The Second Group in the First Turkish Grand National Assembly

Abstract

The First Turkish Grand National Assembly, called the First Parliament in the history of our Republic, is the most significant and important mission of our recent history. In fact, it is an extraordinary assembly that has achieved such a challenging task as the National Struggle with an endless effort. The ideas contained within each community reflect the pains they have experienced during the development process. Different ideas and methods gave the Parliament a colorful and dynamic structure. We can call the struggle between the First and Second Groups in the First Parliament as the pro-secular progressives and the reigners who defended the Ottoman order. The first group represented the power and the second group represented the opposition. Therefore, the First Group was the implementing side and the Second Group was a critic of these practices. The Second Group argued that in terms of their ideas, not just of their time, has also been the source of many political conflicts in the Republic of Turkey. Thus, the Second Group has marked the next political developments. The Second Group, which played such an important role, forced us to do such work. Our aim is to put forward the task undertaken by the Second Group until its dissolution. In this study, we try to evaluate the Second Group with the ideas it represents, its effectiveness within the Parliament and its contribution to the political developments.