Abstract:

Hikmet Kıvılcımlı is one of the most important intellectuals in the political movement of Turkey in general and particularly in the socialist movement. Up to now, the number of academic-scientific studies that have been conducted on Kıvılcımlı, who is a highly productive and unique thinker, are inadequate. This study aimed at overcoming this inadequacy. In this study, which deals with Kıvılcımlı as an intellectual, we tried to explain what we mean by using intellectual as a concept. Thus, it was possible to determine under which conditions Kıvılcımlı could be positioned as an intellectual. Kıvılcımlı is a socialist who is supposed to contribute to Marxism and has studied many sources, both local and international. He also tried to make polemics with other socialists to be able to contribute to the development of Marxism. He thought that a good communist should not ignore matters which are important for society like religion, and should believe that they can contribute to Marxism. Kıvılcımlı is a productive theoretician, but it is not a topic that has been adequately addressed to date. Therefore, in the next section of the article, the conditions, and people thought to be effective in the intellectual development of Kıvılcımlı were discussed. Kıvılcımlı’s writings on history and religion formed the basis of his theoretical work. For this reason, on these two issues were examined and attempted to include the thoughts of those who seemed to have a similar approach to Kıvılcımlı, and similarities were presented. In the next section, considering the important turning points, Kıvılcımlı’s life was examined and tried to understand under what conditions he produced his works. In this article, the original writings of Kıvılcımlı were used and the secondary sources as well as the documents obtained from the Kıvılcımlı’s archive in the International Social History Institute (IISH) in the Netherlands were examined.

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