Symbolizing a modern Anatolia: Ankara as capital in Turkey's early Republican landscape

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

Volumn 28, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 326-341

  Evered, Kyle T ^a  

^a MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL HISTORY; ICONOGRAPHY; LANDSCAPE; MODERNITY;

ANATOLIA; EURASIA; TURKEY;

EID: 50649114627     PISSN: 1089201X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/1089201x-2008-009     Document Type: Article

References (102)

1. David Lowenthal, "Past Time, Present Place: Landscape and Memory," Geographical Review 65(1975): 24, 33.
2. Yi-Fu Tuan, "Place: An Experiential Perspective," Geographical Review 65(1975): 160.
3. In what aspired to be the authoritative text on the discipline of geography, for example, Richard Hartshorne was especially rigid and uninspired regarding the idea and usage of "landscape" - conveying a limiting and primarily physical dimension in defining the term. See Richard Hartshorne, The Nature of Geography: A Critical Survey of Current Thought in the Light of the Past (Lancaster, PA: Association of American Geographers, 1939), 158-74.
4. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 1-2.
5. For example, see Denis E. Cosgrove, Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape (London: Croorn Helm, 1984);
6. Stephen Daniels and Denis E. Cosgrove, "Spectacle and Text: Landscape Metaphors in Cultural Geography," in Place/Culture /Representation, ed. James Duncan and David Ley (London: Routledge, 1993), 57-77;
7. Jonathan Smith, "The Lie That Blinds: Destabilizing the Text of Landscape," in Duncan and Ley, Place/Culture/Representation, 78-92;
8. and James Duncan and Nancy Duncan, "(Re)reading the Land- scape," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 6(1988): 117-26.
9. James E. Vance Jr., "Democratic Utopia and the American Landscape," in The Making of the American Landscape, ed. Michael P. Conzen (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 204-20.
10. On Australia, see Freek Colombijn, "Canberra: A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 22(1998): 565-81.
11. For Brazil, see James Holston, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989);
12. Isabel Maria Madaleno, "Brasilia: The Frontier Capital," Cities 13 (1996): 273-80;
13. and Jorge E. Hardoy, "Two New Capital Cities: Brasilia and Islamabad," Ekistics 18 (1964): 320-25.
14. On Berlin, see Hermine G. De Soto, "(Re)inventing Berlin: Dialectics of Power, Symbols, and Pasts," City and Society 8 (1996): 29-49;
15. Peter Marcuse, "Reflections on Berlin: The Meaning of Construction and the Construction of Meaning," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 22(1998): 331-38;
16. and Karen E. Till, The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005). On Kazakhstan, see "Welcome to the Tomb, - er, the Capital: The Dubious Appeal of Astana, the New Capital of Kazakhstan," Economist, 6 June 1998, 40;
17. Henry R. Huttenbach, "Whither Kazakstan? Changing Capitals: From Almaty to Aqmola/Astana," Nationalities Papers 26(1998): 581-87;
18. Richard L. Wolfel, "North to Astana: Nationalistic Motives for the Movement of the Kazakh(stani) Capital," Nationalities Papers 30 (2002): 485-506;
19. Edward Schatz, "What Capital Cities Say about State and Nation Building," Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 9(2003): 111-40;
20. and Shonin Anacker, "Geographies of Power in Nazarbayev's Astana," Eurasian Geography and Economics 45 (2004): 515-33.
21. For example, see Carola Hein, The Capital of Europe: Architecture and Urban Planning for the European Union (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004).
22. Eric J, Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983(;
23. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trnas. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford, Uk: Blackwell, 1991).
24. On Roman visions of Anatolia, as conveyed through the Res Gestae of Augustus in what would later be Ankara, see Suna Güven, "Displaying the Res Gestae of Augustus: A Monument of Imperial Image for All," Journal of Architectural Historians 57(1998): 30-45.
25. For example, see Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East, with Lucille W. Pevsner (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1958);
26. Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London: Oxford University Press, 1961);
27. and Robert E. Ward and Dankwart A. Rustow, eds., Political Modemization in Japan and Turkey (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964).
28. Among a still growing number of works, especially noteworthy is Sibel Bozdoǧan and Reşat Kasaba, eds., Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997).
29. For example, Ozan Sagdiç and Demet Börtücene, Bir zamanlar Ankara (Once upon a Time in Ankara) (Ankara: Ankara Büyükşehir Belediyesi, 1993);
