Nationalism and women's image in the Early Republican Period during nation-building process: Woman's image in Early Republican Period's Turkish novels

The nationalist frame of mind that shaped the political and social structure of the early republican period was also influential in the formation of the women's image during the period. Taking Western countries as an example for developing the military and technical facilities after losing wars and failing to control territories that resulted in failure of Ottoman Empire in the last period of the reign encouraged newly founded Turkish Republic to hold up western countries as an example for almost every area of social life. Women who were oppressed as citizens respectively men were the one that benefited from the innovations that came with revolutions. In this thesis, woman that stuck between modern and traditional and its relationship with nationalism and women's image that is caught in the middle, will be examined. The result shows that women were granted rights in various fields extending to education, work and politics. Nationalist ideology has created an image of new woman who is both educated and nationally conscious and possesses traditional values. However, the official ideology of the period designated that motherhood, family responsibilities and the domestic works were the priority among the women's tasks. Because women were thought to be the one that grow up the next generation as mothers. Therefore, women were expected to be educated and to develop themselves, not for their individual desires, rather they were asked to grow up healthy, educated, traditional value-oriented future generations who love their nation. In that process, the new and modern women's model, which was able to benefit from the education opportunities and took place in the working life, had been placed between the roles and duties in the family and its status and duties in the public sphere. Keywords: nation, nationalism, woman, gender, novel