Domesticating Modernity: The Turkish Magazine Yedigün, 1933–9

Abstract

There was a time when Turkey was foreign even to its own population: it had a new constitution, a new head of state, a new capital, a new place of religious worship, a new alphabet, new social laws, a new penal code, new dress codes, a new education system, new names, a new calendar, a new weekly holiday, all as a result of the top-down modernization process enforced by the Kemalist regime. Much like tourists travelling abroad, the citizens of the new Turkish republic were in need of guidance: what to do, how to act, what to wear and how to speak. Yedigün not only provided its readers with the necessary social coordinates to find their bearings in the new landscape of modern Turkey, but also positioned Turkey as a modern country on the European map. Transcending “mere” translation, Yedigün domesticated modernity into the Turkish household, through appropriation and conversion. Passing on the Ottoman intellectual legacy of liberalism and internationalism, editor Simavi and his journalists challenged not only the West’s monopoly on modernity, but also its Kemalist interpretation. As a challenge from within the modernizing elite, it could not be written off as either behind the times or reactionary.