Yön Journal as an Interpretation of Kemalist Modernism
Yön, a leftist-nationalist journal, captured the image of Turkey's growing and restless youth in the 1960s more than any other journal/magazine. It was the first attempt to formulate a nationalist leftist ideology by interpreting Kemalism. As a politically Kemalist and ideologically socialist journal, Yön has very much shaped the political culture of Turkey from that period on to the present. Yön has been a political and intellectual platform in which some essential concepts for Turkish politics like Kemalism, socialism, etatism, populism, nationalism, development and democracy has been reformulated in line with its founding fathers' Jacobean understandings of politics and society. This article mainly seeks to examine the journal's founding fathers, raison d'etre, main topics and political aims. In this article, the author attempts to criticize Yön journal's perception of development and ideology of modernization, especially in terms of their connection with the mainstream modernization views at the time.
FAHRETTİN ALTUN