30. Burçak Evren, Ankara: 20'lι yιllarιn bozkιr kosabasι (Ankara: The Steppe Town of the '20s) (Istanbul: AD Kitapçιlιk, 1998);
31. and Enis Batur, ed., Ankara, Ankara (Istanbul: Yapι Kredi Yayιnlarι, 1994).
32. See Tom Nairn, The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-nationalism (London: New Left Books, 1977); and Nairn, Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited (New York: Verso, 1997).
33. On matters of prior settlement in the region, see Sevgi Aktüre, "16. yüzyιl öncesi Ankara'sι, üzerine bilinenler" ("What We Know of Ankara prior to the Sixteenth Century"), in Tarih Içinde Ankara (Ankara in History), ed. Erdal Yavuz and Ümit Nevzat Uǧurel (Ankara: Orta Doǧu Teknik Üniversitesi, 1984), 1-47;
34. and Sevgi Aktüre, Anadolu'da bronz çaǧi kentleri (Bronze-Age Cities of Anatolia) (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfι, 1997).
35. On the integration of economies, see the rather uncritical but informative work by Rιfat Özdemir, XIX. yüzyιlιn ilk yarιsιnda Ankara: Fizikî, demgrafik, idarî ve sosyo-ekonomik yapιsι, 1785-1840 (Ankara during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century: Physical, Demographic, Administrative, and Socioeconomic Structure, 1785-1940), 2nd ed. (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlιǧι, 1998).
36. For greater information on the population's diversity, see Suraiya Faroqhi, Men of Modest Substance: House Owners and House Property in Seventeenth-Century Ankara and Kayseri (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
37. As in the case of London; see Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion, and Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 40.
38. For example, see Salâhi R. Sonyel, Atatürk - the Founder of Modern Turkey (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1989).
39. Baron Patrick Balfour Kinross, Atatürk: The Rebirth of a Nation (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964), 330.
40. On security considerations, see ilhan Tekeli and Tank Okyay, "Case Study of a Relocated Capital: Ankara," in Urban Planning Practice in Developing Countries, ed. John L. Taylor anrl David G. Williams (Oxford, UK: Pergamon, 1982), 123-24.
41. Atatürk, as quoted in Seçil Akgün, "Kurtulus Savaşι'nιn mekansal stratejisi ve Ankara'nin başkent seçilmesi kararιnιn içeriǧi" ("Spatial Strategies of the War of Independence and the Decision to Choose Ankara as Capital"), in Yavuz and Uǧurel, Tarih içinde Ankara, 230-31.
42. Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoǧlu, Ankara (1934; Istanbul: iletişim Yayιnlarι, 1998);
43. Mehmed Emin Yurdakul, Ankara (Istanbul: ikbal Kitabevi, 1939);
44. Ahmet Hamdi Tanpιnar, Beş Şehir (Five Cities) (1946; Istanbul: Dergah Yayιnlarι, 2005);
45. Celâl Hafifbilek, Ankara 1920 (Istanbul: Telos, 1998).
46. Grace Ellison, An Englishwoman in Angora (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1923), 131.
47. Felix Driver and David Gilbert, "Heart of Empire? Landscape, Space, and Performance in Imperial London," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 16 (1998): 11.
48. John Dewey, Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World - Mexico, China, Turkey (New York: New Republic, 1929), 208-9.
49. Ellison, Englishwoman in Angora, 149.
50. Quoted in Fehmi Yavuz, Ankara'nin imari ve sehirciligimiz (The Construction of Ankara and Our Urbanization) (Ankara: Güney Matbaacιlιk ve Gazetecilik, 1952), 11,
51. and cited by Gönül Tankut, Bir başkentin imarι, Ankara: 7929-7939 (The Construction of a Capital, Ankara: 1929-1939) (Istanbul: Anahtar Kitablar, 1993), 46.
52. Saskia Sassen, "The Topoi of E-Space: Global Cities and Global Value Chains," Built Environment 24 (1998): 134-41;
53. see esp. 135.
54. Ruşen Keleş, Eski Ankara'da bir şehir tipolojisi (An Urban Typology in old Ankara) (Ankara: Sevinç Matbaasι, 1971).
55. On the housing problem, see Yιldιrιm Yavuz, "1923-1928 Ankara'sιnda konut sorunu ve konut gelişmesi" ("Ankara's Housing Problem and Its Development, 1923-1928"),
56. in Yavuz and Uǧurel, Tarih içinde Ankara, 235-56;
57. note comments on 235.
58. Quoted from the newspaper Hākimiyet-i Milliye, 3 June 1929, in Tankut, Bir başkentin imarι, Ankara, 53; Tankut contrasted this view with those of Turkish nationalists who wrote in less disparaging terms of the early period's architectural diversity.
59. Ali Cengizkan, Modernin saati: 20. yüzyιlda modernieşme ve demokratikleşme pratiǧinde mimarlar, kamusal mekon ve konut mimarlιǧi (The Time of the Modern: Architects, Public Residence, and Residential Architecture in Twentieth-Century Modernization and Democratization Practice) (Ankara: Mimarlar Derneǧi Yayιnι, 2002), 50;
