479

 PEASANT AND PEASANTISM
IN THE ÜLKÜ PERIODICAL
(1933-1941)
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in

August 2022, 121 pages
This thesis aims to examine the issue of the peasantry, peasantism, and land in Turkey within the framework of the periodical Ülkü, which was published between 1933-1950. After the proclamation of the Republic, on the one hand, the orientation to the village started with the desire for development. On the other hand, when the fragility of the Republican People’s Party (RPP) was seen in the attempts to transition to a multi-party political life, the writers of Ülkü turned to the villagers as a means of creating a social base. This thesis focuses on the different channels of the peasantist ideology, which reflects the peasant orientation. While the journal authors can defend different opinions within themselves, it has been observed that sometimes the same author can change his mind over time. As a result, this thesis argues that the peasantism in Ülkü periodical is maintained by containing some contradictions within itself.
Keywords: Peasantism, Peasantry, Village, Villager, v

Bu tez, 1933-1950 yılları arasında yayınlanan Ülkü dergisi çerçevesinde Türkiye’de köylülük, köycülük ve toprak meselesini incelemeyi amaç edinmiştir. Cumhuriyetin ilanından sonra bir taraftan kalkınma arzusuyla köye yöneliş başlamıştır. Diğer taraftan ise çok partili hayata geçiş denemelerinde Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi’nin (CHP) kırılganlığının görülmesiyle, toplumsal taban oluşturma aracı olarak köylüye yönelinmiştir. Bu tez, köylüye yönelişin bir yansıması olan köycülük ideolojisinin, farklı kanallarına odaklanmaktadır. Dergi yazarları kendi içerisinde farklı düşünceleri savunabilirken, kimi zaman aynı yazarın zaman içerisinde fikrini değiştirebildiği görülmüştür. Sonuç olarak bu tez, Ülkü dergisinde köycülüğün kendi içerisinde birtakım çelişkiler barındırarak sürdürüldüğünü savunmaktadır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Köycülük, Köylülük, Köy, Köylü, Ülkü

First of all, I am extremely grateful to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Ömer TURAN for his invaluable advice and continuous support during my study. His immense knowledge and plentiful experience have encouraged me throughout my academic research and daily life. This thesis emerged thanks to his patience and confidence.
I want to express my special thanks to Prof. Dr. Mehmet ÖZDEN for his suggestions and criticism, which significantly contributed to this study. I am indebted to him both for his outstanding academic contribution and encouragement. His invaluable help and continuous support in this field always heartened me.
I also want to thank Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bahar GÜRSEL, for her contributions to my thesis by adding different perspectives and deepening my work.
This thesis was financially supported by 2210-A Domestic Graduate Scholarship Program (2210-A Yurt İçi Yüksek Lisans Burs Programı) of The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK - Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu), I am grateful to them for their financial support.
I am grateful to my friends, Yağız SAĞLAM, Hatice KAMALI, Elif Merve DUMANKAYA, Mehmet ÇETİNKAYA for being with me during this process. They always helped and motivated me. My colleagues from the history department, Aylin KAHRAMAN KAPLAN, and Barış ASLAN offer endless
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support and encouragement all the time. Also, all my other colleagues at the Hacettepe University, History Department have always helped me with their valuable experience during this process.
Finally, I would like to express my indebtedness to my parents Şükrüye YILDIRIM and Kenan YILDIRIM, my dear brother Gani YILDIRIM. Besides, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my beloved daughter, Luna. They have always supported me by all means and never ceased to believe in me.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PLAGIARISM ........................................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ iv
ÖZ ................................................................................................................................ v
DEDICATION........................................................................................................... vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................... vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... ix
CHAPTERS
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Turkish Peasants and Villages in the Early Republican Period ............. 7 1.2 Ülkü Magazine as a Periodical of The Kemalist Regime and Halkevleri 12 1.3 Three Periods of Ülkü ................................................................................. 20 1.4 Writers, Articles, and Themes in Ülkü ..................................................... 22
2. LAND AND PEASANTISM ACCORDING TO ÜLKÜ ................................ 26 2.1 The Village Concept .................................................................................... 26
2.2 Village Administration and Architectural Improvements .................... 30 2.3 Peasantist Policy in Agriculture and Animal Husbandry .................... 38 2.4 Village Economy and Trade ...................................................................... 51
3. PEASANTIST APPROACH OF ÜLKÜ TO VILLAGERS .............................. 62 3.1 Peasantism and Education ......................................................................... 62 3.2 Social Life and Family in the Village ........................................................ 75 3.3 Health and Village ...................................................................................... 82
4. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................... 88
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................... 99
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................ 111
A. TÜRKÇE ÖZET .......................................................................................... 111
B. TEZ İZİN FORMU / THESIS PERMISSION FORM .............................. 121
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CUP Committee of Union and Progress
FAP Freedom and Accord Party
FRP Free Republican Party
PRP Progressive Republican Party
RPP Republican People’s Party
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The term peasantism1 involved the literature by being used in the industrialized countries of the 19th century. The problems arose in societies that industrialized and migrated from the village to the city created a longing for the village. The importance attributed by nation-states to villages in a geographically isolated, pre-industrial phase in their efforts to develop their history gave rise to this romantic current. Peasantism found its way into Turkey's intellectual debate in the early 20th century. In this period, which can be considered quite late, as well as other Western ideologies, the core of the orientation towards the people and the peasants were formed under the influence of movements such as nationalism and Turkism. Turkology, which emerged as an independent discipline in Europe in the 18th century, strongly influenced Ottoman intellectuals.2 On the other hand, Turkish intellectuals coming from Tsarist Russia were familiar with Russian peasantism and narodnikism3. Under the guidance and encouragement of Turkish figures such as Yusuf Akçura, Ahmet Agayef, and Hüseyinzade Ali, who as Russian Turks had the opportunity to observe Narodnikism at close quarters, attempts were made to implement a similar trend in the Ottoman Empire. For the Turkish nationalists, who aspired to gain "the consciousness of Turkishness" and
1 It can be used also as peasantry or villageist. This study chooses the use of peasantism.
2 Taner Timur, Osmanlı Kimliği, (İstanbul: Hil Yayınları, 1986), p.79.
3 Narodnik means that friend of people in Russian. As a term, Narodniksm represents populism based on peasants.
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"elevate the Turk" the people were essential actor of the first rank. The language, the way of life, the religion, the culture, the dress, and the art of the people were at the center of the national movement. In this vein, efforts were made to overcome the separation between the ruling class and the people and move closer to the people; the goal was to get the nation's concept out of the intelligentsia monopoly and create a mass base that belonged to the people.4 For just like Russia, the Ottoman economy was mainly based on peasants. Since industry was not established yet as a third factor, urban industry occupied a small place in the overall economy.5 As the key to modernization and emancipation, there had not been a complete orientation toward the Turkish peasantism, but some tendencies emerged. In this context, Turkish peasantism is progressive and forward-looking.6 For, as in all nationalist movements, the roots of Turkishness were sought by resorting to archeology, linguistics, and history.7 As stated in the regulations of the Türk Ocağı (Turkish Association or Turkish Heart) founded during this period, research focusing on understanding the literature of the common Turkish people occurred.8 Thereafter, Türk Yurdu Cemiyeti (Turkish Homeland Society.)9, founded in
4 Zafer Toprak, “Osmanlı Narodnikleri: Halka Doğru Gidenler”, Toplum ve Bilim, Vol.24, (Winter 1984), pp. 69-70.
5 Sencer Divitçioğlu, Asya Tipi Üretim Tarzı ve Osmanlı Toplumu, (İstanbul: Alfa,2015), pp.138-139.
6 Necip Katırağ, Ülkü Dergisinde Kemalizm 1933-1950, (Master’s Thesis, University of Sakarya, 2019), p.97.
7 François Georgeon, Osmanlı Türk Modernleşmesi (1900-1930), (İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2009), pp.3-4.
8 Yusuf Akçura, Türkçülük, (İstanbul: Özdemir Basımevi, 1978), pp.208-210.
9 For additional information see Tarık Zafer Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler, Vol.1, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2015).
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1911, and Türk Yurdu magazine, published under it, focused more on these topics. In this context, the articles written by Yusuf Akçura and other writers published in Türk Yurdu covered topics including the peasantism, villages, and Turkish villagers. The right of Anatolian peasants to benefit from the blessings of civilization was defended through "science and technology" in the journal, which pursued populist politics.10 In Türk Yurdu, while explaining the principles of the new life, they also fulfilled the role of critic of tradition.11 Also, the journal Halka Doğru (Towards People), which was published under the same association, is important in terms of monitoring the core arguments of peasantism in Turkey. Although the Narodnik influence was clearly apparent in the magazine, it differed from the Russian Narodniks on various issues. While the Narodniks are socialist and partisans, the supporters of Halka Doğru were nationalist and intellectual.12
Halka Doğru Cemiyeti (Towards People Society) was founded in Izmir in 1917 by Tevfik Bey, Rahmi Bey, and Celal Bayar13 to spread nationalism among the population through cultural means.14 As the idea of giving a national identity to the population, which was gradually becoming more homogeneous as the
10 Firdevs Gümüşoğlu, “Türk Yurdu”, in Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce: Milliyetçilik, ed. Tanıl Bora, Murat Gültekingil, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2008), p. 270.
11 Mehmet Özden, Türk Yurdu Dergisi ve İkinci Meşrutiyet Devri Türkçülük Akımı (1911-1918), (Master’s Thesis, Hacettepe University, 1994), pp.152-153.
12 Mehmet Özden, “Bir Halkçı Münevverler Platformu: Halka Doğru Dergisi (1913-1914)”, Milli Folklor, Vol.23, No.89, (2011), pp.109-119.
13 He is the head of the Isbank Group. It is known for policies that prioritize industry. He later became prime minister and then president.
14 Tarık Zafer Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler (Cilt 1), (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2015), pp.443-444.
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empire disintegrated, gained momentum among Turkish intellectuals, so did the orientation toward peasants. This is because the belief that Anatolian villagers preserved the genuine Turkish identity prevailed. This view differed from the understanding of nationalism previously held by Ziya Gökalp15, who believed that a common high culture should be spread to all people, rather than an ethnic nationalism based on a simple peasant culture.16 The population taken over by the young republic was largely classless, culturally homogeneous, and purely peasant. Turkey's peasant state identity would endure into the 1980s. In fact, according to Mustafa Kemal, the people of Turkey are not considered from different classes, but as a community divided between different occupational groups.17 In this context, the main goal of the republican elite was to transform and develop this peasant population through Kemalist ideology. An important point that stands out here is that the republic never had the goal of transforming villagers into urbanites. Their main goal was to maintain the separation between village and city, but they hoped that through modernization the peasant would become the driving force of the country by increasing countary’s productive capacity. However, this Kemalist utopia disintegrated over time, and the village-urban conflict erupted in Turkish politics, and this process led to increase in the RPP's (Republican People’s Party) loss of power. Carter Findley cites this situation by giving an example from Yakup Kadri's novel Yaban18, The Kemalist
15 He is one of the foremost intellectual fathers of the Kemalist revolution. Follows Durkheimian sociology.
16 Ziya Gökalp, Türkçülüğün Esasları, (İstanbul: Toker Yayınları, 2002), pp.29-34.
17 Şerif Mardin, “Türkiye: Bir Ekonomik Kodun Dönüşümü”, inside Mümtazer Türköne ad Tuncay Önder (ed.), Türk Modernleşmesi, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2015), p.223.
18 Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, Yaban, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2019).
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populists had such an elitist streak that they were ridiculed by the people they wanted to save. Kemalists were intellectuals who were slightly disgusted with the public.19
This study examines how the village is defined in the eyes of Kemalists, also referred to as republican elites or RPP administrators, and what aspects of their understanding of peasantism are expressed in the periodical Ülkü (The Ideal), published by RPP-affiliated halkevleri (People’s Houses). This study aims to scrutinize the issues of Ülkü, which is an important source for the development of village and peasant literature, and to organize them systematically by topic. In this way, this study attempts to contribute to the literature on villages in the republican era and the position of Kemalist ideology on the peasantism. The translation of the peasant terms put forward by the authors of Ülkü was made by the author. Common translations of other Turkish terms, if any, are given in parentheses. In cases where there is no translation, it has been translated by the author.
In the first chapter of the study, the Ülkü periodical is treated as a publication organ of the Kemalist regime, and its relationship with RPP is examined. It is mentioned why the journal felt the need to be published, with whose support it was published, and what its goals were. In addition, the period of publication of the journal, the identities of the authors who wrote in the journal, and the topics of the articles they wrote are discussed. Furthermore, the question of why this magazine is published on villages and peasantism evaluated. In the second and third chapters, the articles in the issues of the
19 Carter V. Findley, Modern Türkiye Tarihi, (İstanbul: Timaş, 2016), p.280.
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journal that deal most with these topics are examined and sorted according to their themes and studied separately. It will be observed how the ideas changed chronologically, which topics were emphasized and how these topics were addressed will be the subject of the research. Lastly, the concluding section briefly interprets and shares all these findings and shows how the Ülkü periodical interprets the village and peasantism within Kemalist ideology. In conducting this study, the author has deliberately given mostly preference to the first one hundred and two issues of the Ülkü magazine. This is because the most comprehensive information related to the research questions to be answered in this study is available during this period. Moreover, the journal has a more scientific purpose in these issues, which facilitates the explanation of the topic from the author's point of view. Although other journals focused on the village and peasantism, especially Kadro, which appeared in the same period, Ülkü was chosen because it directly reflects the ideas of the power elites.
It can be said that peasant literature in Turkey is quite backward, considering the peasant past of the country. Most of the studies that are important today were conducted in the early years of the Republic. These studies do not deal directly with peasantism but concern with the facts that resulted from village and peasant policies, such as the Köy Enstitüleri (Village Institutes), Köy Kanunu (Village Law), Çiftçiyi Topraklandırma Kanunu (The Law of Providing Land to Farmers). One of them is the study of Asım Karaömerlioğlu. Also, Oya Köymen and Sevilay Özer have also studies about peasants and villages. In addition, there are studies in the literature that refer to Ülkü magazine. These generally deal with the content of Ülkü in terms of folklore and cultural arts.
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In addition, the studies on the Six Principles of Atatürk20 are of great importance for this work. Apart from these, there are several works about land issues, villages, and other rural subjects. But these are not directly referred peasantism.
As the main source of this study, the issues of Ülkü are used directly, and as secondary sources, and the books of the intellectuals of the time who were editors of Ülkü or wrote directly about Ülkü, especially the memoirs, are examined. In addition, the village and peasant studies in literature and the books, articles, and dissertations about Ülkü magazine are consulted.
1.1 Turkish Peasants and Villages in the Early Republican Period
One of the reasons for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was the deterioration of the Ottoman land system, which kept the state alive for many years.21 The Ottoman governments, on the other hand, took no precautions to bring about a change in the relations of production, and they were unable to create a demand for their production in the domestic and foreign markets. They could not oppose the representatives of foreign capitalists, and this was even more evident in the years of collapse.22 In parallel with the disturbances that occurred in many institutions in the last years of the empire, they also appeared in agriculture and the economy as a result of everyone's interaction
20 Republicanism, Populism, Nationalism, Laicism, Statism, Revolutionism.
21 Halil Bayrakçı, Osmanlı Toprak Sistemi, (İstanbul: Marifet Yayınları, 1990), p.40.
22 Muammer Sencer, Toprak Ağalığının Kökeni, İstanbul: Tel Yayınları, 1971), pp.292.
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with each other and caused the collapse.23 After the War of Independence24 ended and the Republic was proclaimed, a new struggle began for the Kemalists. The Kemalists first had to clean up the destruction caused by the war and deal with the new waves of immigration.25 It was a struggle between a devastated country left over from a patchy empire and its efforts to bring its population up to Western standards, which they saw as ideal in their own eyes. Approximately three-quarters of the country's population lived in villages. The vast majority of the educated or at least literate male population was on the verge of exhaustion due to the incessant wars since 1912. The non-Muslim population, which performed most of the commercial and artisanal activities in the cities, no longer existed because of exchanges and for other reasons. As a result, almost all of the country's production came from the villages. However, this production was insufficient, inefficient, and closed to change. In the absence of modern techniques, Turkish peasants were condemned to poverty. This was because, according to peasantist to promote the development of agriculture, the problems in agriculture must first be solved.26 The problems of the peasants were manifold. First of all, ignorance about hygiene was incredibly high, as can be seen from the fact that it is frequently addressed in Ülkü magazine. Epidemics, infant and maternal mortality, and deaths at a young age were very high. Another important problem was the feudal power centers inherited from the Ottoman Empire.
23 Mehmet Pamak, Türkiye’de Toprak Tarım Reformu ve Köy Kalkınması, (Ankara: Emel Matbaacılık, 1982), p.18.
24 Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919- 24 July 1923)
25 Fehmi Yavuz, Toprak ya da Tarım Reformu, (Ankara: Ges-İş Yayınları, 1968), p.13.
26 İbrahim Aksöz, Toprak Reformu ve Türkiye’de Toprak Reformuna İhtiyaç, (Ankara: Atatürk Üniversitesi Yayınları, 1973), p.23.
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While these power centers in the west of the country did not pose a significant problem in the early years of the republic, as they harmonized with or even belonged to a single party, the situation was quite different in the east, where the RPP organization was weak. As will be seen over time in events such as Sheikh Said27, Menemen28, etc., the villagers were an invaluable boon and unlimited human resource for the reactionary movements. This showed that the reforms implemented by the one-party government were not accepted by the broad mass of the people, or that they were not enough to be accepted, and put the regime under new difficulties.29 These people, who were very easily agitated, sometimes because they had no other choice and sometimes by exploiting their traditional conservative sentiments, were the group that the one-party regime was most concerned about.
On the other hand, the Turkish villages and peasants represented a utopia in the discourse of the Republic. Interestingly, the Kemalist intellectuals, most of whom belonged to the Durkheim school, followed a Herderian line when it came to peasants and villages. The main core of the new national identity that the Kemalists wanted to create lay hidden in the Turkish peasantism. The dominant element of many Kemalist actions to be carried out in the future centered on the Turkish peasantism. It can be seen that these Herderian ideas form the basis of the language simplification movement, the Güneş Dil Teorisi (Sun Language Theory), Anatolianism, etc.
27 Kurdish nationalist rebellion during early period of Turkish Republic.
28 An anti-secularist Naqshbandi Rebellion which occurred in Menemen.
29 Yılmaz Gülcan, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi: 1923-1946, (İstanbul: Alfa Yayınları, 2001), p.155.
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At this point, the dilemma of republican elites can be observed, considering that modernization and development went hand in hand with Westernization. In theory, of course, the Kemalists' goal was to create a national bourgeoisie, activate liberalism, and eventually move to democracy. In practice, however, they were afraid of liberalism and liberalization and criticized them constantly. They demonstrated that a populist society is the highest form of democracy that can be attained in the Turkish context. As for democracy itself, it is nothing but one form of state organization that can vary in its social content depending on the conditions.30 Although they knew that the path opened by their revolution would eventually require liberalization, their main goal was to delay this process as much as possible. While the reforms were phenomena that increased and strengthened the importance of individualism, the Kemalists sought to bring socialism to the fore. In this context, while they wanted the village and villagers to develop and flourish, they believed that these same villagers should be placed in a place separate from urban life. For example, one article states that they do not advocate making the peasant the master of the nation, that the peasant should remain as a peasant in his village. The reason given is that a villager whose mind is not yet fully enlightened needs a head farmer, a lord of the manor, or a guard for years.31 Some Ülkü authors say that the villagers do not want to be a master. Abdullah Ziya argues that “the villager stays not to be a master in the city, but to benefit from the city's water, air, pleasures, and even doctors.”32 However, it can be seen that
30 Ertan Aydın, The Peculiarities of Turkish Revolutionay Ideology in the 1930s: The Ülkü Version of Kemalism 1933-1936, (PhD Thesis, Bilkent University, 2003), pp.276-277.
31 Abdullah Ziya, “Köy Mimarisi”, Ülkü, No.7, (August 1933), p.37.
32 Ibid.
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Ülkü contradicts itself in this area, as well. The villagers, living a completely different life than the city dwellers, take the opposite view, saying that they are the de facto owners and masters of the land.33 The fact that the villages were so small and scattered creates a great difference between the village and the city.34 For the members of the RPP, the farmers and the villages were the sources of cultural or economic nourishment for the citizens. To remain so, they had to survive as peasants.
In the early years of the Republic, many regulations were created for villagers. The first of these laws is the Toprak Kanunu, which was enacted in 1924. It is a law that contains many regulations, such as the determination of village boundaries, the establishment of the village administration, and its binding to laws. In addition, it was very important for the village people to participate in educational activities. In this regard, arrangements were made for the training of village teachers, and efforts were made to increase schooling in the villages. It was a phenomenon to increase and multiply the peasant population. Therefore, to improve the health conditions in the villages, regulations were introduced on issues such as access to clean water and the improvement of swamps. Apart from this law, many steps were taken towards the village, such as Köy Enstitüleri, Çiftçiyi Topraklandırma Kanunu, the establishment of agricultural cooperatives and Halk Odaları (People’s Rooms). In the process that led to these steps, many ideas were put forward and there were different perspectives. The place where all these ideas were put forward and matured
33 Trakyalı Ali Galip, “Köylü”, Ülkü, No.10, (November 1933), p.326.
34 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Bir Köycülük Projesi Tecrübesi”, Ülkü, No.8, (September 1933), pp. 118-125.
