AS A REPUBLIC INTELLECTUAL, HASAN REŞIT TANKUT IN THE LIGHT OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE POLITICS

Willing to build a national identity during the Republic Period, the studies revealed a need to focus on language and history in order to build a shared values network which was going to replace religion based on community belief. These studies which were dealt with more intensively in the 1930s, were initiated under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal himself. This fundamental change project which was conducted with the cooperation and systematic study of new intellectual’s community that consists of politicians, bureaucrats and intellectuals grabbed attention nationally and internationally. Relevant scientist had a chance to express their ideas about this matter to Mustafa Kemal himself. Hasan Reşit Tankut was one of the intellectuals who was involved in these studies and had important roles by developing theories and projects. Beside him being politician, Hasan Reşit Tankut had many official duties. He was a lecturer at a language, history and geography faculty and one of the founders of Turkish Language Society. He also was Secretary-general and Vice President of Ethmology, Linguistic and Philology Branch. He attended the Anthropology and Archaeology Conference which was held in Bucharest in 1937 with Atatürk’s request in order to introduce Güneş-Dil Theory. He wrote many books on Language and Ethno politics and he was also one of the agents who contributed to develop Güneş-Dil Theory and Turkish History Thesis. He managed to be one of the important names of Kemalist Secular Nationalist Elites.