Czy Republika Turecka stworzyła „religię polityczną”? Wokół rozważań Onura Atalaya nad międzywojennym kemalizmem
Did the Republic of Turkey Create a "Political Religion"? On Onur Atalay's Reflections on Interwar Kemalism

Summary/Abstract: This article addresses the issue of the sacralization of secular politics that occurred in Turkey as a result of Kemalist modernization. The impetus for taking up this topic is a critical analysis of Onur Atalay’s book Türk’e Tapmak. Seküler Din ve Iki Savaş Arasında Kemalizm [Worshiping the Turk: Secular Religion and Interwar Kemalism]. This is the first in-depth study to address the problem of Kemalism’s similarity to a religious system. However, the article aims to go beyond a critical presentation of the Turkish scholar’s findings to a wider audience: it is a starting point for reflecting on the further evolution of Turkish “secular religion.” The fundamental thesis that I propose is that Kemalism created a system that fits into Voegelin’s understanding of “political religion,” and in doing so drew on long-standing structures of Turkish culture. This symbolic order proved to be durable and thus marked not only the political history of twentieth-century Turkey but also managed to create its own intellectual and institutional structures, which influenced the shape of contemporary Turkey, when it was already post-Kemalist and when its current authorities based their legitimacy on anti-Kemalist resentments. In this sense, Kemalism as a “political religion” has created a lasting quality. Despite the upheavals in the symbolic and identity policies of the Turkish Republic, it permanently co-shapes its political culture.

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