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was the printed publications. As a result, these conflicting reform efforts resulted in the emergence of various publications.
1.2 Ülkü Magazine as a Periodical of The Kemalist Regime and Halkevleri
Indeed, the new regime cannot be classified to be democratic or pluralistic. Nevertheless, it has been argued that what is desired in the long run is a people's democracy.35 The first concern of the Republicans was to protect the Republic. The only problem of the elites administering an economically collapsed state that emerged from war has nothing to do with the economy. The subjects of the state still largely emulated a sultan or caliph. The intellectuals, on the other hand, were divided among themselves with different ideological motives. The majority of the bureaucracy that could administer consisted of former CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) sympathizers or members of FAP (Freedom and Accord Party) who had worked together during the cease-fire period. Even if the leaders of these groups were in exile or executed, the Kemalists of course always had to be on their guard. For this reason, the most important issue of the young republic was always the popular acceptance of the revolutions. After the closure of the Progressive Republican Party (PRP), government decide build new institutions instead of old ones.36 The most salient feature of the republican regime was that it was populist. The reforms imposed above received their legitimacy from the fact that they benefited the people and contributed to the
35 Funda Gençoğlu Onbaşı, “Halkevleri ve Ülkü Dergisi: Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Köycülük Tartışmaları”, Çağdaş Yerel Yönetimler, Vol.20, No.3, (July 2011), p.80.
36 Sefa Şimşek, Bir İdeolojik Seferberlik Deneyimi: Halkevleri: (1932-1951), (İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2002), p,5.
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survival of the nation. The defeat in the local elections, in which the FRP (Free Republican Party) contested for the first time, made the strength of the opposition visible.
The weakness or nonexistence of Kemalism's top-down ideological infrastructure was seen as an important shortcoming by the revolutionary elite. Various methods were implemented to overcome this deficiency. The establishment of Halkevleri had precisely this purpose. It was intended to prevent the debates triggered by the world economic crisis and to create a wave of social agitation that would isolate the fear of deepening the gap between the people and the state.37 The closure of Türk Ocakları, the largest, best-known, and longest-lived among the nationalist associations of the Second Constitutional Era, which was founded in mid-1911 and officially opened on March 25, 1912, created a vacuum.38 To allow the regime to influence public opinion, the new ideology was to be enforced through the establishment of Halkevleri, which were directly linked to the RPP. According to some historians, another driving factor in the establishment of Halkevleri was the unresponsiveness of the civilian population to the atrocities experienced in the Menemen incident.39 The Halkevleri, whose establishment was decided at the RPP's Third Congress in 1931, were opened simultaneously in more ten cities in February 1932. Seven years later, Halk Odaları, smaller versions of the Halkevleri, were established in villages and towns. The prime
37 Anıl Çeçen, Atatürk’ün Kültür Kurumu Halkevleri, (Ankara: Gündoğan Yayınları, 1990), pp. 106-107.
38 Kenan Akyüz, “Türk Ocakları”, Belleten, Vol.50, No.196 (seperated edition), (Ankara: TTK Basımevi, 1986), p.201.
39 Sina Akşin, Kısa Türkiye Tarihi, (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Yayınları, 2016), p.206.
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minister at the time, İsmet İnönü, stated that the Halkevleri were centers that would explain the principles of the RPP and its application to the public.40 Elsewhere, it is emphasized that the main task of the Halkevleri is to ensure the spread of Kemalism in the country and to create citizens who will adopt this ideology.41 Thanks to the Halkevleri, it was aimed to establish an organic bond between the Kemalist elites and the people so that the enemies of the Republic could not gather supporters.42 It was the task of the Halkevleri to disseminate the Kemalist doctrine produced by organizations such as Türk Dil Kurumu (Turkish Language Association) and Türk Tarih Kurumu (Turkish Historical Society).43 Despite the physical existence of the Halkevleri, Kemalism continued to be viewed as unfounded. It was argued that it was necessary to fill in Kemalism to make up for this deficit. In this case, intellectuals individually put forward various theories to institutionalize Kemalism. They presented them to the public in articles. In these articles, they wrote about what could be done in the future based on the goals of Mustafa Kemal's and RPP's revolutions. Sometimes intellectuals with similar interpretations of Kemalism joined together and formed different groupings. Between 1932 and 1950, almost seventy journals and various publications were published for this purpose. It is known that some of these publications were created with the direct or indirect support of Atatürk himself. Halkevleri aimed to create a Turkish
40 Söylevler 1932-1941, (Ankara: Recep Ulusoğlu Basımevi, 1942), p.11.
41 Hakimiyeti Milliye, “Recep Bey’in Nutku”, 20 Şubat 1932, p.1.
42 Stanford J. Shaw, Ezel Shaw, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu ve Modern Türkiye Vol.2, (İstanbul: E Yayınları, 2010), p.453.
43 Suavi Aydın, Modernleşme ve Milliyetçilik, (İstanbul: Gündoğan Yayınları, 2000), pp.227-228.
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national identity by publishing works in almost every field and to make it a living example of Kemalist ideology
The first movement that grabbed attention through the publications of this period was the Kadro journal. Led by Şevket Süreyya Aydemir and influenced by a group of intellectuals such as Burhan Asaf Belge, Vedat Nedim Tör, İsmail Hüsrev Tökin and Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, Kadro magazine attracted the attention of the stricter RPP supporters, especially Recep Peker44. This was due to the articles and authors of Kadro magazine focused on the socioeconomic dimension of the revolution and predicted class enlightenment. Their basic rhetoric was based on historical materialism. Having determined the principle of statism as their main principle, Kadro wanted to turn the RPP into an elite group. They aimed to make the principle of statism effective outside the economy as well.45 Apart from Recep Peker, İşbank group also took a negative attitude towards Kadro.46 According to the Kadro movement, Turkey must be politically statist because of the characteristics of the national liberation movement is carried out. This is because the task of eliminating international contradictions, eliminating class contradictions within the country, and preventing the formation of different classes is only possible with the help of
44 One of the most crucial ideolog of RPP. He was the general secretary of the CHP. His recommendations to follow policies close to fascism were rejected by Atatürk. After that it was discredited. It regained strength after the war. He became the first prime minister of multi-party-political life.
45 Erik Jan Zürcher, Modernleşen Türkiye’nin Tarihi, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2015), p.292.
46 Mustafa Türkeş, Kadro Hareketi: Ulusçu Sol Bir Akım, (Ankara: İmge Kitabevi, 1999), pp.204-205.
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the state.47 This could lead to the Kadro periodical being accused of being a socialist, even though it is not. It was already common knowledge that all the writers mentioned, except for Yakup Kadri, were sympathizers of Bolshevism at some point in their lives and were under the influence of socialist ideas in Russia and Germany. Some of them were imprisoned during the Republic period on the charge of being communists themselves. As a result, Kadro can be seen as a movement that emerged with the incorporation of nationalism and corporatism into Marxism.48
Among dozens of Halkevleri periodicals published over the years, Ülkü and Yeni (New) Türk Periodicals occupied a special place. On the one hand, these periodicals had the task of being a guide or example for other Halkevleri’s periodicals, and on the other hand, they formed a source for the studies carried out in the following years on the economic, political, social and cultural realities of the period in which they were published.49 The aforementioned hardliners of the RPP planned a cultural change. In public and village education, it would give as much importance to cultural education as to positive sciences education, perhaps even more. They stated that it will not deviate from the wrong path that the West has followed for centuries and that it will develop the spiritual existence of the Turkish nation along with its
47 Naci Bostancı, “Kadrocular”, in Tanzimat’tan Günümüze Türk Düşünürleri: Cumhuriyet’ten Günümüze Siyasi, İdari ve Sosyal Düşünce Temsilcileri, ed. Süleyman Hayri Bolay, (Ankara: Nobel Yayınları, 2015), p. 1188.
48 Kemal H. Karpat, Türk Demokrasi Tarihi, (İstanbul: Timaş, 2014), p.156.
49 Nurettin Güz, Tek Parti İdeolojisinin Yayın Organları: Halkevleri Dergileri (1932-1950), (Ankara: Bilge Yapım, 1995), p.18.
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material existence.50 They claimed that the beginning of transforming the village is to change the spiritual world of the villager. For this reason, Ülkü also aimed to weaken the Kadro movement as a representative of a stricter interpretation of Kemalism. According to Recep Peker, revolutions could only be successful through pressure. Revolutions thought to be in the interest of the people could be forced upon the people if necessary.51 The publication of Ülkü magazine, which was published within the Ankara Halkevi, was promoted by Recep Peker himself. Party members and other Halkevleri were recommended to subscribe to the journal.52 However, the Kadro journal was never included in these recommended lists.53 At this point, Atatürk and İnönü continued their financial and moral support for both publications. It is known that Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu used his close relationship with Atatürk to save the Kadro journal from closure. Although it is known that Recep Peker constantly complained to Atatürk about the activities of Kadro magazine until its closure, Mustafa Kemal ignored these complaints. Many government institutions, especially the Ministry of Education and Ziraat Bank, encouraged subscriptions to Kadro.54 Şevket Sureyya states that ten subscriber registrations were made on behalf of Çankaya Köşkü (Çankaya Mansion) on Atatürk's
50 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Bir Köycülük Projesi Tecrübesi”,p.118.
51 Şükrü Karatepe, Tek Parti Dönemi, (İstanbul: İz Yayıncılık, 2001), p.56.
52 “Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası Katibiumumiliğinden C.H.F. İdare Heyeti Riyasetine ve Halkevi Riyasetine Gönderilen 10.5.1934 Tarihli Yazı”, Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası Katibiumumiliğinin F. Teşkilatına Umumi Tebligatı, Vol.4, (Ankara: Hâkimiyeti Milliye Matbaası, 1934), p.49.
53 Hakkı Uyar, “Resmî İdeoloji ya da Alternatif Resmi İdeoloji Oluşturmaya Yönelik İki Dergi: Ülkü ve Kadro Mecmualarının Karşılaştırmalı İçerik Analizi”, Toplum ve Bilim, No.74, (Autumn 1997), pp.182-184.
54 Temuçin Faik Ertan, Kadrocular ve Kadro Hareketi, (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1994), p.63.
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instructions and that İsmet İnönü also subscribed in his name.55 This was to prevent Peker from becoming too powerful within the party. Not surprisingly, Peker was also expelled from Ülkü about a year after, stopped publishing Kadro magazine.
The most important reason for the creation of Ülkü was that by placing Kemalism in a scientific paradigm, it was hoped to give the revolutions a systematic form so that they could withstand corruption. In the first issue of Ülkü, Recep Peker wrote that the aim of publishing the journal was to involve large masses in the cause of those who believed in the cause of Kemalism.56 In this context, the principles adopted by Ülkü were compatible with the six principles of the constitution. It was not possible to publish an article in the journal that could contradict these six principles. Ülkü, which was published as the organ of Halkevleri, is of course organically connected with RPP. During the period when Recep Peker was in charge of the journal, the decisions of the RPP congresses were directly reflected in Ülkü.
Even though Ülkü magazine did not directly oppose to liberalism, it adopted a stance in favor of solidarity against individualism. As can be understood from the article entitled Ülkü Niçin Çıkıyor? (Why is Ülkü Being Published?) published by Recep Peker in the first issue, Ülkü does not see the individual as a singular and independent subject.57 This was part of the change that took
55 Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Suyu Arayan Adam, (İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 2012), p.372.
56 Recep Peker, “Ülkü Niçin Çıkıyor?”, Ülkü, No.1, (Şubat 1933), pp.1-2.
57 Ahmet Kızılkaya, Kadro ve Ülkü Dergileri Bağlamında Atatürkçü Milliyetçiliğin İki Yorumu, (PhD Thesis, University of Ankara, 2017), p.137.
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place in RPP after the Great Depression58 of 1929. Like the RPP, the Ülkü showed ideological ambiguity. They were not fascists, but they admired the social mobilization power of fascism. They were not socialists; however they could adopt the propaganda methods of socialists when necessary. Thus, Ülkü magazine had a multi-layered structure. Many different authors contributed to the journal in different periods with different interpretations of Kemalism.
It has already been mentioned that the regime does not strive for democracy. However, this does not mean that Kemalism is completely disconnected from the people. For the Kemalists, drawing their legitimacy from the concepts of people and nation during the national struggle, populism was the mainstay of their government. The purpose of populism was to protect the regime. This was because, Ülkü quote that, “the landless peasants' demand for land in Mexico and the cry for social justice were among the main motives that triggered the revolution. In the early days of the revolution, no one wanted an education.”59 As Abdullah Ziya explained, it was the neglect of their villagers that brought down Babylon and Rome. Therefore, the development of the villagers, the people, was the most important issue.60 This populism, in turn, was under the influence of a peasant movement influenced by Russian Narodnikism. The Ülkü magazine was an instrument in which this peasantist movement found the most space. When discussing the Yörük (Yoruk Nomads) schools, it is mentioned that the Russians opened such a school for the Kyrgyz as a completely new system of teaching and education in the world. However,
58 An economic crisis between 1929-1939, which is started in USA after a major fall in stock prices.
59 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Bir Köy Terbiyesi Örneği”, Ülkü, No.12, (January 1934), p.418.
60 Abdullah Ziya, “Köy Mimarisi”, Ülkü, No.7, pp.37-38.
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it is also acknowledged that the conditions in Anatolia and Russia have different aspects than the education front.61
Ülkü, a publication of Halkevleri, has also indirectly targeted the Turkish villagers, who constituted an important part of the population, as the masses it wants to reach and influence. In a country that fought the toughest wars and revolutions on the basis of villages and peasants, brought out a fresh Turkishness from Anatolia, and emerged as the poorest of those who entered the world war, they have accomplished the most important public works, with great economic and financial stability, relying on the village and the peasants. The RPP did not fail to understand that the main basis for the political, economic, cultural and racial existence of a country is a large and advanced village population.62
1.3 Three Periods of Ülkü
A few years after the establishment of the Halkevleri, the publication of the Ülkü periodical began, which was published by the Ankara Halkevi, but was recognized as the central publication of all Halkevleri. The first issue of the Ülkü Periodical, the official organ of the Ankara Halkevi, was published on 19 February 1933, the first anniversary of the founding of the Halkevleri. Ülkü Periodical was published for a total of seventeen years, from 1933 to 1950. The Ülkü periodical was offered for sale without the intention of profit, and only at an amount that covered the costs. While Recep Peker was primarily
61 Ali Rıza, “Yörük Mektepleri”, Ülkü, No.10, (November 1933), p.338.
62 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Halkevlerinde Köycülük Çalışmaları”, Ülkü, No.35, (January 1935), p.387.
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responsible for the first forty-one issues of the periodical, Fuat Köprülü later took over this task.63 As mentioned in the previous section, Ülkü 's goal was to create a mass that was loyal to the revolution. However, it wanted to achieve this indirectly. In other words, the magazine was not published directly by the common people. The main goal of the magazine, characterized by a very scientific style, was to educate intellectuals who can lead large masses of people in the light of the revolutions. Accordingly, intellectuals were seen responsible for first protecting the ideals of the revolution and then communicating these ideals to the people and making them adopt them.64 In this context, Ülkü was an elitist publication.65
Ülkü has a structure that changes as revolutions progress. One of the most concrete examples of this transformation is the name itself. The name Ülkü was given by Atatürk, but the magazine also has a subtitle. While this subtitle was initially Halkevleri Mecmuası, the word "mecmua" was later replaced by the word "dergi." After the Halk Odaları was opened, the subtitle Halkevleri ve Halk Odaları Dergisi was introduced. In addition, the Ülkü is divided into three separate series.
The first series begins with the first issue, which was published in February 1933. It ends with issue one hundred and two in September 1941. The main feature of the first series is that people who have a direct organic connection
63 Firdevs Gümüşoğlu, Ülkü Dergisi ve Kemalist Toplum, (İstanbul: Toplumsal Dönüşüm Yayınları, 2005), pp.158-159.
64 Firdevs Gümüşoğlu, Ülkü Dergisi ve Kemalist Toplum, p.154.
65 N. Taragay, “Halkevleri Mecmuaları: Yeni Tokat ve Ün”, Ülkü, No.25, (March 1935), p.80.
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with the RPP are in the foreground. The main goal of this series was to fill Kemalism ideologically. Most of the articles about revolutions were published during this period. Especially the fact that the magazine Kadro is still published and Ülkü 's efforts to present itself had an effect here. The literary works and poems published in Ülkü were also associated with ideological messages during this period. After the dismissal of Recep Peker from the management of the magazine from the 41st issue, the pages that Ülkü assigned to the contents changed.
In the second series, a radical change was made, and a fifteen-day rhythm was started. One hundred and twenty-six issues appeared in this way from October 1941 to December 1946. During this period, the name of the journal was changed with the subtitle Ülkü: Milli Kültür Dergisi.(National Culture Magazine)
The third series is the shortest-lasting one. The magazine returned to a monthly publication schedule with the new series. Between January 1947 and August 1950, it appeared in only forty-four issues. During this period, the title Ülkü: Halkevleri ve Halk Odaları Dergisi was used. In the second and third periods, Ülkü magazine gradually evolved from an ideological magazine to a literary, historical, and scientific magazine.
1.4 Writers, Articles, and Themes in Ülkü
The authors, articles, and topics in Ülkü have constantly changed in parallel with the formal transformation of the journal. Thus, each series has a different orientation. The first series, which is mostly the subject of this study, can be
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considered as reflecting the most revolutionary period of Ülkü. Most of the authors in this series were strict Kemalists who actively participated in policy making. It is noticeable that most of his writings are didactic or theoretical-scientific rather than essayistic or artistic. The topics covered in the journal’s first series are generally in line with the results or goals of the revolutions. The topics that can be included in Ülkü are determined by the RPP General Secretariat, just as in other journals of Halkevleri.66 The purpose of the articles, which revolve around topics such as science, grammar, history, aesthetics, public health, economics, agriculture, peasantism, sports, and philosophy, was to transform Kemalism into an ideology that provides solutions to the problems of modernization and cultural change. For example, topics such as economics, agriculture, and industrialization were treated in an interconnected manner. They dealt with the issues discussed in a way that could explain the statist policies of the 1930s. If we classify by topic, the topic that appears most frequently is villagers and village. In total, more than a hundred articles were written about the village. This is followed by articles on public health, sports, and Turkishness with sixty articles. There are about thirty articles on science and industry and about twenty articles on the field of law. Apart from these, the framework of the Six Principles is mainly covered. From this distribution, it can be seen that the principles that shaped Ülkü magazine the most were populism and statism.
Recep Peker, Necip Ali Küçüka, Nusret Köymen, Mehmet Saffet, Kazım Nami Duru, Ahmet Nesimi, Ferit Celal and Behçet Kemal Çağlar can be attributed
66 “Halkevi Dergilerinin Yazı Kadroları”, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi Genel Sekreterliğinin Parti Teşkilatına Umumi Tebligatı, Vol.20, (Ankara: 1944), pp. 166-168.
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to the first period. The authors of the first period generally wrote about the issues that influenced them in the policy-making process within the RPP. For example, Nusret Kemal Köymen wrote mainly about the village, agriculture, and peasantism. It is known that Nusret Kemal Köymen wrote his doctoral thesis in the field of village sociology. He is a person who closely follows the world developments in the field of rural areas by participating in various conferences and fairs abroad. By studying and comparing examples such as Mexico, Denmark, Russia, Bulgaria and China, he offers solutions for the development of peasant activities in Turkey. According to Köymen, there should be an organic connection between the ruling elite and farmers. In his opinion, this is since the villagers were educated in the republican schools.
In the second series, it can be observed that the journal is moving more towards literary and sociological journals. Subjects such as folklore, ethnography, Turkish culture, and literature were now frequently covered. According to the author of this study, the main reason for this change was the admiration mixed with the fear that the rising National Socialism and its standard-bearer Germany caused among the RPP elite. It can be seen that German philosophy dominated especially in the years when Germany gained supremacy in World War II. This brought a different perspective to the concept of "Volksgeist"67. Those who wrote during this period were professionals, came from the middle class, and their political ideologies were more radical.
67 Refers to sets of mental, intellectual, moral, and cultural traits that define particular human groups represented as being nations or peoples.
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In the third series, the journal left its character as a Kemalist propaganda tool and became an art and history journal. The people who wrote in the magazine came directly from the towns and villages and were now members of the Halkevleri educated by the Republic.
