The anti-alcohol movement in the early republican period in Turkey

Abstract

This thesis, which handles the period between 1920 and 1939, aims to show how opposition to a substance that is related to everyday life can be an essential part of a nation-building process. Anti-alcohol movements in numerous countries, such as the United States, Finland and Sweden, in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries constituted models for Turkey. However, in the case of Turkey, the anti alcohol-movement took a different dimension in the particular social and political atmosphere of the country. The leading figures of the anti-alcohol movement in the early Republican Period used alcohol opposition as a tool against the Christian populations of the country who had the control over alcohol business. Moreover, because of the fact that Turkey is a country in which Muslims are the majority, alcohol opposition had a religious dimension especially in the early 1920s. However, the religious concerns lost their power after the Second Group in the parliament was eliminated and the state started to be secularized. This secularization process, together with the rise of the eugenics idea in Europe caused the alcohol opposition in Turkey to take on a secular and scientific dimension. With this change, the movement changed its focus and targeted building a healthy and strong population.