Özet:

Symbols, politics and ideology are closely related concepts in the social sciences literature. The concept of symbolic politics means using symbols as an ideological tool by political thought and its representatives. In this context, symbolic politics provides opportunities to understand the relationship between symbols, politics and ideology. In Turkish symbolic politics, Hagia Sophia has been a tool from the past to the present as a result of the different symbolic meanings and ideological concepts it contains. Hagia Sophia, which belongs to both Eastern and Western cultures, is one of the main structures of the East-West duality in Turkish political ideologies. For this reason, it is also a useful symbol for sense of belonging, superiority and polarization. The symbol of Hagia Sophia Mosque is frequently used mainly in the Islamist and nationalist-conservative perspectives. Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, an Islamist thinker and author, is one of the important names who use this symbol. The discourses of Kısakürek about Hagia Sophia contains the political and ideological features of the symbols. Therefore, in our study, in order to reveal the role of Hagia Sophia in symbolic politics, critical discourse analysis was made on the discourses of Necip Fazıl Kısakürek in “Ayasofya Hitabesi” (Speech on Hagia Sophia). Thus, it has been tried to explain how Hagia Sophia was instrumentalized in the legitimization of ideologies and the establishment of power and hegemony.

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