Ziya Gokalp

Ziya Gökalp was one of the most influential intellectuals and spokesmen of the Turkish nationalist movement. He was born in Diyarbakır, a multicultural city in southeastern Anatolia, where he was exposed to different ethnic and religious traditions. He studied at the Constantinople Veterinary School, where he joined a secret revolutionary society that aimed to overthrow the Ottoman sultan and establish a constitutional regime. He was arrested and imprisoned for his involvement in the society, and later exiled to Tripoli. He returned to Istanbul after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, which restored the constitution and parliament. He became a member of the Committee of Union and Progress, the ruling party of the Ottoman Empire, and a deputy in the parliament. He also wrote for various newspapers and journals, expressing his views on sociology, culture, politics, and poetry. He was influenced by contemporary European thinkers, especially Émile Durkheim, and developed his own sociological theory of Turkish nationalism. He rejected both Ottomanism and Islamism as bases for national identity, and advocated for a Turkification of the Ottoman Empire, by promoting Turkish language and culture to all Ottoman subjects. He also supported the idea of Pan-Turkism, or the unity of all Turkic peoples, and Turanism, or the cultural affinity of Turks with other Asian peoples. He saw Western civilization as a source of inspiration and modernization, but not as a model to be copied. He argued that Turks should adopt the scientific and rational aspects of Western culture, but preserve their own moral and aesthetic values. He also tried to reconcile Islam with nationalism and secularism, by distinguishing between religious rites and religious law, and by emphasizing the ethical and social aspects of Islam. He wrote several books and articles on these topics, as well as poems and stories that reflected his nationalist sentiments. His works were very influential in shaping the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, and his ideology of Kemalism, which is based on the principles of republicanism, nationalism, secularism, populism, statism, and reformism. Gökalp is widely regarded as the father of Turkish sociology, and one of the most important figures in Turkish literature and politics. He died in 1924 in Istanbul, after suffering from a heart failure. He was buried in Çemberlitaş, Fatih, Istanbul.