The Role of Yusuf Akçura in the Formation of Turkish National Historiography

Abstract

This article discusses the formation of Yusuf Akçura as a professional historian and one of the founders of the Turkish national historiography in the Republican period. Researchers of his works used to focus on his socio-political activities, educational and public work. His role as one of the first Turkish historiographers, who took seriously the idea of the Turkic origin of the Turkish nation, remains still understudied basically. It is noteworthy that he stood at the foundations of the official concept of national history after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Akçura succeeded to include (pre-)modern history of the Turkic peoples of Eurasia in the Thesis on Turkish History (see: [Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatları, 1930]), which became the basis of the official historiography in Republican Turkey. As is known, M. K. Ataturk noticed him and introduced him into the group of the new Turkish political elite charged to formulate the official republican historical and educational discourse in the early 1930s. It was because of Akçura’s works, that history of the Turks began to be studied and taught in Republican Turkey.