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Contemporary Turkey at a Glance
Kristina Kamp • Ayhan Kaya
E. Fuat Keyman • Özge Onursal Beşgül
(Eds.)
Contemporary Turkey
at a Glance
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on
Local and Translocal Dynamics
Editors
Kristina Kamp E. Fuat Keyman
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Sabancı University
Germany Istanbul, Turkey
Ayhan Kaya Özge Onursal Beşgül

Istanbul Bilgi University Istanbul Bilgi University
Istanbul, Turkey Istanbul, Turkey
ISBN 978-3-658-04915-7 ISBN 978-3-658-04916-4 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-04916-4
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014945236
Springer VS
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Content
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
by Daniel Grütjen, Ayhan Kaya and E. Fuat Keyman
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
by Kristina Kamp, Ayhan Kaya, E. Fuat Keyman
and Özge Onursal Beşgül
Eray Çaylı
Architectural Memorialization at Turkey’s › Witness Sites ‹:
The Case of the Madimak Hotel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Caroline Tee
On The Path of Pir Sultan ? Engagement with Authority
in the Modern Alevi Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Belin Benezra
The Institutional History of Family Planning in Turkey . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Laura Tocco
Civil Society in Turkey: A Reading of Kadin Gazetesi
through a Gramscian Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Doğu Durgun, Elif Kalaycıoğlu

New Turkish Citizenship ? Contestation of Muslim Women
and LGBT Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6 Content
İpek Gencel Sezgin

Islamist Party Identity in Right-Wing Milieus: The Case
of the National Outlook Movement in Kayseri (1960 – 1980) . . . . . . . . 93
Feyda Sayan-Cengiz
Headscarf in the Context of Precarious Work:
A Critical Approach to the Headscarf Discussion in Turkey . . . . . . . . . 111
Anne Schluter
Competing or Compatible Language Identities
in Istanbul’s Kurdish Workplaces ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Özlem Altan Olcay, Evren Balta Paker

Market Embedded Transnationalism:
Citizenship Practices of Turkish Elites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Çiğdem Bozdağ
The Digital Bridge Between Turkey and Germany:
Transnational Use of Digital Media in the Turkish Diaspora . . . . . . . . . 157
Nevin Şahin-Malkoç
» Homeland « in » Dreamland « ?
Space and Identity in Göçmen Konutlari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Doğuş Şimşek
› Inclusion ‹ and › Exclusion ‹: Transnational Experiences
of Turkish and Kurdish Youth in London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Preface
The series » Contemporary Turkey at a Glance « seeks to promote the work of

young researchers committed to the study of contemporary Turkey. As series
editors, we particularly wish to present interdisciplinary research that searches
for holistic perspectives on the political, social, and cultural transformations
of the country. This first volume of the series is based on the international con-
ference Contemporary Turkish Studies at a Glance – Topics, Institutions and Fu-
ture Perspectives, which took place at Istanbul Bilgi University on October 13 and
14, 2012.
The conference and this volume were realized thanks to a close cooperation
between the European Institute at Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul Policy Center,
and Network Turkey. Further partners included the British Institute, Ankara, the
French Institute of Anatolian Studies, the Netherlands Institute for Higher Edu-
cation, Ankara, and the Institute of Turkish Studies, Georgetown University. Our
special thanks go to our colleagues at Stiftung Mercator, who funded and sup-
ported the event and this publication through the project Network Turkey – Aca-
demic Community for Turkish Studies.
We would also like to thank the key note speakers and panel chairs, as well as
the researchers who presented their work, and of course, the attendees who con-
tributed with their critical questions and comments. We personally thank the co-
ordinator of the conference and co-editor of this volume, Kristina Kamp, for her
engagement. Furthermore, we are grateful for the support of co-editor Özge On-
ursal Beşgül, Aslı Aydın and Refika Saldere from Istanbul Bilgi University as well
as Susan Rottman and Kerem Öktem from Network Turkey, for their professional
support.
K. Kamp et al. (eds.), Contemporary Turkey at a Glance,

DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-04916-4_1, © The Author(s) 2014
8 Preface
We are grateful for the support of the institutions and individuals who have
cooperated with us in the last two years. Their efforts and engagement have made
this volume possible.
Daniel Grütjen, Network Turkey

Ayhan Kaya, Istanbul Bilgi University
E. Fuat Keyman, Istanbul Policy Center at Sabancı University
Open Access. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution Noncommercial License, which permits any noncommercial use, distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Introduction
In the last twenty years, Turkey has witnessed significant social, cultural, and po-
litical change. This transformation has been visible in all walks of life and sec-
tors of society, from political ideologies to the institutional set up of the state. As
the country is changing, so is the academic literature, which has been expanding
in parallel to Turkey’s growing economy and differentiating society. In this col-
lection, 12 authors seek to elucidate the dynamics of this transformation from a
distinctively interdisciplinary perspective with a focus on innovative conceptual
approaches, and with the aim to introduce new methodologies to the study of
modern Turkey.
The volume deals with the most important fault lines of Turkey’s complex so-
ciety. The contributors focus on issues of citizenship, religion, politics, gender, mi-
nority rights, the dynamics of transnational movements, and the growing impor-
tance of the Turkish diaspora. Inspired by the debates on deliberative democracy
and by critical theory, the authors aim to revisit existing concepts, models, and
methodologies to overcome binary explanations of protest and contestation
against the state. The emphasis here is on the interactive nature of contestation in
heterogeneous multi-organizational fields and multi-national settings. Established
dichotomies of East and West, modernity and tradition, and secularism and Islam
are put to the test.
This collection has three aims. The first is to re-examine ethno-cultural and
ethno-religious relations in Turkey with a critical perspective on nation building.
Some authors suggest that Turkey has now entered a phase of coming to terms
with its troubled past and that this process provides some hope for a deepening
of the country’s democratic culture. The second aim is to shed light on social, po-
litical, and cultural movements, and to investigate the way these groups challenge
constructed notions of the public, by the Turkish state. We need only to remember
the Gezi protests of May – June, 2013 to see the extent to which some citizens of the

DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-04916-4_2, © The Author(s) 2014
10 Introduction
Turkish Republic wish to play a greater role in shaping this public space. Develop-
ments in the field of Kurdish and Alevi rights, the changing role of religion in the
public, and the increasingly visible presence of LGBT activists are all manifesta-
tions signifying how the ideology of the state and the ruling party is being chal-
lenged. Third, the authors emphasize that the debates on identity, citizenship, na-
tional belonging, ethnicity, religion, and culture are no longer territorialized, but
have taken on transnational and trans-local qualities.
The essays of the volume’s first section deal with efforts of Appropriating the
Past. They focus on distinct practices that actors employ in order to challenge es-
tablished official narratives.
Eray Çaylı discusses the role of architectural memorialization and particularly
the contested memory politics of the › Sivas Massacre ‹. Sites of massacres can be
pacified and controlled by techniques of › museumification ‹, and this is precisely
what state agencies have been doing with the museum they established in the for-
mer Madımak Hotel. The outcome of such state action is that rather than com-
memorating the victims, such museums become symbolic markers for the gov-
ernment’s rather shallow democratization discourse. Çaylı proposes the notion of
a › witness site ‹, where past events are not only remembered, but where evidence is
gathered and testimonies are narrated.
Caroline Tee explores the liminal space between conflict and incorporation
in her study on Alevi engagement with hegemonic majority discourses. Exploring
different positions within the contemporary Alevi Movement, her case study pres-
ents an Alevi group from Erzincan, which differs from other Alevi groups in that
they reveal their openness to negotiation with authorities.
Belin Benezra’s institutional history of family planning in Turkey traces the
roots of this policy back to the founding years of the Turkish Republic. She shows
how family policies have always been in the service of the state’s larger demo-
graphic and political needs. This trend, she remarks, is also reflected in the most
recent neo-liberal health reforms. With the aim to ensure the sustainability of
state pensions, family planning has now been almost dropped in the discourse
employed by leading AKP cadres.
The second section, Challenging Authority, explores the fields of public con-
testation and negotiation of identity. The authors reconstruct the ways whereby
authority is challenged in the public sphere and map emerging repertoires of so-
cial action.
Laura Tocco criticizes the concepts of civil society, which have dominated
the Turkish debate thus far, and proposes a perspective influenced by the work of
Marx and Gramsci, which have also been very widely used in the analysis of pol-
itics and society in Turkey. Tocco argues that the Turkish Republic was built as a
typical case of class hegemony. Her analysis of articles from the feminist weekly
Introduction 11
Kadın Gazetesi reveals Kemalist undertones in the debate over women’s rights, as-
serting the hegemonic state even in what is commonly assumed to be a movement
critical of state intervention.
Doğu Durgun and Elif Kalaycıoğlu provide a comparative analysis of Mus-
lim women’s organizations on the one side and LGBT groups on the other, looking
into shared claims for citizenship and the possibility for alliance building. Their
study suggests that actors can indeed transcend binaries such as republican/lib-
eral, equality/difference, and public/private, if the conditions of a shared interest
are present.
İpek Gencel Sezgin posits that identities are in no way essential, but contin-
gent and unpredictable. This is also true, she argues, for political Islam and other
political ideologies. Sezgin explores the recruitment patterns of the National Out-
look Movement and of right-wing networks in Kayseri between 1960 and 1980,
and examines their practices and identity frames. She detects a very large overlap
between the two networks. Reconstructing the movement’s identity as the com-
bined product of conscious efforts and unintentional processes, she draws atten-
tion to the interplay of the national and local levels in the political field.
Feyda Sayan-Cengiz shows how lower middle class working women with
headscarves struggle with hegemonic narratives about them, and how they seek to
subvert those narratives by differentiating themselves from what they call the › re-
ally conservative ‹. This chapter strongly suggests that contrasting the headscarf as
a symbol of Islamic identity against the once hegemonic ideal of secular women
has become obsolete both in theoretical and public debates.
Anne Schluter finds a comparable trend in the language choices of Kurdish
workers in Istanbul. Her findings illustrate how Kurds use both Turkish and Kurd-
ish to achieve differentiated sociolinguistic goals and to cater to different audi-
ences. Her paper provides linguistic evidence that the two languages are more
likely to be representative of compatible rather than competing identities.
The final section on Transnational Dynamics extends beyond the territory of
the Turkish nation-state. The contributions in this section illustrate how the global
presence of citizens of the Turkish Republic as well as communication and trans-
port technologies enable them to both reproduce and challenge the territorially-
defined identities across national borders.
Özlem Altan Olcay and Evren Balta Paker explore a recent practice among
Turkish elites. In order to acquire a second citizenship for their children, some
families opt to give birth in the United States. The authors conceptualize the case as
› market embedded transnationalism ‹ in which citizenship becomes commodified,
as it can be obtained through market mechanisms. In this vein, it can be inferred
that the meanings of transnational citizenship are shaped by commodification and
market performance, hence contributing to existing inequalities in novel ways.
12 Introduction
Çiğdem Bozdağ pays attention to the important role of digital mass media
for migrant communities as they help to maintain networks with their countries
of origin. Attempting to fill the gap of research in this field, she provides examples
from two cases, which illustrate how digital media intensifies transnational prac-
tices at the micro level and changes the character of migrants’ encounters with
Turkey in their everyday lives.
Exploring the example of Bulgarian Turks, Nevin Şahin-Malkoç studies the
adaptation strategies of immigrants in Göçmen Konutları (Migrants’ Houses).
Göçmen Konutları is a residential area in Istanbul initially built for Bulgarian
Turkish refugees, who arrived in Istanbul in the late 1980s. This community is now
bordering on another residential area, Başakşehir, which is popular among con-
servative Muslims. Şahin-Malkoç illustrates how the memories from Bulgaria are
revived, how the transnational immigrant identity is reproduced, and how physi-
cal and social isolation fosters the contestation of » homeland « and » dreamland «.
The volume finishes with Doğuş Şimşek’s discussion of young Turks and Kurds
in London. She investigates how relations with the country of origin, the city of
residence, and local neighbourhood are constructed through everyday life expe-
riences. In particular, she discusses how the engagement of Turkish and Kurdish
youth, with these three spatial levels, influences the definition of their sense of self
and belongingness to the country of origin and the country of residence.
The complexity of Turkish society, culture, and politics, and its on-going trans-
formation call for interdisciplinary perspectives. This volume comprises a variety
of innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to Turkish Studies. The
findings of the twelve authors of this book contribute significantly to providing an
enhanced understanding of contemporary Turkey. Furthermore, this book gener-
ates new research questions and stimulates further in-depth analysis.
Kristina Kamp, Berlin Humboldt University

Ayhan Kaya, Istanbul Bilgi University
E. Fuat Keyman, Istanbul Policy Center at Sabancı University
Özge Onursal Beşgül, Istanbul Bilgi University
Architectural Memorialization
at Turkey’s › Witness Sites ‹:
The Case of the Madimak Hotel
Eray Çaylı
Background and Context
In Turkey, the second half of the 20th century was marked by a series of military in-
terventions in politics. This period, which also witnessed several atrocious events
or phenomena, has had a long lasting political and sociopsychological impact in
the country. Dubbed by many › the coup era ‹, the period is a major reference point
for present-day political discourses and social struggles pursued by various ac-
tors. Among these actors is the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve
Kalkınma Partisi) who, in their decade old rule, have adopted a discourse of post-
coup democratization1 and of › coming to terms with ‹ the › coup era ‹. But the rul-
ing party has not been unchallenged, as their discourse has been highly contested
by rights-seeking communities who identify strongly with the victims of the coup
era’s atrocities. Representatives of these communities have called for the govern-
ment to publicly acknowledge the state’s responsibility in the atrocities. Moreover,
they call for the law to hold perpetrators legally accountable, in order to enable a
redress of what they regard as the » continuing injustice « (Çandar 2012). A num-
ber of judicial and legal shortcomings suggest, however, that their demands are
far from being met. These include unresolved court cases, cases that › lapsed ‹ due
to the statute of limitations, limited investigations that failed to account for offi-
1 A case in point epitomizing the government’s discourse is an op-ed article written in 2011
for the Guardian by the government spokesman Bülent Arınç. In this article, the spokesman
suggests, » Turkey has now left the coup era behind « and » democracy and democratic in-
stitutions in Turkey are firmly established. « Entitled » Mandate for a new Turkey, « Arınç’s
article was published the morning after Turkey’s June 12th general elections, in which his
AKP received 50 percent of the popular vote. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/
jun/13/mandate-for-a-new-turkey

DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-04916-4_3, © The Author(s) 2014
14 Eray Çaylı
cial authorities’ role in the atrocities, and numerous perpetrators who have man-
aged to flee justice.2
These vast judicial and legal shortcomings have, in a way, caused the site of
contestation over the past to move from courts of law to › witness sites ‹ – a term I
will develop and use in this paper to refer to Turkey’s sites of atrocity.3 Today, each
of these sites is inseparably associated with a particular atrocity, whose victims’
legacy is claimed by a specific community. What is more, each community has de-
manded that › their ‹ witness site be turned into a museum in memory of victims.
Although the majority of these demands are yet to be met, and most witness sites
continue to serve their original purposes, they have recently become subject to
projects of architectural transformation. But, in the case of those projects which
have in fact been realized, the overall function resulting from the transformation
has not always been overtly commemorative.
A prime example of Turkey’s witness sites is the Madımak Hotel in the city of
Sivas. On July 2nd, 1993, the hotel witnessed the event known today as the › Sivas
Massacre ‹, when a rioting mob set fire to the hotel while individuals invited to the
city for a culture festival were still inside. As a result, 37 civilians, 33 of whom were
festival guests, perished. The festival was organized by an association represent-
ing Turkey’s Alevi, a religious cum spiritual community whose practices and ritu-
als differ fundamentally from those followed by the Sunni – the demographically
predominant sect of Islam in Turkey. Members of the Alevi community are also
the ones today to identify strongly with the victims of the atrocity. Although the
1993 arson attack is believed to have been the work of what seemed to be a Sunni
Islamist fundamentalist mob, the then state authorities have also been blamed by
associations representing the community for failing to prevent the events despite
their presence at the scene of crime. But these authorities remain yet to be tried
and sentenced, as the aforementioned judicial and legal shortcomings have also
been brought to bear in the case of the Sivas atrocity.
2 Each of these legal shortcomings pertains also to the court case on the Sivas Massacre. See
Euronews. 14 March 2012. Turkey judge drops case against Sivas hotel fire suspects. Avail-
able online at http://www.euronews.com/2012/03/14/turkey-judge-drops-case-against-sivas-ho-
tel-fire-suspects Last accessed 30 September 2012.
3 Such sites include the Madimak Hotel where 37 were killed by arson on July 2nd, 1993; the
Diyarbakir Prison where tens of Kurdish political inmates were tortured en masse over the
years that followed the 1980 coup; the recently museumified Ulucanlar Prison where key
revolutionary figures from the 1970s leftist student movement were hanged; and Yassıada,
the island off Istanbul where the trials of then-ruling Demokrat Parti members took place
after the 1960 coup (three of those tried therein, including the then prime minister Adnan
Menderes, were later sentenced to death and executed). All of these sites are subject to cur-
rent museumification demands, debates and/or projects.
Architectural Memorialization at Turkey’s › Witness Sites ‹ 15
Concurrent with these shortcomings, the years that followed the atrocity saw
the Madımak Hotel emerge as a site of contestation. The site first underwent repair
to be relaunched as a hotel. A few years later a charcoal grill restaurant opened in
its ground floor. Over the years, it was subjected to Alevi associations’ unmet de-
mands for museumification – namely for a › Museum of Shame ‹ – and their onsite
demonstrations of this demand. In the face of accumulating pressure, state autho-
rities decided in 2010 to expropriate and transform the building. After a very se-
cretive process in which the wider public was completely uninformed about the
site’s upcoming function, the transformation was completed in the spring of 2011,
and the building was inaugurated as a › Science and Culture Center ‹. The intended
audience for the new center is elementary school children, as it hosts a children’s
library, audiovisual rooms, and labs for simple science experiments.
The state’s unwillingness to accede to the demand for Madımak’s museumifi-
cation, along with the aforementioned judicial and legal shortcomings, has fore-
grounded the commemorative demonstrations held in Sivas on the atrocity’s an-
niversary as » the arena where the court case is being held. «4 In addition to being
the platform where the demand for museumification has been promulgated, these
demonstrations have also seen the raising of other Alevi demands for › equal citi-
zenship rights ‹.5 As part of my fieldwork over the past year and a half, I attended
the 2011 and 2012 demonstrations in Sivas to study both the recent transformation
of the Madimak Hotel into a › Science and Culture Center, ‹ and its impact on the
way in which the demonstrators related to the atrocity through the site where it
took place. I have studied the › Science and Culture Center ‹ also outside anniversa-
4 This is how Kemal Bülbül referred to the Madımak Hotel and its vicinity when he addressed
demonstrators during the on-site mass commemoration held on July 2nd, 2012 in Sivas.
Bulbul is the current president of the Pir Sultan Abdal Culture Association, the main Alevi
organization pursuing the Sivas case on both social and legal platforms. Members of this as-
sociation include families of the Sivas Massacre victims.
5 These demands include the abolition of The Presidency of Religious Affairs (in Turkish:
Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, the state institution representing the highest Islamic religious
authority in Turkey, established in 1924 following the abolition of the caliphate), the official
recognition of Alevi places of ritual as religious facilities, and the removal of mandatory re-
ligion lessons in secondary school curriculum. See Karabat, Ayşe. 8 November 2008. Ral-
lies across Turkey highlight Alevi demands. Today’s Zaman. Available online at http://www.
todayszaman.com/news-158159-rallies-across-turkey-highlight-alevi-demands.html Last ac-
cessed 30 September 2012. For further discussions of the atrocity’s role in identity formation
among members of the Alevi community, see Şahin, Şehriban. 2005. The Rise of Alevism as a
Public Religion. Current Sociology 53,3: 465 – 485 (in the case of community members in Tur-
key), and Yıldız, Ali Aslan and Maykel Verkuyten. 2011. Inclusive victimhood: Social identity
and the politicization of collective trauma among Turkey’s Alevis in Western Europe. Peace
and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 17,3: 243 – 269. (in the case of community members
abroad).
16 Eray Çaylı
ries and conducted participant observation and semi structured interviews at the
site, as well as at other relevant memorials and commemorative events in differ-
ent settings in Turkey (in the cities of Sivas, Izmir, Ankara, Hacıbektaş, etc.) and
abroad (in London). My initial findings from the field raise significant challenges
for discussions around Turkey’s sites of atrocity. Although my fieldwork has en-
compassed a range of events and sites, in this paper I will discuss these challenges
only in light of my work during the last two onsite commemorations in Sivas.
The challenges presented by my case concern both the public debate on Tur-
key’s sites of atrocity and their scholarly discussions. The former challenge calls
for a problematization of the demand for › museumification ‹, and for a nuanced
understanding of this notion which would better relate to the particularities of the
current situation in present-day Turkey. The latter challenge concerns established
theories on materiality and memory, which are often uncritically deployed whilst
attempting to discuss, what I call, Turkey’s witness sites. But first a brief theoretical
discussion is needed in order to explain why and how these challenges are worth
addressing.
Theory
To be sure, issues surrounding sites of atrocity and their memorialization have long
been of interest to scholars. But these issues are believed to have recently – in the
postwar years – become a topic of much larger sociocultural relevance. Seeking to
capture the essence of this increasing relevance, scholars have come up with terms
such as » obsession with memory « (Huyssen 1995: 1 – 9), » the global rush to com-
memorate atrocities « (Williams 2007) and » the memory boom « (Winter 2006).
Postwar years have indeed seen a › boom in production, ‹ as much more has been
written on the topic and much more built, for that matter, in the form of monu-
ments, memorials and museums. The question arises, however, as to whether and
how the scholarly understanding of materiality’s role has evolved to cope with this
increase in the sociocultural relevance of memory – especially the nuanced form it
takes in different contexts. In order to address this question briefly, in this paper I
will discuss two seminal examples: first, Alois Riegl’s » The Modern Cult of Monu-
ments: Its Character and Origin, « (Riegl 1982 [1903]) dates back to the early years
of the 20th century and is therefore meant to represent a pre-World Wars approach.
The second work, Pierre Nora’s Realms of Memory (1996a), on the other hand, is a
postwar text which has had immense scholarly influence over the last two decades.
In his essay, Alois Riegl distinguishes between intentional and unintentional
monuments. Among the two categories, the latter seems fit for Turkey’s witness
sites as it is meant to comprise sites that owe their memorial significance not to
the intentions of their designers and builders, but to the events they witnessed
during their post construction lifetime. Riegl then discusses the significance of
unintentional monuments via the notion of › value ‹, where he distinguishes be-
tween » present-day value « and » commemorative value « (Riegl 1982 [1903]). He
suggests that the present-day values of monuments have to do with purposes dif-
ferent from commemoration as they deny the memorial function of the monu-
ment. An example of present-day value, for Riegl, is use-value, in other words
the practical functional performance of the object. For commemorative value, on
the other hand, Riegl gives the example of age-value which » manifests itself . . .
in the corrosion of surfaces, in their patina, in the wear and tear of buildings and
objects « (Ibid: 32). In brief, Riegl argues that while use-value requires the upkeep
of the unintentional monument against the traces of time, those very traces in fact
also give the monument its commemorative value.
In his 1996 work Realms of Memory, Pierre Nora suggests a distinction be-
tween lieux de mémoire (places of memory) and milieux de mémoire (realms of
memory) (1996a). For Nora, lieux de mémoire are places » where memory is crys-
tallized « and they exist » because there are no longer any milieux de mémoire, set-
tings in which memory is a real part of everyday experience « (1996b: 1). Accord-
ing to Nora, the latter term refers to a proto-modern era when memory was much
more a part of everyday life, whereas the former indicates the modern condition
when society’s relationship with the past started evolving into a spatially and tem-
porally bound experience. Monuments, memorials, and commemorations are
among Nora’s prime examples for this shift with which the task of remembering,
according to him, began to be delegated to artefacts, and therefore became institu-
tionalized, sanitized and rid of its potential to transform the present.
Although these two influential works were written in different periods of the
20th century – respectively before and after the so called » memory boom « (Winter
2006) – and seem to have a different take on issues surrounding memorialization,
a comparative analysis suggests that both work from a particular understanding of
temporality. Considering time only as linear progression, they assume that the re-
lationship between materiality and memory is marked, almost unconditionally, by
a fundamental contradiction between › the past ‹ and › the present ‹. For Riegl, this
contradiction is more of a physical nature: how effectively the built environment
connects the present to the past depends on the material traces it bears of the
chronological progression of time. Put bluntly, the more ruinous the better, where
the › ruinousness ‹ is measured in terms of chronos – of time as a quantitative factor.
In Nora’s theory, the presence of the understanding of temporality as linear
progression is of a methodological nature. He argues that there is a fundamen-
tal contradiction between » the commemoration of the national type « and that of
» the patrimonial type « (1996b: 632). For Nora, the former type belongs to a by-
18 Eray Çaylı
gone era – namely, to proto modern times – when commemoration was a much
more pervasive part of everyday life. But today’s sites of memory, according to
Nora, are merely patrimonial artefacts. › Embodying ‹ the past and, in that, effec-
tively sealing it from the present, these artefacts are devoid of any possible poten-
tial of transforming the everyday. As such, their significance in the present, for
Nora, is only as static and deadlocked objects – as › heritage ‹. This dichotomiza-
tion of › the old paradigm ‹ versus › the new ‹ is itself symptomatic of Nora’s par-
ticular understanding of temporality which he shares with Riegl. In short, both
scholars work from an understanding of temporality only as linear and irrevers-
ible progression, which results in their presumption that the act of memorializa-
tion is complicated by an irreconcilable gap between the two binary temporalities
of › the past ‹ and › the present ‹. This shared understanding points to a legacy that
has survived the 20th century in which the attitude toward the concept of mem-
ory is believed to have undergone immense change as the concept acquired much
larger sociocultural influence.
Undoubtedly, these oft-cited ideas are of help when it comes to understand-
ing certain social, geographical and cultural contexts. But can they be applied in-
discriminately to all contexts ? In fact, Nora’s ideas have been frequently employed
by scholars discussing what I call Turkey’s witness sites. The most recent case in
point is an article by Fırat and Topaloğlu (2012) where the authors discuss as a lieu
de mémoire the Diyarbakır Prison which, very similarly to the Madımak Hotel, is
a site associated with atrocious phenomena dating to the so called › coup era ‹, and
has been subject to unmet demands for museumification (see endnote 3). I would
like to argue that such uncritical application of Nora’s ideas (and those of many
other historians who work from a similar premise regarding their understanding
of temporality) does not suffice to account for the wide range of ways in which
different social and political actors with a stake in the discussion around Turkey’s
witness sites experience temporality. This insufficiency is most evident in the an-
nual onsite commemorations of the Sivas atrocity.
Case study
Commemorations held in Sivas on the massacre’s anniversary are the prime plat-
form where the multifaceted nature of the relationship between materiality and
temporality surfaces. Organized annually by Alevi associations, these events have,
over the years, become something of a tradition and grown into a mass demon-
stration type of event. They have served as the main venue where the demand
for the former Madımak Hotel’s museumification has been visibly and intensively
raised. But since the redesign of the site as Science and Culture Center, the criti-
cal focus of these demonstrations has not been limited only to the state’s refusal
to meet the demand for a › Museum of Shame ‹. It has expanded to include also
the site’s redesign and its particularly controversial aspects, such as the › list of
victims ‹ which includes the names of the two perpetrators who died during the
1993 arson.
A typical July 2nd demonstration in Sivas begins in the morning with partici-
pants arriving in Alibaba, which is reputedly › the Alevi neighborhood ‹ of central
Sivas. Characterized by large scale domestic and international migration (Soke-
feld 2008), members of the Alevi community see the annual demonstrations in
Sivas as something of a reunion. The first venue of this reunion, Alibaba, is the
meeting point where community members coming from different parts of Tur-
key and Europe congregate each year at the local cemevi (the Alevi place of wor-
ship and ritual – literally, › house of gathering ‹), prior to their march toward the
former hotel. The demonstration proceeds along a two kilometer route stretching
from the neighborhood down to the site where the atrocity took place, and it ends
therein with the laying of flowers. This route is striking in the way it cuts across
the city center while also marking the continuing presence of the local Alevi com-
munity in central Sivas.
At their outset, commemorations in 2011 and 2012, which were held after the
site of the 1993 atrocity underwent transformation, were not very different from
their earlier counterparts. However, as they progressed, both bore remarkable par-
ticularities. These had to do with a precaution taken by state authorities, namely
their setting up of barricades en route to the former hotel. The reason for this pre-
caution, state authorities argued, was the risk that demonstrators could resort to
vandalism in protest against the site’s redesign. In 2011, such a barricade was set up
a few hundred meters in front of the building, which had sparked immense dis-
pute amongst the demonstrators. The following year, a barricade was first placed
a kilometer ahead of the building, preventing demonstrators from approaching
not only the former hotel but also the central square in Sivas. After a negotiation
between the organizers and the then governor of Sivas, the barricade was moved
back to the front of the Science and Culture Center where it had been set up a year
ago. While this move was presented by the organizers as a gain, it in fact normal-
ized the barricade as part and parcel of the built environment in and around the
Science and Culture Center, making a significant impact on the ways in which
demonstrators experience the site.
For many of the individuals who identify with the victims of the Sivas atrocity,
the law enforcement’s setting up of barricades on commemoration day bears a bit-
ter resemblance to the events of July 2nd 1993. This resemblance was most evident
in the confrontation which took place at the barricade in 2011. While state author-
ities argued for the risk of demonstrators wanting to approach the building in or-
20 Eray Çaylı
der to vandalize it, Alevi associations had already decided that they would refrain
from entering the Science and Culture Center. Representatives of these associa-
tions put this forth as a symbolic performance of their refusal to confer legitimacy
to the site’s recent redesign. However, they still wanted to reach the building’s en-
trance, not only to repeat the flower laying ritual, but also to hang a sign they had
especially made for this demonstration, which bore the phrase › Madımak Mu-
seum of Shame ‹. As this sign was carried forward from hand to hand in turn to
› trespass ‹ the barricade, the police reacted first by pushing back the front row and
then by using teargas. Despite its excessiveness, the police’s use of force did not
incite much backlash, except the very brief reaction of a few young activists. At
this moment, leading figures of the community were addressing the crowd from
atop the demonstration bus. Stressing the importance of peacefulness and non-
violence in their culture with explicit references to historic events and personas,
they cautioned the demonstrators to remain calm regardless of the police’s atti-
tude. The already minor physical confrontation was thus brought to an end. After
final speeches by leading figures of the community, most of whom commented on
the law enforcement’s attitude as » a continuation of previous massacres and of the
centuries long tyranny of hegemonic powers, « the demonstration ended.
It is important to note that, in the geography that hosts today’s Turkey, the re-
lationship between the Sunni and the Alevi have been marked by frequent con-
testation and periodic episodes of violence targeting the latter (Neyzi 2002). As
seen in the speeches mentioned above, this troubled history, in turn, makes many
members of the Alevi community talk of the Sivas Massacre as not the first of its
kind, but rather the most recent one in a long chain of atrocities. One of those
previous atrocities is indeed considered as more directly related to the Sivas Mas-
sacre – the execution of Pir Sultan Abdal. He was a 16th century minstrel who is
known to have been critical of the Ottoman state administration and is believed to
have later been hanged in Sivas by the governor. The 1993 culture festival in Sivas,
whose guests were targeted by the arsonist mob, was named after Pir Sultan, while
also a state sponsored sculpture reputedly depicting him was erected in a public
square in Sivas the night before the festival. On July 2nd, prior to setting the hotel
on fire, the arsonist mob defaced this monument and demanded its toppling. This
is known as something of a threshold moment when the mob’s fury translated, for
the first time that day, into physical violence. Arguably trying to reduce the esca-
lating tension which would later result in the arson, the local municipal and state
authorities decided collectively to meet the mob’s request and brought them the
toppled monument as proof. This is believed to have further encouraged the per-
petrators, instead of pacifying them. Today, Pir Sultan continues to be a prominent
sacred figure for Alevis, and to denominate events organized and associations es-
tablished by the community.
The confrontation which took place around the barricade in 2011 thus involved
the evocation of a particular theme in Alevi religious narratives. The evocation
was possible thanks to the community leaders’ explicit reference to historic perso-
nas as they addressed the demonstrators, to their comparison of the law enforce-
ment’s attitude with previous atrocities in history, and finally to the resonance
their efforts found with the demonstrators. The theme in question pertains to the
concept of › passive ‹ or › nonviolent martyrdom ‹ which, according to scholars of
Alevism such as Reinhard Hess (2007), is one of the most significant motifs in
Alevi narratives. As Hess demonstrates, in Alevi culture it is possible to speak of a
martyrology – a lineage of sanctity whose links consist not of birth, but of tragic
death during acts of dissidence against the perceived oppressor (Ibid). While the
16th century minstrel Pir Sultan is considered a prominent martyr – in Turkish, a
şehit – victims of the Sivas Massacre, regardless of whether they were Alevi or not,
are also spoken of as martyrs within the community (Ibid: 281).
There are various elements of the built environment where this martyrology
can be traced. Foremost among these is a group of › Sivas martyrs memorials ‹
dedicated to individual Alevi victims of the Sivas Massacre, and built by associa-
tions in the respective village from which each victim hails. Also among these ele-
ments is an example from outside Turkey: the London memorial to the Sivas Mas-
sacre. Situated in Stoke Newington Common in the Borough of Hackney, which
also hosts a significant Alevi population, this memorial was built in 1997 but fell
into neglect for many years only to be discovered in September 2011. Upon their
discovery, directors of the London Alevi Cultural Centre immediately reinaugu-
rated the memorial under the new name › The Memorial to Pir Sultan Abdal and
the Sivas Martyrs ‹. It is not only this new name which bears the lineage of martyrs
and incorporates the massacre victims into that lineage, but also the London Alevi
Cultural Centre’s proposed extensions to the memorial, which include a sculpture
depicting Pir Sultan, the prominent figure of Alevi martyrology.
In his book Remnants of Auschwitz, Giorgio Agamben argues that most at-
tempts of relating the past in the present are complicated by what he calls » a la-
cuna « between the idea of testimony as narration and that of testimony as wit-
nessing (Agamben 1999: 33 – 6). Considering the concept of martyrdom an attempt
to remove this lacuna, he reminds that in Greek the word martis refers both to
› witness ‹ and › martyr ‹ (Ibid: 26). Agamben suggests two ways in which the con-
cept of the › martyr ‹ bridges this lacuna. The first has to do with the root verb of
martis, which means › to remember ‹ (Ibid). According to Agamben, this refers to
a person who has witnessed an event, and is › cursed ‹ with its memory and thus
with the imperative to narrate it. The second has to do with the idea of testimony
as past tense experience, to a person’s complete witnessing of a deadly event such
as the Holocaust. Here, the use of the concept of martyrdom helps to give mean-
22 Eray Çaylı
ing to the incomprehensible, and explain the inexplicable (Ibid: 27). Similarly, in
Turkish, the word şehadet, a loanword from Arabic, refers all at once to the con-
cept of testimony as narration, to that of martyrdom, and to the condition of bear-
ing witness. In the case of the onsite commemorations of the Sivas Massacre, then,
the evocation of şehadet has a twofold effect. First, it helps narrate the atrocity –
in other words, give meaning to the incomprehensible. Second, it helps reconcile
the lacuna between this present day narration and testimony as past witnessing.
Concluding Remarks
Having drawn attention to the intricate ways in which the theme of şehadet af-
fects the demonstrators’ experiences in and around the former Madımak Hotel,
I would like to conclude by raising two points. The first has to do with museumi-
fication as a particular strategy of relating to the past. Focusing narrowly and of-
ten solely on this strategy, the public debate around sites like the former Madımak
Hotel considers museumification as something of a sine qua non for memorializa-
tion. But the debate lacks a nuanced understanding of how museumification can
function vis-à-vis the particularities of the context of Turkey. These particulari-
ties demand attention to the wide range of meanings the site conveys for different
actors – pedagogic, legal, political, redemptive, spiritual, to name a few. Further-
more, I would like to suggest that a discussion of architectural memorialization
with respect to the case of the former hotel cannot be confined only to the desider-
ated museumification of the site. For demonstrations such as the one in Sivas are
not only venues for demanding architectural memorialization, but also function
in and of themselves as a distinct form – a tactics6 – of such memorialization. By
theorizing these tactical interventions as a particular form of architectural memo-
6 Here when I speak of › strategies ‹ and › tactics ‹, I build on Michel de Certeau’s understand-
ing of these two notions as the two distinct ways in which a subject acts in relation to an ob-
ject (Certeau 1984: 34 – 9). Certeau’s distinction between the two notions has to do with the
dynamics between time and space. For Certeau, » strategies are actions …[that] … privi-
lege spatial relationships, « and they » attempt to reduce temporal relations to spatial ones «
(Ibid: 38). Tactics, on the other hand, » are procedures that gain validity in relation to the
pertinence they lend to time « (Ibid). Which of Certeau’s two lines of action serves better to
explain museumification, or, any permanent architectural transformation, for that matter ?
Such transformation entails the delimiting of space and separating that site’s territory from
its exteriority. A permanent spatial rearrangement, it favors space over time. These charac-
teristics demonstrate that, whether in the form of a museum or a › Science and Culture Cen-
ter ‹, permanent architectural transformations, especially when they are implemented in a
top-down manner, are to be called, in Certeau’s terms, a strategy. Which of Certeau’s two
lines of action, then, could help understand the commemorative demonstrations that take
rialization, I aim to expand the focus of the › public ‹ debate on museumification.

