Idealist Movement in the East: An overview of the activities of the idealist Movement regarding Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia between 1965 and 1980

This thesis examines the activities of the idealist movement regarding Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia and its strengthening in these two regions between 1965, when Alparslan Türkeş became the head of CKMP, and 1980 by focusing on the participation in the idealist movement from these two regions and the movement's success in the 1977 local elections in Eastern Anatolia. The research traces the organizational efforts of the movement in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia since the late 1960s and focuses on the questions of to what extent the party was able to find a response in these two regions as a result of these efforts and for which reasons this response emerged. In addition to these two questions, it was also aimed to examine the perspectives of the people from Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia who participated in the movement during this period on the uprisings that broke out in these two regions during the Early Republican Period and their perceptions of ethnicity. In addition to primary sources such as various memoirs, Hergün newspaper, local newspapers of the period, and books published by publishing houses close to the movement, semi-structured interviews with people from Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia who participated in the movement were also used as sources. As a result of this study, three main conclusions were reached. First, the MHP and the idealist movement as a whole generally achieved results above their national average in these two regions in the elections from 1965 to 1977, especially in the 1977 local elections, due to the "understanding of Turkishness without ethnic discrimination" adopted by the movement during these years and the perception of the idealist movement as the most influential political movement against communism at a time when communism was perceived as anti-religious by the public. Secondly, it was observed that teachers with nationalist political views and the organization of these teachers under Ülkü-Bir in the following years significantly impacted the participation in the movement from these two regions during these fifteen years. Finally, when it came to the 1977 local elections, it was observed that while the movement had made significant progress in Eastern Anatolia, in Southeastern Anatolia, it had fallen behind its performance in previous years.