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CHAPTER 2
LAND AND PEASANTISM ACCORDING TO ÜLKÜ
2.1 The Village Concept
Peasantists in Ülkü, focus primarily on how villages and villagers are defined internationally. In order to do so, they believe it is essential to obtain information about the history of the village and the peasantism.68 In addition, the importance of the conflict between ruralism and urbanism is pointed out. It is argued that the urbanist view dominates the world to this day, while the ruralist view has recently gained strength. However, Ülkü authors believe that the village and the city should not be considered as opponents. The reason for this contradiction, they say, is that humanity is mentally incapable of achieving this speed due to the acceleration of technological development. They assume that man, a social being, has lived in villages since the earliest times of history. They say that villages grew and merged to form towns.69 “The village is poor, unhappy, miserable, neglected, everything. But it is not dead.”70 In other words, as it was said by Suphi Soysallı in the parliament in 1920, Turkish peasants still remained as they were in the Constitutional Monarchy Era. “The peasants were on their way to death under endless wars and taxes.”71
68 Salahattin Kandemir, “Coğrafya Bakımından Köy”, Ülkü, No.14, (April 1934), p.153.
69 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köycülük Esasları”, Ülkü, No.20, (October 1933), pp.146-147.
70 Bahadır R. Dülger, “Köyün Gücü”, Ülkü, No.37, (March 1936), p.54.
71 Sabahattin Selek, Anadolu İhtilali, (İstanbul: Kataş Yayınları, 2004), p.523.
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They say that cities, through their cultural and economic power, put pressure on villages and hinder spiritual life. Using Denmark as an example, they show the reader that countries that have broken this cycle have prospered. They also highlight the Mexican peasantism as another village movement. Although they view the Russian Revolution as a peasant revolution, in the beginning, they say that over time it transformed into a proletarian revolution and gained an urban identity. They argue that National Socialism, although initially based on peasants, abandoned this character because of the over-urbanization of Europe.72 Preventing this situation was one of the main directions followed in Ülkü. “Our new Turkish Republic is faced with the task of recreating villages and cities. To harmonize the city and the village by preventing them from developing at the expense of each other, we write in summary the ideas that come across in Europe and especially in the German press these days.”73 Even before the Republic, ideas were expressed about the peasants. However, they said that only young intellectuals who came from the "Türk Ocakları" took them seriously.74 They argue that with the proclamation of the Second Constitutional Monarchy, a movement toward the people began, but it was interrupted by the Balkan War and the World War before it came to flower.75
Ülkü authors, trying to explain that peasantism was not an anti-industrial movement, argued that a peasant class with economic power to feed the
72 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köycülük Esasları”, p.148.
73 Cemal Köprülü, “Büyük Şehir ve Köy Meselesi”, Ülkü, No.42, (August 1936), p.460.
74 Abdullah Ziya, “Cumhuriyette Köy Yapımı”, Ülkü, No.10, (November 1933), p.333.
75 Kadri Kemal, “Cumhuriyetten Evvel ve Sonra Köylerimiz”, Ülkü, No.10, (November 1933), p.339.
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country was also a desirable phenomenon in industrialized countries.76 They wanted Turkish youth to go to the villages and integrate with the “pure and clean-minded villagers” and experience the happiness that they experienced through direct participation in production.77 This is a reflection of the Russian Narodniks. Just like the Narodnik Russian intellectuals, these people despised their academic work and argued that they should go directly to the village to work.78 Ülkü authors argues that, the readers are made aware that it is not too late for the peasant movement, which began about ten years after the founding of the Republic. Because they believe that for this peasantism to be formed, there must be young people who have grown up with the republican revolutions.79 Peasantism, which could be considered within the principle of populism at first, gained importance with the switching Latin Alphabet, and in 1932, when Reşit Galip was the minister of national education, peasantist activities were officially started.80 With the fact that sovereignty lies in the nation, the eyes of the intellectuals have turned to the nation. Turkish meant peasants to these intellectuals. Kemalists argue that the villager's longing for civilization and its inclination to learn has proven to be the greatest hope of Turkish intellectuals.81 They pointed out that after they were convinced that peasantism was adopted as an ideology in society, the practical
76 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Bir Köycülük Projesi Tecrübesi”, p.118.
77 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köy Misyonerliği”, Ülkü, No.8, (September 1933), p.150.
78 Oya Köymen, Kapitalizm ve Köylülük Ağalar Üretenler Patronlar, (İstanbul: Yordam Kitap, 2017), p.65.
79 Muallim Kemal, “Bayramı Köye Götürenler”, Ülkü, No.10, (November 1933), pp.319-320.
80 Cavit Binbaşıoğlu, Türk Eğitim Düşüncesi Tarihi, (Ankara: Ani Yayıncılık, 2005), p.235.
81 Muallim Kemal, “Bayramı Köye Götürenler”, pp.319-320.
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implementation of the work should be given importance.82 The approach, which despised the academic thought at the beginning, began to be disapproved over time. Deficiencies in this area have also been criticized. In this respect, the Turkish Peasantists came to the same point with the Russian Narodniks and believed that they were the savior intellectuals who should guide the people.83 They complain that there are no articles written to enlighten the Turkish youth who will be villagers. In fact, according to some authors examining this issue, Kemalists preferred to modernize by using the state apparatus directly, instead of educating the society, starting with the peasants, and integrating them into the political arena.84 They asked questions such as what a village is, what kind of social institution is it exemplifies, how are its structure, function, and social character formed, what kind of social community is the village, and how can we explain the geographical, economic, historical and social situation of the villages in Turkey. How to study a village. Who is the peasant, how does he work, how does he adapt himself to the environment, and what should he know about the psychology of the peasant? What are the reasons for the backwardness of the Turkish village? What does it mean for a social group to fall behind? How is it possible to be influential on a village sociologically? What is the function of the village alone? They sought answers to the questions of what the nature of their various relations with the cities is. In summary, the peasantists saw themselves as an educated army.
82 Selahattin Kandemir, Köycülüğümüz, Ülkü, No.31, (Septeptember 1935), p.32.
83 Oya Köymen, Kapitalizm ve Köylülük Ağalar Üretenler Patronlar, p.65.
84 Frederick Frey, The Turkish Political Elite, (Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press, 1965), p.41.
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They wanted to improve the socio-economic situation of the Turkish villagers and create a rich and clean village.85
2.2 Village Administration and Architectural Improvements
The authors of Ülkü argue that it is necessary to understand very well the geographical, social, and economic influences that played a role in the foundation of the village. How did the village come into being, and how did it develop? What role do the climate, nature, and the village play in its foundation? How many types of villages are there according to peasantist literature? What is the social, economic, and legal structure of each type? There are differences between villagers who live in the mountains and forests and those who live on the coast. These differences are seen in the village layout, the shapes, and types of houses, building materials, production conditions, and social life.86 According to peasantists, before the Republic, villages, and peasants were seen as ignorant masses who did not value themselves. “Thanks to the Republic, the village, which has ceased to be the toy of tyrants, has started to live itself. Today villagers’ income is independent and an asset in its own right in the business cycle.”87 It is not possible to talk about a strong central administration during the Ottoman rule. This led to the strengthening of several prominent families of the village and reaching an autonomous position.88 According to Ülkü authors, before the Republic, villages were
85 İsmet Türkmen, Kastamonu Halkevi ve Türkiye’nin Modernleşme Sürecine Katkıları (1932-1951), (Ankara: Berikan Yayınevi, 2014), p.107.
86 Salahattin Kandemir, “Coğrafya Bakımından Köy”, p.158.
87 Behçet Günay, “Köy”, Ülkü, No.37, (March 1936), p.55.
88 Kemal H. Karpat, Türk Demokrasi Tarihi, p.30.
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governed under the rule and influence of some aghas and according to the customs and traditions of that time. The personal will of the agha is dominant in the public affairs of the village. Agha deals with the private affairs of the people such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, guardianship, and property under his interests and wishes. He wants to interfere in the affairs of the people by the government and tries to expand his real estate and money using cheating and threats. To gain rights and be protected in private disputes, it is sufficient to interfere with the agha. To obtain the right, the people would not even think of resorting to legal remedies because of the intervention of the agha on the one hand and the distrust of the justice of that time on the other hand. The main characteristics of the villagers at that time were adherence to the old ways and habits, bigotry in the face of ideas of innovation, and the desire to live calmly and without noise.89 When the World War I and the National Struggle ended and the survivors returned to the villages, the aghas encountered an unexpected situation. The trust and obedience of their fathers were not seen in this new element, whose nerves became tense amid the noise of the war and under the discipline and surveillance of the military, and who grasped himself due to the position he took in the defense of the homeland. They asked the agha to account for the village affairs, and they wanted the will and will of the people of the village to prevail in the administration of the village, not the individual will of the agha. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, the agha completely withdraws from the village affairs. The people, who emerged from the harsh discipline of the war years and the boring authority of the agha, chose to live more freely and independently than
89 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyümde Gördüklerim”, Ülkü, No.37, (March 1936), pp.58-63.
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necessary, and did not want to be attached to the community authority.90 Situation like that, cause worries in peasantists in Ülkü.
For peasantists, raising the civilizational level of the country means settling the entire population in places suitable for life and development, then opening schools, stores, workshops, post offices, pharmacies, kindergartens, improving houses, taking public health measures, establishing production, consumption, and credit cooperatives in each village. It meant improving technology, connecting each village to the centers in a regular way, setting up a radio in each village, sending books and newspapers, and occasionally a theater committee or a cinema.91 Before Republic, the state's contact with the village was only through the taxpaying. Enlighting the villages, on the other hand, was not something that occurred to the sultanate administration.92
Ülkü authors suggest that creating a Köy Rehberi (Villager’s Guide) chair benefit both from the goods and from being a role model with his words and his actions to raise the cultural and civilizational level of his neighborhood.93 The most important task of the Köy Rehberi is to transmit culture to the villagers. This is the aim and purpose of all other activities of the Köy Rehberi.94 Village education will get its publications as it is introduced in Turkey with this organization, and it will follow very closely the publications of other
90 Ibid.
91 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Bir Köycülük Projesi Tecrübesi”, p.125.
92 Abdullah Ziya, “Cumhuriyette Köy Yapımı”, p.333.
93 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Bir Köycülük Projesi Tecrübesi”, pp.118-125.
94 Ibid.
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countries and translate the most useful ones into Turkish.95 He will build the modern agricultural system of the country by using these and similar experts and their works.96
In this context, an attitude was taken against the aghas in Ülkü. This power and influence of the aghas also prevent the people from taking over the local administration in the village, as Republic’s populist regime, and the Köy Kanunu command. The peasant's participation in the administration of the country is as superficial as it is in the administration of his village. According to Ülkü the agha is the most well-dressed, best-spoken, cunning man who has the most decent house in the village, who comes into contact with the government and the party, represents the village in every job, welcomes and hosts the people who come to the village. Aghas sometimes also play the role of sectarian and revolutionary. However, some aghas have provided great services and work with sincerity and self-sacrifice for the good of their village. This situation revealed the question of whether large landowners or small landowner peasants should be supported within the Kemalist cadre.97 In villages close to cities and towns, there is often no local network; the aghas of these villages settled in the center and took the form of merchants. Sometimes the influence of these merchant-aghas goes very far. In villages, the aghas’ men are always elected to the headman's office and the council of elders. Sometimes, it is the case that the aghas also become the headman; however,
95 Ibid.
96 Ziraat Kursları, “İzmir Valisi Kazım Paşa ile Söyleşi”, Ülkü, No.10, (November 1933), pp.321-325.
97 Anıl Çeçen, Atatürk’ün Kültür Kurumu Halk Evleri, (Ankara: İmge Yayınevi, 1990), p.40.
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the aghas and those who are generally well-off do not condescend to the headmanship, which they do not see as very honorable and troublesome job. The villagers cannot fulfill the duty expected of a true democracy citizen, especially in the second elector's decision, due to the inability to follow the population movements and the incomplete or ambiguous population records, the lack of a political upbringing to ensure that the villagers show individual interest, and finally the lack of enthusiasm for the election.98 Contrary to all of these, it is noteworthy that the Kemalists were allied with the aghas mentioned in Ülkü for a while. The cooperation established with these people during the National Struggle continued after the war. This relationship has developed in the interests of both groups. While, the aghas maintained the authority and order of the state, while the Kemalists were able to continue their revolution, on the other hand, the aghas benefited economically from this relationship.99 The property rights, which were reorganized with the Civil Code in 1926, aimed to undermine this cooperation.100 This relationship deteriorated towards the end of the 1940s with laws such as Toprak Reformu (Land Reform) supported by the RPP. However, due to the negativities experienced in the Second World War and the RPP's inability to win over the villagers, it could not improve its image in the eyes of the villagers.101 According to the villagers, the RPP administration, which says that they are masters, has never taken any steps to put this discourse into action.102
98 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köycülük Programına Giriş”, Ülkü, No.26, (April 1935), p.136.
99 Şükrü Karatepe, Tek Parti Dönemi, pp.51-52.
100 Stanford J. Shaw- Ezel Shaw, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu ve Modern Türkiye Vol.2, p.459.
101 Şükrü Karatepe, Tek Parti Dönemi, p.53.
102 Şerif Mardin, “Türkiye: Bir Ekonomik Kodun Dönüşümü”, p.232.
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The issue of linguistic unity in villages was also a matter of discussion. It was proposed to conduct studies to introduce the Turkish language in some non-Turkish-speaking villages.103 There are villages where they have lived in this country for centuries, sometimes being ethnic Turks, but speaking a foreign language. Even though they speak Turkish, some villages do not feel strongly attached to Turkishness.104According to the writers of Ülkü, there should be no population clusters that would open a room for cultural differences within the country. There should be no social and economic clusters that would cause class differences in the country.105 It can be said that the construction of villages started with the establishment of the Mübadele, İskan ve İmar Vekaleti (Minister of Population Exchange, Housing and Public Works) in Turkey. Later, after the abolition of this institute, their affairs were transferred to the Ministry of Interior. Moreover, the Köy Kanunu was enacted and the state activities in the countryside were expanded.106 Considering these benefits, the government enacted some crucial laws so that the peasants could rise in every aspect and the villages could be developed and beautified. These laws granted some rights to villagers that were not granted until the republican era.107 The most significant features of this law are that it prescribed the organization and collective work of villagers in villages that needed continuous development.
103 Osman Nuri, “Haymana’nın Ahırlı Kuyu Köyü”, Ülkü, No.17-18-19, ( July, August, September 1934), pp.394-400, pp.478-480, pp.78-80.
104 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köycülük Programına Giriş”, p.133.
105 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Soy Düzeni”, Ülkü, No.22, (December 1934), p.302.
106 Abdullah Ziya, “Cumhuriyette Köy Yapımı”, p.333.
107 Kadri Kemal, “Cumhuriyetten Evvel ve Sonra Köylerimiz”, p.340.
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The law gave the village a legal personality and also became a sanction of national sovereignty.108 Firstly, with this law, it was emphasized that the development should start from the village, and secondly, by giving a legal personality to the villages, for the first time in Turkish history, village communities were given an autonomous structure.109 The Republic's Köy Kanunu entrusted the village's development in the social, sanitary, economic, and agricultural fields to collective work so that the important needs of the village are met by the villagers themselves in proportion to their means and needs. The Köy Kanunu not only gives the village this authority but also enumerates which works the village performs out of necessity and which are voluntary.110 The works conducting in the villages were divided into compulsory and optional works, and failure to perform the compulsory works was punished. Voluntary works, on the other hand, were included in the obligatory works by a decision of more than half of the village associations and were subject to the same penalty.111 Obligatory works, which must be performed as part of the village's collective work, are vital works such as fetching water, building roads, and draining swamps. Voluntary works are working those villagers perform in their free time, giving them material and spiritual value, mostly economic and sometimes social. Although the law is not binding in terms of performing the work, which is left to the will of the villagers, there has been such good work instruction in all areas that this law
108 Ibid.
109 Serdar Göktaş, Trakya Umumi Müfettişliği’nin Köycülük Politikası, (Master’s Thesis, Pamukkale University, 2012), p.23.
110 Kerim Ömer, “Köyde Toplu Çalışma”, Ülkü, No.8, (September 1933), p.159.
111 Kadri Kemal, “Cumhuriyetten Evvel ve Sonra Köylerimiz”, p.340.
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must be described as a work program that can be applied, rather than an unattainable ideal.112 It has also been argued that the teacher, who is included in the İhtiyar Heyeti (Board of Aldermen) by the Köy Kanunu, should have more authority in the village than the headman.113 In 21,315 villages where the Köy Kanunu is applied, thanks to this law and solely with the help of the village budget and villagers, water facilities, wells, village houses, village guest rooms, village markets, stores, squares, and baths have been built.114 Among the works carried out in our villages after the entrance in force of the law, due importance was given to afforestation, and the number of trees planted on village borders between 1924 and the last months of 1933 exceeded 1,821,900, 28,000 kilometers of roads were built with village funds and peasant labor. In addition to these 921 bridges were built. Around the village borders, 121 of the 966 bridges previously existed have been successfully repaired.115 With the village law, the shrinking and disintegration of the villages would have been prevented. The biggest reason for the backwardness in the villages was the separate and unconnected situation of these villages.116 Ülkü authors state depending on today's experience, we can safely conclude that only the Turkish youth who grew up during the Turkish Revolution know the needs of the Turkish village, the lifestyle, and the tastes of the Turkish villagers.117 With the
112 Kerim Ömer, “Köyde Toplu Çalışma”, p.159.
113 Kırımlıoğlu Rıfat, “Köyde Yetiştirme ve İmar”, Ülkü, No.10, (November 1933), p.350.
114 Kadri Kemal, “Cumhuriyetten Evvel ve Sonra Köylerimiz”, pp.340-341.
115 Ibid.
116 Hasan Reşit Tankut, Köylerimiz Bugün Nasıldır, Dün Nasıldı, Yarın Nasıl Olmalıdır, (Ankara: Kenan Basımevi ve Klişe Fabrikası, 1939), pp.36-37.
117 Abdullah Ziya, “Cumhuriyette Köy Yapımı”, p.334.
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goal of economic thinking, roads should be built from the villages to the public centers so that both doctors, advisory committees, mobile libraries, etc. can spread to and reside in the villages.118 The Turkish Revolution should move towards a national village architecture and a national village service. To save villagers from these bad houses, a village house pattern should be built for the time being, in addition to provinces and districts.119
2.3 Peasantist Policy in Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
The definition of agriculture and animal husbandry in Ülkü is quite chivalrous. According to the definitions, agriculture and animal husbandry are professions that always keeps their true followers in direct contact with nature and its beauties. “Agriculture never tolerates lies and lying, which are the head and inseparable friends of immorality. The farmer reaps what he sows, and the more effort he puts in, the more he gets in return. It is not possible to deceive others, especially in agriculture, as is possible in other living professions kept in cities.”120 From the point of production, the agriculturist is in direct contact with nature, not with others, and nature cannot be deceived. The agriculturist spends all his time on the proliferation and beautification of what he sows, instead of corrupting contacts with others. As he sees the fruits/products of his labor, he feels honored by the ruling that he created them himself, his chest rises, and he feels great pleasure and joy. Again, upbringing is a very certain principle in terms of morality that all moral disorders arise
118 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, Ülkü, No.8, (September 1933), p.158.
119 Ömer Türkmen, “Trabzon Köyleri”, Ülkü, No.20, (October 1934), p.160.
120 Hidayet Aydıner, “Yurdumuzun Ağaçlandırılması Zirai Hapishaneler”, Ülkü, No.57, (November 1937), p.267.
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from unemployment. A working man cannot be a bad person. Because he cannot find time to think about evil. Even if he remembers doing bad, he is afraid and afraid to do it. Because he knows that if he does evil, he will be deprived of his beloved job and its sweet benefits. Agriculture, on the other hand, is almost the only profession that has been spared from unemployment, as the years of depression have proven once again. If there is a depression, if the world is destroyed, the farmer will still not give up on planting. Because the first obscenity of his products is himself. He will feed himself with it, protect his life. Whether the surplus is well worth it is secondary to the farmer. Then agriculture is not a very difficult profession to acquire like other professions. Because it does not rely on a lot of capital and its capital is not easily consumed like other capitals.121 According to the authors of Ülkü, the current agricultural form of the country is mostly dependent on the nature and the characteristics of the country. Nature plays the leading role in the professional life of a peasant. Nature draws directions even to the general lives of the villagers. They believe that, Turkey’s land is very suitable for agriculture due to its many advantages and characteristics in terms of climate, water, and soil. Only the people living in it must be able to overcome some difficulties that nature reveals. Many features will allow this.122
In the early years of the Republic, most of the population lived in villages. For the peasantists, the peasant is not only the farmer who produces raw materials and food. The peasant is a social unit that produces for its own demanding
121 Ibid.
122 İ. Hakkı Tonguç, “Köy Eğitimi Meselesi”, Ülkü, No.65-66-67, ( July, August, September 1938), pp.434-444, 501-508, 11-20.
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needs and uses its surplus to make up for the deficits of the cities.123 However, the main economic activity that comes to mind when one speaks of villages and villagers is agriculture and animal husbandry. Today, according to this understanding, which is still in the minds not only in Turkey, but also in the whole world, the village is nothing but the collective settlement of the agricultural people.124 This large population mass is spread over large areas of the country, cultivating fertile land and raising animals on vast pastures.125 Agricultural changes caused by the vacant agricultural lands with the Population Exchange126 have been among the issues handled by the RPP. The distribution of the land to the peasants and the sale of the land to the local farm owners are among the elements that cause discussion.127 The reason why the land issue is quite significant is that contrary to the claims of the writers of Ülkü or today's writers, the amount of arable land in Anatolia was not enough for small farming to continue. In addition, soil fertility was insufficient to require fallow repeatedly. Although there is a large amount of land in Anatolia, the number of people who can cultivate it is very small. The only thing Turkey has to do, which suffered heavy losses during the war and lost a significant part of its population, is to follow policies based on population growth. The solution of the administration for this situation is designed to
123 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köycülük Esasları”, p.150.
