'The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal by Tekin Alp' [‎20r] (44/58)

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a people with such an ideal, and make it take firm root, much time
is needed.
To avoid misinterpretations, let us hasten to add that although the
Turks had no such ideal up to quite recent times, there were nevertheless
a large number of idealists in the country, who brought about the revolu
tion of July 23, and warded off the danger of April 23; they, too, raised
Turkey from the Balkan disaster. Had Turkey not possessed men such
as Enver, Talaat, Jemal, and others, during those hard and disastrous
times, the Ottoman Empire would have disappeared entirely by to-day.
But even if a number of idealists are living and working in a country,
it does not follow that the nation itself has its ideal.
It only proves that the nation is capable of developing ideals. In
this fruitful soil the seeds of an ideal should be sown with loving care,
and the young shoots carefully tended.
CHAPTER IV
THE TURKISH IDEAL
What is to be the ideal of the Turkish nation ? What aims should it
embrace? What feelings and desires should be inculcated in the babies
in the kindergartens, the children in the schools, the young men at the
universities, and the full-grown men in their working life? Of course
desires and feelings cannot be forced on a nation unless they are in
harmony with its soul and individuality. A nation’s ideals must rise
from the spirit of tradition.
The thinkers who led the new movement in Turkey never lost this
point of view for a moment.
They went back to the origins of the nation and laid bare the
Turanian question.
The adherents of the “ Yeni Lisan ” (new language), who undertook
to reform the Turkish language, confine themselves to the ancient Turkish
treasury of words, and strive to purify the language from the foreign, i. e.
Persian and Arab, elements.
In their literary reforms they advocate the pure national impulse,
and give preference to old national themes and subjects which express the
genuine Turkish spirit.
Old, forgotten Turkish songs and tales are revived, and it is hoped
and believed that the soul of the ancient people will be found in the old
traditions.
All these efforts only show what method is being pursued and on what
lines the founding of an ideal for Turkey is being based. Turanianism
itself, which lately received frequent mention in the newspapers, cannot
form the true substance of this ideal, as far as it connotes the Turkish race.
Community of race is of extremely small importance in this modern
age. The English and the Germans are of the same race, and yet they are