Halkevleri (Turkish: Halkevi literally meaning "people's houses", also translatable as "community centres") is a Turkish community enlightenment project. They were founded in 1932 and entirely abolished in 1951. [1]
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Halkevleri (Turkish: Halkevi literally meaning "people's houses", also translatable as "community centres") is a Turkish community enlightenment project. They were founded in 1932 and entirely abolished in 1951. [1]
The Turkish Republic was proclaimed in 1923 after a series of costly wars involving the Ottoman Empire. The human loss was great, especially among intellectuals. The most profitable agricultural land had been lost and the country was economically bankrupt. After the republic was proclaimed, measures were taken to raise the low literacy rate and to improve the economy. However, the Great Depression was another blow to the new republic. A second problem of the new republic was the reaction of the conservatives against the reforms, especially the secularist practices of the republic. The Halkevleri can be seen as the successors of the Turkish Hearths, a Turkish social institution that was disestablished before the founding of the Halkevleri in 1932. [2]
Halkevleri was an enlightenment project aimed towards city dwellers to gain support for reforms. It was planned by Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey.
On February 17, 1932, branches of Halkevleri were opened in 17 cities. (Adana, Ankara, Bolu, Bursa, Çanakkale, Denizli, Diyarbakır, Eskişehir, Istanbul, İzmir, Konya, Malatya, and Samsun.) But soon the number increased to 478. Towards 1940, the villages were also included in the project. The sub branches in villages were called Halkodaları (English: People’s rooms) Towards 1950, the total number of these subsections exceeded 4,000.
The purpose of the project was to enlighten the people and to decrease the influence of the conservative circles. Free courses were offered on the topics of literature, drama, music, fine arts, speaking, and writing as well as handicrafts and tailoring. Folk say and folksongs were surveyed. Halkevleri also had 761 libraries and reading rooms. [3]
Halkevleri operated as a state organization from 1932 till 1951. During the multiparty period (after 1945), Halkevleri were severely criticized on the ground that this project was a supporter of the governing Republican People's Party. [4] The opposing Democrat Party won the 1950 elections. On 8 August 1951, Halkevleri were closed. [5]
Halkevleri published nearly seventy-five periodicals, including Ülkü which was published from February 1933 and August 1950. [6]
Mustafa İsmet İnönü was a Turkish army officer and statesman who served as the second president of Turkey from 11 November 1938, to 22 May 1950, and as its prime minister three times: from 1923 to 1924, 1925 to 1937, and 1961 to 1965.
Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, also known as Köprülüzade Mehmed Fuad, was a highly influential Turkish sociologist, Turkologist, scholar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey. A descendant of the prominent Köprülü family, Fuat Köprülü was a key figure in the intersection of scholarship and politics in early 20th century Turkey.
The Republican People's Party is a Kemalist and social democratic political party in Turkey. It is the oldest political party in Turkey, founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president and founder of the modern Republic of Türkiye. The party is also cited as the founding party of modern Turkey. Its logo consists of the Six Arrows, which represent the foundational principles of Kemalism: republicanism, reformism, laicism (Laïcité/Secularism), populism, nationalism, and statism. It is currently the second largest party in Grand National Assembly with 128 MPs, behind the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934, was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism (Atatürkism).
Kemalism or Atatürkism is a political ideology based on the ideas of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey. Its symbol is the Six Arrows.
Atatürk's reforms were a series of political, legal, religious, cultural, social, and economic policy changes, designed to convert the new Republic of Turkey into a secular nation-state, implemented under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in accordance with the Kemalist framework. His political party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), ran Turkey as a one-party state and implemented these reforms, starting in 1923. After Atatürk's death, his successor İsmet İnönü continued the one-party rule and Kemalist style reforms until the CHP lost to the Democrat Party in Turkey's second multi-party election in 1950.
