Yusuf Akcura and the Intellectual Roots of Turkism

Yusuf Akçura (1876-1935) is one of the most important political figures in contemporary history of Turkey and a prominent ideologue of Turkism/ Pan-Turkism. He played a key role in the development of the Turkish nationalism and the idea of Pan-Turkism among the Ottomans and later on became one of the cultural architects of the Kemalist Turkey. This research, while analyzing the roots of Akçura's idea about Turkism, has focused on the importance of Nationalist and Marxist concepts and themes in his view. For Akçura, Turkism was considered as a tool for realizing his cultural, political and social goals for transition of the Muslim traditional societies to the modern world. Akçura was not an ethno-nationalist but an intellectual-activist who sought to present a roadmap for the modernization of the Turkic Muslim societies in accordance with the Eurocentric modernization model.