Abstract:

Kemal Tahir, one of the prominent names of Turkish literature, is also an intellectual who draws attention with his political views. Although he has a socialist identity, he has dealt with Marxism through the East-West conflict and differentiation. Tahir benefited from Karl Marx's conceptualization of Asian Type of Production (ATUT) on Eastern societies and in this way he tried to analyze and understand the Eastern societies in general and the Anatolian-Turkish society in particular. In this context, Tahir's harsh criticism of the Westernization movements that started in the last period of the Ottoman Empire and continued throughout the Republic period is extremely remarkable. Tahir wanted to draw attention to the vital importance of the ‘state’ for Eastern societies. The subject of this study is Kemal Tahir's approach to the to the conception of Westernization in Turkey and the state thought that he presented as a solution to the problems created by the issue of Westernization. In this direction, the main purpose of the study is to examine Kemal Tahir's critical approach to the conception and movements of Westernization in Turkey and again within this framework, the solution he brought to the issue of Westernization namely the idea of the state.