Cover Page
The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/31879 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation.
Author: Adak Turan, Sevgi
Title: Kemalism in the periphery: anti-veiling campaigns and state-society relations in 1930s Turkey
Issue Date: 2015-02-12
Kemalism in the Periphery:
Anti-Veiling Campaigns and
State-Society Relations in 1930s Turkey
Proefschrift
ter verkrijging van
de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden, op gezag van Rector Magnificus prof. mr. C.J.J.M. Stolker,
volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties te verdedigen op donderdag 12 februari 2015
klokke 11:15 uur
door
Sevgi Adak Turan geboren te Denizli
in 1979
Promotiecommissie
Promotores: Prof. dr. Touraj Atabaki (Universiteit Leiden) Prof. dr. Erik-Jan Zürcher (Universiteit Leiden)
Overige leden: Prof. dr. Deniz Kandiyoti (University of London, SOAS) Dr. Nicole A.N.M. van Os (Universiteit Leiden)
Prof. dr. Berteke Waaldijk (Universiteit Utrecht)
In memory of my grandmother, Fatma Gazalcı Anneannem Fatma Gazalcı’nın anısına…
Kemalism in the Periphery:
Anti-Veiling Campaigns and State-Society Relations in 1930s Turkey
© Sevgi Adak, 2015
Cover photo: A woman and her daughters in Antalya, 1933.
Author’s collection.
i TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ... iii
Acknowledgements ... v
Chapter 1. Introduction ... 1
Chapter 2. The Debate on Women’s Veiling and the Anti-Veiling Campaigns before the 1930s ... 22
I. The Ottoman Legacy ... 22
II. Kemalist Vision of Women’s Modernization and the Question of Veiling ... 30
III. Republic’s First Dress Reform: The Hat Law of 1925 ... 37
IV. Anti-Veiling Campaigns in the 1920s: a Weak Attempt at Changing Women’s Dress... 47
V. Conclusion... 59
Chapter 3. Contextualizing the Anti-Veiling Campaigns of the 1930s: An Overview ... 61
I. Turkey in the 1930s ... 61
II. Women’s Modernization and Un/Veiling in the 1930s ... 71
III. Anti-Veiling Campaigns in the 1930s ... 77
III.a. Timing ... 77
III.b. Scope, Content and Discourse ... 83
III.c. The Legal Framework ... 90
IV. Conclusion ... 98
Chapter 4. Negotiating Kemalism: The Local Elite in the Anti-Veiling Campaigns of the 1930s ... 100
I. Defining the Local Elite in the Turkish Context ... 100
II. Between Hesitation and Intervention: Ankara on the Anti-Veiling Campaigns ... 112
III. Anti-Veiling Campaigns and the Role of the Local Elite ... 124
IV. Conclusion ... 155
ii
Chapter 5. Popular Resistance and Women’s Agency ... 159
I. Diversifying the Local: Multiple Actors, Multiple Voices ... 159
II. Popular Resistance to Anti-Veiling Campaigns ... 161
III. How to Approach Women’s Agency ... 171
IV. Women in the Anti-Veiling Campaigns ... 178
IV.a. Incompliance, resistance, selective adaptation ... 178
IV.b. Compliance, support, participation ... 193
V. Conclusion... 203
Chapter 6. Reflections on the Anti-Veiling Campaigns in the Muslim World ... 206
I. The Turkish Case in a Larger Context ... 206
II. The Arab World, the Caucasus and Central Asia ... 214
III. Iran, Albania and Turkey: Some Comparative Remarks ... 228
IV. Conclusion ... 251
Chapter 7. Conclusions ... 257
Appendix ... 269
Bibliography ... 278
Samenvatting ... 303
Curriculum Vitae ... 308
iii List of Illustrations
Figure 2.1. A postcard from the Second Constitutional Period showing a group of women in black çarşafs in Istanbul.
Source: Sacit Kutlu, Didar-ı Hürriyet: Kartpostallarla İkinci Meşrutiyet (1908-1913), Istanbul: Istanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2008. ... 27
Figure 2.2. A colored image of a group of women in “modernized”
çarşafs, Istanbul, early 1920s.
Source: The film Istanbul Do/Redo/Undo: Waters, Streets, Faces by Nezih Erdoğan. ... 30 Figure 2.3. A page from the journal Resimli Ay, showing fashionable models of çarşaf and headdress in the 1920s. Resimli Ay, 1924. ... 36 Figure 3.1. A propaganda poster of the RPP in mid-1930s.
Source: Lilo Linke, Allah Dethroned: A Journey through Modern Turkey, London: Constable & Co LTD, 1937. ... 71 Figure 3.2. Women in peştamal veil at a local market in Sivas in mid-
1930s.
Source: Lilo Linke, Allah Dethroned: A Journey through Modern Turkey, London: Constable & Co LTD, 1937. ... 77
Figure 3.3. A clip from a local newspaper. Yeni Mersin, 1 July 1934. .. 88 Figure 3.4. A clip from a Bursa newspaper, reporting the meeting of the city council. Hakkın Sesi, Bursa, 3 February 1935. ... 95 Figure 5.1. Letter sent by the governor of Konya to the Ministry of Interior. TNPA 13216-7/1, 5 November 1935. ... 170 Figure 5.2. Women at a sewing course in 1930s Hacı Bektaş, Nevşehir.
Source: Cumhuriyet’in Aile Albümleri, Feride Çiçekoğlu and Oya Baydar (eds.), Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1998. ... 196
iv
Figure 5.3. Women at the Develi branch of the Airplane Association, Kayseri, 1930s.
Source: 75 Yılda Değişen Yaşam, Değişen İnsan: Cumhuriyet Modaları, Derya Özkan and Oya Baydar (eds.), Istanbul:
Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, 1998. ... 202
Figure 6.1. Afghan students who were sent to Istanbul for education, 1928.
