When the Ottoman Empire collapsed following the First World War, the feudal system which had survived untouched in much of Anatolia began to change. Kemal Ataturk's task of building a nation 'from the people up' meant that the peasantry, by far Turkey's largest ethnographic group, became an important symbol of social cohesion. Here, Sinan Yildirmaz analyses the history of modern Turkey through the material culture of this peasantry - their speeches, social club documents, art and diaries - and reveals a rich social and political life which flowered after the Second World War. Politics and the Peasantry in Post-War Turkey is the first history to show how the changing peasantry laid the foundations for the modern Turkish state, and will be essential reading for students and scholars of the Ottoman Empire and of the History of Modern Turkey.

ChapterI. INTRODUCTIONII. PEASANTS IN THEORY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURALSOCIOLOGY IN TURKEYModernization Theory and the PeasantryThe Development of "Rural Sociology" in TurkeyIII. PEASANTS MOVING TOWARDS CITIES:THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE RURAL STRUCTURE, RURAL MIGRATION AND THE GECEKONDUThe Change in Economic Policies in the Post-War Period Capitalism, Modernization and UrbanizationThe Land Reform Law, the Marshall Plan, the Smallholder Peasantry and MigrationThe Reasons for the Rural Migration, or Is It Possible to Create a Stereotype in the Analysis of the Rural Migration? The Peasants in the Cities and the Invention of the "Gecekondu" IV. PEASANTRY AS AN ACTIVE COMPONENT OF POLITICSThe Arslanköy Case and the Development of the Rule of LawThe Peasants and Politics during the DP GovernmentThe Village Coffeehouse as a Political SpaceThe Peasants and Anti-CommunismV. THE MAKING OF THE "VILLAGE LITERATURE" Defining the Village LiteratureHistory in the Village LiteratureThe Making of the Village Literature CanonFrom the "Reality" of the Literature to the "Reality" of the CountryVI. CONCLUSION