124 Nusret Köymen, “Köy Demek Tarım Demek Değildir”, Ülkü, No.28, (June 1935), p.308.
125 Trakyalı Ali Galip, “Köylü”, pp.326-332.
126 Population Exchange between Turkey and Greece in 1923. It is based on the exchange of Muslims living in Greece and orthodox Christians living in Turkey. Nearly two million people have been displaced.
127 Şerif Mardin, “Türkiye: Bir Ekonomik Kodun Dönüşümü”, p.224.
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bring immigrants from abroad.128 For this reason, the way for the peasants to attain the welfare aimed by the writers of Ülkü was achieved through agricultural modernization.129 Therefore, agriculture and livestock have been important issues for the villagers in Ülkü. According to Ülkü, the role of the village consitutes at least half in societies whose main feature revolves around agriculture. This dominance refers to both the economy and the population.130 This shows that agriculture and livestock are the most important elements of the country's economy. Peasantists, being proud of Anatolia's rich and fertile soils, argue that fertile soils alone are not enough.131 They point out that 64% of Anatolia's soils can be used as pastures and meadows or for this purpose.132 It is stressed out that the state provides support in these areas so that Turkish farmers can develop, use new technologies, and keep up with the revolutions of the republic.133 Although the emphasis has been on industrialization, Turkey has been considered an agricultural country, and development steps have been taken accordingly. Therefore, there is no doubt that the established industrial facilities are also related to agriculture. In the field of agriculture and livestock, as in other fields, it was thought that the solution lay in educating the farmers. It was assumed that villagers must first gain awareness of these issues in order to make progress on topics such as agricultural
128 Mehmet Caner Bilir, “Türkiye’de Toprak Sorunu ve Köylülük”, (Master’s Thesis, Marmara University, 2012), p.57.
129 Kemal H. Karpat, Türk Demokrasi Tarihi, pp.189-191.
130 Salahattin Kandemir, “Coğrafya Bakımından Köy”, pp.153-160.
131 Nusret Namık, “Üzümlerimiz”, Ülkü, No.11, (December 1933), p.405.
132 Dr. Salahattin, “Türkiye’de Hayvancılık”, Ülkü, No.17, (July 1934), p.369.
133 Ziraat Kursları, “İzmir Valisi Kazım Paşa ile Söyleşi”, pp.321-325.
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mechanization, modern farming techniques, vaccination, and pest control. In this context, there were articles in the Askerlik Kanunu (Conscription Law), enacted the year after the proclamation of the Republic, to teach new agricultural methods and agricultural machinery to the conscripted villagers. Again, arrangements were made for the same articles in the Köy Kanunu. The Ministry of Agriculture was reorganized to provide a structure suitable for the villagers to learn modern techniques.134 It was assumed that the most important thing in the country was agriculture.135 While talking about the production of the land, the first thing that comes to mind is the crops grown by the villagers. Furthermore, when talking about the producer, the farmer is thought of first.136 The opinion is that neglecting the land means not caring about the livelihood of the farmers.137 There is also an opinion that strives for prioritizinge livestock instead of agriculture in the villages. The reason given for this is that animal husbandry is the main livelihood activity for villagers, and agriculture is detrimental to villagers.138 Therefore, peasantists argue that there is no doubt that there will be a growing need to increase the number of animals for both production and butchery shortly. The government has not been idle for a moment to take the necessary measures to purify the breed of animals and to value their products with standardized and clearing methods shortly to reduce the census tax with the tax to ensure that the number of animals increases, and the feeders can benefit, and has submitted a draft law
134 Stanford J. Shaw, Ezel Shaw, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu ve Modern Türkiye Vol.2, p.458.
135 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, Ülkü, No.6, (July 1933), p.481.
136 Trakyalı Ali Galip, “Köylü”, p.326.
137 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, p.481.
138 Dr. Salahattin, “Türkiye’de Hayvancılık”, p.370.
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to the parliament. “There is no doubt that this benevolent work, which will be approved by the public with applause, will therefore bring amplitude to the country.”139 Since the Turkey is under the influence of various climatic conditions, various regions of the country are suitable for raising various animal species and breeds, and therefore for producing various animal crops.140
It was expected that after receiving an education, the villager would return to his village and take care of his field and animals. Hilmi Malik emphasized this in his article titled "Kışla ve Köy Terbiyesi" (Barracks and Village Discipline) and said that the soldiers trained in the barracks could return to their villages and take better care of their fields and animals. The young villagers who completed their military service were to be taken to agricultural schools, farms, and gardens in the area to learn the techniques of vegetable cultivation, and field and vineyard care. Likewise, they were to be trained in subjects such as poultry and beekeeping. Examples of these facilities have been created by the state. For example peasantists in Ülkü suggest that the Center for Seed Improvement in Eskişehir, the Silk Stations in Bursa, and the Institute for Agriculture, Insects, and Viticulture in Izmir are all works of this new system and the conscious activity of the government.141 As reported in Ülkü, the villagers, who initially resisted modernization, gave up this resistance over time. For instance the government is trying to eliminate this ignorance of the
139 Behçet Günay, “Çiftçiye Öğütler”, Ülkü, No.35, (January 1936), p.349.
140 Cemal Arıtman, “Milli İkdisadiyatımızda Hayvancılık ve Türkiye’de Hayvancılığın İnkişaf İmkanları”, Ülkü, No.95, (January 1941), pp.454-464.
141 Ziraat Kursları, “İzmir Valisi Kazım Paşa ile Söyleşi”, pp.321-325.
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people with the agricultural fight officers and the struggle inspectorate. For example, İşgör says that “The people, who had forcibly reconstructed the hazelnut orchard in the first years, but then started to get abundant crops, and they started to do all the activities that science required.”142 Practical courses, were designed to integrate peasants into the modern economy and life by teaching them modern methods of agriculture and animal husbandry, as well as other subjects such as house building, hygiene, protection against diseases etc.143
Sometimes Ülkü authors specialized in one subject especially. To exemplify, one of these subjects that the Peasantist like to write about is beekeeping. Beekeeping has its origins in the vastness of history. Beekeeping in those years was still in the era of Karakovan and Karasepet. Ülkü give readers soe statistics about beekeeping. For example, “only three to 6,4 kilograms of honey can be taken from these hives, so the yield is small.” These Karakovan and Karasepet hives are suitable for attack by wasps and for mold and rust diseases. In this way the bees die. And these karasepets cannot be controlled.144 Ülkü authors did not hesitate to compare other countries with Turkey on these issues. For example, in his article titled “Arıcılık” (Beekeeping), Celal Davut criticizes that the beekeeping techniques of Turkish villagers are backward and attributes this to the ignorance and superstition of Turks: "There are forty thousand bee hives in our province alone. But one day all the bees in the village
142A. Süreyya İşgör, “Giresun’un Çayır Köyü”, Ülkü, No.32, (October 1935), pp.150.
143 Volkan Kılınç, Disciplining Turkish People Through the Peoples’s Houses: A Discursive Reading of the Ülkü Magazine 1933-1950, (Master’s Thesis, İstanbul Şehir University, 2017), pp.149-150.
144 Ziraat Kursları, “İzmir Valisi Kazım Paşa ile Söyleşi”, pp.321-325.
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were killed and disappeared. The bees froze to death, infested with mold and rust. The farmer, the careless, ignorant farmer, thinks this is a misfortune of God. But if he is told that it is a microbe, if he is taught the precautions in advance, he will be saved, otherwise, he will have to endure the privation of the bad result. This is because he has not yet entered the organization and has not yet learned the conditions of care and epidemic vaccines.”145 As an example, this article, which mentions the developments in agriculture and beekeeping in Bulgaria, explains how it became obligatory to teach the villagers about vaccines and how in a short time it became a country that exported to Europe in the field of viticulture. It is mentioned that scientific studies on this subject are translated and read in Bulgaria, while in Turkey there are very few translations on this subject so far. It is claimed that this success is the result of a joint effort of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Education, and that the lack of such an initiative in Turkey is a shortcoming. The village school is expected to teach the new methods of agriculture, the improvement of existing domestic animals, the importance of local agriculture, the measures against animal diseases, the planting and care of seedlings, the care of the forest, the importance of lice among villagers, the experiences in agriculture, and the results to be obtained from these experiences.146 It is believed that an excellent village school will have the opportunity to penetrate the entire village population in this field with the methods it teaches village children about animals and agriculture.147 It is said that since the days when the republic began to establish the real regime of the
145 Ibid.
146 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, p.483.
147 Ibid.
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agricultural profession in elementary school and on the peasant structure, this revolution will fully achieve its goal, settle down and take root.148 Even some articles mention the need to establish Köy Enstitüleri.149
The promotion of agriculture and animal husbandry in the villages was also carried out through legal regulations. For example, in the content of the Köy Kanunu, pasture, plateau, etc. there was also the arrangement of the villages. When drawing the village boundaries, it was considered that vineyard, garden, field and similar structures should not be divided. It is said that peasants preferred to settle in a place near his farmer's land to cultivate his land as soon as possible. This is because it is said that villagers had to spend time and effort to go to his field to cultivate it.150 In places where animal husbandry has an important place in livelihood, pasture fights are the most important events of every year.151 It was emphasized that arrangements should be made so as not to exclude the Çift (yoke) animals.152 It is complained that this was a custom among the peasants. But after economic depression this became corrupted. It was claimed that the villager paid the money for the clothes he wore and his tax debt to the state by selling his livestock and animal products throughout most of Anatolia.153 Some of the information asked about
148 Ziraat Kursları, “İzmir Valisi Kazım Paşa ile Söyleşi”, pp.321-325.
149 Refik ve Ziya, “Bursa’nın Keles Köyü”, Ülkü, No.15, (May 1934), p.237.
150 Trakyalı Ali Galip, “Köylü”, pp.326-327.
151 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köycülük Programına Giriş”, pp.132-141.
152 Yalçın, “Köylünün Çift Hayvanlarının Haczedilmesi”, Ülkü, No.19, (September 1934), pp.76-77.
153 Dr. Salahattin, “Türkiye’de Hayvancılık”, pp.369-371.
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the villages in the "Köy Anketi" (Village Survey) published in Ülkü was related to agriculture and animal husbandry. For instance, they wanted to know the villagers' agricultural knowledge, ownership of agricultural machinery, number of bullock chickens, seed production, irrigation, and fertilization. With the forest farm established by Atatürk, he is expected to introduce villagers to modern techniques. As stated in the Ülkü article entitled " Köycülük Nedir?"(What is Peasantism?), the peasantist did not oppose industrialization. However, they believed that despite industrialization, the development of agriculture was the most important thing. With Bayar regaining his influence, this understanding will return to the way that prioritizes the industry. This coincides with the period when the peasantism had already lost its influence.154 Peasantists said that the agricultural development of villages would also contribute to industrialization, but they felt that the biggest obstacle to this was the lack of knowledge among villagers. It was emphasized that farmers have experienced this many times because of ignorance, loss of small and large animals in the herds, loss of crops full of harvests.155 After going to the villages and seeing the villagers, the authors who concluded that the most vulnerable element of the country is the farmer; they say that in the villages of Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara and Konya, they cannot even use their most explicit legal rights because of ignorance and poverty, which are similar to each other.156
154 Asım Karaömerlioğlu, Orada Bir Köy Var Uzakta Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Köycü Söylem, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2021), p.78.
155 Kırımlıoğlu Rıfat, “Köyde Yetiştirme ve İmar”, pp.344-350.
156 Yalçın, “Köylünün Çift Hayvanlarının Haczedilmesi”, pp.76-77.
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They predicted that the national income would increase tenfold if problems such as vaccination, pest control, seed breeding, dairy farming, beekeeping and animal husbandry, and harvesting techniques were solved. It was even recommended that village teachers be trained in these matters. It is claimed that this measure, which may manifest itself in initiatives such as the purchase of seed improvement machinery, threshing and reaping machines, exhibitions, and award ceremonies, will bring great benefits to agriculture.157 It has been said that the village environment in which the fertile seeds and animals will live, obtained with the support of the state, should be prepared jointly by the villagers and the farmer.158 By taking advantage of the opportunities and facilities provided by the Köy Kanunu, villagers worked hard to improve the breeds of animals in their hands, and in many places, with the money allocated from the village budget and with the help of villagers, storage stations were established in several villages.159
The farmer, who also addressed the factors that negatively affect agriculture and livestock, pointed out that the main problem was borrowing due to low productivity. For example, since the yields from the fields end in the middle of winter, some villages buy barley and wheat abroad and therefore borrow money from the banks.160 Therefore, this great mass, this productive people who own the land, has remained mostly ignorant and remains so. 161 These
157 Etem Veysi, “Köylüye Yardım”, Ülkü, No.12, (January 1934), pp.467-468.
158 Dr. Salahattin, “Türkiye’de Hayvancılık”, pp.369-371.
159 Kadri Kemal, “Cumhuriyetten Evvel ve Sonra Köylerimiz”, p.341.
160 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.152.
161 Trakyalı Ali Galip, “Köylü”, pp.326-332.
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villagers, whose agricultural knowledge consists of manners, make losses because they do not know many modern techniques. For example, Ülkü authors give a chicken raiser example. “The chickens that run around in the sheds because they do not have sheds are malnourished and make other animals sick. They know the usefulness and value of the horse but point out the lack of capital by saying that it is cheaper than an ox, but they cannot afford it because they do not have enough money to obtain the material.”162
The question of whether Turkey should first industrialize or advance its agriculture has been an important issue for which an answer is sought in Ülkü. The answers given to this have found a place in the journal. Those who say that Turkey should advance its agriculture first ask their questions after Celal Bayar's speech163 and after seeing that Turkish industrialism is walking with strong and successful steps. Since Turkey's budget can allocate very little money for productive works, should it attribute some of the important part of this little money to the development of agriculture or industrialization? Those who answer this question that Turkey should spend an important part of the little money it can spare for productive works for the development of agriculture put forward the following evidence. Firstly, Turkey cannot realize a wide industrialization with its current budget, irrevocable utilities, unavoidable increase in defense costs, and today's technical and cultural level. Established state industry and large industry in general usually do not bring profit immediately, years of experience and expense are invading. However, in Turkey, there are very important agricultural works that can be
162 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, pp.156-158.
163 Opening speech of Congree ofIndusty between 20-24 January 1936.
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immediately turned into income with little money. Consequently, the only way to provide the money for industrialization and raising the technical and cultural level of the country is to develop agriculture.164 Ülkü writers supported small-scale factories established in the village rather than large-scale factories. In this way, they believed that the proletarian class would not be formed.165 Secondly, Turkey has such crops that it has almost de facto monopoly or uncompetitive superiority all over the world that increasing the production, improvement, and organization of sales of these will increase exports in a short time and will provide the money and foreign currency that Turkey needs for defense, public works, and industrial works. Thirdly, the increase in population density is one of the most important issues in Turkey. The solution to increasing the population is the development of agriculture. The biggest factor in population growth is the reduction of deaths rather than the increase in births. The main cause of death and disease in Turkey is a lack of food and variety of food, and “these bad foods show the danger of spoiling the health of the race.” Turkey is the country that eats the least milk, meat, vegetables, and fruits among the civilized countries. Therefore, first of all, it is necessary to organize their production. Not only does it prevent the population of Turkey, which has a great ability to increase in bad food, from increasing more rapidly, but it also reduces the ability of the current population to work. Fourthly, unless the working and earning power of the peasants, that is, their living standards and their ability to participate, expands, it is impossible for industrial products to find a good market in
164 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Türkiye Evvela Sanayileşmeli mi Yoksa Ziraatını mı İlerletmeli?”, Ülkü, No.40, (June 1936), pp.248-249.
165 Asım Karaömerlioğlu, Orada Bir Köy Var Uzakta Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Köycü Söylem, p.79.
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Turkey, which is 80 percent peasants. Lastly, Turkey is following a great railway policy and incurs great expenses for the construction and purchase of railways. Today's population concentration and business volume of the country will not allow even the operating costs to be met, let alone interest and depreciation. In order for the railways to come close to operating in a completely harmless way, Turkey's population and business volume must reach at least twice what it is today. The burden of railways on the Turkish budget would increase, especially after the lines extending to the eastern region, whose population density is less than the Turkish average, are completed. The money to be spent on the development of agriculture would increase the population, as well as the increase in agricultural products, the organization of consumption, the transportation of agricultural products, the increase in the living standard, and the ability of the villagers to increase the transportation of finished goods and passengers, and thus the railways will become profitable.166
2.4 Village Economy and Trade
The main occupation of the peasant is agriculture. History has held a great record of the color and shape of the peasant economy.167 In the first years of the Republic, the locomotive sector in the reconstruction of the economy was agriculture. The men who returned to their land with the end of the war increased production in agriculture, which also paved the way for the
166 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Türkiye Evvela Sanayileşmeli mi Yoksa Ziraatını mı İlerletmeli?”, pp.251-252.
167 Sait Aydoslu, “Köylü ve Köylü Ekonomisi”, Ülkü, No.27, (May 1935), p.170.
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development of small industry, which had a shortage of raw materials.168 In this context, it is proposed to open Köy Dükkanları (Village’s Stores) in Ülkü. These Köy Dükkanları would also be a vehicle for the village leader to organize the village in the area of business and advance it in the area of technology. The Köy Dükkanları would be a link between the village and the whole country and the whole civilized world and would serve as connecting vessels that exchange the blood in the body in the economic and cultural network of the country.169 For Ülkü’s authors, the man who standing at the counter of the Köy Dükkanı will not be a moneylender or a merchant, but a missionary of Turkishness and human beings who lives with the enthusiasm to educate his people. This store will not only save the Turkish peasant from being a slave and a plaything in the hands of moneylenders and merchants for his most modest needs and from being so deprived that he cannot even eat his own produce, but it will also instill in him the will to live like a real human being and show him, his possibilities. Since the economic affairs of a village are limited, the köy rehberi will not sacrifice the time he devotes to the cultural affairs of the village. Köy Rehberleri should lead their neighborhoods in both civilization and culture. After all, the goal of these economic activities in the village is culture.170 It will raise awareness of business, cooperation, and progress in him and enable him to establish organizations such as production, consumption, and credit cooperatives.171 Organizing people and Köy Dükkanları can consitute a source of income for this business, which is also very beneficial for the people and the
168 Şükrü Karatepe, Tek Parti Dönemi, p.73.
169Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Bir Köycülük Projesi Tecrübesi”, p.120.
170 Ibid.
171 Ibid.
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culture and economy of the country.172 Another suggestion was the Köylü Hanı (Villager’s Inn). In these structures, villagers are trained and open to reforms so that villagers who come to cities for trade and other purposes are not abandoned.173 The villagers who came to the city, on the other hand, were separated from their own neighborhood, from the habits and pastimes of their environment. Their personalities are temporarily fragmented in the city's life, which is an incomprehensible mess for them. They felt lonely abroad. They have jobs and problems. They do not know where to turn. They had a lot of free time that they do not know how to spend it. In this situation, a peasantist who will come across them, especially if he is a peasantist that they see in his village and gets used to, is a close and great friend, a shelter for them.174 No matter how idealistic or rich we may be, form an urbanian viewpoint, urban sense, knowledge of the village and the villager, which is doomed to be scarce for a longer period of time, the works we will do in the village with the brightest ideas that will arise will remain foreign to the village and will not hold up in the village. In order to help the village, it is necessary to contact the most open-minded and active men of the village who come to the city and to inculcate the ideal of raising their own lives and villages. How can peasantist do this? In order to do so, it is necessary to gather the villagers coming to the city in one place as much as possible. Only a "Köylü Hanı" would make this possible.175 This inn, where the villagers will sleep as long as they stay in the
172 Ibid.
173 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köylü Hanı”, Ülkü, No.16, (June 1934), p.320.
174 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Halkevleri Köycülüğünün Daha Verimli Olması Hakkında Düşünceler”, Ülkü, No.73, (March 1939), p.27.
175 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köy Çalışmalarında Tek Müsbet Yol: Köylü Hanı”, Ülkü, No.40, (July 1935), p. 300.
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city and spend their free time in living and entertainment places, will not only prevent the most open-minded people of the village from taking all the troubles of the city and taking them to their villages but also will be a place of education for them. The villager should see the household goods, equipment, and conditions, which can be easily made in his village, in this inn and become familiar with them. The villager will get used to many comforts, conveniences, cleanliness, health considerations, and beauties in this inn, and will begin to enjoy them and seek them. The simplest civilization needs arise in a villager with a guiding spirit, in two villagers, he will place the good things in the village in a short time, which the Halkevi could not bring in ten years with its current working style, and which today's village school could not bring into the village for perhaps twenty years.176
The Economic Depression and the testing of the FRP are among the reasons that pushed the RPP and Kemalists to take measures on banking. The article about the reorganization of Ziraat Bank to help the villagers, announced by the FRP in the party program, caused the authors of Ülkü to write on this subject in the future.177 The farmer needs the bank to work, and the bank needs the farmer to work. The bank is involved in the life of the village, and the villager in the life of the bank. The bank became the peasant's bank. The villager also became the only customer of the bank.178 Peasant indebtedness was an important issue. There is hardly anyone in the villages who is not in debt. The
176 Ibid.
177 Osman Okyar, Mehmet Seyitdanlıoğlu, Atatürk, Okyar ve Çok Partili Türkiye, (İstanbul: İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2021), pp.74-75.