In contexts characterized by judicial and legal shortcomings and ongoing rights
seeking processes, adhering to such a narrow focus runs the risk of paradoxically
victimizing the very individuals who identify with the victims. This in turn creates
a further unfair presentation of these individuals, who in fact very actively partici-
pate in commemorative demonstrations, as deprived of agency.
Secondly, the case of the former Madımak Hotel problematizes the direct ap-
plication of established theories on the relationship between materiality and mem-
ory onto the context of Turkey’s witness sites. The case suggests that the bound-
aries between what is spoken of binarily as › the past ‹ and › the present ‹ can be far
more blurred than those suggested by scholars like Riegl and Nora. This blurri-
ness is all the more evident in the nonlinear, often even cyclical, way in which ac-
tors who identify strongly with the massacre’s victims experience temporality at
witness sites. These sites enable such experiences due to their ability to effectively
help overlap different temporalities – which, in the case I discussed, are › Sivas
Massacre time ‹, the historical › Alevi martyrdom time ‹ and the time of the › here
and now ‹, to name a few. The word › witness ‹ in the notion of › witness site ‹, then,
does not only refer to the site’s own quality of past witnessing. In a context char-
acterized by judicial and legal shortcomings, the word refers also to the site’s pres-
ent-day quality as a quasi-legal forum where evidence is elicited and testimonies
are performed as narratives.
References
Agamben, Giorgio. Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive, trans. Daniel Hel-
ler-Roazen. New York: Zone Books, 1999.
Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley. California: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1982.
Çandar, Cengiz. 2012. Türkiye’de Alevi yakmanın cezası nedir ? Radikal, March 14.
Fırat, Derya, and Hande Topaloğlu. 2012. » Total kurum, disipliner cezaevi, kamp: Goff-
man, Foucault ve Agamben’in kavramlarıyla Diyarbakır Askeri Cezaevi (1980 – 84). «
Toplum ve Bilim 123: 76 – 92.
Genç, Kazım. 2006. » Sivas’ı unutmak ihanettir. « Pir Sultan Abdal 62: 1 – 3.
Hess, Reinhard. 2007. » Alevi martyr figures. « Turcica 39: 253 – 90.
Huyssen, Andreas. Twilight Memories; Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. London and
New York: Routledge, 1995.
place each year in Sivas ? These demonstrations are modes of action which appropriate space
in order to link different temporalities, such as › Massacre-time ‹, › martyrdom-time ‹, the time
of the › here-and-now ‹, etc. To link the everyday to the past in such manner is – similarly to
Certeau’s notion of › tactics ‹ – to prioritize time over space.
24 Eray Çaylı
Neyzi, Leyla. 2002. » Embodied elders: space and subjectivity in the music of Metin-Kemal
Kahraman. « Middle Eastern Studies, 38,1: 89 – 109.
Nora, Pierre. 1996a. » General introduction: between memory and history. « In Realms of
Memory. Volume I: Conflicts and Divisions, edited by Pierre Nora, trans. Arthur
Goldhammer, English language version ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman, 1 – 20. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Nora, Pierre. 1996b. » The era of commemoration, « In Realms of Memory. Volume III: Sym-
bols, edited by Pierre Nora, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, English language version ed.
Lawrence D. Kritzman, 609 – 37. New York: Columbia University Press.
Riegl, Alois. 1982 [1903]. » The modern cult of monuments: its character and its origin, «
trans. Kurt W. Forster and Diane Ghirardo. Oppositions, 25: 21 – 51.
Sökefeld, Martin. Struggling for Recognition: The Alevi Movement in Germany and in Trans-
national Space. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008.
Williams, Paul. Memorial Museums: the Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities. New York:
Berg, 2007.
Winter, Jay. Remembering War: The Great War between History and Memory in the 20th Cen-
tury. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006.
On The Path of Pir Sultan ?
Engagement with Authority
in the Modern Alevi Movement
Caroline Tee
The Alevis are an Islamic minority group in Turkey, whose precise numbers are
difficult to ascertain (Shankland 2003). Their interpretation of Islam is generally
considered › heterodox ‹ by the Sunni Muslim majority, and it has never been of-
ficially recognized by the Turkish state. The Alevi tradition or Alevilik1 is a syn-
cretistic one, combining Sufi mysticism, elements of pre-Islamic shamanism, and
the central conceits of Shi’i Islam – namely, adulation of Imam Ali and mourning
for the martyrs of the Battle of Karbala (Birge 1994; Melikoff 1998). Traditionally,
the Alevis lived in isolated, rural communities, with a concentration in the moun-
tainous regions of central and eastern Anatolia (Andrews 2002). In the middle of
the last century, many Alevis began to migrate to Istanbul and other big cities in
the west, as well as to Europe, and today the community is largely an urban and
diasporic one.
The term › Alevi Movement ‹ refers to the activities underway in the Alevi com-
munity over approximately the last 20 years, aimed at reviving and reformulating
its Alevi identity and traditions (Kehl-Bodrogi 1988; Vorhoff 1995). Religious, cul-
tural and socio-political elements are all playing an important part in the move-
ment, and its major goal is official recognition of Alevilik by the Turkish state.2
There is a closely associated movement amongst the sizeable Alevi diaspora in
1 I use the Turkish term Alevilik to refer to the Alevi tradition throughout this paper. This is
because it conveys a sense of its holistic nature, made up of religious, cultural and histori-
cal elements. The English terms › Alevism ‹ and › Aleviness ‹ are, I believe, relatively limited by
their individual emphasis on the political and cultural aspects of the tradition respectively.
2 The AKP government instigated an initiative called the Alevi Açılımı (Alevi Opening) at the
start of its second term in office in 2007. In its concluding report in the spring of 2011, the
basic demands of the Alevis (recognition of cemevis as official places of worship; abolition
of compulsory religious education in secondary schools; opening of a museum of remem-
brance at the Madımak Hotel in Sivas) remained unmet. See Köşe (2010).

DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-04916-4_4, © The Author(s) 2014
26 Caroline Tee
Western Europe (namely Germany), which faces, and is influenced by, different
political and societal influences (Massicard 2005; Sökefeld 2008). In this paper,
I focus on the Turkish Alevi Movement, and the ways in which it is negotiating
with authoritarian discourses on national and religious identity in Turkey, as well
as with institutions of religious and political power.
Protest and the subversion of religious and political authority are traits often
associated with the Alevis. The iconic image of the subversive folk poet Pir Sultan
Abdal, raising his saz aloft in defiance, is easily recognizable in Turkey as an Alevi
symbol. This paper explores the legitimacy of this stereotype of rebellion. It pres-
ents an ethnographic exploration of how one Alevi group, the Derviş Cemal Ocak
from Erzincan, is reformulating its Alevi identity by actively engaging with cer-
tain aspects of authoritarian discourses on ethnicity and religion in modern Tur-
key – namely, Turkishness and self-identification as Muslim. It situates this group
within the wider, national framework of the modern Alevi Movement, and the dif-
ferent approaches to engagement with authority represented within it.3
Minorities in the Turkish Republic:

Çağaptay’s › Zones Of Turkishness ‹
A helpful framework for understanding the issue of engagement with authority

in the Alevi Movement is provided by Soner Çağaptay’s identification of three
› zones of Turkishness ‹ in the Kemalist construction of Republican national iden-
tity (Çağaptay 2006). Çağaptay delineates an › inner zone of Turkishness ‹, which is
defined by ethnic Turkishness and religious identification with Sunni Islam. The
majority of the population belongs within this › zone ‹, wherein they have close re-
lations with the state and easy recourse to engagement in the public sphere. In the
second › zone ‹, in an approach inspired by the Ottoman millet system, are those
whose religious identification is the same, i. e., Sunni Muslim, but whose ethnicity
is non-Turkish (i. e., the Kurdish Sunni population). In the third and outer › zone ‹,
and experiencing the most comprehensive sense of exclusion, are non-Muslims
living within the territorial parameters of the modern Turkish nation-state (i. e.,
Jews and Christians). Çağaptay states that:
3 A full ethnographic study of the Derviş Cemal Ocak, from which selected material is pre-
sented here, has been published by the author elsewhere. See › Holy Lineages, Migration and
Reformulation of Alevi Tradition: A Study of the Derviş Cemal Ocak from Erzincan ‹ in Brit-
ish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, December 2010, 37, 3, 335 – 392.
On The Path of Pir Sultan ? 27
… today, in the scheme of concentric circles of Turkishness, the further away a group
is from the center, the more unaccommodating is the state toward it. Only when a
group is located in the innermost, ethnic zone, does it enjoy close proximity to the state.
Moreover, while groups from the religious layer are expected to move into the inner
ethnic core, groups from the territorial zone are strictly confined to the hostile margins
of society. (Çağaptay 2006: 160)
The location of the Alevis within this framework is variable, and contingent on a
number of complex and inter-related factors. First of all, the Alevi population is
made up of both Kurdish (Kurmanji and Zaza4) and Turkish-speaking popula-
tions. Whilst excluded from the › inner zone ‹ because of their non-identification
with Sunni Islam, the Turkish Alevis nonetheless come closer to qualifying than
their Kurdish counterparts on account of their Turkish ethno-linguistic affilia-
tion. The Kurdish Alevis, by contrast, are comprehensively relegated to the › sec-
ond zone ‹ because of both their non-Turkish ethnicity and their distance from
Sunni Islam.
Furthermore, the Alevi community is fragmented over the issue of Alevilik’s
rightful inclusion within the parameters of Islam. This constitutes one of the ma-
jor debates within the modern movement, wherein certain Alevi groups locate
the origins of the Alevi tradition in early Islamic history, yet others identify pre-
Islamic and Anatolian influences as the major determinants of its development.
There is therefore potential for different Alevi groups to move either inwardly, to-
wards the › inner zone ‹ of Islamic (albeit not Sunni Islamic) religious identity, or
outwardly, towards the › territorial zone ‹ inhabited by relatively disenfranchised
non-Muslims.
Modes of Engagement in the Alevi Movement Nationally
There are two broad ideological trends visible within the Alevi Movement in Tur-
key today, each represented by a major institutional voice and each apparently
negotiating its relationship with the metaphorical › inner zone of Turkishness ‹ in
rather a different way. The first group is, broadly speaking, represented by the Is-
tanbul-based Cem Vakfı, which was founded by İzzettin Doğan, a professor of in-
ternational law, in 1995. It presents Alevilik as a religious tradition situated firmly
within the parameters of Islam and based on Turkish culture. It appeals to the reli-
gious authority of the Qur’an as well as the cultural heritage of Turkic saints in its
articulation of › Alevi Islam ‹. This is explained on the Cem Vakfı website:
4 Zaza is a northwest Iranian language. See Paul (1998).

28 Caroline Tee
The birth of the Alevi understanding of Islam was inspired by the views of those saint-
ly possessors of wisdom, the best interpreters of the Koran, Hoca Ahmet Yesevi, Ebul
Vefa, Hacı Bektaş Veli, Yunus Emre, Mevlana, Pir Sultan Abdal and the [other] Anato-
lian saints. Islam came to Anatolia through this interpretation.5
The Cem Vakfı is broadly conciliatory in its approach to official authority, and is
open to dialogue with the Directorate of Religious Affairs, within which it seeks
representation and provision for Alevilik as a valid Islamic tradition alongside the
Sunni one. Its approach to achieving recognition is based on an appeal to the pow-
erful twin criteria of national identity and citizenship, namely Turkish ethnicity
and Islamic religious identity, and as such its trajectory is an inward one, seeking
proximity to the › inner zone ‹.
The Alevi-Bektashi Federation, or ABF, is another major voice within the
Alevi Movement today that represents a noticeably less conciliatory and more
overtly politicized discourse. Founded in Ankara in 2002, it is an umbrella organi-
zation listing 31 affiliated Alevi groups. Like the Cem Vakfı, the ABF seeks official
recognition of Alevilik by the Turkish state, but rather than engage with the Di-
rectorate of Religious Affairs, it demands its abolition on the grounds that its exis-
tence violates the principles of secularism. It generally refutes the interpretation of
Alevilik that roots it in Islam, and espouses a thesis of origins as a pre-Islamic, and
sometimes proto-socialist tradition. Ali Balkız, president of the ABF until March
2011, explained Alevilik in the following way in an interview with Radikal news-
paper in 2002:
Alevilik is a communal phenomenon that was shaped in Anatolia from a variety of be-
liefs, ways of life, philosophies and cultures that originated in Central Asia, Khorasan,
Mesopotamia and the Middle East. It is an independent way of interpreting and under-
standing nature, society and God.6
It is possible that Alevis from follower lineages are attracted to the ABF more than
those of sacred (leader) lineages,7 and it has a considerable membership amongst
Kurdish and Zaza Alevis who often stress their Kurdishness and Zazaness as well
as their Alevi identity. The ABF represents an Alevilik that is less concerned with
5 http://www.aleviislamdinhizmetleri.com/alevilik_nedir.asp. Accessed 01-08-12. English

translation by the author.
6 Article by Muray Aksoy in Radikal newspaper, 22 February 2002. English translation by the
author.
7 The Alevi community is organized according to sacred (dede) and non-sacred lineages,
which are decided by birth. On the religious organization of Alevi society, see Shankland
(2003) and Yaman (2004).
engagement with central authority, which plays down the origins of the tradition
in Turkish culture, and is reluctant to situate itself within the parameters of Islam.
Accordingly, its trajectory is an outward facing one, wherein proximity to the › in-
ner zone of Turkishness ‹ is not sought, and accordingly it occupies a place closer
to what Çağaptay calls the › hostile margins of society ‹.
Ethnographic Case-Study: The Derviş Cemal Ocak
This paper presents an ethnographic approach to understanding the internal dy-

namics of the Alevi Movement, and the factors influencing its different approaches
to engagement with the Turkish state. It explores the case of the Derviş Cemal
Ocak, an Alevi group from Erzincan that is currently engaged in reviving and re-
formulating its Alevi identity and traditions. Broadly speaking, this group is align-
ing itself with the Cem Vakfı discourse on Alevilik and identifying itself as part of
a religious tradition based in Islam with a strong sense of Turkish cultural origins.
The foci of its revival activities are reinstated religious ritual (namely, the central
› cem ‹ ceremony), restoration of sacred sites, and collation and codification of its
oral history and narrative of origins. Revival activities began in around 2000, and
have gathered pace considerably since 2010. They are administered from Istanbul,
where many members of the ocak have lived since the middle of the last century.
The information that I present here is taken from two years of ethnographic field-
work amongst the Derviş Cemal Ocak at various locations in Turkey between July
2009 and June 2011.
History of the Derviş Cemal Ocak
The term ocak denotes, in Alevilik, an extended family of religious leaders who
claim descent down a sacred lineage (van Bruinessen 2000). These leaders are
known as dede(s). A network of ocaks constituted the backbone of traditional,
Anatolian Alevi society, which was organized according to the affiliation of non-
sacred, follower lineages to particular dedes. The Derviş Cemal Ocak takes its
name from a 15th century Anatolian holy man, Seyyid Derviş Cemal, and its mem-
bers trace their descent through him to a 13th century companion of Haci Bektaş
Veli, called Seyyid Cemal Sultan, and before him to the Prophet Muhammad.
Until the onset of mass migration, which began in around 1960 and continued
until the 1990s, the ocak was concentrated around its spiritual and geographical
center, the village of Zurun – renamed Çayıryazı in the Republican era but still
referred to within the ocak by its Ottoman name. Zurun is located high in the
30 Caroline Tee
Figure 1 Map showing the distribution of the Tanyeri villages with Derviş Cemal dede resi-
dents in south-eastern Erzincan.
remote mountains of south-eastern Erzincan, near to the modern-day border with

