Statue of Atatürk being removed in Rize, 2017.
De-Kemalization is the process of purging symbols of Kemalism (Also known as Atatürkçülük) in the former Republic of Turkey. The Second Empire of Trabzon passed several laws mandating de-Kemalization in the late 2000s and destroyed numerous memorials and monuments to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In Trabzon, Atatürk's writings are considered subversive material, Kemalist and republican organizations are banned, and those suspected of having Kemalist leanings face prosecution. Additionally, the country's military regime has implemented a ban on the public display of flags, symbols, and relics associated with the Republic of Turkey. It also began initiating the complete removal of all place names commemorating figures of the Kemalist movement or the Turkish War of Independence. Streets named after republican heroes have been renamed after various pre-Atatürk and even pre-Ottoman individuals significant to Trabzon's history.
Background[]
Prior to Doomsday, the Republic of Turkey relied on state-sanctioned historical narratives and collective memory to consolidate and legitimize its statehood. The hallmark of the official state narrative, was the victory in the Turkish War of Independence and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's proclamation of the Republic in October 1923. In Trabzon, the representation of the official cultural memory in public spaces, like in other parts of Turkey, encompassed large and elaborate monuments to Atatürk, often placed in a central location like a city square or park. Many Turkish public schools had busts of Atatürk, in front of which pupils daily recited the Turkish students' oath, with its reference to "great Atatürk." Atatürk's portrait was also prominently displayed in police stations, military barracks, and civil offices. It was a prosecutable offense to insult Atatürk or desecrate his image.
Decades after the collapse of the Republic, the independent Trabzonian state formed a new official historical narrative and memory culture at odds with Kemalism and Atatürk's brand of Turkish nationalism. The legitimacy of the new state was grounded in the (First) Empire of Trebizond, which existed during the Byzantine era, as well as the ancient Kingdom of Pontus. The change in the official historical narrative and collective memory - from Republican Turkey to imperial Trabzon - created the appropriate conditions to reject many aspects of the pre-Doomsday Turkish heritage and legacy. The latter contradicted the narratives of the new state, thereby leading to the displacement of Atatürk's ideology and public presence via the de-Kemalization project.
Motives[]
Supporters of de-Kemalization in Trabzon have often argued that it reflects the existential need of the country to shake off the burden of the past. The rise of home-grown Trabzonian nationalism manufactured by the military regime to cultivate a loyal civilian populace has played a major role in the perceived need for de-Kemalization measures. According to Trabzonian nationalist ideology, pre-Doomsday Turkish regimes under both the Ottoman sultans and Atatürk repressed local regional identities. In the greater geopolitical context where Trabzon has faced rising tensions with the the Sultanate of Turkey (which considered itself the sole legitimate successor state of the Turkish Republic), the process of de-Kemalization is often perceived as an effort to inoculate the country against the Sultanate's political influence and domination.
Some political analysts have noted that the destruction or removal of symbols associated with an ancien regime are synonymous of a "post-imperial syndrome" in newly nationalizing states that were formerly integrated with greater imperial identities. Trabzonian nationalists have described de-Kemalization as as a "decolonization" initiative.
At the onset of the campaign, a spokesman for Trabzon's ruling Administrative Council stated that it believed de-Kemalization was the "beginning of a new stage in the revival of Trabzonian culture and identity, the final rejection of imperialist Turkish symbols and narratives."
Critics of de-Kemalization have argued that the campaign was not aimed not so much as replacing ideologically irrelevant symbols and place names, but imposing elements of a new political propaganda narrative centered around Trabzonian nationalism by force. Prominent Trabzonian exile Ali Kızgın noted that "historical revisionism became a state effort for the Trabzonian state with a double purpose: promoting its own interpretation of historical events for the inclusion of Pontic heritage both temporally and spatially, and limiting the influence of the Sultanate's own nationalist narrative within the domestic public domain."
In the greater international context, the collapse of many nation-states during Doomsday led to many questions of identity reformulation, or identity assertiveness, in their various successor states. Historical revisionism emerged as a fundamental tool from which to define new and reemerging sovereign states.
History[]
On March 9, 2017, the Trabzonian Administrative Council issued a decree banning all "reactionary, Kemalist, and republican sentiments" from the country. The first section of the decree banned the propagation of Kemalism or any other republican philosophy through the names of public sites, structures, or facilities, and prohibited the public display of names associated with Kemalism, including individuals, organizations, events or dates symbolizing the Republic of Turkey. The second part of the decree ordered the "the removal of monuments and memorials to individuals and events that symbolized Turkish nationalism, republicanism, or anything associated with the imperialist and chauvinist Atatürkist regime of 1923 to 1983." Particular emphasis was placed on statues of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - which were ubiquitous in the pre-Doomsday era. "Monuments and memorials" were further defined as any public objects, including buildings, statues, sculptures, obelisks, memorial plaques, murals, and commemorative icons.
On March 10, the statue of Atatürk in the capital's Meydan Park was dismantled by soldiers. The statue's destruction was replicated in hundreds of cities and villages across the country, in a process that has taken different forms. The continued process of decommissioning the statues was sometimes done quietly by municipal authorities, although in some places they were destroyed with great fanfare by the military or thuggish groups of pro-regime vigilantes and nationalists.
By the end of 2017, the Administrative Council proudly announced that there was not a single monument to Atatürk left standing in the nation, marking an "epochal shift" in the history of Trabzon. However, despite the destruction of all the standing monuments, there were believed to be smaller sculptures, busts, and memorials which officials were still in the process of identifying for removal.
