Fabrication of official remembrance in modern Turkey: Invented traditions and memory places

To talk about the existence of a cultural formation, it is a necessity to have a sacred and founding memory that qualifies, determines and grounds all the social, moral, political, economic dimensions of that culture covering up all of its structural, practical and ritual etc. aspects. Sociality, which is an inseparable part of human nature, has made the individual existence of a humanbeing dependent on its social existence. However, societies born out of the need to cooperate with others, for which man is essential for survival, changed the biological and intellectual nature of human beings and human societies turned into cultural societies. With the invention of writing and other symbol systems in the early agricultural societies, the inequality between the ruling elite and the ruled is institutionalized. A culture, on the other hand, is a universe of reality on its own, a vision of a total world from existence to extinction. A person is always the product of a cultural society and a part of a cultural society. A cultural society is constructed upon a shared memory of ordinary and extra ordinary. Daily rutins, habits, sacred and ceremonial traditions must be unified in an consistant lifely order of time, space and body. Sacred and ethical base of cultural society is formed through mythical memory. Constitutional mythology is composed of three main myths as catastrophe, liberation, foundation myths configuring the principles of the cultural formation. These three myths always give referans to mythical Dark Ages and Golden Ages. The principles and definitions stated in constitutional mythology is symbolically reenacted through ritualistic traditions. Any change in constitutional mythology is represented in ceremonial traditions. Ceremonial traditions in modern times aims at fabrication of a constitutional memory. Invented traditions are reanimation of founding moment through cyclical repetitions. If the principles and definitions of constitutional mythology reanimated clear enough by cyclical repetitions in ceremonies, the official memory becomes successful in constituting a coherent realm of reality. The first holiday of the Republic of Turkey, which was established as a modern state, is "April 23". 23 April, the founding day of the Grand National Assembly, began to be celebrated in 1921. In this sense, it is the founding myth of the founding memory on which the bases and legitimacy of the power of the Republic of Turkey is based. Celebrations on April 23 between 1930- 1950 reflect the official memory of modern Turkish Republic constituted. Key Words: Official Memory, Constitutional Memory, Constitutional Mythology, Memory Wheel, Ceremonial Traditions, Invention of Tradition, Places of Memory, National Sovereignity, April 23