Tunceli.8 It is at the centre of a cluster of six villages, known as the Tanyeri villages,
which were all traditionally inhabited by Zaza-speaking, Derviş Cemal dedes. Zu-
run is the so-called › serçeşme ‹, or source, of the ocak, a term which demarcates it
as the place where charismatic spiritual authority is located. Since its settlement,
probably in around the 16th century, it has been the home of the Şeyh Dede, the
head of a hierarchy of dedes within the ocak, believed to be a direct descendant of
Derviş Cemal and possessor of › keramet ‹, or the ability to perform miraculous
acts. The last great Şeyh Dede in popular memory was İbrahim Demir, to whom
acts of keramet are attributed and who died in 1936.
8 Tunceli is the new name that was given to Dersim in the 1930s, at the time of major civil un-
rest in the region.
The ocak seems to have been fairly typical of many eastern Alevi groups dur-
ing the rural era, in terms of its independence and the apparently extreme degree
of geographical as well as social isolation (Yaman 2006). Many › lead dedes ‹ from
ocaks in the Dersim region would turn to one another for the provision of spiritual
oversight and accountability that is essential to all Sufi traditions. Although an
Alevi dede is considered a religious leader, he is also considered a disciple of the
Alevi Way (yol), and therefore in need of the oversight of a spiritual master (pir)
himself. In the case of the Derviş Cemal Ocak, there does not seem to have been
a bi-lateral local arrangement with other ocaks; rather, the ocak apparently main-
tained some kind of institutional link with the Bektaşi convent in Nevşehir. This is
perhaps not surprising given that the ocak traces its decent to one of the compan-
ions of Hacı Bektaş Veli who was sent out from that convent. It is, however, un-
usual for an eastern Alevi group to have had links with the Bektaşis, whose influ-
ence was generally stronger amongst the Turkish Alevis in the west of Anatolia
(van Bruinessen 1997; Karakaya-Stump 2012).
Migration
Religious life in the ocak suffered enormously during the era of mass rural to ur-
ban migration. Alevilik could not, and did not, transfer easily from its small, ru-
ral village locations to the relative anonymity of large, urban centers (Shankland
2003). Like the rest of the Alevi community nationally, in the mid-20th century
the practice of the cem ceremony and other associated aspects of religious life
in the ocak fell into decline. Members were scattered through migration primar-
ily to Istanbul (Kartal and Bağcılar), and Germany (Frankfurt), but there are also
Derviş Cemal people in Izmir, Antalya and other parts of western Turkey as well
as in other Western European countries. According to the broad trend amongst
the Alevis in the 1960s and 70s, many Derviş Cemal people were politically active
within the leftist movement during that era.
Revival in The Ocak
A turning point came for the ocak in 2000, when a group of individuals, now re-
siding in Germany, decided to restore the tekke of the Şeyh Dede in Zurun. The
tekke, which had been derelict for decades, was rebuilt as a modern cemevi. The
movement to revive and reformulate ocak tradition and identity has gathered pace
in the last two years. In February 2010, members of the ocak living in Istanbul or-
ganized a cem ceremony in Bağcılar Cemevi to which they invited all members of
32 Caroline Tee
Figure 2 Derviş Cemal Ocak cem ceremony at Bağcılar Cemevi,

Istanbul, February 2010. (Photograph by the author)
the ocak to attend. The cem was well attended, by around 500 people, and it ap-
peared on the national Alevi TV channel, Cem TV, a few weeks later.
The cem revealed a popular desire for the ocak to re-group and reclaim it tra-
ditions and practices, and as such an official association (dernek) was established
shortly afterwards. Its title was › The Association for Solidarity, Proliferation and
Protection of Seyyid Cemal Sultan Culture ‹; in early 2012, it was upgraded to the
status of vakıf (pious trust). This trust is currently directing the ocak’s revival ac-
tivities. Besides the resurrected cem ritual (the February cem in Istanbul has since
become an annual event), it has also been overseeing the restoration of certain sa-
cred sites. It has also been collating and informally publishing the oral histories
and miracle narratives that are associated with these sacred sites through official
ocak websites and a modest ocak magazine.
Its interest in the religious and cultural aspects of its Alevi heritage and iden-
tity align the activities of the Derviş Cemal Ocak with the interpretation of Ale-
vilik espoused by the Cem Vakfı. Its members are largely choosing to identify
themselves as › Alevi Muslim ‹, in line with the Cem Vakfı’s definition of Alevilik
as a Turkish interpretation of Islam. This relatively conciliatory approach to defin-
ing itself today is interesting, given the ocak’s origins in the restive Tunceli region,
and its potential for experiencing a certain marginalization on account of being a
Zaza rather than a Turkish speaking group. Neither of these features would seem
to preclude easy engagement with mainstream discourses surrounding religion,
ethnicity and citizenship in Turkey today.
Dede Heritage as religious Legitimization
The ocak is, however, finding scope for engagement and, I suggest, it is doing this
by revisiting and emphasizing its dede identity. The narrative of sacred descent
makes it possible for the ocak to claim both Turkish ethnicity and religious legiti-
macy within the boundaries of Islam. This narrative is based on a common inter-
pretation of Anatolian Alevi history that begins with the migration of Hacı Bektaş
Veli from the Central Asian region of Khorasan in the 13th century (Yaman 2004).
Hacı Bektaş was accompanied on this journey into Anatolia by a number of Turkic
holy men, known as the Horasan Erenleri, or › enlightened ones from Khorasan ‹.
These holy men reputedly intermarried with descendants of the Prophet Muham-
mad through Imam Ali in Khorasan, thus combining their Turkic ethnicity with
the charismatic sanctity of Muhammad’s lineage.
The Derviş Cemal Ocak trace their descent back to Seyyid Cemal Sultan, one
of the Khorasan Erenleri, whom oral ocak history tells us to have been one of
the closest companions of Hacı Bektaş and resident with him at the convent in
Nevşehir. The story of Seyyid Cemal Sultan forms one of the cornerstones in re-
vived ocak identity, partly through the re-telling of his life and special association
with Hacı Bektaş Veli, and partly through a focus on redeveloping the site sur-
rounding his tomb. The story of Seyyid Cemal Sultan was told to me by various
dedes within the ocak. It also appears in the Velayetname of Hacı Bektaş:
Sultan Hacı Bektaş Veli had three hundred and sixty companions who served in his
presence during his lifetime. When he died, each of these companions left for the place
to which the Sultan (Hacı Bektaş) had sent them. Of all the companions, the Sultan
loved Seyyid Cemal Sultan the most [….]. The Sultan commanded: » My Cemal, after I
have died, buy a donkey and leave here. The place where the wolves eat your donkey is
the place which we are giving you for your home. Later on you will have a son, and he
will walk across water. « After the Sultan died (c.1271/2), Seyyid Cemal Sultan bought
a donkey and set off. By and by, he came to Altıntaş. It was an unbelievably beautiful
34 Caroline Tee
place – extremely verdant and well-watered, with lush meadows and a river. Seyyid Ce-
mal liked the place very much, and wanted to rest a while. He sent his donkey off to
the river, and laid down for a nap. When he woke up, he saw that the donkey had been
eaten by wolves. Straight away, he remembered the words which the Sultan had spo-
ken, and so he settled there, got married and had a son. He called his son Asildoğan.
(Author’s translation)
The association with Hacı Bektaş is important to the ocak, for it affords it crucial
legitimization and a claim to sanctity. The village of Altıntaş that is referred to in
the narrative is near the modern day town of Döğer, in the western province of
Afyonkarahisar. It is unusual for an ocak from the Dersim region to have a history
in western Anatolia.
This tomb did not play an important part in the religious life of the ocak during
the rural era, and was rediscovered only about three years ago. There is currently
an extensive ocak project underway to renovate and develop the site. Building
work began in the summer of 2011 to structurally overhaul the existing buildings,
(which include the tomb itself, as well as an outhouse), and also to build a cemevi,
Figure 3 The tomb of Seyyid Cemal Sultan at Döğer, Afyon. (Photograph by the author)
a guesthouse and an aşevi (kitchen) for the preparation of sacrificial food when
the ocak is gathered together there. The tomb in Afyon has also become the site of
an annual ocak festival, which will shortly be returned to in more detail.
Seyyid Cemal had a son called Asildoğan, whose life and miraculous exploits
also feature in oral ocak history. Asildoğan is said to have travelled extensively
around the Sea of Marmara, and is reputed to have demonstrated keramet by
walking across the water at Çanakkale. This is, again, a shortened version of the
story as it appears on an ocak website:
Seyyid Asildoğan left the Altıntaş (Döğer) region to spread the message to the people,
and headed to Çardak, opposite Gallipoli. He wanted to cross over to Gallipoli. That
region was Greek in those days, and the Greek boatmen there would not give Seyyid
Asildoğan a boat. Neither would they take him across in one of their own boats. The
boatmen left the shore and set out for the open sea. After a while, they looked back
and saw that Seyyid Asildoğan, whom they had left on the shore, was coming towards
them, walking on the water. They realised that this man was › enlightened ‹ (ermiş), and
they immediately turned back to the shore, took Seyyid Asildoğan into their boat and
delivered him over to Gallipoli on the other side. Just as the Sultan (Hacı Bektaş) had
told his father he would, Seyyid Asildoğan demonstrated keramet by walking on wa-
ter. (Author’s translation)
› Keramet ‹ (Miracle) Stories
This story is one of many oral narratives that are being revisited and written down
by members of the ocak today that features keramet, or miraculous activity, being
performed by a holy ancestor. These narratives often culminate with the ances-
tor providing irrefutable proof of his supernatural powers to a previously skepti-
cal audience – in this case, Greek Christians, but more commonly, Sunni Muslims.
The ancestor is often then exonerated of unjust charges that have been brought
against him. Michael Gilsenan, anthropologist of the Middle East, has observed
the tendency of such miracle stories in the wider Islamic region to fit this pat-
tern, noting that, «(they) break the normal pattern of things and force oppo-
nents to admit their error. The notion of challenge and contest is very strong. «
(Gilsenan 1973).
Emphasizing these narratives of sacred descent from the Prophet Muhammad
and of keramet demonstrate, on the one hand, a desire within the Derviş Cemal
Ocak for religious legitimization according to Islam. The reason their ancestors
were able to perform such apparently miraculous feats is that they are allegedly
heirs to the charismatic authority of the Prophet of Islam himself. This brings the
36 Caroline Tee
ocak into a central position in terms of its ability and willingness to engage with
the Sunni majority, on the grounds that they share a common Islamic foundation.
In contrast, other Alevi groups, and especially those affiliated to the ABF, prefer to
maintain a peripheral position in this sense, and to avoid entering into religious
negotiation on these terms altogether.
On the other hand, however, the notions of challenge and contest that are cen-
tral to these keramet stories indicate a degree of subversion. Whilst there is a com-
mon idiom of Islam in this reading of Alevi history, it is used mainly to show how
(Sunni) outsiders have misunderstood and mistreated the Alevis. The desire for
the recognition of Alevilik, which accompanies the telling of these stories today,
is founded on this centuries-long narrative of injustice and discrimination. The
voice of protest in them is therefore quite important.
Sacred Sites in Ocak Revival
Asildoğan’s grave is believed to be in the town of Simav, near Beyce in the province
of Kütahya. It was not until two generations after Asildoğan that Derviş Cemal, for
whom the ocak is named, lived. He is said to have migrated from Muğla, in west-
ern Anatolia, to the town of Hozat in Dersim in the 15th century. Derviş Cemal did
not settle in Hozat, but reportedly fled to Erzincan under persecution from Sul-
tan Selim I in the early 16th century. The grave of Derviş Cemal is near Zurun, out-
side the village of Bulmuş. Despite being located in the centre of the Derviş Cemal
homeland, the grave of Derviş Cemal does not seem to have featured prominently
until recently, and when I was there in 2009 and 2010, many members even strug-
gled to identify where it was. Although it has recently been covered by a new con-
crete edifice, the site is still much smaller and considerably more remote than the
tomb complex of Seyyid Cemal in Afyon. It is clearly the Afyon site that attracts
the most attention and provides a geographical focus for the ocak in its revival ac-
tivity. It is playing host to a newly instated, annual ocak festival, called the Seyyid
Cemal Sultan Anma Töreni, or memorial ceremony. The first festival took place
in May 2009 and has happened every year since. When I attended it, in May 2010,
there were upwards of 500 people there, most of whom had come from Istanbul.
The festival was dominated by religious and cultural elements. It was, first and
foremost, an organized › ziyaret ‹, or small-scale pilgrimage, to the tomb of Seyyid
Cemal Sultan. Most people who attended visited the tomb to offer prayers there.
There was also a large kurban, or sacrifice, carried out. Sheep were slaughtered,
and a communal meal of sacrificial food was prepared and consumed together.
The sacrifice would normally take place alongside a cem ceremony, and indeed, the
ocak plans to run a cem at the annual festival as soon as the building work is com-
Figure 4 Seyyid Cemal Sultan Memorial Ceremony, May 2010. (Photograph by the author)
pleted and there is a suitable space to do so. The cultural aspects of the festival in-
cluded the singing of Alevi poetry to saz accompaniment by various aşıks, and the
performance of the semah. This was carried out by a youth-group from a cemevi
in Istanbul who, as is common within the Alevi movement today, take regular eve-
ning classes in dancing the semah. For the performance, they wore the traditional
Anatolian folk costume often adopted by such groups, since the semah began to be
performed publically in the Alevi revival.
There was evidence of a muted and conciliatory attitude towards political
authority. The AKP Minster for Culture, Ertuğrul Günay, came from Ankara and
made a brief speech about the historical significance of the tomb site and of the
cultural value of the festival, which was largely warmly received by participants.
Furthermore, the committee of the ocak association had sought – and gained – the
co-operation of the local AKP council both in order to hold the festival, and to ap-
prove its plans for the redevelopment of the site. Like most Alevis, individuals in
the ocak generally support the CHP and dislike the religiously conservative nature
of the governing AKP. They do, however, seem comfortable engaging and nego-
tiating with the AKP when it is deemed necessary to do so.
The tomb of Seyyid Cemal Sultan has become a central motif in the renewal of
Derviş Cemal Ocak identity and corporate life in the 21st century. It is attracting
38 Caroline Tee
a degree of interest that has meant the focus of contemporary ocak activity, rather
than being in the Erzincan homeland of Zurun, is instead hundreds of miles away
in western Turkey. The appeal of the Afyon site can be understood on a number of
different levels: firstly, it emphasizes the ocak’s direct association with Hacı Bektaş
Veli and the western Bektaşis, something which brings it to a relatively › central ‹
position both religiously and politically. (The Bektaşi Order represents in many
ways a more conciliatory face of Alevilik that has been historically much closer to
central political power). This association distances the Derviş Cemal Ocak from
the comparatively rebellious and independent Kurdish Alevi tribes in the east.
Secondly, the narrative of Seyyid Cemal Sultan that is represented by the tomb site
embeds the origins of the Derviş Cemal Ocak in Turkish history and culture. This
situates the group centrally in terms of its claim to ethnic identification with the
aforementioned › inner zone of Turkishness ‹. The third and fourth factors concern
the geography of the site: it is located in a relatively › safe ‹ part of the country in the
southwest, rather than in proximity to the still-restive Dersim region; and finally,
it is practically much more accessible to members of the ocak, now living in large
numbers in Istanbul, than the relatively distant Erzincan homeland.
Concluding Remarks
In sum, the case of the Derviş Cemal Ocak presents us with evidence that some
Alevis are finding ground for engagement with powerful, semi-official narratives
surrounding religious and cultural identity in Turkey today. The ocak still rejects
and subverts the Sunni interpretation of Islam and, in that sense, defines itself ac-
cording to the age-old juxtaposition of the › Sunni other ‹. It is also, however, per-
haps expedient to emphasize those aspects of its corporate identity that offer it the
potential for engagement with that › other ‹. Accordingly, its actions challenge the
popular stereotype of rebellion associated with the Dersim Alevis. For the Derviş
Cemal Ocak, it is largely its dede heritage that is making this possible, giving it re-
course to negotiate proximity to Çağaptay’s › inner zone of Turkishness ‹ by stress-
ing its Turkish cultural identity and Islamic religious affiliation. The prospects for
Alevis of Kurdish or Zaza ethnicity, who are also of follower lineage, to approach
similarly central ground, seem relatively bleak. Excluded from the so-called › holy
trinity of Sunni-Muslim-Turk ‹ (Kaya 2010), it seems likely that they will continue
to seek Alevilik’s official recognition from a relatively peripheral place in Turk-
ish society. Whether or not either approach will prove fruitful remains to be seen.
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The Institutional History
of Family Planning in Turkey
Belin Benezra
This paper examines the development of family planning in Turkey between the
establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and the 2000s. The aim is to show
how the concept of family planning and its institutional framework have changed
over the years. It is crucial to look at why family planning is used in a particular
context and period, the aim behind the policy, and what purpose it really serves.
Analyzing the different names that are given to this concept is a way to reflect on
the ideological discourse.
It will be argued that family planning has been shaped by different discursive
aims and different state policies in Republican Turkey. Historically, it has been
employed as a tool in pro-natalist population policy and anti-natalist population
planning. Moreover, from time to time, the changes in the formulation of this con-
cept have been attempts to adapt to changes in the international context, partic-
ularly in the transformation of population policies. In this sense, the transforma-
tion of family planning should be thought of within an international context and
the changes in conjecture.
The present work examines the establishment of family planning programs
and the transformation of this concept. In order to reflect on this change, the in-
stitutional and historical backgrounds will be particularly considered. State poli-
cies will be at the center of the present study due to its decisive role in shaping the
concept of family planning in the Turkish context. This study makes use of histor-
ical data on the institutional and discursive changes in family planning concept,
and also utilizes semi-structured interviews. Other sources related to legislation
which cover instructions, regulations, laws, especially from 1965 to 1983 in which
all the institutionalized process of the family planning took place, have also been
consulted. In addition to this, I worked with the strategic plans of the Ministry of
Health (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Sağlık Bakanlığı). I also focused on all of the five-year

DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-04916-4_5, © The Author(s) 2014
42 Belin Benezra
development plans since 1963. Moreover, the conferences, seminars and their re-
ports gathered in those years served as primary sources.
Unlike a number of industrialized countries, such as United States and the
UK, a popular demand for access to contraceptives never occurred in Turkey as
a movement within the broader context of women’s liberation. The tendency to-
wards contraceptives in Turkey was always state imposed, not in the form of a bot-
tom-up movement as could be observed in United States and the UK. The institu-
tional history of family planning, and its connotations within the state ideological
discourse, has never been a major area of research in the social sciences in Turkey.
The issue has been researched and documented only in medical studies by medical
specialists, not by social scientists. Therefore, the former’s focus has always been
on the medical aspects including the technique, usage, quality and accessibility of
family planning services, without any reference to the ideological-discursive basis
of family planning as a concept. The social science literature in Turkey, as a result,
lacks studies on family planning which employ the historical-holistic perspective.
The present study is an attempt to fill this gap in the literature. Because of the de-
cisive change in the state policy of family planning – from pro-natalist to anti-na-
talist – the historical periodization has been divided into two parts: pre-1960s and
the post-1960s.
Before discussing family planning in Turkey in its historical context, it is nec-
essary to define the concept of family planning. Family planning is defined as,
» […] policies that allow individuals and couples to anticipate and attain their de-
sired number of children and the spacing and timing of their births. It is achieved
through use of contraceptive methods and the treatment of involuntary infertil-
ity, « (WHO, 2012). At a 1968 UN conference, it was accepted that » parents have a
basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spac-
ing of their children « (Connelly 2008: 238). Also, at an international conference
on population in 1984 in Mexico City, this approach was reaffirmed by a unani-
mous vote by the countries at this conference.
In the 1960s, the developmentalist perspective and Neo-Malthusian approach
were dominant in policy-making. To the developmentalist approach, demographic
concerns such as uncontrolled population growth, urbanization, and immigration
were added during the 1970s. By the 1980s, the health concern (for whole body)
moved to the center of family planning initiatives. In the 1990s, the rise of human
rights discourse on the global scale caused reproductive health to gain further im-
portance. Family planning began to be conceived as a part of reproductive health.
In neither of these periods were feminist sensitivities and gender specific consid-
erations granted their due importance. During the first decade of the 2000s, the
emphasis on family planning declined in the state discourse. This was a result of
the transformation in the health system initiated by the AKP regime, character-
The Institutional History of Family Planning in Turkey 43
ized by a neoliberal attitude to health services, in accordance with the world-wide

economic trends.
It is necessary to mention that the agenda of The Progressivist Women’s As-
sociation (İlerici Kadınlar Derneği) in 1975 is an exception which gave voice to
women’s demand and support for abortion. However, their political agenda was
never put into action for fear of challenging the core values of society (Kılıç 1998:
351 – 353). Compared to the United States and the UK, a sustained feminist move-
ment concerning family planning and right to abortion has not occurred in Turkey.
Pro-Natalist Policy, 1923 – 1960
After the establishment of the Turkish Republic, until the 1960s, pro-natalist pol-
icy was the dominant approach in population policies. The aim of the pro-natalist
policy was to replenish the losses sustained during the Turco-Italian War (Trablus-
garp Savaşı 1911 – 1912), the Balkan War, the First World War, and the War of Inde-
pendence. In these fifteen years, there were millions of deaths in the country. Ill-
nesses such as typhus, malaria, and smallpox also accounted for a high death rate
(Akın & Sevencan 2006: 1 – 14). There was a need for a new generation of citizens
loyal to the Turkish state, manpower for the economy, and soldiers for the army.
The aim was to develop the country in the shortest time possible to catch up with
the industrialized countries. The Turkish Republic wanted to compensate the pop-
ulation loss by promoting reproduction among families.
Within this framework, pro-natalist policy was seen as sine qua non in the
state’s reproduction politics. For this purpose, the import of contraceptives was
prohibited, abortion was made illegal, as was promoting contraceptive methods,
providing informational materials and educating people. Large families were pro-
moted, to the extent that financial incentives were provided.
The Turkish population policy after 1930 was modeled after the Italian pro-
natalist population policy. Similar to Italy, Turkey tried to actively promote pro-
natalist policies through political speeches, newspaper articles, and translations
of the related Western literature such as articles into Turkish. The promotion of
pro-natalist policies was a strict and well-planned state program (Güriz 1975: 51).
The laws that were enacted by the government and policy makers in Turkey
require examination. In the Turkish Criminal Law passed in 1925, abortion was
a punishable crime, except when the life of the pregnant woman was in danger
(Tezcan et al. 1980). The Penal Code of 1926, which was adapted from the Italian
code, made abortion illegal. Induced abortion remained a crime. The minimum
age of marriage was 18 for men and 17 for women (Özbay, manuscript to be pub-
lished in 2012; Güriz 1975: 143; Özberk 2006). The legal marriage age was reduced
44 Belin Benezra
to encourage birth. According to Akın (2007), » the Laws on Local Administra-

tion and on Municipalities, passed in 1929 and 1930, respectively, imposed several
obligations on local administrations to implement the population increase policy
by improving public health, establishing free maternity hospitals, and distributing
medicines to the poor for free or at low cost «.
In addition, the 1930 Law on General Hygiene (Umumi Hıfzıssıhha Kanunu)
was the most obvious legislation in relation to the pro-natalist position of the
Turkish government. As indicated, it mandated that the Ministry of Health en-
courage births by granting monetary awards or medals to women who had six or
more children. Moreover, it also prohibited the import, production and sale of
contraceptives (Özbay, manuscript to be published in 2012; Akın, 2007). In 1936,
the Turkish government increased the penalties for abortion and punished any ac-
tion that attempted to avoid birth. In addition, family planning education was for-
bidden. The Law of Public Health required that birthing services be free in state
hospitals. In 1938, the minimum age for marriage was further reduced to 17 for
men and 15 for women (Piyal 1994: 2). Also, it gave the priority for land distribu-
tion to families with many children. In 1944, the government gave public sector
employees modest child support payments. In 1949, the government provided in-
come tax reductions based on the number of children (Güriz 1975). In 1953, penal-
ties for abortion were again increased (Özbay, manuscript to be published in 2012;
Akın 2007; Güriz 1975). During the pro-natalist period, a number of laws granted
tax exemptions for parents (Güriz 1975).
As seen above, a number of legal changes were introduced to support the pro-
natalist policy in that period. Moreover, health policies were also used to support
the population policies in Turkey in that period. This imposition of this certain
ideology worked in two ways: by prohibiting contraceptives it sought to halt pop-
ulation loss, and it instead incentivized families to produce as many babies as pos-
sible. Women did not have ownership or autonomy over this aspect of their lives.
According to Karaca Bozkurt (2011: 68), the voices and opinions of women directly
impacted by these laws were not solicited. In particular, women and their needs
were ignored. The responsibility of the reproductive rights of women did not be-
long to women – the decision to have a child was a part of state laws and pro-na-
talist policies. The government held sway over women’s bodies and women’s deci-
sions about reproduction. However, this period should not be judged by today’s
cultural and ethical standards. Turkish politics during that time were generally in-
sensitive to gender issues at all levels of decision-making and state policy.
During the Second World War, pro-natalist policy was useless because of the
socio-economic climate the war caused. However, from 1945 to 1960, there was a
significant demographic change. After 1945 nearly all developing countries experi-
enced population booms. The largest factor in this was not high fertility rates, but
a decline in fatality rates. Improved health conditions, living conditions, good nu-
trition, developed health services, and better housing helped increase life expec-
tancy, while the average age of death rose (Sönmez 1980: 2).
This, in turn, created the problem of controlling over-growing population rates
especially in developing countries. According to Karaca Bozkurt (2011), the Neo-
Malthusian population approach (see endnote 1) that was formed by reshaping the
Malthusian population approach argues that rapid population growth is a barrier
to development. This approach was used for controlling rapid population growth
rates of developing countries, especially after the Second World War. The Turk-
ish population policy was also affected by that trend, responding to the need for
a shift from pro-natalist to anti-natalist policy for development considerations.
The increased cost of rearing children, the decreased benefits of having many
children, and the lack of adequate family planning services led to an increased
number of abortions in the late 1950s. Abortion became a crucial medical and so-
cial problem in Turkey (Tezcan et al. 1980).
Following the global trend in population planning programs triggered by the
population boom, together with the negative results of abortions, the state was
prompted to change its population policy. This process extended into the mid-
1960s. In 1952, the Maternal and Child Health Organization, within the Ministry
of Health and Social Assistance (MHSA), was established.
The need to obtain permission for contraceptives came under scrutiny. A key
figure in this was Dr. Zekai Tahir Burak, a gynecologist from Ankara. According
to him, although abortion was prohibited by law, many women attempted to abort
by themselves, or with the help of other people in unhealthy conditions. Thus, this
led to a high rate of maternal deaths. He recommended the legalization of abor-
tion (Akın 2007). On the basis of his recommendation, the Ministry of Health
charged a commission to investigate these claims (Güriz 1975: 88). The findings
showed that, despite its illegality, many doctors were taking bribes to perform
abortions, and that many women needed to be hospitalized for the consequences
of unsafe abortions. In addition, there was a high rate of mortality amongst these
women. The findings substantiated Dr. Zekai Tahir Burak’s claims. The commis-
sion recommended a change in law to legalize abortion, and that certain provi-
sions should be made to allow access to contraceptive (Özberk 2006; Akın 2007).
Overall, the pre-1965 official policy was characterized by a pro-natalist policy.
The period witnessed important legal changes together with some government in-
centives for larger family, as described above.
46 Belin Benezra
From Pro-Natalist Policy to Anti-Natalist Policy in Turkey
Upon the advice of the commission the Ministry of Health, the State Planning Or-
ganization decided to focus on changing the population pro-natalist policy to an
anti-natalist one. In November 1960, the State Planning Organization decided to
add family planning to the First Five-Year Development Plan. Although the new
population policy was stated in the First Five-Year Development Plan, the Popu-
lation Planning Law had to wait until 1965. According to the First Five-Year De-
velopment Program aimed for 1963 – 67 (published in July 1962, during the ninth
İnönü government), the following recommendations were made:
a) Abolition of the law prohibiting the spread of information and materials re-
lated to contraceptives. Legalization of the import and sale of contraceptives.
b) Personnel employed in health services (doctors, nurses, midwifes, health offi-
cers, nurse assistants) will be trained in population planning. Courses on pop-
ulation planning will be added to curricula.
c) Health service personnel will be responsible for providing population planning
education and materials free of charge.
d) Population planning education will be provided in the context of existing op-
portunities.
e) Contraceptives and pills will be provided at low prices and distributed to the
poor free of charge (Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı 1963: 73).
The First Five-Year Development Program and policy change in the 1960s aimed
to achieve economic growth goals with the help of a developmentalist approach.
In 1961, according to Akın, when the preparations for the new population plan-
ning law began, there was close collaboration between the Ministry of Health and
NGOs (Akın 2010). In 1963, the Family Planning Association was established by
the government with 20 branches. It helped to develop educational curriculum
and operated several clinics after the enactment of the Law on Population Plan-
ning in 1965. Moreover, the Population Council, United Nations Population Fund,
the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) played important roles in
promoting population and family planning programs in developing countries in
the 1960s (Hartmann 1995; Özberk 2006).
After these preparatory steps, the Turkish government developed a new law
to provide the legal framework for a nationwide family planning program. The
turning point from pro-natalist to anti-natalist policies was the enactment of the
Law on Population Planning in 1965 (Nüfus Planlaması Hakkında Kanun, no.557,
1 April 1965), first known as the Population Planning Directory (Nüfus Planlaması
Genel Müdürlüğü), in 1965 under the Ministry of Health. The overwhelming influ-
ence of state policy indicates that family planning was not a grassroots movement.
Rather, as with many other political and social issues in Turkey, such as women’s
suffrage, birth control and family planning policies, it was a top-down campaign.
The legislative process has not been an answer to a demand from below. Instead, it
has been a part of state population policy and integration with the international
and historical contexts.
In addition to this, no feminist movement contributed during this initial phase
of family planning and legalization of contraceptive methods. This process has
been determined by the state and the changes in the international context, such
as some worldwide agreements. The presence of a coordinated feminist move-
ment pushing for these reforms was not apparent in Turkey, as it was in the US
or UK. While in most Western countries the demand for birth control has been
framed as a right to personal freedoms, in Turkey the arguments have been based
on the danger of maternal death, and the population issue, as defined by leading
doctors, demographists, and government bureaucrats. Historically, it has been the
state – within which women have been under-represented – that has been the ar-
biter of reproductive rights.
According to the Population Planning Law (Nüfus Planlama Kanunu) the term
» Family Planning « meant: the right of each individual to have the number of chil-
dren he desires and to procreate at the time of his choice. This right may be exer-
cised solely by the use of contraceptive methods. Except in cases where medical
intervention is essential, the interruption of pregnancy shall be prohibited, steril-
ization and castration are being likewise prohibited (The Law on Population Plan-
ning » Nüfus Planlaması Hakkında Kanun «, no. 557, Resmî Gazete, 1 April 1965).
Law no. 557 of 1965, guaranteed the right to have the desired number of chil-
dren, the importation of birth control methods, support for health education of
couples, and the supply of free birth control services in public health organiza-
tions (Güngördü 2003; HUIPS 2004, as citied in Döngel 2006: 11).With the help
of the Population Planning Law, women gained the right of protection against un-
wanted pregnancies. However, women who became pregnant against their wishes
did not have a chance to undergo abortion by their own accord. Because of this,
in effect, women did not have control of their own bodies. In this way, women’s
rights were, actually, not fully protected by state law.
Population and annual growth rates show the slowness and partial ineffective-
ness of the early phase of the population planning program.
After the enactment of the law, there was a small increase in population
growth, despite expectations to the contrary. At the same time, developmental
plans gained importance in state policies. The state’s anti-natalist policy was aimed
at attaining a certain degree of development, as laid out in the Five-Year Devel-
48 Belin Benezra
Table 1 Population in Turkey Table 2 Annual Growth Rate of Population in Turkey
Year Population Period Annual population growth rate (‰)
1960 27 755 000 1955 – 1960 28.5