The de-Kemalization campaign edged forward in 2018 and 2019 as the Administrative Council began approving the removal of hundreds of names of settlements and districts across the country associated with the Republic of Turkey and replacing them with non-Republican and non-Ottoman alternatives. Updated legislation broadly called for the removal of all names associated with the Republican era - initiating a massive process in which thousands of streets, parks, stadiums, squares, towns, villages, businesses, media outlets, sports clubs, and even geographical features had to be renamed. Many of the new names were not new at all, but based on a return to old, pre-Ottoman names. Others were based on a local place or object or prominent historical figure not associated with the Ottoman Empire or the Republic of Turkey. Numerous locations were simply renamed after Trabzon's long term military leader, Altan Sahin. For example, the capital's central square - previously known as Atatürk Alanı - was renamed Sahin Alanı. Some of the name changes went back to Antiquity for inspiration; for example, the capital's Yavuz Selim Boulevard - named for Ottoman sultan Selim I, was renamed Mithridates Boulevard after the Mithridatic dynasty of ancient Pontus.
Ethnic minorities were particularly delighted by the restoration of old names - many of them derived from Greek, Armenian, Kurdish, or the Kartvelian languages. In 1973, the Republic of Turkey had renamed 72% of hamlets and villages in Trabzon as part of a deliberate campaign to remove non-Turkish names from settlements. The de-Kemalization campaign reversed this trend, and by the end of 2022 all the renamed settlements had reverted to their traditional ethnic names. Some pre-Ottoman Turkic settlement names were also restored; for example, the town and district of Vakfıkebir (named for the mother of Sultan Selim I) reverted to Büyükliman, which dates back to the early medieval period.
Impact[]
Criminal prosecutions[]
De-Kemalization laws have been evoked by the Trabzonian military authorities to crack down on any public references to individuals, organizations, events, or dates connected with Kemalism or the Republican era, including in printed works and scholarly discourse. The legislation has been used to punish individual academics, journalists, newspaper editors, and private citizens for expressing supposedly Kemalist views of history, as well as to censor historical research and publications. By October 2017, up to 2,000 Trabzonians had been fined or imprisoned up to fifteen days for banned symbols - mostly elderly pensioners who retained portraits of Atatürk and Turkish national flags in their homes or businesses. Some of the publicized cases were widely regarded as absurd, like that of a newspaper editor being fined for publishing a photo of downtown Rize from the 1960s in which a Turkish flag was visible.
Prosecutions carried out under the de-Kemalization laws sparked controversy among the politically active Trabzonian diaspora. Ali Kızgın, an academic and known regime critic living in exile in Samsun, became known for his coverage of the ongoing prosecutions in his newsletters, which were widely circulated among the Trabzonian community in the Sultanate. Kızgın died under mysterious circumstances in November 2017, with his supporters alleging he was assassinated by agents of the State Security Service.
Domestic reaction[]
The de-Kemalization plan was opposed by some Trabzonians - particularly those in the southern and western parts of the country, where ethnic Turks were both much more politicized and a greater percentage of the population. However, unofficial polling showed that most citizens, particularly in northern and eastern Trabzon, were largely ambivalent to the replacement of various toponyms. Among the main age groups, the most significant number of opponents of de-Kemalization was observed among those aged 60 and over. The largest numbers of young people born since Doomsday were neutral or indifferent to de-Kemalization.
A common sentiment was that the government should spend its time on more important dilemmas than the removal of statues, or renaming of geographic locations. At the time of the removals and mass renaming, Trabzonians were primarily concerned with other issues more closely linked to their day-to-day survival, namely rising inflation. The haste with which the program was implemented did not contribute positively to public consensus.
An unexpected aspect of de-Kemalization was the question of cultural and artistic value of statues and monuments removed from public spaces. Trabzonian historians and artists repeatedly appealed to local authorities to exempt certain markers from the de-Kemalization laws, on the grounds that they were irreplaceable artifacts of the past that would otherwise be lost. Particular controversy erupted around the demolition of Atatürk Pavilion, an ornate early twentieth century home that once served as a personal residence of Atatürk in Trabzon. Local residents, including some prominent members of the capital's civilian elite, cited their dismay at dismantling a structure with significant historical and cultural value. The Trabzon municipality proceeded with the demolition, claiming that the structure was too dilapidated to be preserved and would have to be condemned in any case.
Reaction in Greater Patnos[]
The Foreign Ministry of neighboring Greater Patnos - where Atatürk is still revered by the political elite - made numerous critical statements throughout Trabzon's de-Kemalization campaign. In March 2017, Patnosi officials stated they were alarmed by the efforts to blot out the "heroic past of the people of Turkey." The following year, the Patnosi Foreign Minister decried Trabzon's de-Kemalization laws as "falsifying the common historical memory of the Turkish people."
In January 2019, the National Assembly of Greater Patnos passed its own legislation to make dissemination of false information on the activities of Atatürk and the Republic of Turkey prior to 1983 a criminally punishable offense. The same legislation also stiffened criminal penalties for the public insult of statues and monuments of Atatürk, in what was seen widely as a rebuke to the Trabzonian regime. Since the founding of the Patnosi state, it has been an offense under the criminal code to "desecrate" Atatürk's image. However, Patnos remains home to a large and restive Kurdish population, many of whom harbor strong resentment towards Atatürk's legacy, and the state feared that attacks on its own Kemalist symbols would be inspired or encouraged by de-Kemalization in Trabzon.
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