Yusuf Akçura's nationalism perspective

The idea of nationalism started to spread rapidly in Europe and the Balkans after the French Revolution. Especially, empires entered the process of disintegration by being negatively affected by nationalism based on race. Many rebellion attempts took place in the Balkan lands, which were under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Some ideas were put forward by the statesmen and intellectuals of the period in order to prevent the loss of land that would occur as a result of these rebellions. These ideas, which we can consider as attempts of different nationalism, influenced state policies in definite periods. Akçura became one of the pioneers in the development of the idea of Turkism in the territory of the Empire, which was one of these ideas and was effective, especially during the period when the Committee of Union and Progress dominated the administration and the Republic of Turkey was established. The development of the idea of Turkism in the territory of the Empire and the development of Akçura's ideas show parallelism. For this reason, an examination of Akçura's ideas about nationalism will also provide us with information about the development stages of the idea of nationalism and Turkism in the Ottoman Empire. The subject of our study was determined starting from this. In our study, first of all, we explained the concepts of nation and nationalism and talked about their development in order to let the types of nationalism seen in the lands of the Ottoman Empire be understood better. Then, we touched on the effects of these ideas on the Ottoman Empire and the ideas that emerged in the imperial lands as a result. Afterwards, we included Akçura's thoughts on the ideas that emerged in the last periods of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, we explained Akçura's point of view about Turkish Nationalism and change of his ideas with the reasons.