KEMALISM’S POLICY OF FAST MODERNISATION: THE EXAMPLE OF MUSIC

Abstract

Kemalism, the official founding ideology of the Republic of Turkey, has taken important steps towards the change and transformation under the name of modernisation in music policies, which is one of the important steps of nationalisation consciousness. The reforms implemented were not gradual as their predecessors had done, but radical and fast, since it was thought that it was too late to join the civilisation to be integrated. Therefore, it was aimed to rapidly reconstruct the society homogenously within the scope of a new identity, a new homeland and a new nation. In this study, the principles of the official ideology of the Kemalist regime such as secularism, nationalism, revolutionism and populism are examined, and in this context, the rapid modernisation policies carried out in the musical field within a weak historical context are discussed. In the case of music, the psychology of delay is the basis of these fast modernisation policies.