1965 31 392 000 1960 – 1965 24.6
1970 35 605 000 1965 – 1970 25.2
(TUİK, Population, annual growth (TUİK, Estimations of population growth rate, 1927 – 1985;
rate of population and mid-year Piyal 1994: 4)
population estimate, 1927 – 2000;
Piyal, 1994: 4)
opment Plans. The state codified laws, promoted the use of contraceptives and
pushed education reform in an attempt to help modernize Turkey.
It is important to stress the consequences of the developmentalist perspec-
tive and its impact in order to explain population policy in Turkey within a larger
international context. According to Akın (2007: 1), in the 1960s, primarily de-
veloped countries had discussed the negative effects of uncontrolled population
growth on economic and social development. The developmentalist approach,
which was dominant in the 1960s, continued to have influence during the 1970s.
The 1970s were characterized by the rise of the demographic approach in social
policy (Akın 2010: 1). However, because of the continuation of the practice of
self-induced abortion (despite its prohibition), and its negative consequences on
women’s health due to the lack of appropriate facilities and resources, both policy
makers and researchers were compelled to reconsider the population policy that
focused on developmentalist approach.
An important point, that should be stressed, is the change in the terms used
in the Second Five-Year Development Plan (1968 – 1972). In this plan, contrary to
the first one, the term » family planning « was used instead of the term » popula-
tion planning. « In addition to this, the plan put an emphasis on the extension of
the family planning program. Furthermore, there were several goals in the Second
Five-Year Development Plan directed at the practice of family planning Turkey. It
was emphasized that regional mobile teams for villages should be created. Family
planning education became more important than before. One proposition was to
put emphasis on sexual health education. In order to achieve this goal, informa-
tion was disseminated through radio and newspaper. Moreover, family planning
education program was to be pursued in schools and in the military (Devlet Plan-
lama Teşkilatı 1966).
There was a decline in the annual growth rate of the population in the second
half of the 1970s. This was likely due to the beginning of the family planning pro-
Table 3 Annual Growth Rate of Population in Turkey
Period Annual population growth rate (‰)
1960 – 1965 24.6
1965 – 1970 25.2
1970 – 1975 25.0
1975 – 1980 20.7
(TUİK, Estimations of population growth rate, 1927 – 1985; Piyal 1994: 4)
gram. In addition to this, the UNFPA supported reproductive programs in Tur-

key by 1971, as well.
According to the Third Five-Year Development Plan (1973 – 1977), mother and
childcare services were not at the desired levels (Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı 1972).
The plan stated that the integration between health services and family planning
program would resolve this. Importantly, the integration between mother and
childcare and family planning issues was suggested. This was the first time that
mother and child health in the context of family planning was mentioned (Devlet
Planlama Teşkilatı 1972; Bulut 1979: 21). This change widened the scope for family
planning programs throughout the country.
The 1970s were marked by the demographic approach to the population/family
planning issue. The developmentalist approach continued to have influence dur-
ing the decade as well. The demographic approach to family and population plan-
ning was somewhat hindered by the heterogeneity between various parts of coun-
try (east – west, rural – urban). Another area of concern with the demographic
approach was the high fertility rate, despite the legalization of contraceptives.
The New Era for Family Planning

and the Neo-Liberal Transformation
In 1978 (6 – 12 September), the International Conference of Primary Health Care

met in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. At this conference, the need for » health for all «
was expressed for the first time. The focus was on the need for better and more
accessible primary health care, including family planning. Moreover, it also fo-
cused on providing promotive, preventive, curative, and rehabilitative services.
This call to action was enshrined in the publication of the Declaration of Alma-
Ata (Declaration of Alma-Ata 1978). At the end of the 1970s and the beginning of
50 Belin Benezra
the 1980s, the concern was high maternal mortality rates. Two solutions were sug-
gested: preventing the traditional contraceptive methods usage, and reducing the
unsafe abortions.
Preventing the traditional contraceptive usage, and revaluating the modern
contraceptive usage, had a significant impact on reducing maternal mortality rate.
Research has shown that the prevalence of modern methods of contraception and
the maternal mortality ratio has a negative correlation. When the use of modern
contraceptive methods prevails, maternal mortality rate declines. As a result of
those two major problems mentioned above, the modification of the First Popula-
tion Planning Law (1965) was seen as necessary. With the collaboration between
the Ministry of Health, NGOs and universities, all advocacy activities and the sci-
entific evidence from research helped prepare the enactment of the new law. The
new law was completed by the General Directorate of Mother and Child Health –
Family Planning, in light of these efforts and findings, and the bill was submitted
to the Parliament for consideration (Akın 2010). On 24 May 1983, the new (sec-
ond) Population Planning Law (no. 2827) was passed: authorizing trained non-
physicians to insert intrauterine devices (IUD), legalizing abortion up to 10 weeks
on request, allowing trained general practitioners to terminate pregnancies, legal-
izing surgical sterilization for men and women on request, and establishing inter-
sectoral collaboration to provide family planning services throughout the coun-
try (see Akın 2007: 87).
The Fourth Five-Year Development Plan (1979 – 1983) was published in 1979 by
the State Planning Organization. Mother and child health and the family planning
issue were examined under the headings of » Health « and » Tools for Economic Ob-
jectives « (Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı 1979: 463). With the 1982 constitution, the in-
stitution’s name, was the Population Planning Directory, was transformed into the
General Directorate of Mother and Child Health and Family Planning (Ana Çocuk
Sağlığı ve Aile Planlaması Genel Müdürlüğü). Slowly, the » population perspective «
gradually lost its value, but » mother and child « welfare became increasingly im-
portant at the policy level. A shift in emphasis and discourse was taking place.
Although reproduction is directly linked with sexuality, this connection was
nearly always ignored and left untouched in the Turkish context of family plan-
ning. Foucault (2003) claims that sexuality can be discussed in several areas. One
is medical discourse, as a health issue. Science became a very powerful tool with
which to discuss sexuality. As seen, Turkey was not ready to examine sexuality, or
the sexual freedom of the individual, especially that of women. Thus, family plan-
ning, which is necessarily inextricably linked with sex and sexuality, was discussed
within a health discourse. The focus was on maternal health and its consequences
for the whole of society, which was still a population issue. Turkey and » Turkish
feminists « did not discuss sexuality within this framework in the 1980s. Neither
» the language « nor sexuality was a subject of concern. Reconceptualization came

to Turkey relatively late (as seen in the recent abortion debate of 2012). Discus-
sions of employment and visibility in the public sphere were acceptable topics of
public discussion, but in the 1980s sexuality remained taboo. Western, progressive
attitudes concerning women’s health and reproduction began to influence Tur-
key’s policies. The Turkish state followed and adopted international approaches
towards women’s health and family planning. Quality of life became valued above
purely demographic concerns.
In the 1990s, the World Bank’s focus on the demographic perspective began
to change, and it reacted to countries which targeted demographic goals and de-
veloped incentives or punishment methods to achieve these demographic goals
(Hartmann 1995). It would be inaccurate to suggest that the health approach of the
1980s was totally discarded in the 1990s. However, family planning started to be
conceived of in terms of human rights and health. According to Hardon (1997: 4),
during the 1980s and early 1990s, the rationale behind population programs was
criticized by the international women’s health movement. They challenged the
aim that focused on reducing fertility in developing countries, » They took issue
with the belief that limiting family size is a societal responsibility that takes pre-
cedence over individual well-being and individual rights « (Hardon 1997: 4). Their
goal was to empower women to control their own fertility and sexuality, while
minimizing health problems. The movement criticized the aim to deliver contra-
ceptives primarily to married women as a tool to reduce fertility. They articulated
that this type of action was a way of manipulation, and this manipulation pre-
vented free choice, which is embedded in the reproductive rights declarations. In
addition to this, they put an emphasis on the issue of male responsibility on fam-
ily planning and the needs of adolescents (see Hardon 1997: 4).
These demands later were effective in the preparatory period of the UN Inter-
national Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) (1994) and its de-
cisions. It was the largest intergovernmental conference on population and de-
velopment ever held. The ICPD differed from the other conferences in terms of
its approach to the population issue. In this conference, the traditional popula-
tion approach was eschewed in favor of a » humanist « approach. In addition, this
conference gave priority to the individual’s reproductive rights and reproductive
health, and emphasized gender equality in this process. After the conference, the
Program of Action, which will be fully enacted by 2015, was produced and ratified
by Turkey (Karaca Bozkurt 2011).
According to the conference resolutions, reproductive health included fam-
ily planning and contraceptive methods. According to Özbay (1994), reproductive
health is related to the social and economic environment, and the status of indi-
viduals within their environment. The availability of medical services is just one of
Another random document with
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and entire under parts pure white; and in its less sharply forked tail
and shorter wings. On the wing it is not so perfectly free as the
swallow: it cannot double so quickly, nor fly with such speed and
grace.
The martin cannot be called a songster. His most common
expression is a somewhat harsh note, often uttered as he sports
with his fellows in the air; in the pairing and nesting time he
occasionally attempts to sing, usually when clinging to a wall and to
the rim of his nest, and emits a slight warbling sound, somewhat
guttural, and so low that it can only be heard at a distance of a few
yards.
He arrives in this country a little after the swallow, and
immediately sets about making a new nest or repairing an old one.
This is formed outwardly of mud or clay, and is placed under the
eaves of a house, against the wall. He is able to build against a
smooth brick or stucco wall, but prefers stone, which has a rougher
surface. It is usual to find several nests near together, and the
reason is, probably, that the surface of the wall is suitable to build
on, and not, as is often stated, because the martins prefer to nest
close to each other. The outer shell of the nest, like that of the
swallow, is formed of mud or clay, mixed with hairs and fibres to
strengthen it, and is placed against the wall at the side and the
projecting eaves above, and forms a half or a portion of a
hemisphere, a small opening being left at the top for entrance. The
lining is composed of feathers and a little dry grass. Four or five pure
white, unspotted eggs are laid. Two broods, and often three, are
reared in the season.
For some days after the young are able to fly the whole family
roost at night in the nest. The young of the first brood, as in the
case of the swallow, are the first to migrate. The old birds and the
young of the later broods take their departure about the middle of
October.
Sand-Martin.
Cotile riparia.
Upper parts, cheeks, and a broad bar on the breast mouse-

