The impacts of the second constitutional period's idea of westernism on the Republican's intellectual fundamentals and education

Roots of Ottoman Westernisation movement date considerably further back than generally admitted. But this is mostly ignored. Ottoman Empire was in the belief that its current level of organization and civilisation was adequate and therefore superior to the Western civilisation. This traditional look towards Western civilisation started to change in early eighteenth century, especially due to the increasing number of military defeats. Thence, the first attempts of transformation and reform on this subject in the Ottoman Empire, which decided to refer to Western knowledge and experience, started this effort by sending off Yirmisekiz Çelebi Mehmet Efendi to Paris, along with a crowded committee, charged to collect detailed information about French means of prosperity and education and to propose the applicable ones. Innovations made in the Ottoman army starting from early eighteenth century were found insufficient because of increasing number of defeats and losses. Therefore, starting from the period of the Selim III onwards, an intensive process of diplomatic activity has been started with Western countries in order to find out secret of success of the West in many fields, and particularly in technical and military fields, and Ottoman Empire sought to establish a new and regular army. Westernisation movement, which initially began with military innovations and then turned to social and cultural fields, has become much more effective due to abolition of the Janissary corps during the reign of Mahmut II. Thanks to this, he constituted outlines of reform movement which would be followed by reformers of the 19th, and even 20th century. As a matter of fact in the Tanzimat period, the commonly accepted time period when the reform movements of Mahmut II period were carried forward, innovations in accordance with the Westernisation movement in administrative, judicial, military, educational and economical fields have been continued. In this period, it is understood that the underlying reasons of the Western success were ilim and fünûn (Science and Learning) and a particularly intense argument arose on this subject during the Second Constitutional period. Leaders of this argument were a group of intellectuals known as the Garpçılar (Occidentalists). Intellectuals such as Dr. Abdullah Cevdet (KARLIDAĞ), Celal Nuri (İLERİ) and İsmail Hakkı (KILIÇOĞLU) are quite important for development of the Second Constitutional period's idea of Westernism and the changes in the perceptions about Westernisation. Both in their articles prominently found in the press of the era and in their other work, these intellectuals pointed out that the idea of Westernism, which has been perceived and considered as a monolithic whole up till that day, is basically a mental transformation, a process of conversion. As it is pointed out in the press of the time, even though the usage of such terms as Occidentalism / Occidentalisation and Occidentalists instead of Westernism / Westernisation and Westernisationists do not articulate a fundamental change as a meaning, in practice it is evident that there is a great transformation in the mental perceptions towards Western civilization. Since there is no semantic difference between these terms Occidentalism and Westernism, and to avoid any semantic confusion, terms Occidentalism / Occidentalisation and Occidentalists were preferred in this study. The effects of the idea of Occidentalism, which gained ground and became a nascent phenomenon in the Second Constitutional period, described by Tarık Zafer Tunaya as the political laboratory of the Republic, on the republican's intellectual fundamentals and education are considered in three parts. The first part of thesis examines the course of development of Occidentalism until Second Constitutional period, idea of Occidentalism in that period and how it was perceived in the works to date. On the other hand, the goal of the second part of thesis is to analyse reflections of the Occidentalism on both education and social life within the context of Turkish alphabet reform, discussions of the reformation in the madrasahs, women's clothing and etiquette. As a result, the last part of the thesis aims to consider the impacts of the idea of Occidentalism on the intellectual fundamentals of the republic, opinions and disagreements of the Occidentalists, who mentioned above, about Occidentalism. In addition to these, viewpoints of the Occidentalists on the Biological Materialism and Social Darwinism, which have a significant place in Ottoman-Turkish world of thought in the context of basing success of Western civilisation on the principle of ilim and fünûn (Science and Learning), and the European intellectuals' (especially European Orientalists') view on religion in Ottoman Empire as a detriment to and obstacle in the way of development were examined in this section. Key Words: Occidentalists, Occidentalism, Second Constitutional Period, Education.