Abstract:

Historic Gavin D. Brockett’s book “What Happy Turk’s Say: The Talk of Turkish-Muslim Identity” published in the United States in 2011 was awarded to Turkish literature by the Fol Publishing in October 2022, with Free Balkılıç translation. The work consists of seven sections, except the Input and Result sections. Brockett’s work, primarily, re-read the activity of the construction of the Turkish national state and its national identity from a critical perspective, addresses the problematic story of “the transformation of the people into a nation” in this process. The book, based on the proposal that "there was no Turkish national identity before 1945", addresses the practice of nation-building on a bilateral level, including "between the people" and "in the elites" and affirms that the national-state identity in Turkey cannot be built during the one-party period. In order to reveal the view of the people on the imagination of the Kemalist Turkey, Brockett is focused on the local printed media throughout the work. The author, who claims that the historical narratives, symbols and speeches behind the nation-state identity that is sought to be built have no reward in the public, suggests that a new identity imaging is possible along with the Democratic Party period. According to Brockett, the perception of the "Turkish-Muslim identity" right in front of the national-state citizenship curve, established in an elitist style, is also one of the most central ideas of a line where the tradition of opposition in Turkey is crystallized. In this way, Brockett’s work is a contribution made in the path of the leading names of modern Turkish history, such as Faroz Ahmad, Bernard Lewis and Eric Jan Zürcher, and a valuable book that can understand the experience of Turkish nation-building in the field of historical sociology, despite some critical findings.

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