Dance of the Republic with Fine Arts

Fine Arts, Tool of Mentality Revolution:

The founding cadres of the republic found themselves in serious reckoning with the Ottoman legacy so that the new regime could take root. Acting with the desire to become Westernized on the axis of Turkishness and to be a part of the civilized world, Atatürk's Turkey wanted, above all, to realize a mentality revolution. The main goal of the republican reforms was to realize this mentality transformation, so that young Turkey would become a part of European civilization by breaking all ties with the Ottoman legacy and participating in the enlightenment process. Especially with the letter revolution, the ships were burned and on the night of 8 August 1928, the ship sailed to an irreversible horizon.

Seeking Change in Language:

This radical change was first reflected in the Turkish language, and it was envisaged that the fine arts, including music, would get rid of the old and that the words that carry the new mentality would be brought to the society together with the branches of art. Some writers, especially humanist intellectuals (Suat Yakup Baydur, Nurullah Ataç, etc.) insisted that our language should change in order to reach a new way of life and a new cultural intuition. There was talk of clearing Turkish especially from Arabic and Persian words, thus saving Turkish from the words that entered Turkish under the influence of these languages, breaking the ties with the old literature and paving the way for the development of new literature. At one point, Atatürk thought so, and gave instructions to focus on the sun language theory. However, in a short time, he said that "we have put the language in a dead end", and as a result of a realistic evaluation, he came to the conclusion that the language should be left "comfortable".

Turkish Music:

A similar wobble in language has been experienced in the field of music. In 1932, the performance of Turkish music on radios was banned, and polyphonic western music was ordered to be played. Already in 1924, Music Teachers' School was established for this purpose. Old music was an extension of old taste and old aesthetics. In 1936, this school was turned into a State Conservatory, but a quota was imposed on the entrance of Turkish music through its doors. Meanwhile, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a lover of Turkish music, dreamed of the days when a musical taste and aesthetics, where the old and the new could live together, would take root in the Turkish world. Atatürk's main goal was to find a way to allow the West to listen to national works such as the yürük semai, which he and the Turkish people eagerly listened to. He wanted Turkish compositions to be played with Western technique, Western science and instruments, with Western-style orchestral structure and eventually to become an international music.

Opera and Ballet:

After Atatürk, in the İnönü period, almost complete westernization was experienced in opera and ballet, which are branches of art that have not yet settled as much as Turkish music. Reflection of polyphonic music, theatre, opera and ballet were seen as the backbone of the new Republic. In opera and ballet, which are almost seen as symbols of modernity, 10-15 operas and four or five ballets in total were produced, and a "Turkish opera and ballet" taste and aesthetics that went beyond the borders of Turkey could not occur. Except for the state dignitaries who seem to be watching the Turkish opera and ballet, which the state attaches importance to the rooting of the revolutions, and the very few Turks who are accustomed to the Western style, these branches of art have remained the areas favored by the public at a lower rate than the others, even today.

When Turkish music, which was once described as Turkish music and could not find its place in the radios, could not find a place for itself in the radio, the fear that the people could listen to Arab radios and that Arabesque music could flourish in Turkish lands dominated the state administrators. For this reason, Turkish music, which was embraced by the society again, eventually began to receive the necessary support from the state. However, it has not been possible to prevent the Turkish people from 'passing through' with arabesque music.

The Bloom of Ideologies in the Arts:

In the disintegration between the old and the new that emerged with the Republic in Turkey, while left ideologies gathered around the new in time, the right wing and the majority of the people approached fine arts, music, cinema, theater, opera and ballet on a conservative axis, and did not like the 'new' very much. When the 'new' imported from the West could not appeal to the general public, the desired fine arts, which were the pillars of the enlightenment torch lit by the founders of the Republic with the reforms, were not strong enough, they were far from fulfilling their functions of carrying the society forward, they had a relatively narrow structure, the military, a part of the bureaucracy. They had to appeal to the wealthy people and universities in contact with the West. The 'art bond', which could not be established with the society from the very beginning, has not attained a Western-style sound, color and aesthetics.