Aycan Ünal 17.08.2017 HIST 585 23145 ATTEMPTS TO CREATE A HOMOGENOUS SOCIETY: A STUDY ON DERSİM 1937-1938 I. Introduction Founded in 1923, the Turkish nation state was nothing but a homogenous state. Up until that time, there had been attempts to homogenize Anatolia, but no total homogenization was achieved. One example for the newly founded Republic’s attempts to homogenize the country can be the compulsory Greek- Turkish population exchange in 1923 and another example can be the deportation of Armenians from Anatolia in 1915, but one should keep in mind that the decisions of it was not taken by the bureaucrats of the Turkish nation state; even though there is a non-negligible similarity behind both of the decisions. As mentioned, the aim was to create a homogenous state and seemingly the unity of people depended on the unity of their religions which can be broadly thought as a continuity of the Ottoman Empire’s millet system. However, it is not possible to argue that the newly founded Republic saw only religion as a unitary notion among people. The article 88 of the 1924 Constitution indicates this: “the people of Turkey regardless of their religion and race would, in terms of citizenship, be considered Turkish”. 1 As Mesut Yeğen also mentions in his article, at first sight this article seems a unitary aim of the government, but when one thinks of the article’s previous version, one feels the need to read between the lines. 2 Before, the article was as follows: “the people of Turkey regardless of their religion and race would be considered Turkish”. 3 As seen, at first without the condition of citizenship, every one would be Turkish, yet later on having the right to belong to the dominant ethnie was restricted. It was implied that there were essential Turks and constitutional Turks. For example, Hamit Bozarslan in his article suggests that during the WWI and War of Independence, Kurdish people collaborated with the Turkish, but after the foundation of the Republic, when Turkish nationalism became the hegemonic ideology, Kurdish people lost their connection with the state. 4 Making a clear difference between the essential Turks and constitutional Turks does not sound strange to many people as there is a tendency to think about nation-formation as closely bound up with the position and role of the dominant ethnie. 5 1 https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/anayasa/anayasa24.htm 2 Yeğen, Mesut. Banditry to Disloyalty: The Kurdish Question in Turkey. p.4. 2008. 3 Ibid. 4 Bozarslan, Hamit. Kurds and the Turkish State. p.337. 2008 5 Smith, Anthony D. Ethnic Cores and Dominant Ethnies. p.19. 2004.