Alienation from the Village: Views of Teachers from Rural Areas on Villages in the Republican Era

Abstract

Following the Turkish National Struggle, the process of building a nation state based on modern Turkish identity began in Anatolia. In the Kemalist process of creating a modern nation state, society was intended to be redesigned in a secular and modern sense. The sultanate and caliphate were abolished, and reforms were made in many areas such as language, culture, economy and education. The Republic of Türkiye inherited a peasant social structure from the Ottoman Empire. Since the founding members of the Republic aimed for total modernization, the peasantry emerged as a phenomenon that needed to be modernized. The role of education was wanted to be used in the modernization of the villagers. Children were educated and sent to their own villages as teachers. These teachers both represented the founding values of the Republic in the villages and tried to transform the village. However, they have become alienated from the village in which they were born and raised. They also made great contributions to the production of the language that marginalizes the village. The purpose of this article is to explore the mental transformation experienced by village-origin teachers who write works about their villages, and to examine how they become estranged from their villages in the narratives they create. The focus is on understanding how these teachers, despite their roots in the village, convey a sense of alienation in their writings about their communities.