178 “Köylü ve Ziraat Bankası”, Ülkü, No.10, (November 1933), p.315.
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only income villagers can use to cover the debt comes from his field.179 The small farmer, on the other hand, cannot get a loan from the bank because he has neither a large field nor a large vineyard as collateral.180 The villagers' already small income shrinks either due to ignorance or because it falls into the hands of crooks. According to Ülkü authors, everyone tries to cheat the farmer. In some places, officials are even allowed to sell rotten and spoiled fruits and vegetables after the grocer declares he will sell them to the villagers. Almost every year in the spring, famine, known as the sickle famine, begins in most villages when there is nothing to eat.181 In this situation, the goal of opportunistic capitalists is to buy the peasant's hard labor as cheaply as possible and sell the goods that the peasant will consume at the highest possible price. Again, the goal is to lend the money the villager needs at a high-interest rate, as much as he can afford.182 The attempt to protect and revitalize the small farmer is also among the ideals of the Republic. The bank recognized the needs of small farmers in the republican era and created forms of treatment that allowed them to easily obtain the credit they needed to purchase seeds and livestock and to expand and improve their agriculture.183 Initially, consumer cooperatives were to be established in the villages. Peasant borrowing was also seen by the RPP as a phenomenon with devastating consequences. However, the support and encouragement of cooperatives by
179 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.152.
180 “Köylü ve Ziraat Bankası”, p.316.
181 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.157.
182 Trakyalı Ali Galip, “Köylü”, pp.329-330.
183 “Köylü ve Ziraat Bankası”, p.316.
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the state have progressed very slowly.184 In this context, the teachers and employees of the villages were to be taught cooperativism. At this point, Ülkü writers cite the 14th article of the Bulgarian law dated April 16, 1932, as an example. Accordingly, the property and property of the peasant cannot be seized. The heirs of the villager will also benefit from the provisions of this article. They categorize agricultural properties. There are large mansions that cannot be managed from one hand and that require a staff with officers and directors. There are large estates that can be managed from one hand and that only the owner has to deal with. There are small plots of land that cannot feed the owner alone and force him to cling to another craft. It is the size of the peasant property, or more precisely, the peasant economy can manage by the peasant himself, his successor, and maybe one or two approaches. If the peasant's only land and home are difficult to keep in another craft, there are sizes that vary according to soil types. In a separate article, they will investigate and try to explain their thoughts on the difficulties that the village, the peasantism, and the peasantism have created, and the ways they are suitable for them.185
Although their influence was not as influential as before, the aghas, thanks to the land they owned and the wealth and dominance this land provided to their families, the villagers were filthy under a long-lasting crush, the personal enterprise lost its courage and character, the agha became bogey in the darkness of deep ignorance he was in, cowed in front of economic difficulties. They still retain their spiritual and economic influence over the stunned
184 Şerif Mardin, “Türkiye: Bir Ekonomik Kodun Dönüşümü”, p.233.
185 Sait Aydoslu, “Köylü ve Köylü Ekonomisi”, pp.170-179.
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peasants. There are villagers who are the volunteers of their aghas, who cannot do anything on their own, even if they are given money and any means. However, there are not few villagers who submit to the aghas in the village or the aghas in the city out of desperation because they do not have cooperation and economic organization among them and they cannot find money, although they have the power of personal enterprise, and have the civil courage and open mind not to hesitate to fight against the agha whenever possible. The hardest thing in the village is to find the money.186 It is believed that the weakest aspect of the peasant economy is that its productivity and profitability are less than that of large agricultural enterprises.187 The feeling of joy that can be given by having a land, or rather a hearth that is enough to live, can give a power of creation, a feeling of confidence, a feeling of joy that is superior to the efficiency of this economy that can be expressed in numbers, in the spirit of the peasant and in all its aspects. The benefits of living in his wealth are so many that it would be naive to expect a salaried manager to be able to fill it, no matter how well-trained or knowledgeable he may be. The control of agricultural business is not like that of craft and commercial enterprises. Here, only the love of the land and the hope that the place where it is operated will always remain with him is a necessary value.188
One of the few services provided by the bank is to encourage villagers to form cooperatives. With the "Zirai Kredi Kooperatifleri Kanunu" (Agricultural Credit
186 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köycülük Programına Giriş”, pp.132-141.
187 Sait Aydoslu, “Köylü ve Köylü Ekonomisi”, p.176.
188 Ibid.
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Cooperatives Law) published in June 1929, the government of the Republic made Ziraat Bank the main bank of cooperatives.189
The lack of roads also inhibits economic ativities.190 The villagers' car, horse, and donkey get stuck in the mud and remain on the roads in winter.191 There are not a few who covet the earnings of this large class, which is pure, clean, and industrious, in return for their hard work. These covetous people take advantage of the villagers' ignorance and abuse this purity and them. The separation of village administrations opens the most suitable ground for this abuse.192 The peasants who walked in the garb of the law were very oppressed and frightened. They often knew how to make those who used the law appear before them and went under the guise of the law. The villagers were often wronged when they complained about them, and sometimes they were treated severely.193
Villagers owed money to the bazaar in convoys. They did not ask the price. They did not know how much they owed. During the threshing season, the stores were closed, they waited with their sacks for their debts to be paid. Ülkü authors say that for years, the villagers of Kadınhanı had been blind to the threshing floor where the creditors were not present. The farmer could not and still cannot pay his debts. The merchant also relied on the law of enforcement.
189 “Köylü ve Ziraat Bankası”, p.317.
190 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.158.
191 Ibid.
192 Trakyalı Ali Galip, “Köylü”, p.327.
193 Ibid.
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All of them have bound their debts in the last years. Many farmers are being pursued by the executive.194 A farmer who sold his tobacco and even made a profit is obliged to pay a perpetual debt just because he has the name and seal of the village in the common bail year.195 The wine grower, who has been in trouble day after day since 1928, is writhing in debt. They could not form large cooperatives.196 Peasantist was knew when the merchant did business with the villagers. Even if they act only with their own profit in mind, they are aware of the situation of each villager by studying the general and private conditions of each villager and constantly dealing with the villagers.197
The goal of peasantism should be to create economically independent peasant families. Economically independent village families can be a country's greatest strength. For a village family to be economically independent, it must have a house, land, animals, and implements to provide food and clothing for the household. Such families will not be under the influence of the rich and wealthy in their neighborhood, and they will be able to cast their votes and fight injustices in the administration of their villages like free citizens. The establishment of a true democracy in a country can only be realized with the majority of economically detached village families.198
194 Hakim Yalçın, “Kadınhanı Köylüsü Nasıl Borçlandı”, Ülkü, No.11, (December 1933), pp.481-482.
195Etem Veysi, “Köylüye Yardım”, pp.467-468.
196 Nusret Namık, “Üzümlerimiz”, p.409.
197 Etem Veysi, “Köylüye Yardım”, pp.467-468.
198 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köycülük Esasları”, pp.151-152.
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It can be seen that the total income of village households in villages that work well is increasing day by day and becoming richer. In 1931, the amount of village households was 4,880,078 liras. There is no doubt that the village households of 1932 and 1933 exceed this amount. It is noteworthy and important that these budget amounts, which will be the greatest factor in the development of villages and the rapid achievement of a progressive life by villagers, are increasing.199 There are very few villagers in country who can do their work properly and think of their future.200 It is probably a great development for the peasant to get used to saving. The peasant who did not even know what a savings fund was before the Republic has started saving money today.201
For Ülkü peasantists, the biggest problem of the peasant economy is the gap between industrial prices and agricultural prices. The price gap has been constantly opened against agricultural products. Moreover, small industry is also an industry, here they do not take into account the peasant economy and the domestic industry in the peasant's hearth, here is the main difference of small industry.
The foremost of the measures to be taken to strengthen the peasant economy is to increase the value of the peasant product from its current ideological state to its normal level. Peasantists believe that they are not wrong to call today's agricultural prices ideological. The monetary value of a peasant economy that
199 Kadri Kemal, “Cumhuriyetten Evvel ve Sonra Köylerimiz”, p.342.
200 Etem Veysi, “Köylüye Yardım”, pp.467-468.
201 “Köylü ve Ziraat Bankası”, p.318.
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works day and night, even if it uses the most modern machines all year with its family members, is incalculably lower than the money value of the money generated by each worker working in many branches of industry by working eight hours a day alone in a year. Even the daily wages that the same industrial worker receives in a year are superior to money, when measured by the value created by a peasant family by striving in hot, cold and raining all year, by looking after their animals with kindling fire all winter nights. In such a situation, large masses of peasants cannot be expected to help the domestic economic movements. Moreover, it is wrong to take the prices of completely different based agricultural products of the new world as a measure for the products of the peasants of the old cultural countries. It is by considering the price difference once in a while that we can approach the normal price.202
202 Sait Aydoslu, “Bir Başka Bakımdan Köylü Ekonomisi”, pp.167-173.
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CHAPTER 3
PEASANTIST APPROACH OF ÜLKÜ TO VILLAGERS
3.1 Peasantism and Education
Village education is one of the prominent themes in the sections written about Ülkü village and in other sections written about the village. Topics such as the enrollment rate in villages, the educational level of villagers, how villagers should be taught, and how village teachers should be trained were frequent subjects of the journal. Suggestions were made for the content of the curriculum for village schools. Who should be the age groups that should be given priority was explained and presented with reasons. For the republican elite and Ülkü writers, the Turkish peasant is like an unprocessed, pure ore.203 To the credit of the republic, the Turkish villager is considered a valuable gem worthy of being made known by intellectuals.204 Peasants are considered to have high potential if treated properly.205 Knowing that the peasant is to be employed, even a village teacher, thinking of nothing but his ideal, comes up with the idea of building roads, houses, and schools, and establishing his own village by himself.206 Since the Turkish villager is very pure, sincere, and clean, if the teacher makes him one and makes him count, he will quickly achieve his
203 Hilmi A. Malik, “Kışla ve Köy Terbiyesi”, Ülkü, No.3, (April 1933), p.237.
204 Kadri Kemal, “Cumhuriyetten Evvel ve Sonra Köylerimiz”, p.339.
205 Hilmi A. Malik, “Kışla ve Köy Terbiyesi”, p.237.
206 Abdullah Ziya, “Köy Mimarisi”, No.5, (July 1933), p.370.
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goal and every step in his environment.207 The Turkish villager, easily and immediately sensinges and distinguishinges every good and bad thing, always wants an outsider, a skilled commandant and a motivator, and quickly finds and understands the sanctions of words with their own speed. He knows that good and tight herding will yield fruits and follows him.208 They believe that “it is possible to wake up the villages living in peace, even with an airplane flying through the sky”. It is believed that if the national enthusiasm is aroused, it will do great things.209 “The reason why this has not happened so far is that the villagers are not appreciated anywhere except in the sickly gilded words of the poets and the colored oilcloths of the painters that smell of linseed oil.”210 “It is lamented that all help to the villagers is always verbal, like a blind beggar reading a fairy tale at the door of a mosque. Despite our gilded words and all our good intentions, it has been accepted that our excited speeches have not brought anything new to the villagers.”211 However, it is believed that after this, it is time to remove these obstacles and take concrete steps.212 According to them, the villagers' awakening and their ability to serve their villages well depend on the schools that are opened in the villages and the curriculum that is taught to the children.213 The curriculum should be
207 Ziraat Kursları, “İzmir Valisi Kazım Paşa ile Söyleşi”, pp.321-325.
208 Abdülkadir, “Köy ve Köylüler”, Ülkü, No.35, (January 1936), p.379.
209 Kırımlıoğlu Rıfat, “Köyde Yetiştirme ve İmar”, p.347.
210 Abdullah Ziya, “Köy Mimarisi”, No, 7, p.37.
211 Ibid.
212 Ressam Ali Sami, “Köy Mekteplerinde Resim Dersleri”, Ülkü, No.12, (January 1934), pp.463-466.
213 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, p.483.
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created to expand and improve the existing ones. The idea that it should not aim to destroy what already exists is prevalent.214 This is one of the indicators that the villagers in Ülkü are not yet radicalized. In line with all these, the first thing that Kemalists took as a basis in the field of education was the goal of increasing the literacy rate, which they saw as the main reason for the gap between the intellectual and the public. All the reforms made have been for this purpose. Literacy was seen as a key to achieving other goals.215
Despite the negative effects including the low literacy rate in the villages, the spread of religious practices corrupted by superstitions, and the sermons of some preachers, it was believed that the Turkish villagers would succeed in a short period thanks to their will to learn, their high intelligence, and their talent.216 It was claimed that these qualities were especially stronger in western Turkey, so the chances of success were higher in this region. In the first issue of the journal, an attempt was made to develop alternatives for conducting educational activities due to inadequate economic and physical conditions. One of these alternatives is the training method in the barracks. According to the Ülkü authors, some of the men in the villages are relatively more enlightened than the women. This is because some of them have done military service and received a thorough education. Also, he always goes to the market. He has the task of going to the government, he talks to the officials who come to the village, and he has a conversation with the teacher. Therefore, they are more attentive and more polite. They complain that he cannot succeed in math,
214 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Bir Köy Terbiyesi Örneği”, pp.416-424.
215 Carter V. Findley, Modern Türkiye Tarihi, p.284.
216 Mehmet Saffet, “Köycülük Nedir”, Ülkü, No.6, (July 1933), p.424.
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they cannot write, and they gets cheated upon when they go shopping, and they feels ashamed and embarrassed because they does not know many manners. They sends their children to school so that they do not fall into the pit of ignorance that they continuously fall into and tries to apply some of the spoken words by adopting them.217 In this context, it is believed that the military, which has always been the most progressive institution in society since the Ottoman Empire, should play a leading role in the development of the village. In his article entitled "Kışla ve Köy Terbiyesi," Hilmi A. Malik emphasizes that the former military heroes emerged from Turkish peasant children who were educated in the Turkish army. He says that the same intelligent young people can produce people who will spread the revolution and bring it to the villages. The author, predicting that village youth can be equipped with the values of the revolution and sent to their villages where they can serve as village teachers, says that raising conscious villagers who can contribute to agriculture, animal husbandry, and the environment is an important task for the military. According to Malik, who believes that these young people can change the face of villages by guiding their mothers and siblings, a lifelong educational process is envisioned by maintaining contact with officers in the barracks after village youth who have received this education in the barracks later return to their villages.218 The authors of Ülkü magazine, who see the Mexican peasantry as an example of this, proudly describe men returning from the military traveling alone through the villages like an educational mission, dedicated to educating the villagers.219 In Ülkü
217 Sabri Gültekin, “Melez Terbiye”, Ülkü, No.7, (August 1933), p.61.
218 Hilmi A. Malik, “Kışla ve Köy Terbiyesi”, p.239.
219 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Bir Köy Terbiyesi Örneği”, p.421.
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magazine, the villagers' goal is to obtain as much information as possible about the villages. In the village survey announced on this topic, an attempt was made to learn various information about the general outlook of educational status of the villages.220 The information that people wanted to learn provides us with some clues. For example, the desire was to learn whether there was a school in the village, if so, how many classrooms there were, the number of students in the village and the annual number of graduates, what the graduates are doing now, the competence of the village teacher, the other activities of the teacher in the village, and the total number of literate students. In addition, the survey asked about the age of the people who are traveling or not, the availability of newspapers and books, postal services, the number of words used in daily conversation, and the measures to be taken in education. From this point of view, it is possible to see more or less what Ülkü studied about village education.
The biggest problem for the Ülkü writers at the beginning of their activity as villagers was the insufficient schooling in the villages. Nusret Kemal Köymen points out this problem in his article "Köy Seferberliğine Doğru" (Towards Village Mobilization). Köymen is concerned that most of the country's population lives in villages, but the overwhelming majority of these villages do not have schools or other indicators of civilization. A school and teachers who teach Turkishness, Turkish culture, and the Turkish language to village children are a top priority.221 In the book entitled Medeni Bilgiler (Contemporary Information), which had a great influence on the writings of
220 “Köy Anketi”, Ülkü, No.5, (June 1933), p.363.
221 Abdullah Ziya, “Köy Mimarisi”, No.7, p.38.
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Atatürk, mentions that all citizens should learn to know and love the Republic, and not to exclude religion and belief from their spiritual lives. 222 It is said that this work is not possible with only a few villagers who come from the military. Nevertheless, it is believed that the Turkish revolutionaries have an advantage in the field of education. This is possible by looking at the mistakes of the West, which has already taken the same paths and learning from them. According to Köymen, the biggest mistake is to separate the village and the city, to keep the city overpowering and to put obstacles in the way of popular sovereignty in administration. The solution, according to Köymen, is to educate the villagers well. There are six fundamentals that must be followed in the education of peasants. At the end of this education, the villagers' income should be increasing. The social level of villagers should be raised. It was assumed that village schools were essential for raising the social level of nomadic societies, especially in the eastern provinces.223 With boarding schools to be built in centers to be selected in such places, the aim was that children would be separated from their families and would be able to adjust more easily.224 However, it was also accepted that this would not be possible in very remote villages under current conditions. The establishment of mobile schools was suggested as a solution.225 Although the literacy problem was quickly solved with the alphabet reform, the Ülkü writers, stating that there were still problems, suggested the establishment of a mobile teaching organization to
222 Afet İnan, Medeni Bilgiler ve M. Kemal Atatürk’ün El Yazıları, (Ankara: TTK Yayınları, 1988), p.294.
223 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, p.481.
224 Kırımlıoğlu Rıfat, “Köyde Yetiştirme ve İmar”, p.346.
225 Ibid.
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prevent this. In any case, educational activities after learning to read and write encounter obstacles. One of them, they said, is that books, newspapers, and similar resources are not accessible in the villages.226 The peasant should embrace the republican system, they recommended. Villagers should be free from superstition, believe in science, and have a broader view. Villagers should embrace the Turkish identity. The regime had to create suitable conditions for this.
Another important question was how and for whom the scarce resources should be allocated. In Ülkü, it was understood that there were neither teachers nor financial resources to establish schools in each of the forty thousand villages.227 The solution to this impossibility is that the sixteen-year-olds should be taught primarily in the village schools rather than in the younger ones.228 This is because it was assumed that the best learning age had then been reached. However, another Ülkü writers argued against this idea, saying that the school-age should be lowered to six in the villages because children would not be able to spend time in school later because they would be needed in village work.229 They also believed that available resources could have been used more efficiently if children were taught at this age. Similarly, it was felt that gifted young people should be identified and educated first among older youth. In the future, the idea of opening a separate village school for adults found its place in the magazine. This is vital in terms of being the first ideas of
226 Ömer Türkmen, “Trabzon Köyleri”, pp.158-160.
227 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, pp.481-482.
228 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köy Seferberliğine Doğru”, Ülkü, No.5, (June 1933), p.358.
229 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, p.482.
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the formation that can be called Köy Enstitüsü. They describe the purpose and working path of the new school, which is thought to be needed by the village boy, under the name of Köy İçin Yüksek Halk Okulları (Public Colleges for Villages). They cite the success of similar schools in some countries as an example: “This organization for the upbringing of the village people has brought great benefits in Denmark and in the northern, eastern and southern parts of Germany.”230 Another important point is the geographic distinction. It was argued that priority should be given to regions where transportation is relatively better, the population is denser, the climate is suitable, and natural resources are abundant. Villagers' interest in these schools should be rewarded in some way. For example, partial exemption from taxes and military service was proposed.
Another area in which villagers were interested was the training of village teachers. It was felt that the first thing we must do to educate village children, to revive and revitalize villages, is to train village teachers and devise village school programs.231 The lives of people living in villages take certain forms according to natural events and some necessities that have arisen due to these events. Works related to life and the effects of these works on people vary depending on them. It is not in the hands of the villagers to change these events and the necessities they cause, and thus to easily bring the influences that shape life into the desired shape.232 In this context, as a result of the fact that
230 Hıfzırrahman Raşit Öymen, “Köy İçin Yüksek Halk Okulları”, Ülkü, No.25, (March 1935), p.19.
231 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, pp.482-483.
232 İ. Hakkı Tonguç, “Köy Eğitimi Meselesi”, pp.434-444, 501-508, 11-20.
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the graduates of teacher schools were not willing to work in the villages, the village youth who did their military service as sergeants or corporals were given short training courses and assigned to their villages as teachers. In the long run, Köy Enstitüleri emerged as a concrete institution produced as a solution to this problem. The teacher who will graduate from these places will have the capacity to carry the revolution within himself and replace the köy imamı.233
Village education work is also closely related to these events. Therefore, being successful in this job also depends on knowing the natural events that shape the life of an ordinary villager. This is a necessity. The teaching staff is increasing at most two hundred people per year. There is a remarkable and bad difference between the slow increase in teachers and the fast increase in the number of students. While the number of students in official primary schools was 627,253 in the 1934-35 academic year, it increased by more than 50,000 to 680,650 in the 1935-36 academic year. However, the number of teachers could not be increased in the normal way in accordance with this.234 Since the training of village teachers is not less important than the job of teaching, in countries that strengthen primary education, great wishes are put forward for the training of village teachers, and efforts are made to realize these wishes. Because working and being successful in villages is not easy compared to city schools and their surroundings.235 Peasantists planted the
233 İsmail Hakkı Tonguç, Canlandırılacak Köy, (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2019), p.419.
