Homeland narrative as the political construction of memory: An analysis of the political rituals in Turkey

In this doctoral thesis, an analysis was made within the framework of the theme of homeland narrative on four national holidays, such as 23 April National Sovereignty and Children's Day, 19 May Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day, 30 August Victory Day and 29 October Republic Day which were celebrated in the Republican period of Turkey. This analysis was carried out by looking at the messages about the meaning and importance of the national holiday in printed and visual media materials such as newspapers, magazines, brochures, posters, postcards and stamps. In this context, ritual practices in national holiday celebration ceremonies were discussed in terms of their functions of shaping social memory. Thus, it has been shown that ritual practices are effective in ensuring the existence and continuity of the state on the social structure through the national holiday celebrations of the political power and the perpetrators such as children, youth, soldiers and families. In order to show this, structural elements such as narrative, symbol and performance in political rituals within the scope of celebrations were analyzed with the ritual analysis method created within the scope of this study. In this analysis, the focus is on ritual practices related to the two basic components of the homeland narrative, such as the body and the land. The body element in these practices, formed as a manifestation of the domination of the state, trained with military discipline methods, was resolved as strong and healthy "diciplined bodies" in a "harmony" and "unity". Accordingly, it has been shown that these " diciplined bodies", which were created to create and then protect the "Turkish nation", were turned into images of collective memory with the discourse of political power. Secondly, the element of land, as a manifestation of the sovereignty of the state, constitutes the "Turkish homeland" as the "demarcated lands", and moreover, it is seen to be embodied in the discourse that this homeland is protected in the memories with this "border" image. As a result, the means of physical training, which are shaped from childhood to youth, from youth to the soldiers service, from military service to family, from woman to man, are shown as an image that is "formed" as a "dough" in making the land a homeland within the framework of the motherland narrative, the main theme of national holidays. This led to the conclusion that political power shapes the individual and the society to which it belongs, by constructing both individual memory and collective memory as the space of his political discourse. Key Words : Political ritual, national ceremony, collective memory, performance, homeland.