Turkey is no longer a "turkey": why Erdogan breaks with the legacy of Ataturk

The UN granted Turkey's request to be called from now on in official documents not the Republic of Turkey, but the Republic of Türkiye. Earlier in the decree of Recep Erdogan, this move was called "better reflecting the values ​​of the Turkish people, their rich culture and heritage."

In turn, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said bluntly that the new name will not cause "unnecessary associations" with the English word "turkey".

But is it just this "intrigue" behind the renaming?

The Republic of Turkey, proclaimed in 1923, was built by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as an antithesis of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed after the defeat in the First World War. According to Kemal's plan, it was supposed to reveal a fundamentally different type of state - ethnically homogeneous, with a new political system and legislative framework, socio-political and state institutions. Then the former Ottoman Empire began to be called Turkey.

However, some Western Turkologists deciphered this word as the name of only that part of the Ottoman Empire where the Turks lived predominantly, that is, the Anatolian land, since in other parts it was multicultural. Spreading this vision, the Kurds who remained in the country after the mass ethnic cleansing in Turkey were called, for example, "mountain Turks”.

The issue of renaming the country was seriously discussed during the presidency of the ethnic Kurd Turgut Özal (1989-1993). In the books he wrote, it was stated that Turkey belongs to the "Anatolian" civilisation, which, they say, is not only an integral part of European civilisation, but also largely determined the development of Europe.

In this regard, it was proposed to rename Turkey into the "Republic of Anatolia" or even the "Ottoman Republic", since the Turks are allegedly "direct heirs of the great ancient Greeks" from Pergamum, Ephesus and Smyrna.

But nothing came of this project. As they say, because of Özal's policy towards the Kurdish issue and the discrepancy between his doctrine and ideological Kemalism. But today, Erdogan is parting with the legacy of Kemalism!

In Europe, his policy is often referred to as the term "new Ottomanism" introduced back in 1985 by the English historian David Burchard. It implies a drift towards a common "history of the Turks" - along with the history of the Huns, ancient Turks, Mongols, Seljuks, etc. In the context of such a history, it was assumed that other states included in the Council of the Turkic Commonwealth would also be named, and not only considered Turkic.

This is not happening yet. Nevertheless, in the political circles of Turkey, the issue of renaming the country was discussed in order to blur the concept of a "national state" in favour of "large spaces", to turn nationalist Turkey into a multi-ethnic and multicultural power at the name level with claims to a key role in the affairs of the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Turkey, no doubt, will provide the richest material for the study of this topic in the coming years.

Elena Panina, director of the RUSSTRAT Institute