234 “Köy Öğretmeni ve Eğitmeni Yetiştirme İşi”, Ülkü, No.46, (December 1936), p.262.
235 Hıfzırrahman Raşit Öymen, “Köy Mektebi ve Köy Muallimi”, Ülkü, No.24, (February 1935), p.414.
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seeds of this precious ideal in the villages in order to reach the future quickly in all possible ways pointed out by elders, “to mingle with the caravan of Western civilization and overtake it halfway, and to be able to play horses in the vast field of civilization built by our ancestors”. There was a prevailing opinion that village schools and teachers were needed to get ahead. Village children had no cinema, no theater, and no pleasure gardens. They saw everything in the teacher and in the teacher's life. In the teacher's room, his pictures, albums, belongings, and books filled their physical pleasures. In this way, they were spiritually satisfied.236 Teachers also focused on how to make the most effective use of limited opportunities. In this regard, the idea that itinerant teachers could visit some villages was first discussed. In subsequent stages, it was considered that each of these teachers could play a special role in each village in the form of a committee specializing in a particular area. These delegations would first train and organize a group of villagers during their stay in the village, and after leaving the village, this first trained group would continue the training activity. All this was in line with the debates on the peasantism in Mexico. It is noteworthy that in the first issues of the Ülkü magazine, there is no mention whatsoever of the schooling of women. It was believed that by sending women teachers to the villages, the most important part of the problem, women's education, child-rearing, and close contact with villager women, could be solved through frequent meetings and conferences. In other words, the writers of Ülkü thought that the education of peasant women at home was appropriate. For this reason, they believed that women should be sent to the villages for compulsory service, just as the men who had completed their teacher training schools took the first step into life in the
236 Sabri Gültekin, “Melez Terbiye”, p.60.
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villages. They even believed that women teachers would volunteer for this duty. The education of women has been a very important issue for Kemalism. The modernization of women has been seen as a concrete indicator of secularism.237 In addition, there is a prevailing opinion that success is greater when male and female teachers are assigned together in some villages with a large number of students.238 When ideas for schooling are discussed, generally only male youth are discussed. Similarly, in Köymen's article.239 For example, when the teachers who come to the village are male and female, there is no mention of the female teacher teaching at the school. Instead, it says that he goes to the houses and teaches young girls. In another place, however, it was considered necessary for a woman who had graduated from a teacher training school to work in the village school instead of a male teacher in order to make the revolution effective among the peasant women.240 It is envisaged that the village teacher can take villagers to help him when he is alone. It was felt that regional differences should be taken into account when training teachers. The teacher who goes to each village should be trained according to a different curriculum according to the geography of each village. It was felt that the reason for the teachers' weakness and inability to perform their duties was because they had not received training for the village.241 They wrote statements such as that the teacher going to the village should have the same high level of morals and knowledge, and that the teacher should really love the villagers
237 Şükrü Karatepe, Tek Parti Dönemi, pp.94-95.
238 Sabri Gültekin, “Melez Terbiye”, p.62.
239 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köy Seferberliğine Doğru”, pp.355-361.
240 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.157.
241 Mehmet Saffet, “Köycülük Nedir”, p.428.
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and know how to make himself popular.242 In other words, they wanted candidates who could adapt to the village culturally.
National consciousness was considered the most important characteristic to be obtained in the education of the peasants. Although the general culture of the people is mostly hidden in the villages, the fact that the village has been abandoned in almost every way until now can be explained in the crippled views of the old statesmen, who were afraid of a vigilant community of people.243 It was believed that the villagers should be taught the greatness of Turkish history, its role in world civilization, its heroes and epics. It was said that the villagers should be told about the evils that were done to them during the rule and the blessings that the Republic brought to the villagers. To achieve this, not only schooling but also other ways were recommended. Cinema, theatre, posters, and similar means were also recommended. It is hoped that ignorance, diseases, and superstitions in the village will be weakened, and villagers will be able to educate themselves and their country, thanks to village school curriculums to be prepared by knowledgeable and experienced people.244 It is said that a village teacher should be a mentor in both health care and education. They should also be responsible for teaching the public how to protect them.245 If a comprehensive curriculum of education and guidance for
242 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.157.
243 Hıfzırrahman Raşit Öymen, “Köy İçin Yüksek Halk Okulları”, p.18.
244 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, p.483.
245 Zeki Nasır, “Köylerimizin Sağlık İşleri”, Ülkü, No.7, (August 1933), p.44.
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villagers is implemented, taking into account the sacred needs of each village, the economic and social life of our villagers will surely increase.246
The authors of Ülkü argued that in the short term, volunteers among secondary school graduates should first be sent to the villages by attending special courses and receiving certificates. After three years of experience, those who were successful should be officially appointed as village teachers. Ülkü, which argued that village teachers should be trained in schools set up for the long-term training of village teachers, believed that teachers trained here should start with the awareness that they would become village teachers so that they would not later have the idea of fleeing to the cities. They suggested ensuring their satisfaction by offering them both career advancement opportunities and the possibility of higher education if they are successful. Here, the topics to be taught to teacher candidates are presented in different ways. They say to report on old failures and draw lessons from them, to point out bad administrations, oppression, reactionism, and scholasticism. They emphasize that the causes of diseases and the methods of treatment should be explained. The village teacher should be made to realize the importance of his task. Turkish revolution, citizenship, and civil information should be taught. It should be shown what the developed nations have done in this field. Nationalist literature, music, theatre, and cinema should be taught. The idealism of Kant and Hegel should be explained.
246 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, p.484.
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For the peasantists, the success of the educational reform will only be possible if every village child of school age can go to school and grow up as a republican, nationalist, statist, secularist, and revolutionary.247
3.2 Social Life and Family in the Village
One of the most important issues for the villagers was social life, social relations, and family concepts in the villages. According to Ülkü, the language, customs, lifestyle, games, beliefs, folk songs, and natural and human history of the village neighborhoods and village people, who preserve the high culture of their ancestors with all their virginity and constitute the root of their national community, are very extensive and valuable resources worth researching for the enlightened Turkish youth. Researching and processing these resources is the greatest duty of the Turkish youth in terms of the national, social, and economic growth and progress of the villagers. According to them, when the social life and life of the village people are investigated, thousands of customs and games emerge. It is seen that the feelings of sincerity, love, respect, community, and cohesion have a great place among them.248 They believed that the development of the villages, which they saw as the core of the modernization of society, should begin in the family. In terms of modernization, besides the environment of teachers and schools, there is a second important environment, that of the family, and they put their thoughts in writing and stated that they would fight on this front.249 It is a fact that the
247 Şükrü Karatepe, Tek Parti Dönemi, pp.96-97.
248 Nuri Timur, “Muncusun Nahiyesi”, Ülkü, No.22, (December 1934), p.319.
249Sabri Gültekin, “Melez Terbiye”, p.61.
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villagers who will raise the new generation of the Republic cannot exist with a backward social structure. For this reason, child rearing has become more important. In the Köy Anketi, which was to be answered by the readers in Ülkü, a large space was devoted to this topic. Questions were asked about forms of entertainment, the lives of women, men, and children, superstitions, drinking and gambling habits, marriage, and divorce.
It is very well recognized that villages can stagnate and miss old age due to their conditions. It is said that one of the most important factors activating human existence is the changing lifestyle and civilized means, and it is certain that a quiet village far away from these, living and working in the same way for years without changing, like a ticking ring, is consistent with time.250 This environment is also good for the writer Ülkü. Authors gives examples of foreign philosophers’ lives. For peasantists, it will be that John Locke valued the country house as the best place for education, and Jean Jack Rousseau confirmed this by saying that he took Emily to the country and made her playmates with the village children.251 As Hilmi Malik points out in his article published in Ülkü, fathers who are only spending their time in their village coffee houses and ignorant mothers should be replaced by parents who are knowledgeable in these matters.252 Especially in the presence of village leaders who can be described as anti-revolutionary, they worry about the risk of
250 Kırımlıoğlu Rıfat, “Köyde Yetiştirme ve İmar”, p.344.
251 Hıfzırrahman Raşit Öymen, “Köy Muhiti ve Çocuk Terbiyesi”, Ülkü, No.20, (October 1934), p.154.
252 Hilmi A. Malik, “Kışla ve Köy Terbiyesi”, p.239.
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cutting the link between the child and the school.253 Various groups have consistently caused problems for villagers who complained about the coercive effect of social networks. For example, they always take an aggressive stance toward the modern medicine of a curative educator or the cooperative idea of a wealthy merchant. In any case, peasants are advised not to deviate from their principles.254 It must be taken into account that young children who enjoy school with the teacher are crushed the rest of the time by hard work in the fields. All of this shows how negatively the family and social environment affect young minds.255 Therefore, the intention was to break this chain of ignorance by showing lectures and films to village youth in the military about childcare and education or at least educating their fathers. The officers were to teach these young people the importance of raising children.
In other words, while talking about peasants among villagers, one should not only consider a human group and an economic formation, but also an agreement and reconciliation between this human group and nature, as well as a business principle and a resulting way of life. Human struggles over nature began to be systematized after they emerged in villages. Accordingly, the concept that imposes itself when speaking of the village is the following: The village is neither a simple entity nor an insignificant group. “The village is the human and bloody source of a nation. It is the most vital and continuous place of growth and cultivation of the human type. It nourishes the cities, sends blood and soul to the cities. Perhaps it facilitates the formation of cities.
253 Kırımlıoğlu Rıfat, “Köyde Yetiştirme ve İmar”, p.349.
254 Osman Nuri, “Haymana’nın Ahırlı Kuyu Köyü”, pp.394-400, pp.478-480, pp.78-80.
255 Sabri Gültekin, “Melez Terbiye”, p.61.
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For example, a village becomes not only for its own existence, but also for the nation to which it belongs.”256 That is to say, the village is the most suitable place for the growth of citizens. And the material and spiritual, economic, and moral, political, and social problems in which the world finds itself today can help to raise such citizens in villages and open a new horizon for intellectuals in cities.257 According to the Ülkü authors, the concept of the village has already developed as a result of social cooperation. The articles published in Ülkü call for correcting the situations that disrupt this wheel of cooperation. A thunderstorm, a lightning strike, and a threshing fire in the village are extraordinary events that set the whole village in motion.258 One of the biggest problems uncovered is the kahvehaneler (coffehouses). These places are seen as places of laziness and gambling.259 For example, in one province of the Black Sea region, village boys spent their lives in the kahvehaneler, and misery awaited the villagers no matter how high the harvest or how wealthy they were. The government had prevented this misery by closing the kahvehaneler. Now everyone is busy with their work and power. It is claimed that nine-tenths of the young men are satisfied with the closure of the kahvehaneler. In other words, the blame cannot be placed on the Turkish villager.260 Bad habits such as gambling are associated with non-Turkish influences. For example, it is emphasized that the few people who gamble in the village of Akça are
256 Salahattin Kandemir, “Coğrafya Bakımından Köy”, p.159.
257 Nusret Kemal, İradecilik ve Köycülük, Ülkü, No.21, (November 1934), pp.236-237.
258 Hıfzırrahman Raşit Öymen, “Köy Muhiti ve Çocuk Terbiyesi”, p.155.
259 Mehmet Saffet, “Köycülük Nedir”, p.425.
260 Ömer Türkmen, “Trabzon Köyleri”, pp.158-160.
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Arabs.261 It is stressed that villagers should try to prevent them from using addictive substances such as alcohol, cannabis, and opium.262 It is argued that family functioning and relationships should also be improved. To do this, it is said that it is necessary to bring the house in which the family lives into a more regular shape. The stables for the animals, the reforestation of the farm, etc. should be done by the villagers themselves. In this way, the waste of time in kahvehaneler should also be avoided. Another issue that grabs attention is wedding customs. The cost of weddings is seen as a problem. In addition, the lack of social entertainment and unprocessed emotions are presented as problems. The village mosque, which is in the hands of the ignorant fanatics, is the only place of culture and community life in the village that is despised by the peasants.263 Another negative aspect of the village mosque is that it has formed a bigoted center and castle that organizes bigotry and ignorance between these four walls.264 Peasants show great stagnation and laziness not only on the political side of social life but also on the social side. Along with the immaturity of the communal spirit and the fact that the livelihood fatigue takes a lot of time and energy from the villagers, the disorganization of the houses, the runaway, the absence of a large and public place to gather, illuminated at night and heated in winter, and the absence of even coffee in most of the villages are seen as a factor that narrows the communal life. Since there was no money to buy less, the custom of meeting at night in houses has also decreased. Weddings and Friday prayers, which are the only community
261 Ali Rıza, “Akça Köy”, Ülkü, No.7, (August 1933), p.66.
262 Zeki Nasır, “Köylerimizde Sağlık İşleri”, p.43.
263 Abdullah Ziya, “Cumhuriyette Köy Yapımı”, p.333.
264 Ibid.
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occasions, are not enough to give the village a communal vitality. The fact that the village arts have decreased a lot and have not remained in some places has made it a habit for everyone to do certain and uniform works every day without the need for exchange and contact with each other. However, the depreciation of agricultural crops has led to the re-discovery of spinning wheels and looms in some villages.265 In the village square, there should be a cafe, a radio. Even if there is no daily cinema and theater, there should be a place reserved for mobile cinemas and theaters that pass by from time to time.266 To remedy this, the Ülkü writers are dominated by the need to bring to the villages the forgotten national amusements such as spear throwing, wrestling, running, and dancing, which are considered traditional Turkish games, and other forgotten national amusements. In addition, villagers were to be saved from coffee houses and gambling by enriching them with new team games and mobile cinemas. Girls were also encouraged to contribute to family life through education and were expected to learn housekeeping, childcare, and animal husbandry.267 In some villages, women are with the men during working hours: the farmer plows, right the crops, plows the field, sifts the wheat, goes up the mountain to fetch wood, to the turnip hoe.268 The woman is a devoted helper to the man. They work together in the field, in the garden, and on the threshing floor.269 Villages, where men and women are equal, are praised. For example, an article on village of Akça mentions that the
265 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Köycülük Programına Giriş”, p.136.
266 Abdullah Ziya, “Köy Mimarisi”, No.7, p.38.
267 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, p.484.
268 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.151.
269 Refik ve Ziya, “Bursa’nın Keles Köyü”, p.234.
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villagers, whose Turkishness is the least degraded, work and enjoy themselves together.270
In order for the children to stay in contact with their mothers and for the culture to take a firm and solid path, it has primarily put these mothers on the path of education.271 Until they reach school age, the children play in the villages. Then they either go to school or spend time with their families.272 They are their mothers' and fathers' greatest helpers when they start school and when they finish. Girls carry water, clean the house, comfort the child.273 So keeping the village women away from ignorance, which is called a custom, benefits the child's health and education. He should do his best and spare no sacrifice to eliminate this front, arbitrariness, and mixed education.274 Not being bigoted was also a praised criterion for Ülkü. They were proud that Turkmen’s customs were more influential than religion in Turkmen villages.275 They even say that living without religion is directly proportional to being open to school.276
270 Ali Rıza, “Akça Köy”, pp.64-65.
271 Sabri Gültekin, “Melez Terbiye”, pp.60-62.
272 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.152.
273 Ibid.
274 Sabri Gültekin, “Melez Terbiye”, pp.60-62.
275 Ali Rıza, “Akça Köy”, pp.64-65.
276 Ibid.
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3.3 Health and Village
One of the most important problems that the Republic faced after its foundation was population growth. The male population was already low due to the many years of wars. Health problems also existed among the female and child population due to malnutrition and epidemic diseases. Mortality at birth was high. Epidemics such as cholera, typhoid, and smallpox were widespread. Solving these problems by starting from the villages, was one of the most important items on the agenda of the authors of Ülkü. Turkey's source of the population comes from the villages. Villager women give birth without interruption. Villager women are praised for not worrying about family planning and not seeking cures. It is common for children who are born to die due to neglect. Therefore, infant mortality in the villages is high until the first year of life.277 They believe that preventing infant deaths in the villages is a matter of time. As village prosperity increases, village mothers will understand the value of health and the child and acquire the knowledge of how to protect the child's health. 278
In this context, when deaths occurred, the first thing that was done was to try to determine the cause of the problem. The village questionnaire was used to collect information on villagers' general health, food and drink, clothing, common diseases and their treatment, sewerage, child deaths, sexual diseases, mental illness, cooking methods, dental bone formation, sports, and cleaning. Villagers' avoidance of treatment was cited as an important problem,
277 Zeki Nasır, “Köylerimizde Sağlık İşleri”, p.43.
278 Ibid.
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especially for gynecological diseases. Villagers' ignorance of health protection and treatment methods should be eliminated. In addition, the draining of swamps and sanitation in houses were addressed. The same applies to health.
What is it that pains us when we enter such a village that makes us love it from afar? It is undoubtedly a concern for life and health.279 There are many diseases that prevail in our villages. Even the smallest and most superficial observation reveals that there are many weak and dying people in the villages because they are neglected. The fatigue causes the disease to persist and spread. However, they summarize the situation by saying that they have less resistance to disease due to lack of food.280 It is argued that the prevention of fatigue and disease is one of the first tasks of the village school. The causes of disease are generally associated with ignorance. For example, bronchitis and influenza are common because children do not put on coats when they leave rooms that are overheated in winter. These diseases have a major impact on children. Measles comes back every few years, but it subsides.281 The women believe that all illnesses, winds, aches, headaches, and toothaches will pass with a whimper. They prefer taking muskalar (amulets) and üfürükçü (exorcist) to medical practices. It is a strong tradition for women to tie a thread in case of malaria so that the patient can drink water, breathe, and blow. They hang muskalar around their necks to prevent children from being beaten by genie or fairies, and to not be afraid of the dark. To save the patient, cupping, screeding, pouring lead, putting eyes on a blue cloth, and similar things are among the
279 Ibid.
280 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.155.
281 Ibid.
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main superstitions of the women's group.282 Many people were complaining about their teeth. However they do not know their value and protection. For example, a villager does not mind removing the wire nails nailed to the wood with his teeth and bending the cans with his teeth. Generally, there is no bone disease in villages. Sports are never played.283 The farmers are very weak and pale. One of the reasons why the villager, living alone with nature, is like this is because the houses are built unsanitary.284 Ülkü authors introduced the village nursing model applied in Germany as a solution to this. They praised the features of this model. These nurses often work with women who are teachers in the village and are effective in changing and renewing the sanitary, agricultural, and living order of the village. This nurse, for example, introduces new vegetables to the village. In winter, they gather the grown-up girls of the village around them, sew with them, and sing together. They read books together. They organize the household administration according to more reasonable, sanitary, and physical values. It is as if this nurse is the real-life science teacher of the village girls and is doing a kind of education completion and enhancement course. There is no doubt that when starting these works, the nurse penetrated into the houses and gained their souls. This organization is more successful in newly established villages and settlement areas.285
282 Osman Nuri, “Haymana’nın Ahırlı Kuyu Köyü”, pp.478-480, pp.78-80.
283 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.156.
284 Ömer Türkmen, “Trabzon Köyleri”, pp.158-160.
