Nazione e insegnamento della storia nella Turchia contemporanea

Abstract

Ayse Saracgil’ essay offers an analysis of the ideological and political nature of Turkish nationalism, reflecting on its relationship with the writing and teaching of history. A careful examination of historical texts shows a surprising continuity from the last years of the XIXth century until the present day. The evolution of nationalist ideology is examined in three key moments: first, the last decades of the Ottoman Empire and the beginnings of a historical discourse on the Turkish nation; second, from the later 1920s, when a priority of the new Kemalist state became the formulation of some interpretative theses of the history of the Turks; third, the 1980’s, when the Muslim religion, reintroduced in the political and cultural arena during the 1970’s, came to be integrated with the Turkish identity constructed by the Kemalists.