Reproduction of power in the context of toponymy policies of the Ottoman and Turkish Republic

This study discusses the power-place (space) relation in terms of renaming of the geographical places and analyses the objective of the toponymy polices which is used as an instrument by the power intending to reestablish itself on the place. The primary target of this study covers the period of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic though it also includes the Seljuk Empire. This study has been made reviewing the Department of State Archives of Turkish Presidency, archive documents of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey, the minutes of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the Republican Senate, the publications of the Turkish Ministry of Interior, the statistical data issued by the governmental agencies, the Official Gazette, and scanning the archives of Milliyet and Cumhuriyet newspapers and the literature of the related field. The relation the power established with a place is political. The power designs the place as part of its ideology. It struggles to reflect its own political or cultural codes into the place when it grows stronger or has a concern to take hold. In this sense, the political or state power encircles the place through its own political codes or future design and focuses on regenerating/propagating its power. One of the political instruments used to reestablish the power in the place is the toponymy policies that enable the renaming of the geographical areas in line with the ideological thesis and values of the power. The policies to make the geographical areas Turkish, which had started to be enforced after Istanbul was conquered by the Ottomans, became a government policy during the rule of the Union and Progress Party (İttihat ve Terakki) in which the names of the places belonging to the non-Muslim and non-Turkish nations, who then were defined as "unnational", were changed en masse. This policy could not be enforced due to the upheavals or conflicts emerged in the Ottoman territories during the World War I. During the rule of the government of the Turkish National Assembly, just after the Assembly started to operate, a legislative action was initiated to rename the places claiming that these names were "unnational". The names of some provinces were changed following the fiery discussions in the Assembly. After the Republic was proclaimed, a lot of geographical places were renamed though there was no any legal basis. The Ministry of Interior issued a circular in 1940 to rename some of the places en masse but this initiative failed due to reasons stemmed from the World War II. Renaming some places was perceived as a "national survival" issue during the rule of the Democrat Party. This government policy started to be enforced as of 1957. Consequently, Renaming Specialization Board founded under the umbrella of the Ministry of Interior by the Democrat Party renamed 14.819 villages out of 35.000 ones and 12.884 hamlets out of 39.000 ones which used to have Kurdish, Laz, Circassian, Georgian, Romaic, Armenian, Syriac or Arabic between 1957 and 1978 as their names "were not Turkish". These statistics mean that the names of the 42.4% of the villages and the 33% of the hamlets were made Turkish during the Republican Period in parallel with the policies inspired from the Turkish Nationalism. Key Words: The State, Power, Space, Toponymy