Staging the Turkish National Space in the Division of Village-City: Nation-building and the Space in the State Theater Köy-Kent Ayrımında Ulusal Mekânı Sahnelemek: Devlet Tiyatrosu’nda Ulus İnşası ve Mekân
Journal of Modern Turkish History, vol.19, no.38 Special Issue, pp.887-924, 2023 (ESCI, Scopus)
- Publication Type: Article / Article
- Volume: 19 Issue: 38 Special Issue
- Publication Date: 2023
- Journal Name: Journal of Modern Turkish History
- Journal Indexes: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus
- Page Numbers: pp.887-924
- Keywords: nation building, national identity, Nationalism, space, State Theatre, Turkey, village
- Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University Affiliated: Yes
Abstract
This study scrutinizes nation-building in Turkey with its spatial components through theater. The research deals with the ways in which the “us” and “them” identities are expressed in the dialogues of the characters, while also investigating the continuities and discontinuities between the Kemalist nation-building process of the 1930s, which has received most of the attention in the literature, and the 1950s. The study conducts an interpretive, thematic discourse analysis of the national space-themed playscripts, which were performed by the State Theater from its establishment in 1949 until when the dramaturgical preferences of the institution shifted significantly in 1960 with the Military Coup. The State Theater is a powerful cultural instrument both audibly and visually. Based on this power, it is possible for the institution to reflect the political imagination of the official national identity and nation building, in which nations are constructed in a specific space with the distinction between "us" and "the other", to the audience through performance. The prominent debates on national space in the Early Republican period focus on the relationship between the village and the city as a matter of centre-periphery distinction. This period witnessed the romanticization of the village life, and a process that involved the modernization of the villagers and the transformation of urban centers into real spaces of the modern Turkish nation. Established as a continuation of the cultural reforms of the Republic, the State Theatre’s foundation period coincides with the presidency of İsmet İnönü and the Democratic Party period. By the 1950s, the dominant discourse put forward by the State Theater points to the discontent with modernization. The romanticism of the 1930s turned out to be a longing for the purity of rural life, and nostalgia. At this point, the essence of the nation is seen in the peasantry, but it is not portrayed in a completely secular and romantic way as in the plays of the 1930s. The results indicate that during the 1950s in Turkey, there was a focus on reconstructing and critically reevaluating the division between rural and urban areas in terms of religion, state, narrative, and national identity within the context of nation-building. The village has been represented as a homeland visited seen, and longed for and there has been an effort to establish understanding and agreement between the traditional village and the modern city. The imagery of the Turkish national space has been portrayed in cities alongside a nation nostalgic for villages.