285 Hıfzırrahman Raşit Öymen, “Köy Terbiyesinde Aileye Yardım”, Ülkü, No.28, (June 1935), p.277.
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In the village school, villagers are to learn to live cleanly, to protect themselves from plagues and diseases, and be healthy. The main goal is to find a cure for the disease, but also to prevent the disease completely. In order to be successful in this task, it is necessary to pay great attention to the water that the children and the villagers drink and use, to their physical education, to cleanliness, and to health issues. For the peasantists, a village boy who has not studied but is in good health is happier and more satisfied than a weak and sickly village boy.286 It is said that the village teachers will also take on the task of raising the generation. Even men and women who want to marry are afraid of their trials. Regardless of the cost, it is considered a great success to receive a report without being examined. They say this is dangerous to public health.287 The idea is to ensure that healthy and intelligent people marry each other, and that those who suffer from physical or mental deficiencies or diseases that interfere with generation do not marry. They urge villagers to raise awareness of mental health, especially mental health, and to act as health leaders of the village.288 These facts are the influence of Darwinian views of the time. The villager should get plenty of air and light in his village and should not freeze at home.289 No matter where the village is located in the plain, on the beach, or on the mountainside, it must be a clean place and not located in the swamp. Furthermore, the fact that it is surrounded by vineyards, gardens, streets, and yards with green trees should have a positive effect on the body
286 Hilmi A. Malik, “Köyde Mektep”, p.483.
287 Osman Nuri, “Haymana’nın Ahırlı Kuyu Köyü”, pp.394-400, pp.478-480, pp.78-80.
288 Nusret Kemal Köymen, “Bir Köycülük Projesi Tecrübesi”, p.120.
289 Abdullah Ziya, “Köy Mimarisi”, No.7, p.38.
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and soul of the residents.290 Communities that want to decorate their streets with trees should include a large sum in their budget for this purpose. Even without this need, saplings such as pine, sycamore, and linden should be cleared from the village forest and planted in cooperation.291 Köy Abdesthanesi (Lavatory of Village) is the most important matter in terms of health protection. In villages, sewers with continuous drainage cannot be built naturally as in cities. The pits are suitable in this case. These pits should be built according to sanitary procedures and projects prepared and distributed by the Ministry of Health. Considering the impact of abdesthane pits on the spread of infectious diseases, it is easy to understand how important this work is for the health of the village.292 The most important asset of the village in terms of health is its water. This water should flow continuously and remain clear in winter and summer. Spring or spring water is considered the best of all. If there is any difficulty, the wells can be drilled according to the procedure, it is said. The water is to be distributed to the wells in the village with iron or mortar pipes.293 Siphons and sewers are usually not available in the village. In fact, sometimes there is not even water. In mountain villages, for example, water is so precious that it is not used for the toilet. Peasantists say no matter how much you force villagers to do this work, a good result is not achieved.294
290 Zeki Nasır, “Köylerimizde Sağlık İşleri”, p.42.
291 Kırımlıoğlu Rıfat, “Köyde Yetiştirme ve İmar”, p.348.
292 Zeki Nasır, “Köylerimizde Sağlık İşleri”, p.42.
293 Ibid.
294 Abdullah Ziya, “Gün Geçiminde Kerpiç Köy Yapısı”, Ülkü, No.13, (March 1934), p.69.
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Villages should be divided into doctors, as a writer once said, and there should be cheap medicine. They say we also need pediatricians.295
Vermin such as bugs, fleas, lice, and flies, which cause pain and disease to the people in the houses of the village, must be controlled and protected from them. The animals of the village must live separately from the people, and the cleanliness of the stables to be built for them must be taken care of. The money spent on this measure is not to be sneezed at in order to prevent diseases transmitted between humans and animals.296 Dust in the summer, which makes the villages look dirty. The only source that makes mud in winter is considered manure. It is believed that these places are also home to many diseases. Although it is compulsory to dispose of it according to the Köy Kanunu, manure is definitely thrown on the village road in bad weather and in winter, as the stables are built next to the houses for easy access to the animals.297
295 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.158.
296 Zeki Nasır, “Köylerimizde Sağlık İşleri”, p.43.
297 Muallim Nuri, “Kütahya’da Alayund Köyü”, p.158.
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CHAPTER 4
CONCLUSION
While concluding the study, Ülkü periodical, one of the important publications of the Republican peasantism, presented important studies on peasantism throughout the period of its publication. Although most of the ideas put forward in the journal Ülkü could not be put into practice as a result of the economic shortcomings of the period, and the actualized ones are quite far from the theoretical forecasts described in the Ülkü magazine, the existence of these publications presents important findings to today's researchers about the intellectual infrastructure of the period.
As first mentioned in the study, before the period that Ülkü magazine was started being publishes, that is, in a period that can be called the Ottoman period or especially the era of the Second Constitutional Monarchy, peasantism, which started around the Türk Ocağı, under the influence of Tatar intellectuals who escaped from the expansionism of the Russian Tsardom and came to Istanbul. Ottoman peasantism, which started with the intellectual influence of the Russian Narodniks, took a different form when it came to the Republican period. In Turkey, which was hit relatively softly by the predominance of the peasant economy, especially as a result of the worldwide economic depression in 1929, the intellectuals began to think that the village and the peasant were the keys to development. The support of the bureaucratic elites of the RPP started when it was realized that they did not have a base of voters in the Free Republican Party experience. Thus, the 1930s
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emerged as the years when Turkish Peasantism reached its peak. Within the framework of the Ülkü magazine, the difference between the Republican Peasantists and their Ottoman predecessors was that they took German peasantism as an example instead of the Russian Narodniks, who were basically fed by a common Marxist line. In addition to Germany, they showed close interest in Danish peasantism, which they saw as the most successful example, and Mexico and Bulgaria, which they saw as countries similar to Turkey. In this respect, it can be said that a corporatist peasantism is effective. This conflict, which forms the basis of the conflict between Kadro magazine, will result in the closure of Kadro magazine. Thus, the influence of the RPP bureaucracy, especially Recep Peker, on Turkish peasantism will be reinforced.
Following the introduction, first of all, information was provided about the situation of the Turkish villagers until the Republic. Accordingly, the population of Turkish peasants had decreased considerably as a result of intense wars. Due to reasons such as malnutrition and epidemic diseases, the public was in a very bad health condition. The male-female population has become unequal in favor of women. This has led to a decline in agricultural production in a non-mechanized society and thus to an economic collapse. As a result of unfair taxation, especially aşar (tithe), and corruption in the bureaucracy, a bad state image dominated the villages. At this point, the peasantist had to struggle with the distrust of the villagers toward the state while pursuing an ideal of saving the villagers on the one hand.
In the following chapters, information about Ülkü magazine is given directly. First of all, the reason for the establishment of Ülkü magazine was the thought
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that Kemalism needed to be turned into an organized ideology. The discourses of the Türk Ocakları, which have an autonomous structure from time to time, have begun to disturb the RPP, sometimes even scaring it. The idea that the Türk Ocakları could confront the RPP as a political force came to the fore after the establishment of the FRP.298 For this reason, they closed the Türk Ocakları. However, in order to fill the gap that emerged in order to fulfill the duties of the Türk Ocakları, they established the Halkevleri as an organ directly affiliated to the party. The purpose of the Halkevleri was to facilitate the promotion, dissemination, and implementation of the Kemalist revolutions to society. Ülkü Periodical was established within the body of Ankara Halkevi as a tool for this. In this respect, it can be directly classified as a party organ. In this respect, it differed from Kadro magazine, which was established for a similar purpose. This separation turned into a conflict over time and resulted in the closure of Kadro magazine. Ülkü magazine, on the other hand, had a publishing life of approximately seventeen years as three separate series, each with a different character. Peasantism and the image of the village became the dominant theme, especially in the first three years of the journal, in accordance with the approach of this study. While economic policies and ideas of industrialization took the place of ruralism, perhaps with Celal Bayar's becoming prime minister in 1937 and later, it could not become a popular topic again, contrary to expectations, as a result of İnönü's coming to the presidency after Atatürk's death. The reason for this can be shown as the fact that the peasantism ideas advocated in Ülkü turned into a state-supported policy in this period. For example, with the Köy Enstitüleri, the opportunity to apply the theoretical
298 Yusuf Sarınay, Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Tarihi Gelişimi ve Türk Ocakları (1912-1931), (Master’s Thesis, Hacettepe University, 1993), p.321.
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ideas advocated by Ülkü writers on village education has emerged. The onset of export and import problems due to the Second World War made it necessary to implement the self-sufficient villages dreamed of by the villagers. Another reason, as Karaömerlioğlu pointed out, was the rise of criticism against peasantism from within Ülkü itself. Selahattin Kandemir, in his article called Köycülüğümüz, argued that a peasantism program cannot be carried out without the initiative of the state.299
In the study, how peasantism is adapted to different layers of society and country has been examined within the framework of two main headings. In the first part, the focus revolves around the legal-material characteristics of the land and village. This section is divided into four separate parts. The first part is an essay on the definitions of the village and the village by the writers of Ülkü. Here, it is explained how the writers of Ülkü describe the villagers exactly or how they should be in the future. It has been discussed what is expected from the villager and what should be given to the villager. As understood from these results, the most basic problem for the villagers who wrote in Ülkü was the education of the villagers. Because uneducated villagers are shown as the basis of all administrative, agricultural, commercial, cultural, and sanitary problems.
In the second part, the thoughts of the villagers of Ülkü on the administrative management of the village and the efforts to bring it to a modern face were examined. The reason for examining these two titles, which seem to be
299 Asım Karaömerlioğlu, Orada Bir Köy Var Uzakta Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Köycü Söylem, p.78.
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unrelated to each other, in one section is again a product of Ülkü's ideology. Because they argued that the first way to have a modern management style is to have a modern look. According to them, if an aesthetic village that is suitable for the needs of the village, adapted to the geographical conditions and aesthetics is established, the people of this village will attain prosperity. Thanks to their prosperity, a modern administrative system can be established by attaining a culture of democracy. In this context, with the Köy Kanunu, which was enacted by the government of the Republic to be implemented in the villages, directives were given to the villages that would pave the way for physical modernization and the villages were arranged administratively. In the administrative arrangement, the biggest problem faced by Ülkü writers was the ağalık institution, which remained from the Ottoman period. They saw it as an obstacle to the development of the villagers, their economic independence, and the administration of the village. However, they only highlighted this situation as a problem in the east and southeast of the country. In Western Anatolia, they claimed that these people cooperated with the regime and argued that they contributed to the establishment of the revolutions. Likewise, while they said that large agricultural farms were essential for economic development in Western Anatolia, the problems of landless peasants in the east were highlighted. While a “significant proportion” of Turkish peasants are either landless or sub-landed, he writes, there are vast lands left uncultivated.300
300 Safiye Yelda Kaya, Land Use, Peasants and the Republic: Debates on Land Reform in Turkey 1923-1945, (PhD Thesis, Middle East Technical University, 2014), p.178.
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In the third part of this chapter, the importance of agriculture and animal husbandry for the villagers and what they do about it are mentioned. There have been some contradictions in this area for the peasantist writers in Ülkü. The peasantists showed an attitude in favor of agriculture in the dilemma of agriculture or industry. However, they have differences in opinion on whether agriculture is prioritized in terms of animal husbandry or farming. According to some peasantist, first of all, animal agriculture should be developed. Because they argue that the economic return is higher and this is the activity that feeds people. At the same time, they believe that the solution of sanitary problems will be faster in this way. On the other hand, according to those who want to develop farming first, a development in farming will be more beneficial for the country's total recovery. Because they thought that farm production was also a source of industrial raw materials. There are were authors who agree with both views. Regardless of what they advocate, what all villagers in Ülkü want in common is to raise awareness of the villagers in both livestock and agriculture. They argue that thanks to this increasing awareness , breeding and seed improvement, and combating various pests and diseases can be done. The expectation that these products can be turned into export item thanks to the development of agriculture and animal husbandry, which will contribute to modernization, appears as their final goal. The country idealized by the Villagers in terms of Agriculture and Livestock was mostly Bulgaria. The pursuit of intellectuals in Bulgaria for the development of rural areas and agriculture has been closely followed by the ruling elites in Turkey.301
301 Asım Karaömerlioğlu, Orada Bir Köy Var Uzakta Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Köycü Söylem, pp.207-208.
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In the fourth and last part of this chapter, economic life is discussed. It is striking that the writers of Ülkü are skeptical of liberal economy. The merchant class, which is the representative of the liberal economy, is always depicted with bad characters who rip the peasants and try to collect money from the peasants. In this context, they proposed the establishment of a system where the villager could monopolize the trade business. It is assumed that thanks to this system, which is called the Köy Dükkanı, the peasants can be prevented from being dragged into debt by the merchants. However, peasantists wants that the Köy Rehberi, take over the Köy Dükkanları. It is proof to us that they see the peasant as inferior. Apart from this, they considered what other reasons could be for the peasant's indebtedness. Responsibly, they cited war fatigue and economic depression. In this context, they both foresee a reform in the banking system and emphasized the need to expand the cooperative. They do not hesitate to openly say that the state is inadequate in these matters. The RPP bureaucracy followed a slightly more statist line compared to the Ülkü’s Peasantists. Peasantist in Ülkü were still in some cases supporters of private enterprise and autonomy.
The second main part of the study, on the other hand, directly deals with the villager as human. In the first chapter of this section, the views on village education were examined. The division in Ülkü also shows itself in the field of village education. This division occurred in several ways. First of all, there were differences of opinion about the age groups that should be educated. According to some authors, education should start with young children because only in this way it would be possible for them to reach a modern understanding without being affected by the ignorance of their families.
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However, according to those who are against it, giving village education to the early ages would be a waste of time. Because they argue that children of this age have less comprehension. They also claimed that such small children cannot be expected to be successful due to the difficulty of village conditions. However, it should be noted that although it is the main principle that education should start from a young age and continue until advanced ages, it has been a situation that led to this choice due to economic impossibilities. Another contradictory situation is the issue of women's education, which the researcher has reached as a result of this study, even if it is not directly expressed in Ülkü. For some writers in Ülkü, when village education is mentioned, only boys are meant. They base all their ideas on the education of men. In these articles, women are either not included at all, or even if they are, they are included as the supporter of the man in the field at home. The other group, who thinks the opposite, emphasizes the importance of women's education by associating it with motherhood. According to them, it is very important for the mother to be educated as the person who has the most important influence on the child's upbringing. For this reason, they believed that the education of girls should be done at least as well as boys. In fact, both school education and home education are envisaged in girls' education. In this context, concepts such as female teachers and nurses have been put forward. It has been argued that these people should provide both modern education to women and practical training that will affect their home life. It has been argued that the education of girls is at the heart of preserving the principle of secularism by directly reconciling the issue of girls' education with Atatürk's principles. Regardless of women or men, village education in Ülkü is presented in a multi-faceted line. It is aimed to teach the villagers both modern theoretical and positive sciences, lessons that will instill national
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consciousness, and practical knowledge that they think are necessary to establish a village utopia. The countries based on education were especially Italy and Germany.
In the second part of the chapter, the nature of the observations on social and family life in Ülkü is discussed. Accordingly, the main problem is the lack of education mentioned in the previous section. The second problem is cultural corruption. While this cultural corruption is sometimes shown as the result of external factors, sometimes Turkish traditions are treated with a critical perspective. The most emphasized point about family life is that the father and mother do not take care of their children. Considering the child as a financial burden until they are old enough to work in the fields was surprising for the peasantists. This was the point at which the Turkish peasants in Ülkü were criticized in the most brutal way. For example, the attitude of a father in return for his condolences for the death of his child caused astonishment among the peasantists. The mother's inability to do housework with her child and the father's spending the whole day outside the home was shown as the main problems. At this point, it was emphasized that the solution is education. In addition, it was hoped that both the father and the mother could be tied to the house thanks to the obligations imposed by the Köy Kanunu. As for social life, it has been mentioned that some habits under the name of tradition in Ülkü have a negative impact on the welfare of the villagers. Socialization was seen as a tool of education ofş the peasantists. They made great efforts to make various branches of fine arts effective in the villages. They said that the teacher has an obligation to guide the village in these branches, and they again displayed a point of view from above. Another important problem is the lack of Turkish consciousness with the use of Turkish. In this context, according to
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the peasantists, national holidays have a great importance. The spread of national consciousness has also been one of the most important carriers of the idea of creating the political base of the revolution, which was one of the first motivations of Ülkü.
Finally, the issue of the health of the villagers was another issue that Ülkü’s peasantists focused on. The reasons for this are varied. Firstly, it was very important for economic development to regain the population lost by the young Republic due to wars, epidemics, and famines. In this context, villages were a repository of population productivity for the villagers. In this context, reducing child mortality in villages has been one of the most important goals. According to the peasantists, this issue was also related to education. Even though economic inadequacies are also seen as a problem, as they have shown in some examples, fearing the hospital due to superstitious beliefs even if there is an opportunity, and showing jinn and similar responsibilities were seen as the biggest results of this. According to the opinion of some peasantists, creating a healthy race may have been seen as a condition for the development of the country. Just as they associated the development and democratization of the village with the village architecture, they argued that the villagers should be able to recover physically in order to develop. However, it would be useful not to draw any conclusions from this in the national socialist sense. Because the authors of Ülkü, while expressing their opinions on this subject, argued that everyone who has a national consciousness of Turkishness should be healthy as a part of this, rather than a definition of attaining the physical characteristics of any race.
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As a result, the peasantists centered around Ülkü magazine considered it necessary for the villages to develop and reach prosperity for the development of the modern Republic. In order for this to happen, they argued that village-specific ideas should be developed in every subject and argued that a separate policy should be followed for the village and the city. These subjects are administration, agriculture, economics and education, social life, and health. In the first four of these, the Villagers defended some internally contradictory facts. The idea of each of them was able to find a place in the magazine at the same time. This is an indication that Ülkü magazine could not take a rigid ideological stand. Especially when he was under Peker's administration at the beginning, he was in full control of the government, but then there were some differences of opinion, but in the end, all these ideas were able to find a place in the journal. With the death of Atatürk and İnönü's reconciliation with the old resentful people, some of these ideas found the opportunity to be put into practice during the war years. There are opinions claiming that peasantism has failed as a revolution for the people despite the people.302 It can be said that Ülkü, whose publication life ended with the closure of the Halkevleri during the Democratic Party period, has been successful, albeit partially. Because what Ülkü said from the very beginning is the development of the villagers for democratic political life. In this context, it has been seen that this has occurred even if it is not as RPP members wanted.
302 Asım Karaömerlioğlu, Orada Bir Köy Var Uzakta Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Köycü Söylem, pp.81-85.
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Tonguç, İsmail Hakkı, Canlandırılacak Köy, (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2019).
Tunaya, Tarık Zafer, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler (Cilt 1), (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2015).
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Türkeş, Mustafa, Kadro Hareketi: Ulusçu Sol Bir Akım, (Ankara: İmge Kitabevi, 1999).
Türkmen, İsmet, Kastamonu Halkevi ve Türkiye’nin Modernleşme Sürecine Katkıları (1932-1951), (Ankara: Berikan Yayınevi, 2014).
Yavuz, Fehmi, Toprak ya da Tarım Reformu, (Ankara: Ges-İş Yayınları, 1968).
Zürcher, Erik Jan, Modernleşen Türkiye’nin Tarihi, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2015).
Articles
Gençoğlu Onbaşı, Funda, “Halkevleri ve Ülkü Dergisi: Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Köycülük Tartışmaları”, Çağdaş Yerel Yönetimler, Vol.20, No.3, (July 2011), 69-88.
Özden, Mehmet, “Bir Halkçı Münevverler Platformu: Halka Doğru Dergisi (1913-1914)”, Milli Folklor, Vol.23, No.89, (2011), 109-119.
Toprak, Zafer, “Osmanlı Narodnikleri: Halka Doğru Gidenler”, Toplum ve Bilim, Vol.24, (Winter 1984), 69-81.
Uyar, Hakkı, “Resmi İdeoloji ya da Alternatif Resmi İdeoloji Oluşturmaya Yönelik İki Dergi: Ülkü ve Kadro Mecmualarının Karşılaştırmalı İçerik Analizi”, Toplum ve Bilim, No.74, (Autumn 1997), 181-193.
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Dissertations
Aydın, Ertan, The Peculiarities of Turkish Revolutionay Ideology in the 1930s: The Ülkü Version of Kemalism 1933-1936, PhD diss., Bilkent University, 2003.
Bilir, Mehmet Caner, Türkiye’de Toprak Sorunu ve Köylülük, Master’s Thesis, Marmara University, 2012.
Göktaş, Serdar, Trakya Umumi Müfettişliği’nin Köycülük Politikası, (Master Thesis, Pamukkale University, 2012).
Katırağ, Necip, Ülkü Dergisinde Kemalizm 1933-1950, Master’s Thesis, University of Sakarya, 2019.
Kaya, Safiye Yelda, Land Use, Peasants and the Republic: Debates on Land Reform in Turkey 1923-1945, PhD diss., Middle East Technical University, 2014.
Kılınç, Volkan, Disciplining Turkish People Through the Peoples’s Houses: A Discursive Reading of the Ülkü Magazine 1933-1950, Master’s Thesis, İstanbul Şehir University, 2017.
Kızılkaya, Ahmet, Kadro ve Ülkü Dergileri Bağlamında Atatürkçü Milliyetçiliğin İki Yorumu, PhD diss., University of Ankara, 2017.
Özden, Mehmet Türk Yurdu Dergisi ve İkinci Meşrutiyet Devri Türkçülük Akımı (1911-1918), Master’s Thesis, Hacettepe University, 1994.
Sarınay, Yusuf, Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Tarihi Gelişimi ve Türk Ocakları (1912-1931), Master’s Thesis, Hacettepe University, 1993.
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APPENDICES
A. TÜRKÇE ÖZET
Çalışmayı sonlandırırken, görüldüğü üzere Cumhuriyet köycülüğünün önemli yayın organlarından birisi olan Ülkü dergisi yayınlandığı süreç boyunca, köycülük konusunda önemli çalışmalar sunmuştur. Her ne kadar dönemin ekonomik kısıtlılıkları neticesinde Ülkü dergisinde öne sürülen fikirlerin çok büyük bir kısmı hayata geçirilmeye fırsat bulamış, hayata geçirilenler ise Ülkü dergisinde tasvir edilen teorik halden oldukça uzak olsa dahi, bu yayınların varlığı günümüz araştırmacılarına dönemin fikirsel altyapısı hakkında önemli bulgular sunmaktadır.
