The Republican Politico-Moral Discourse in the 1930s of Turkey

This paper aims to study the republican order of things with a special attention given to the aim of producing virtuous and strong Turkish citizens in the 1930s in Turkey. It initially analyses the sentimental and mental structure of republican Kemalist elite. Here it tracks the power of the West, the malady of the East, and the poverty of people within the emotional economy of the Kemalist elite, which shaped their politico-moral discourse in the making of Turkish citizens. Republicanism, in this sense, appears not as an overnight invention, but a reflection of the resolution to create a nation according to an anticipated Western model. Through disseminating the motto "Republic is a virtue", the Kemalist elite aimed at educating people for the sake of exalting the national honor, dignity and morality. [Publisher's Text].