Nationalism in Turkey: Response to a Historical Necessity

The purpose of this article is to cast some light on the question as why and how nationalism appeared rather suddenly on the political stage in Turkey at the beginning of the 20 th century. This article asserts that Turkish nationalism was an answer to the particular historical conditions that characterised the final phases of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of the modern Turkey. This article specifies some of these conditions and argues that, rather than emerging ex nihilo Turkish nationalism was in fact continuation of the attempts undertaken by the Ottoman rulers and the Young Turks in order to prevent the disintegration of the Empire by inventing integrative ideologies such as Ottomanism, Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turanism.