İlk olarak çalışmada bahsedildiği gibi, Ülkü dergisine gelinen süreçten önce, yani Osmanlı devri veya özellikle II.Meşrutiyet devri denebilecek bir dönemde ilk olarak Rus Çarlığının yayılmacılığı karşısında oradan gelen Tatar aydınların etkisiyle Türk Ocağı çevresinde başlayan köycülük, bu ideali savunanların tahayyül ettiği atılımı bir türlü gösterememiştir. Rus narodniklerinin fikirsel etkisiyle başlayan Osmanlı Köycülüğü, Cumhuriyet dönemine gelindiğinde farklı bir hal almıştır. Özellikle 1929 yılında dünya çapında etkili olan ekonomik buhran esnasında, Türkiye’nin ağırlıklı olarak köylü ekonomisine sahip bir ülke olması, Türkiye’nin görece daha yumuşak darbe almasına neden oldu. Bu yüzden, Türkiye’de aydınlar, köyün ve köylünün kalkınmanın anahtarı olduğunu düşünmeye başladı. Bu fikirlere, Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası deneyiminde seçmen tabanlarının olmadığının fark edilmesiyle, CHP’nin bürokratik elitlerinin de desteği başladı. Böylece
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1930’lu yıllar Türk Köycülüğünün zirveye ulaştığı yıllar olarak ortaya çıktı. Ülkü dergisi çerçevesinde Cumhuriyet Köycülerinin, Osmanlı öncellerinden farkı ise temelde Marksist çizgiyle ortak kaynaktan beslenen Rusya Narodnikleri yerine Almanya köycülüğünü örnek almalarıydı. Almanya’ya ek olarak en başarılı örnek olarak gördükleri Danimarka köycülüğü ile Türkiye’ye benzer ülkeler olarak gördükleri Meksika ve Bulgaristan köycülüklerine de yakından ilgi gösterdiler. Bu açıdan korporatist bir köycülüğün etkili olduğu söylenebilir. Özellikle Kadro dergisi ile aralarındaki çekişmenin de temelini oluşturan bu ayrışma Kadro dergisinin kapatılmasıyla sonuçlanacaktır. Böylece başta Recep Peker olmak üzere CHP bürokrasisinin Türk köycülüğündeki etkisi perçinlenecektir.
Giriş bölümünü takiben, öncelikle Türk köylüsünün Cumhuriyet’e kadarki durumu hakkında malumat verilmiştir. Buna göre Türk köylüsü, yoğun savaşlar neticesinde nüfusu oldukça azalmıştı. Yetersiz beslenme, salgın hastalıklar gibi sebeplerden dolayı sıhhi açıdan oldukça kötü durumdaydı. Kadın-erkek nüfusu kadınlar lehine eşitsiz bir hal almıştır. Bu da makineleşmemiş bir toplumda tarımsal üretimin gerilemesine dolayısıyla ekonomik bir çöküşe yol açmıştır. Başta aşar olmak üzere adil olmayan vergilendirmeler, bürokrasideki çürümenin neticesinde kötü bir devlet imajı köylere hâkim olmuştur. Bu noktada Köycüler bir yandan köylüyü kurtarmak gibi bir idealin peşinden giderken diğer taraftan köylünün merkeze olan güvensizliği ile mücadele etmek durumunda kalmıştır.
İlerleyen bölümlerde doğrudan Ülkü dergisi hakkında bilgiler verilmiştir. Öncelikle Ülkü dergisinin kurulma sebebi Kemalizm’in derli toplu bir ideoloji haline getirilme ihtiyacı olduğunun düşünülmesiydi. Özerk bir yapıya sahip
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olan Türk Ocaklarının zaman zaman parti ile zıtlaşan söylemleri CHP’yi rahatsız etmeye hatta kimi zaman korkutmaya başlamıştır. Bu nedenle Türk Ocaklarını kapatmışlardır. Ancak Türk Ocaklarının görevlerini yerine getirmek üzere, ortaya çıkan boşluğu doldurmak amacıyla, Halkevlerini doğrudan partiye bağlı bir organ olarak oluşturdular. Halkevlerinin amacı Kemalist devrimlerin topluma tanıtılması, yaygınlaştırılması ve tatbik edilmesini kolaylaştırmasıydı. İşte Ülkü Dergisi bunun bir aracı olarak Ankara Halkevinin bünyesinde kurulmuştur. Bu açıdan doğrudan partinin bir yayın organı olarak sınıflandırılabilir. Bu yönüyle benzer amaçla kurulmuş olan Kadro dergisinden ayrılmaktaydı. Bu ayrılık zamanla bir çekişmeye dönüştü ve Kadro dergisinin kapatılmasıyla sonuçlandı. Ülkü dergisi ise her biri birbirinden farklı mahiyette üç ayrı seri olarak yaklaşık 17 yıllık bir yayın hayatına sahip oldu. Köycülük ve köy imgesi bu çalışmanın yaklaşımına uyacak şekilde özellikle derginin ilk üç yılında baskın olarak öne çıkan tema olmuştur. 1937 yılı ve sonrasında belki de Celal Bayar’ın başbakan olmasıyla köycülüğün yerini iktisadi politikalar ve sanayileşme fikirleri alırken, Atatürk’ün ölümü ardından İnönü’nün cumhurbaşkanlığına gelmesi sonucunda beklenenin aksine tekrardan popular bir konu haline gelemedi. Bunun nedeni ise Ülkü’de savunulan köycülük fikirlerinin bu dönemde fiilen bir devlet destekli politikaya dönüşmesi olarak gösterilebilir. Örneğin, Köy Enstitüleri ile birlikte köy eğitimi hususunda Ülkü yazarlarının savunduğu teorik fikirlerin uygulanması imkânı doğmuştur. İkinci Dünya Savaşı nedeniyle ihracat ve ithalat sıkıntısının başlaması yine Köycülerin hayalinin kurduğu kendi kendine yetebilir köylerin tatbikini zorunlu hale getirdi.
Çalışmada köycülüğün toplum ve ülke hakkındaki farklı alanlara yönelik nasıl uyarlandığı iki ana başlık çerçevesinde incelenmiştir. İlk bölümde toprak
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ve köy tüzel kişiliğine odaklanılmıştır. Bu bölüm kendi içerisinde dört ayrı parçaya ayrılmaktadır. İlk kısım Ülkü yazarlarının köyü ve köylüyü tanımlamaları üzerine bir deneme niteliği taşımaktadır. Burada Ülkü yazarlarının köylüyü tam olarak nasıl tasvir ettikleri veya gelecekte nasıl olmaları gerektiği aktarılmıştır. Köylüden beklenilen ile köylüye verilmesi gereken şeylerin ne olduğu tartışılmıştır. Bu sonuçlardan anlaşıldığı kadarıyla Ülkü’de yazan Köycüler için en temel sorun köylünün eğitimi olarak beliriyordu. Çünkü, idari, zirai, ticari, kültürel ve sıhhi tüm problemlerin temeli olarak köylünün eğitimsiz kalmış olması gösterilmiştir.
İkinci kısımda ise köyün idari yönetimi ve modern bir çehreye kavuşturulması çabalarına yönelik Ülkü köycülerinin düşünceleri incelenmiştir. Birbiriyle alakasız gibi görünen bu iki başlığın tek bölümde incelenmesinin sebebi ise yine Ülkü’nün sahip olduğu ideolojinin bir ürünüdür. Çünkü, modern bir yönetim biçimine, sahip olabilmenin ilk yolunun modern bir görünüme sahip olmakla olabileceğini savunmuşlardır. Onlara göre, köyün ihtiyaçlarına uygun, coğrafi şartlara uyum sağlamış, estetik bir köy kurulursa, bu köyün insanları refaha kavuşacaktır. Refaha kavuşmaları sayesinde demokrasi kültürüne ulaşacak, modern bir idari sistem oturtulabilecektir. Bu bağlamda Cumhuriyet hükümeti tarafından köylerde uygulanmak üzere yasalaştırılan Köy Kanunu ile köylere hem fiziki açıdan modernleşmenin önünü açacak direktifler verilmiş hem de idari olarak köyler düzenlenmiştir. İdari düzenlemede ise Ülkü yazarlarının gördüğü en büyük problem Osmanlı döneminden kalmış olan ağalık kurumuydu. Ağaların, köylünün kalkınmasında, ekonomik olarak bağımsız hale gelmesinde ve köyü idaresinin önünde bir engel olarak görüyorlardı. Ancak bu durumu yalnızca ülkenin doğu ve güneydoğusunda bir problem olarak öne çıkarıyorlardı. Batı
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Anadolu’da ise bu kişilerin rejimle iş birliği kurduklarını söyleyerek devrimlerin yerleşmesine katkı sunduklarını savunuyorlardı. Aynı şekilde Batı Anadolu’da büyük zirai çiftliklerin ekonomik kalkınma için şart olduğunu söylerlerken doğuda topraksız köylülerin problemleri öne çıkarılmaktaydı.
Bu bölümün üçüncü kısmında, tarım ve hayvancılığın köycüler için öneminden ve bu konuda neler yaptıklarından bahsedilmiştir. Ülkü’deki köycü yazarlar için bu alanda da bazı çelişkiler oluşmuştur. Köycüler, ziraat mı yoksa sanayi mi ikileminde ziraattan yana tutum sergilemişlerdir. Ancak Ziraatın, hayvancılık yönünden mi yoksa tarım yönünden mi öncelikli olduğu konusunda fikir ayrılıklarına sahiptirler. Bir kısım köycüye göre öncelikle hayvansal ziraat kalkındırılmalıdır. Çünkü ekonomik getirisinin daha çok olduğu ve insanları asıl besleyen faaliyetin bu olduğunu savunurlar. Aynı zamanda sıhhi problemlerin çözümünün de bu şekilde daha hızlı olacağına inanmaktadırlar. Diğer taraftan tarımı öncelikle geliştirmek isteyenlere göre, tarımdaki bir kalkınma ülkenin toptan kalkmasına daha çok fayda sağlayacaktır. Çünkü tarımsal üretimin aynı zamanda bir sınai hammadde kaynağı olduğunu düşünürler. Her iki görüşe de katılan yazarlarda bulunmaktadır. Savundukları ne olursa olsun Ülkü’deki bütün Köycülerin ortak olarak istediği hem hayvancılık hem de tarım alanında köylünün bilinçlendirilmesidir. Bu bilinçlendirilme sayesinde ırk ve tohum ıslahının yapılabileceğini, çeşitli zararlılar ve hastalıklar ile mücadelenin yapılabileceğini savunurlar. Tarım ve hayvancılığın kalkınması sayesinde bu ürünlerin bir ihracat kalemine çevrilebileceği bununda modernleşmeye katkı sunacağı beklentisi nihai hedefleri olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Tarım ve
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hayvancılık konusunda Köycülerin idealize ettikleri ülke büyük çoğunlukla Bulgaristan olmuştur.
Bu bölümün dördüncü ve son kısmında ise iktisadi hayat ele alınmıştır. Ülkü yazarlarının liberal ekonomiye karşı şüpheyle baktıkları göze çarpmaktadır. Liberal ekonominin temsilcisi olan tüccar sınıfı, daima köylüyü kazıklayan, köylüden para devşirmeye çalışan kötü tiplemelerle tasvir edilmektedir. Bu bağlamda köylünün ticaret işini de kendi tekeline alabileceği bir sistem kurulmasını teklif etmişlerdir. Köy Dükkanı adıyla ifade edilen bu sistem sayesinde köylünün tüccarlar tarafından borca sürüklenmesinin önüne geçilebileceği varsayılmıştır. Ancak köy dükkânlarının başına geçmesi istenen köy rehberleri örneğinden görüleceği gibi köycülerin kendilerini kurtarıcı olarak gördükleri görüş hakimdir. Bunun dışında köylünün borçluluğunun başka sebeplerinin ne olabileceğini düşünmüşlerdir. Sorumlu olarak ise savaş yorgunluğu ve ekonomik buhranı göstermişlerdir. Bu bağlamda hem bankacılık sisteminde bir reform öngörürler hem de kooperatifçiliğin yaygınlaştırılması gerektiği hususuna vurgu yapmışlardır. Devletin bu konularda yetersiz kaldığını açıkça söylemekten çekinmezler. CHP bürokrasisi Ülkü Köycülerine kıyasla bir nebze daha devletçi bir çizgi izlemiştir. Ülkü’de Köycüler hala bazı hallerde özel teşebbüsün ve özerkliğin destekçisi olmuştur.
Çalışmanın ikinci ana bölümü ise doğrudan beşerî olarak köylüyü ele almaktadır. Bu bölümün ilk başlığında köy eğitimi konusundaki görüşler incelenmiştir. Ülkü’deki bölünmüşlük köy eğitimi konusunda da kendisini göstermektedir. Bu bölünme çeşitli açılardan gerçekleşmiştir. İlk olarak, eğitim verilmesi gereken yaş grupları hakkında fikir ayrılıkları söz konusu olmuştur. Bir kısım yazara göre eğitim küçük yaştaki çocuklarla başlamalıdır
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çünkü ancak bu şekilde ailelerinin cehaletinden etkilenmeden modern bir anlayışa sahip olmaları mümkün olabilirdi. Ancak buna karşı olanlara göre, köy eğitimin erken yaştakilere verilmesi zaman kaybı olacaktır. Çünkü bu yaştaki çocukların kavramasının daha yetersiz olduğunu savunmaktadırlar. Ayrıca köy şartlarının zorluğu nedeniyle bu kadar küçük çocukların başarılı olması beklenemez diye ileri sürmüşlerdir. Ancak belirtmek gerekir ki temelde eğitimin küçük yaştan başlayarak ileri yaşlara kadar sürmesi ana ilke olmakla beraber ekonomik imkansızlıklar nedeniyle bu şekilde seçim yapılmasını doğuran bir durum oluşmuştur. Bir diğer çelişen durum ise, Ülkü’de doğrudan ifade edilmese bile bu çalışmanın sonucunda araştırmacının vardığı husus kadın eğitimi konusundadır. Ülkü’de bazı yazarlar için köy eğitimi denilince yalnızca erkek çocuklar kastedilmiştir. Bütün fikirlerini erkeklerin eğitimi üzerine kurgulamaktadırlar. Bu yazılarda kadına ya hiç yer verilmemektedir ya da yer verilse dahi erkeğin evdeki tarladaki destekçisi olarak yer verilmiştir. Bunun aksini düşünen diğer grup ise, kadının eğitiminin önemli olmasını anneliği ile bağdaştırarak öne çıkarmaktadır. Onlara göre çocuğun yetişmesinde en önemli etkiye sahip olan kişi olarak annenin eğitimli olması çok önemli bir durumdur. Bu sebeple kız çocuklarının eğitiminin en az erkekler kadar iyi yapılması gerektiğine inanmışlardır. Hatta kız eğitiminde hem okul eğitimi hem de ev eğitimi öngörülmüştür. Bu bağlamda kadın öğretmenler, köy hemşireleri gibi kavramlar ileri sürülmüştür. Bu kişilerin kadınlara hem modern eğitim vermesi hem de ev hayatına etki edecek pratik eğitimler vermesi gerektiği savunulmuştur. Kız çocuklarının eğitimi meselesi doğrudan Atatürk ilkeleri ile bağdaştırılarak laiklik ilkesinin korunabilmesinin en temelinde kızların eğitilmesi olduğu savunulmuştur. Kadın veya erkek fark etmeksizin Ülkü’de köy eğitimi çok yönlü bir çizgide sunulmuştur. Köylülere hem modern teorik,
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pozitif bilimler hem ulus bilinci aşılayacak dersler hem de köy ütopyasını kurabilmek için gerekli olduklarını düşündükleri Pratik bilgilerin öğretilmesi hedeflenmiştir. Eğitim hususunda temel alınan ülkeler özellikle İtalya ile Almanya olmuştur.
Bölümün ikinci kısmında sosyal hayat ve aile yaşamına yönelik Ülkü’deki gözlemlerin mahiyeti işlenmiştir. Buna göre temel problem olarak bir önceki bölümde bahsedilen eğitimsizlik görülmektedir. İkinci sorun ise kültürel yozlaşmadır. Bu kültürel yozlaşma bazen dış etkenlerin sonucu olarak gösterilirken bazen de Türk gelenekleri eleştirel bir bakış açısıyla işlenmiştir. Aile hayatına dair üzerinde en çok durulan nokra babanın ve annenin çocuklarıyla ilgilenmemesidir. Çocuğa tarlada çalışabilecek yaşa gelene kadar maddi külfet olarak bakılması Köycüler açısından şaşırtıcı bulunmuştur. Ülkü’de Türk köylüsünün genel anlamda en acımasız şekilde eleştirildiği nokta bu olmuştur. Örneğin bir babanın çocuğunun ölümü için baş sağlığı dilenmesi karşılığında sergilediği tavırlar Köycülerde şaşkınlık yaratmıştır. Annenin çocuğu ile ev işleri yapmaktan hiç ilgilenememesi, babanın tüm gününü ev dışında geçirmesi temel sorunlar olarak gösterilmiştir. Bu noktada çözümün eğitim olduğu yine vurgulanmıştır. Ayrıca Köy Kanunu ile konulan yükümlülükler sayesinde babanın da annenin de eve bağlanabileceği umulmuştur. Sosyal hayata gelince, Ülkü’de gelenek görenek adı altında bazı alışkanlıkların köylülerin refahlarına olumsuz etkisi olduğundan dem vurulmuştur. Sosyalleşme, Köycüler için eğitimin bir aracı olarak görülmüştür. Güzel sanatların çeşitli dallarının köylerde etkin olması için büyük çaba göstermişlerdir. Öğretmenin bu dallarda köye rehberlik etmesi yükümlülüğü olduğunu söyleyerek yine tepeden bakan bir bakış açısı sergilemişlerdir. Bir diğer önemli problem ise Türkçe kullanımı ile Türklük
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bilincinin olmaması olarak gösterilmiştir. Bu bağlamda Köycülere göre milli bayramların çok büyük önemi olmuştur. Ulus bilincinin yaygınlaşması Ülkü’nün ortaya çıkarken ilk motivasyonlarından olan devrimin siyasi tabanını yaratma fikrinin de en önemli taşıyıcılarından olmuştur.
Son olarak köylünün sağlığı meselesi Ülkü Köycülerinin eğildiği bir diğer konu olmuştur. Bunun sebepleri çeşitlidir. İlk olarak öne çıkan sebep genç Cumhuriyetin savaşlar, salgınlar ve kıtlıklar gibi sebeplerle kaybettiği nüfusunu geri kazanmak, ekonomik kalkınma için çok önemliydi. Bu bağlamda Köycüler için köyler nüfus üretkenliğinin bir deposuydu. Bu bağlamda köylerde çocuk ölümlerinin azaltılması en önemli amaçlardan olmuştur. Köycülere göre de bu konu da eğitimle alakalı olmuştur. Ekonomik yetersizlikler de bir sorun olarak görülüyor olsa dahi bazı örneklerde gösterdikleri gibi, imkân olsa dahi batıl inançlar sebebiyle hastaneden korkulması, cin ve benzeri sorumlular gösterilmesi bunun en büyük neticesi olarak görülmüştür. Bazı Köycülerin düşüncesine göre ise sağlıklı bir ırk yaratmak ülkenin kalkınması için şart olarak görülmüş olabilir. Tıpkı köyün kalkınıp demokratikleşebilmesini köy mimarisiyle bağdaştırdıkları gibi, köylünün kalkınabilmesi için fiziksel olarak iyileşebilmesi gerektiğini savunmuşlardır. Ancak buradan nasyonal sosyalist anlamda bir sonuç çıkarmamakta fayda vardır. Çünkü Ülkü yazarları bu konudaki fikirlerini belirtirken herhangi bir ırka ait fiziksel özelliklere ulaşmak gibi bir tanımdan ziyade Türklük ulusal bilincine sahip olan herkesin bunun bir parçası olarak sağlıklı olması gerektiğini ileri sürmüşlerdir.
Sonuç olarak Ülkü dergisi etrafında konumlanan Köycüler modern Cumhuriyetin kalkındırılması için köylerin kalkınıp refaha erişmesini gerekli
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görmüşlerdir. Bunun gerçekleşebilmesi için ise her konuda köye özgü fikirler geliştirilmesi gerektiğini savunup köye, şehirden ayrı bir politika güdülmesi gerektiğini savunmuşlardır. Bu konular, idare, ziraat, iktisat ile eğitim, sosyal hayat, sağlıktır. Bunların ilk dördünde Köycüler kendi içlerinde birbiriyle çelişen bazı olguları savunmuşlardır. Her birinin fikri aynı anda dergide yer bulabilmiştir. Bu ise bize Ülkü dergisinin katı bir ideolojik tavır alamadığının göstergesidir. Özellikle başlarda Peker’in idaresinde iken hükümet ile tam güdüm içerisindeyken ardından kısmı şekilde görüş ayrılıkları var olmuşsa da sonuçta tüm bu fikirler dergide kendisine yer bulabilmiştir. Atatürk’ün ölümü ile birlikte İnönü’nün eski küskünlerle de barışarak yeniden bir uyum sağlaması ile birlikte savaş yıllarında bu fikirlerin bir kısmı uygulamaya geçme fırsatı bulmuştur. Demokrat Parti döneminde halkevlerinin kapatılmasıyla yayın hayatı da sona eren Ülkü kısmen de olsa başarılı olmuştur denilebilir. Çünkü başından beri Ülkü’nün amaçladığını söylediği şey demokratik bir siyasal hayat için köylünün kalkınmasıdır. Bu bağlamda bunun CHP’lilerin istediği şekilde olmasa bile oluştuğu görülmüştür.
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