The Policy of Committee of Union and Progress on the Settlement of Muslims

Turkey's population structure is largely inherited from the last period of the Ottoman Empire. To understand the importance of migration and settlement in the Turkification of Anatolia, it is enough to look at our own family histories. The reshaping of Turkey's ethnic and religious structure coincides with the years when the Committee of Union and Progress was in full power (1913-1918) rather than the War of Independence. Fuat Dündar examines the immigration and settlement policies implemented by the Union and Progress in these years in line with the ideological transformation from Ottomanism to Turkism. He illuminates these policies implemented for the Islamization and Turkification of Anatolia by referring to primary sources such as encrypted telegrams. It reveals, through memories and documents, the socio-economic structure and social mood of this period, when one-third of the population was displaced and mixed together. The two main topics of this book are what kind of policy the Muslim peoples were settled in and in what ways the Committee of Union and Progress tried to solve the immigrant and refugee problems they encountered.

Immigration and settlement policies, which are largely neglected in historical studies, are extremely important in terms of understanding both the Turkist state mentality that was transferred to the Republic and today's ethno-religious mixture. With this work, Dündar reveals one of the most important components of the "nationalization" process, that is, the homogenization of the population, in all its aspects.



Number of Pages: 284

Year of Printing: 2002


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Iletisim Publishing

Number of Pages: 284

First Printing Year: 2002

Language Turkish