Türk Kadın Yazar Gözüyle Atatürk, Cumhuriyet ve Türk Devrimi

Abstract

This study aims to analyse the perspectives of Turkish women writers, who emerged as intellectual voices in the late Ottoman period, on Atatürk, the Republic, and the Turkish Revolution, by focusing on their literary and political contributions. To this end, the study examines the cases of Nezihe Muhiddin (1889-1958), Sabiha Sertel (1895-1968), Şükûfe Nihal (1896-1973) and Suat Derviş (1905-1972) who experienced and wrote, the social transformation brought about by the successive revolutions introduced especially between 1920 and 1938. A comparative analysis was conducted drawing on written sources produced by the writers themselves, including articles, interviews, surveys, novels short stories, memoirs and autobiographies. Beginning with these women writers’ views on the Second Constitutional Era and the National Struggle, the study examines their perspectives on the Republic itself and Republican revolutions that transformed social life such as the Civil Code, the Surname Law, and the Alphabet and Language Reforms. It further examines their views on the revolutions that enabled women to participate in education, working life, and political life, as well as the ways in which they accepted and embraced these revolutions. The study also explores their approaches to the concept of feminism, whether they identified themselves as feminists, and their views and criticisms regarding the economic structure and development, social class and status relations, as well as religion, religious communities and religious orders (tariqa) are analysed. Their views on Atatürk and their ways of embracing him as a liberator and leader are also discussed in detail. This research adopts a comparative textual and discourse analysis methodology, enriched through a close examination of Turkish and foreign archival documents and periodicals. Considering the diverse viewpoints-both affirmative and critical-in women’s studies addressing the Atatürk era, this study seeks to analyse how Atatürk’s revolutions were perceived by women writers from a historical perspective.