Source: Yaiha Baiza, Education in Afghanistan:
Developments, Influences and Legacies since 1901, London:
Routledge, 2013. ... 209 Figure 6.2. A photograph of Nazira Zayn al-Din, appeared as the
frontispiece of her book.
Source: Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon, New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. . 220 Figure 6.3. A clip from Turkish national newspaper Cumhuriyet, showing
“modern” Iranian women watching a sports game.
Cumhuriyet, 25 November 1935. ... 238 Figure 6.4. A clip from a local newspaper in Konya, announcing the banning of the peçe in Albania, with an illustration of King Zog. Babalık, 20 March 1937. ... 241
v Acknowledgements
My journey to becoming a scholar began at Bilkent University, in the Department of Political Science. I am grateful to all my professors there, and especially, to Banu Helvacıoğlu, for all the inspiration she has given to me.
The Graduate Program in History at Sabancı University and my professors there have shaped me in irreversible ways. I would like to thank Ayşe Gül Altınay in particular for her support over the years and for being a dear friend.
I learned a lot from my professors and friends at York University, Toronto, and Central European University, Budapest - two places that contributed immensely to my academic development. I thank them all. I would like to thank the staff of the Turkish Prime Ministry Republican Archives in Ankara, the British National Archives, the US National Archives, Leiden University Library, the library of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, Beyazıt Library in Istanbul, Kent Kitaplığı in Izmir, and the Municipal Library and Kent Kitaplığı in Bursa for their help during my research for the thesis. My special thanks go to the ISAM library in Istanbul where I completed much of the writing process. I also would like to thank Sylvia Zeybekoğlu for meticulously editing the final text.
I was lucky to be surrounded by the best friends on the planet. First of all, I would like to thank Eric Peterse for all his support in Leiden, although nothing can compensate for his generosity and kindness. I thank my friends and fellow colleagues in Leiden, especially Serhan Afacan, for sharing the various difficulties of being a PhD student, and Emre Erol, for patiently answering my inquiries regarding the defense process. I am grateful to Eva Forrai, the best Hungarian-British friend ever, for all the fun and sharing over the last ten years and for accommodating me during my research at the British archives. As always, Şebnem Oğuz has been my best mentor and confidant during my doctoral studies. I am especially thankful to her. I thank all my friends in academia, whom I know from Bilkent, Sabanci, York, CEU, Leiden and elsewhere, and who shared and discussed with me over the years and thus contributed to my development as a scholar. Although it is impossible to state all of them by name here, I particularly want to mention Zeynep İnanç, Aysel Yıldız and Gülhan Balsoy. I also would like to thank my feminist comrades.
We have transformed each other profoundly, and I learned a lot from each and every one of them. Most importantly, perhaps, they made me realize that even though we have been trying to struggle against the most exasperating state policies and increasing level of violence against women in Turkish society,
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and usually felt stressed and disappointed, our struggle itself is one of the most important sources of strength and inspiration I have in my personal and academic life. Last but not least, I would like to thank my oldest and closest friends, Özge Doğan, Şafak Pesen, Hande Ersoy and Ayşe Bilge Yılmaz for simply being there for me for more than twenty years. Hande, in particular, was very supportive in every way during my application process to Leiden and I would remain especially grateful to her for this.
My parents, Emel Gazalcı and Murat Adak, had to go through a very long and stressful process with their daughter and patiently supported me throughout my graduate studies even if they could not always understand and approve of the decisions I made. I would like to thank them so much for this.
My sister, Ezgi Adak, has always been my source of joy. I could not be there for her as much as I would have liked to, but she grew up quickly and became a psychologist who was willing to spend hours on the phone dealing with the anxieties of a PhD student. In addition, she found the time and energy to help me during my research at the Izmir Kent Kitaplığı. I am grateful to her. I am also thankful to the members of my extended family. I particularly thank my cousins Cemal and Can Gazalcı and their families in Ankara who hosted me while I conducted research at the Turkish state archives. My uncle, Mustafa Gazalcı, was my first role model in life. As a little girl, I came to learn about the pleasure of reading and writing through his guidance. I am thankful to him for beginning this journey.
Finally, I reserve my deepest gratitude for Ömer Turan. I met him during my second year as an undergraduate student at Bilkent University, and since then, we have grown up together on the path to becoming academics. As my partner and comrade, he contributed to my intellectual and scholarly development more than anybody else. He read every piece I wrote, discussed even the smallest detail, and most importantly, he has always been enthusiastic about my work. He believed in me more than I did. No words can express how much I feel lucky to have him in my life.
While writing this thesis, I lost two of my loved ones. My father-in- law, Ali Eşref Turan, died suddenly in 2012. Ömer and I had to go on and finish our dissertations having lost the most passionate supporter of our academic and intellectual endeavors. He never made me feel like a daughter- in-law in the traditional sense this role has in Turkish society, and always cared as much about my scholarly progress as he did about his son’s. I would like to express here my appreciation.
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My grandmother, Fatma Gazalcı, passed away in 2009 in our hometown, Güney, in the province of Denizli, where she had spent her entire life. Her biggest regret was that her parents did not send her to school and so she remained illiterate. She would always watch us with admiration while we read, and try to follow the latest news if we grandchildren were willing to read her favorite newspaper, Cumhuriyet, aloud to her. She always wore the local peştamal veil when going out; but, at the same time, never saw it as contradictory to be a devoted supporter of “Atatürk’s party.” Thus, she was a living indication of the many complexities of the Kemalist experience. Her constant advice to us was to read and read more. How I wish she was here to see that I took her advice very seriously and wrote with the inspiration she and her fellow women of Güney have given to me. This thesis is dedicated to her loving memory.