The one-party period of the Republic of Turkey began with the formal establishment of the country in 1923. The Republican People's Party (CHP) was the only party between 1923 and 1945, when the National Development Party was established. After winning the first multiparty elections in 1946 by a landslide, the Republican People's Party lost the majority to the Democratic Party in the 1950 elections. During the one-party period, President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk repeatedly requested that opposition parties be established to stand against the Republican People's Party in order to transition into multi-party democracy. Kâzım Karabekir established the Progressive Republican Party in 1924 but it was banned after its members' involvement in the 1925 Sheikh Said rebellion. In 1930 the Liberal Republican Party was established but then dissolved again by its founder. Despite Atatürk's efforts to establish a self-propagating multi-party system, this was only established after his death in 1938.
Musa Kâzım Karabekir was a Turkish general and politician. He was the commander of the Eastern Army of the Ottoman Empire during the Turkish War of Independence, and fought a successful military campaign against the Armenian Democratic Republic. He was the a founder and leader of the Progressive Republican Party, the Turkish Republic's first opposition party to Atatürk, though he and his party would be purged following the Sheikh Said revolt. He was rehabilitated with İsmet İnönü's ascension to the presidency in 1938 and served as Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey before his death.
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The personal life of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk has been the subject of numerous studies. Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey and served as its president from 1923 until his death on 10 November 1938. According to Turkish historian Kemal H. Karpat, Atatürk's recent bibliography included 7,010 different sources. Atatürk's personal life has its controversies, ranging from where he was born to his correct full name. The details of his marriage have always been a subject of debate. His religious beliefs were discussed in Turkish political life as recently as the Republic Protests during the 2007 presidential election.
Mersin Halkevi is a building in Mersin, Turkey originally built within the scope of the project Halkevleri, but currently used as a cultural center and opera house.
Atatürk's cult of personality was started during the life of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and continued by his successors after his death in 1938, by members of both his Republican People's Party and opposition parties alike, and in a limited amount by himself during his lifetime in order to popularize and cement his social and political reforms as a founder and the first President of Turkey. The cult has been compared to similar personality cults in the authoritarian regimes of Central Asia and the Soviet Union.
Events in the year 1932 in Turkey.
Associations for Defence of National Rights were regional resistance organisations established in the Ottoman Empire between 1918 and 1919 that pledged themselves to the Defence of National Rights movement. They would eventually unite into the Association for the Defence of Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia in the Sivas Congress.
The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Turkey.
Turkish Hearths is a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Turkey. It was founded in 1912, during the last years of the Ottoman Empire, in a period when almost all non-Turkish elements had their own national committees, and Turkish Hearths was founded as a Turkish national committee.
Motion with four signatures was a motion given to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey by the quadrumvirate of Celâl Bayar, Refik Koraltan, Mehmet Fuat Köprülü and Adnan Menderes; all Republican People's Party (CHP) deputies at the time. By calling for widespread political liberalization, it posed the first significant open challenge to the existing one party system from inside CHP itself. Although the motion itself was denied, it is considered an important milestone in the parliamentary history of Turkey, as it kicked off the establishment of a multi-party political system in the country.
Kemalist historiography is a narrative of history mainly based on a six-day speech delivered by Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk] in 1927, promoted by the political ideology of Kemalism, and influenced by Atatürk's cult of personality. It asserts that the Republic of Turkey represented a clean break with the Ottoman Empire, and that the Republican People's Party did not succeed the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).
Atatürk's Principles consist of six principles that determine the pragmatic policies of Turkey's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which he put into effect under his administration. These principles came to be the fundamental pillars of the Republican People's Party, the founding and sole party of the country, on 13 May 1935. Later, the principles were added to the 1924 Constitution with a law enacted in 1937 and thus became the national ideology of Turkey with this practice.
Ülkü was a magazine existed between 1933 and 1950. It was one of seventy-five official media outlets of the People's Houses, cultural institutions started in 1932 as an enlightenment project. The title of the magazine was given by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey.