60. for an expanded analysis of the Lörcher plan and associated politics and legacies, see also Cengizkan, Ankara'nιn ilk planι, Lörcher Planι: Kentsel mekan özellikleri, 1932 Jansen Planι'na ve bugüne katkιlarι, etki ve kalιntιlarι (Ankara's First Plan, the Lörcher Plan: Urban Residential Charateristics, Its Impacts on the 1932 Jansen Plan, and Its Legacies for Today) (Ankara: Ankara Enstitüsü Vakfι, 2004).
61. For greater discussion, the definitive sources on this topic are Cengizkan, Modernin saati, 37-59;
62. Cengizkan, Ankara'nιn ilk planι, Lörcher Planι;
63. and Tankut, Bir başkentin imarι, Ankara.
64. See Özcan Altaban and Murat Güvenç, "Urban Planning in Ankara," Cities 7 (1990): 149-58.
65. Tankut, Bir başkentin imarι, Ankara.
66. Hermann Jansen, Ankara imar planι (Ankara's Construction Plan) (Istanbul: Alaeddn Kιral Basιmevi, 1937), 16.
67. See also Zeynep Kezer, "Contesting Urban Space in Early Republican Ankara," Journal of Architectural Education 52 (1998): 11-19.
68. Jansen, Ankara imar planι, 18, 33.
69. Most desired were new, Western-style buildings with elevators, tubs, toilets, and other comforts; as noted by Yavuz, "1923-1928 Ankara'sιnda konut sorunu ve konut gelişmesi," 240.
70. On the early residents, see Tankut, Bir başkentin imarι Ankara, 54.
71. Jansen, Ankara imar planι, 44.
72. Ibid., 34, 36.
73. As analyzed previously by Kyle T. Evered in "Past and Present Symbolisms of Ankara's Atatürk Orman Çiftliǧi: A Landscape of National Corporatism" (paper presented at the Association of American Geographers annual conference, New Orleans, LA, 4-8 March 2003).
74. Jansen, Ankara imar planι, 20-23.
75. Ibid., 20, 36.
76. Ibid., 38.
77. Ibid., 45.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid., 45-46.
80. On initial challenges, see Mehmet Sarιoǧlu, Ankara: Bir modernişme öyküsü (1919-1945) (Ankara: A Story of Modernization [1919-1945])(Ankara: Kültür Bakanlιǧι, 2001), 23-24.
81. Falih Rιfkι Atay, Çankaya (Istanbul: Sema Matbaasι, 1980), 419, cited and discussed in Tankut, Birbaşkentin imorι, Ankara, 46-47.
82. See Fehmi Yavuz, Kentsel topraklar (Urbanized Lands) (Ankara: SBF Basιn ve Yayιn Yüksek Okulu Basιmevi, 1980), 5-13.
83. Tankut, Bir başkentin imarι, Ankara, 31;
84. for additional analysis of this problem and associated dilemmas in the city's development resulting from a disjuncture between theory and practice, see Altaban and Güvenç, "Urban Planning in Ankara."
85. Yavuz, Kentsel topraklar, 6.
86. Keleş, Eski Ankara'da bir şehir tipolojisi;
87. and Altaban and Güvenç, "Urban Planning in Ankara."
88. Tuǧrul Akçura, Ankara: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nin başkenti hakkιndo monografik bir araştιrma (Ankara: Monographic Research on the Capital of the Turkish Republic), Mimarlιk Fakültesi, no. 16. (Ankara: Orta Doǧu Teknik Üniversitesi, 1971), 56.
89. See John Clark, "The Growth of Ankara, 1961-1969," Review of the Geographical Institute of the University of istanbul 13 (1971): 19-40.
90. Informative studies on the development and manifestations of gecekondu include Kemal H. Karpat, Gecekondu: Rural Migration and Urbanization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976);
91. Ruşen Keleş, Türkiye'de kentlesme, konut ve gecekondu (Urbanization, Housing, and Gecekondu in Turkey) (Istanbul: Gerçek Yayιnevi, 1978);
92. Emre Kongar, "Kentleşen gecedondular ya da gecekondulaşan kentler sorunu" ("A Problem of Urbanized Gecekondu or of Gecekonduized Cities"), in Kentsel ütünleşme (Urban Integration), ed. Hasan Gençaǧa (Ankara: Türkiye Gelişme Ara+cestιrmalarι Vakfι, 1982), 23-54;
93. Tansi Şenyapili, Gecekondu, çevre işçilerinin Mekanι (Gecekondu, Abode of Peripheralized Workers) (Ankara: Orta Doǧu Teknik Üniversitesi Mimarlιk Fakültesi, 1981);
94. and Şenyapili, Ankara kentinde gecekondu gelişimi (1923-1960) (The Development of Gecekondu in Ankara [1923-1960]) (Ankara: Batιkent Konut Üretim Yapι Kooperatifleri Birli-̌i, 1985).
95. In 1999 Murat Güvenç presented a quantitative and cartographic approach to understanding populace strata of cities, illustrating eloquently this point; Murat Güvenç, "Deciphering Social Differences in a Peripheral Metropolis" (paper presented at the World Academy for Local Government and Democracy conference, Istanbul Technical University, 26-29 May 1999).
96. Bhabha, Location of Culture, 8-9.
97. Sassen, "Topoi of E-Space," 13S;
98. for an excellent discussion of such contemporary shifts in symbolisms in Turkey, see Güven Arif Sargιn, "Displaced Memories, or The Architecture of Forgetting and Remembrance," Environment and Planning D; Society and Space 22 (2004): 659-80.
99. On reinvented tradition, recall Hobsbawm and Ranger, Invention of Tradition.
100. As examined in terms of nationalist historiographies by Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
101. Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966), 86-87, 103-4, 159-62.
102. Ibid., 162.