Issues of ideology and identity in Turkish literature during the Cold War

Abstract

In the Cold War era, the period from the end of the Second World War to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Turkey was dominated by efforts of democratization and liberalization, economic growth and instability, intellectual and political quarrels, three successful (1960, 1971, and 1980) and two abortive military coups (1962 and 1963), and armed aggression in the streets which reached a peak toward the end of 1970s. The ruins left by military dictatorships are still relatively unexplored, and the neoliberal structure and hegemonic discourses introduced by them still influence contemporary life. The Cold War has left an imprint not only in literature but also in daily language, and its legacy is very much alive. The Turkish dictionary prepared and made online by the state-supported Turkish Language Association (TDK), for example, gives Moskof gâvuru (infidel of Moscow) as a synonym for the word Rus (Russian), linking an ethnic identity to a political system (the ideal of a Moscow-centered international dictatorship) and religious otherness at the same time.