The political power of the Turkish intellectual profile investigation of the relationship (1920-1930)

The concept of intellectual has followed a dynamic development process throughout history, and a different intellectual function has come to the fore in each period. Since the Dreyfus Case was accepted as the turning point, the roles of criticism and opposition have been added to the prominent roles of the modern intellectual. Thus, the existing relations between intellectuals and political power began to take a different form. This changing network of relations also found a response in the Ottoman Empire, where modernization steps were taken, and the bureaucrat intelligentsia that carried out the Turkish modernization initiated by the state and opposition intellectual groups criticizing the steps taken by this section emerged. Opposition groups expressed their demands for freedom and constitutionalism, criticizing first the bureaucrat intellectuals and then the Sultan and the political structure. Opposition movements, shaped around various answers to the question of how the Ottoman Empire would be saved, continued until the Republican Period. It is possible to evaluate the intellectuals in the Republican Era as two different groups as close to the political power and opposition intellectuals. In the study, the relations of the intellectuals with the political power will be examined in line with the period whose boundaries were drawn and the characteristics of this period, and it will be evaluated how the intellectuals of the Republican Era displayed an oppositional and critical view. In addition, it will be tried to focus on the factors that affect the oppositional and critical aspects of intellectuals. In this direction, the intellectuals who developed different relations with the political power in the 1920-1930 period are discussed. While the names of the intellectuals who have close relations with the political power: Falih Rıfkı Atay, Yunus Nadi Abalıoğlu and Yahya Kemal Beyatlı are discussed, the names of the opposition intellectuals who have fluctuating relations with the political power: Halide Edip Adıvar, Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın and Ahmet Emin Yalman.