The development of the concept of intellectual in Europe, the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic: 1750-1950

In this study, we compare the development of the intellectuals in European and Ottoman/Turkish cases. It is concluded that the position of the intellectual standing against the state has by time received positive responses in the countries where the middle classes were strong; therefore, the intellectuals have played an important role to transform the private interests of the bourgeoisie as the general interest of the public for the common good, where the middle classes created a capitalist state. In the cases of France and England where the middle classes are strong, it was seen that the other classes have also started to appear. The development of the intellectuals in France first as defenders of the interests of the middle classes, then, after Dreyfus affair, as the social classes in the society were developed, as the intellectuals of the social classes; and finally, as we can see in the example of Sartre, into the universal type of intellectuals has been pursued. On the other hand, as the state itself has permitted the development of the middle classes and shared the authority with them, we see the formation of reformist/evolutionist intellectual strata in England. British intellectuals are considered as a productive and effective group in England as their speeches and publications responded to the needs of reform and as their usage of the public sphere was very positive. Whereas in Germany, with the effect of Cameralism as the mainstream government type and the effort of the state itself to create its own middle classes have resulted with a German intellectual stereotype developing a nationalist discourse for the German state and public. German intellectuals, who later stood against the classes? intellectuals with nationalist discourses, represent a unique case for the second half of the 20th century.When we look at the Ottoman Empire and to the Turkish Republic between 1923-1950; we witness a null Ottoman intellectual stratum as a result of the lack of the middle classes within the society. Both Ottoman and Republican intellectuals, supported and mostly employed by the state, have used the elements and institutions such as reading salons, associations, newspapers and magazines to reach the reading public like their European contemporaries; but as the reading public itself was either bureaucrats, soldiers, translators and/or students just like themselves, they could not find a group or class which claims to share the authority with the state. This resulted with a cropped radicalism in their writings and thoughts about how to restore the state and the institutions surrounding them. Finally, this intellectual stratum had the chance to govern the state with the beginning of the Turkish Republic. While doing this, they have chosen to deny the past and the traditional as a whole. On the other hand, the young Republic has by time gradually achieved the creation of a middle class, and the appearance of the intellectuals of the classes can only be seen in the time period after 1950.