multi-party activity.In 1950 the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi – CHP) – Atatürk ’s party was – badly in the elections of the new Democratic Party of Adnan Menderes head beaten. The Menderes government attempted to redirect the economy, allowing for greater private initiative and was tolerant of traditional religious and social attitudes in the countryside. In their role as guardians of Kemalism, military leaders in 1960 was convinced that the Menderes government had departed dangerously from the principles of the Republic’s founder, and overthrew it in a military coup. After a short break returned to military rule, a new, liberal constitution was adopted for the so-called Second Republic, and the government to civilian hands.

The 1960s witnessed coalition governments led until 1965 by the CHP under Inönü. A new grouping – the right-wing Party of Justice organized under Süleyman Demirel and recognized as the successor of the banned Democratic Party – came to power this year. In opposition, the new leader of the CHP, Bülent Ecevit, a platform that Ataturk’s party moved to the left. Political infighting has been so extreme as to affect public policy and the proper functioning of the government and the economy.

In 1971 the leaders of the armed forces demanded appointment of a government “above parties” to restore law and order calculated. A number of non-party government came to power, but not to win sufficient parliamentary support, each quickly fell during a period of political instability that lasted until 1974. Demirel and Ecevit alternated in office as head of the government during the remainder of the 1970s, accompanied by a time marked by the rise of political extremism and religious revivalism, terrorist activities, and rapid economic changes by the high inflation and unemployment, severe. The apparent inability of parliamentary government to deal with the situation prompted another military coup in 1980 led by Chief of Staff Kenan Evren. The new scheme is the National Security Council acted to restore order and stabilize the economy. Also deliberately moved towards the restoration of civilian rule. A constitution for the Third Republic was proclaimed in 1982, increased the executive authority of the President and provided for Evren appointment to a term of seven years in this office. to bring general elections for the new National Assembly the following year enabled Turgut Özal to a one-party government, the majority of the stability in the political process promised to form.