Turkification - Turkification Under Turkish Republic

Turkification Under Turkish Republic

When the Turkish Republic was founded, nationalism and secularism were two of the founding principals. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the leader of the early years of the Republic, aimed to create a nation state (Turkish: Ulus) from the Turkish remnants of the Ottoman Empire. Kemalist ideology defines the "Turkish People" as "those who protect and promote the moral, spiritual, cultural and humanistic values of the Turkish Nation."

The process of forced Turkification continued with the Turkish republic with such policies as:

• Citizen speak Turkish! (Turkish: Vatandaş Türkçe konuş!) - An initiative created by law students but sponsored by the Turkish government which aimed to put pressure on non-Turkish speakers to speak Turkish in public in the 1930s. In some municipalities, fines were given to those speaking in any language other than Turkish.

• Surname law - The surname law forbid certain surnames that contained connotations of foreign cultures, nations, tribes, and religions. As a result, many ethnic Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds were forced to adopt last names of Turkish rendition.

• Animal name changes in Turkey - An initiative by the Turkish government to remove any reference to Armenia and Kurdistan in the Latin names of animals.
• Confiscated Armenian properties in Turkey - An initiative by the Ottoman and Turkish governments which involved seizure of the assets, properties and land of the Armenian community of Turkey. The policy is considered a nationalization and Turkification of the country's economy by eliminating ownership of non-Turkish minorities which in this case would be of the Armenian community.

• Geographical name changes in Turkey - An initiative by the Turkish government to replace non-Turkish geographical and topographic names within the Turkish Republic or the Ottoman Empire, with Turkish names, as part of a policy of Turkification. The main proponent of the initiative has been a Turkish homogenization social-engineering campaign which aimed to assimilate or obliterate geographical or topographical names that were deemed foreign and divisive against Turkish unity. The names that were considered foreign were usually of Armenian, Greek, Laz, Bulgarian, Kurdish, Assyrian, or Arabic origin. For example, words such as Armenia were banned in 1880 from use in the press, schoolbooks, and governmental establishments and was subsequently replaced with words like Anatolia or Kurdistan.
• 1934 Resettlement Law (also known as the Law no. 2510) - A policy adopted by the Turkish government which set forth the basic principles of immigration. The law however is regarded in academia as a policy of forceful assimilation of non-Turkish minorities through a forced and collective resettlement.

• Article 301 (Turkish Penal Code) - An article of the Turkish Penal Code which makes it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government institutions. It took effect on June 1, 2005, and was introduced as part of a package of penal-law reform in the process preceding the opening of negotiations for Turkish membership of the European Union (EU), in order to bring Turkey up to the Union standards.
• Varlik Vergisi ("Wealth tax" or "Capital tax") - A Turkish tax levied on the wealthy citizens of Turkey in 1942, with the stated aim of raising funds for the country's defense in case of an eventual entry into World War II. Those who suffered most severely were non-Muslims like the Jews, Greeks, Armenians, and Levantines, who controlled a large portion of the economy. Though it was the Armenians who were most heavily taxed. It is argued, a main reason for the tax was to nationalize the Turkish economy by reducing minority populations' influence and control over the country's trade, finance, and industries.