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Crafting Turkish National Identity, 1919-1927: A Rhetorical Approach, by Aysel Morin. London: Routledge, 2022. 222 pages. $128 cloth; $39.16 paper.
In 1927, four years after the founding of the Turkish republic, President Mustafa Kemal (who would later take the surname Atatürk) delivered a 36-hour, 31-minutelong speech to the members of his Republican People's Party. Over the course of six days, this marathon address, Nutuk (Turkish for "the speech"), meticulously chronicled the founding of the new nation following the fall of the Ottoman Empire (1919-22). Unsurprisingly, the narrative also provides a detailed account of the role Mustafa Kemal himself had played as a military leader during this critical juncture. This long, historical narrative of the independence struggle further includes commentary on Mustafa Kemal's allies and opponents. In its essence Nutuk is a particular interpretation of a series of transformative events and, like all historical and political texts, should be read critically.
Offering a scholarly reading of Nutuk, author Aysel Morin invites her readers to reflect on this narrative by employing a rhetorical approach. While this particular perspective frames the book's main direction, Morin reaches out further into the area of nationalism studies. Essentially, the author suggests that linking these two complementary perspectives would produce new insights into the foundational principles of Turkish nationalism as it was formulated by Mustafa Kemal.
In the first part of the book, Morin sets up her main goals by situating them in reference to nationalism studies and works on rhetoric. The second part of the text...