colour; throat, fore part of the neck, belly, and under tail-coverts
white. Legs and feet naked, with the exception of a few small
feathers near the insertion of the hind toe; tail forked, rather short.
Length, five inches.
The sand-martin, although common enough in some localities,

and found throughout the British Islands, including the Outer
Hebrides and the Orkneys, is not a very well-known bird; for,
however populous the country may be, and though other hirundines
become increasingly domestic and breed under eaves, in porches,
barns, and chimneys, he always preserves his original wild character.
He is a swallow that is a stranger to man, and breeds in holes and
crevices in precipitous cliffs on the sea-coast. But he prefers to
excavate a breeding-hole in a perpendicular bank of clay not too stiff
for his weak mining implements. Earth-cliffs on the banks of rivers
and lakes and on the sea, are resorted to for this purpose, and he
also takes advantage of the steep sides of railway-cuttings and sand
and gravel pits. A suitable bank or cliff will often attract a large
number of sand-martins, and the surface will appear riddled with
their holes. It has always caused surprise in those who have
observed this bird that it should be able with its small, weak bill to
form such deep tunnels in the hard earth. The hole once made is,
however, often used by the same birds for several years. They do
not work by digging into the earth with their bills as a man digs with
a knife or other implement. They perch against the surface and pick
out small particles, and by means of this slow, laborious process
accomplish their great work. The hole slants upwards, and is from
three to four feet in length and two or three inches in diameter. At
its extremity the gallery is widened to form a chamber about six
inches in diameter, where the bed is made of dry grass, with a few
feathers for lining. Male and female take turns in boring, working
only in the morning, the rest of the daylight hours being spent in
feeding and play. It sometimes happens that in boring their hole a
sunken boulder or vein of impenetrable earth is met with; the hole is
then abandoned and a new one begun in another place. By the end
of May the eggs are laid. These are four to six in number, and are
pure white.
When hovering before their holes, and passing to and fro with
wavering flight along the face of the bank, the sand-martins have a
curious moth-like appearance. While flying about in company they
constantly utter a low monotonous note; and this sound is prolonged
to a scream when the birds are excited by the presence of some
enemy. The male has, besides, a twittering song, uttered on the
wing while hovering before the nesting-hole.
Two broods are reared, and as soon as breeding is over the birds
forsake the bank and scatter about the country, and may then be
seen associating with house-martins and swallows.
The sand-martin is the earliest of the swallows to arrive in this
country, and the first to depart; it is rare to meet with them after the
middle of September.
Tree-Creeper.
Certhia familiaris.
Upper parts mottled with yellowish brown, dark brown, and

white; a pale streak over the eye; throat and breast buff-white,
becoming dusky on the belly; wings brown, tipped with white, and
barred with white, brown, and dull yellow; tail-feathers reddish
brown, stiff, and pointed. Length, five inches.
Fig. 46.—Tree-creeper. ⅓ natural size.
The little creeper appears to move more in a groove than almost
any other passerine bird, and is the most monotonous in its life; yet
it never fails to interest, doubtless because in its appearance and
actions it differs so much from other species. A small bird—one of
the very smallest—with striped and mottled brown upper, and silvery
white under, plumage; long and slim in figure, with a slender curved
bill and stiff, pointed tail-feathers, it spends its life on the boles and
branches of trees, exploring the rough bark with microscopic sight
for the minute insects and their eggs and larvæ it subsists on,
moving invariably upwards in a spiral from the roots to the branches
by a series of rapid jerks; its appearance as it travels over the
surface, against which it presses so closely, is that of a mammal
rather than a bird—a small mottled brown mouse with an elongated
body. It is more of a parasite on the trees that furnish it with food
than any other bird of similar habits. Nuthatches and woodpeckers
are not so dependent on their trade; their habits and diet vary to
some extent with the seasons and the conditions they exist in. The
creeper is a creeper on trees all the year round, and extracts all his
sustenance from the bark. His procedure is always the same: no
sooner has he got to the higher and smoother part of the hole up
which he has travelled than he detaches himself from it, and drops
slantingly through the air to the roots of another tree, to begin as
before. The action is always accompanied with a little querulous
note, which falls like an exclamation, and seems to express disgust
at the miserable harvest he has gathered, or else satisfaction that
yet another tree in the long weary tale of trees has been examined
and left behind. The fanciful idea is formed that the creeper has not
found happiness in his way of life: it is so laborious a way; he must
live so close to the dull-hued and always shaded bark, and examine
it so narrowly! The contrast of such a method with that of other
small birds—warblers and wagtails, and swallows and finches—is
very great. Feeding-time with them is song-time and play-time; their
blithe voices and lively antics and motions show how happy they are
in their lives. The creeper is a rather silent bird, but he utters in the
pairing season a shrill, high-pitched call-note, and the same sound is
emitted when the nest is in danger. The song, which is occasionally
heard in spring, is composed of three or four shrill notes resembling
the call-notes in sound.
The nest is a neat and pretty structure, and is often placed
against the trunk of a tree, behind a piece of bark that has become
partly detached. A hole in the trunk, or in a large branch, or in a
cavity where a portion of the wood has rotted away, is often selected
as a site. When the nest is made behind a piece of loose bark, the
cavity is filled up with a quantity of fine twigs. Inside, the nest is
formed of roots, moss, and sometimes feathers, and lined with fine
strips of inside bark. Six to nine eggs are laid, pure white, with red
spots. Two broods are reared in a season.
Goldfinch.
Carduelis elegans.
Back of the head, nape, and feathers round the base of the bill
black; forehead and throat blood-red; cheeks, fore part of the neck,
and under parts white; back and scapulars dark brown; wings
variegated with black, white and yellow; tail black, tipped with white.
Length, five inches.
We are rich in finches. No fewer than eighteen members of that

family, including the snow-bunting, may be truly described as British.
Among our passerine birds they excel in beauty of plumage, and by
most persons the goldfinch, in his pretty coat of many colours—
crimson, black, and white, and brown, and brilliant yellow—is
regarded as the most beautiful of all. Certainly he is the most
elegant in shape, the most graceful and engaging in his motions. It
is charming to watch a small flock of these finches in the late
summer, busy feeding on the roadside, or on some patch of waste
land where the seeds, they best love are abundant, when they are
seen clinging in various attitudes to the stalks, deftly picking off the
thistle seed, and scattering the silvery down on the air. They are
then pretty birds prettily occupied; and as they pass with easy,
undulating flight from weed to weed, with musical call-notes and
lively twitterings, bird following bird, they appear as gay and volatile
as they are pretty.
They are found in suitable localities throughout England, and also
inhabit Scotland and Ireland, but their distribution in the last two
countries is much more local. During late summer and autumn they
lead a gipsy life, incessantly wandering about the open country in
search of their favourite seeds. They are also seen in winter, but few
remain with us throughout the year, the majority passing over the
Channel, to winter in a warmer climate. On their return in spring
they come to the neighbourhood of houses, and build by preference
in an apple or cherry tree in an orchard. The nest is well made, and
composed of a great variety of materials—fine twigs, roots, grass,
leaves, moss, and wool—and lined with hairs, feathers, and
vegetable down. The four or five eggs are white, thinly spotted with
reddish brown and pale purple.
PLATE V. GOLDFINCH. ⅔ nat. size.
As a vocalist the goldfinch does not rank high; but his lively,
twittering song, uttered both on the perch and when passing
through the air, and his musical call-notes, have a very pleasing
effect, especially when the birds are seen in the open country in
bright, sunny weather. Unhappily, it is not now very easy to see
them, except in a few favoured localities, owing to their increasing
rarity. For the goldfinch is a favourite cage-bird, and so long as bird-
catching is permitted to flourish without restriction, this charming
species will continue to decrease, as it has been decreasing for the
last fifty years and upwards.
Siskin.
Chrysometris spinus.
Crown black; a broad yellow streak behind the eye; the plumage
variegated with grey, dusky, and various shades of green; wings
dusky, with a transverse greenish yellow bar, and a black one above,
and a second black bar across the middle of the tertiaries; tail dusky,
the base and edge of the inner web greenish yellow. Female: colours
less bright, and no black on the head. Length, four and a half
inches.
The siskin, or aberdevine, as it is also called, is known to us as a

winter visitant, but it is better known as a cage than a free bird. In
the British Islands it breeds in various places in Scotland, in pine and
fir woods; it has also been found breeding in various localities in
England and Wales. In Ireland it is not so common as in England.
The siskin is a pretty, active, musical little bird, somewhat tit-like in
its manner of seeking its food, its sociability, and the various
positions it assumes in its search for small insects and seeds in the
higher branches of a tree, or when clinging to the terminal twigs. As
a caged bird his song is a small musical twittering; but in a wild
state, in the pairing season, the male has a more charming
performance, for he then soars about the tree, and, with fluttering
wings and outspread tail, floats down singing to his perch.
The nest is built in a pine or fir tree at a considerable height from
the ground, and so hidden as to make it very hard to find. There is a
legend in some districts on the continent of Europe that the siskin
places a small stone among its eggs, which renders the nest
invisible. This legend reminds me of a belief of the peasants of
southern South America, that the rail-like, spotted tinamou—a bird
that easily eludes one’s sight among the grey and yellow herbage—
has the faculty of making itself invisible. The primitive mind is much
given to explanations of this kind.
The nest, placed as a rule in the fork of a horizontal branch, is
composed of rootlets and moss, on a foundation of bents and twigs
of heather, and is lined with fine dry grass and a little vegetable
down, sometimes with a few feathers. Five or six eggs are laid, pale
bluish green in ground-colour, and spotted with dark reddish brown
and pinkish grey under-markings.
In autumn siskins unite in small flocks and migrate southward;
and during winter they are found widely distributed over the country,
but are most numerous in the northern counties of England. At this
season they may be seen associating on trees and bushes with
goldcrests, redpolls, and titmice of different species.
Closely allied to the siskin and goldfinch, and in its colouring

intermediate between them, but differing in having the crown, nape,
and chin black, is the serin (Serinus hortulanus). It breeds in North
and Central Europe, and is only known in this country as a rare
straggler.
Greenfinch.
Ligurinus chloris.
Yellowish green variegated with yellow and ash-grey. Length, six

inches.
It has been a subject of mild wonder to me that the greenfinch is

not more a favourite than I find him; for he is almost more with us
than any other finch, and, in most cases, to know a bird well is to
like it. Few of our eighteen finches can be seen and heard close to
our houses. The brambling, siskin, redpoll, crossbill, and twite are
scattered about the country in the cold and songless season; in
summer we see little or nothing of them. The linnet is fairly
abundant, but must be looked for on waste lands and commons;
while the goldfinch, bullfinch, hawfinch, and tree-sparrow are either
so shy or so rare that, to most persons, they might be non-existent.
Three of our five buntings are common enough; but these, too, are
birds of the open, that come little about houses, and are without the
qualities that go to make a favourite. Of finches of the homestead
that possess beauty and melody there are only two—the chaffinch
and the greenfinch; and it is the fact that most people have a great
esteem for the first, and pay but very slight attention to the second.
The greenfinch is not formed on the graceful lines of the goldfinch
and some other members of the family; he is made more after the
pattern of the hawfinch, and is somewhat heavy in appearance.
Regarding his colouring only, he is a prettier bird than his neighbour,
the chaffinch, his plumage showing two colours that contrast
beautifully—olive-green and brilliant yellow. It is not often that we
can see him in the proper light and position. He is strangely fond of
concealing himself in the green foliage, which makes him in his
green dress invisible. Seen in the shade or against a bright light, his
colour appears dull and indeterminate; but against a background of
green leaves, with the sunlight on him, he is certainly beautiful.
The greenfinches are very sociable in disposition, and all the
summer long, even when they are engaged in breeding, they may
be seen in parties of three, or four, or half a dozen; two or three
nests are often found on the same branch, or in close proximity. The
passions of jealousy and anger, so common among birds in the
pairing season, seem not to exist in this species. As a songster he
cannot compare with the linnet, the chaffinch, and the goldfinch, but
he probably produces more pleasant sound than any other finch,
unless we include the chirruping of the sparrow. He is attached to
gardens and shrubberies, to groves and hedges, and hedgerow
trees, especially elms, and among the clustering leaves in which he
loves to hide he is constantly uttering his various notes, the
commonest of which is a low and long-drawn trill. Occasionally he
gives out another long, single note, with a very different sound, a
kind of soft-toned, inflected scream, used sometimes as a call-note
and sometimes to express alarm; and this he will often repeat again
and again at short intervals. When uttering his trill, which is his
favourite expression, among the leaves, bird answering bird with
trills that vary in tone, he gives out from time to time another sound,
a series of warbled notes, soft and melodious in character.
Occasionally, in the pairing season, the male bird flies up out of the
cloud of foliage and emits these warbling notes as he circles round,
and descends into the midst of the leaves again. The charm of this
perpetual summer music of the greenfinches is its airy, subdued
character, as of wind-touched leaves that flutter musically.
The nest is placed among the close branches of a bush or low
tree, and is somewhat loosely put together, straw, roots, and moss,
mixed with wool, being used, with a lining of fibres, horsehair, and
feathers. The eggs are four to six in number, and are white, faintly
spotted and speckled with purplish red at the large end. The young
are fed on seeds of various weeds and small caterpillars; and two,
and sometimes three, broods are reared in the season. At the end of
summer the greenfinches repair to the fields, and are seen in flocks
of two or three score to a hundred or more individuals, and are also
found associating with sparrows, chaffinches, and other species.
The greenfinch is a common bird throughout the British Islands.
Hawfinch.
Coccothraustes vulgaris.
Fig. 47.—Hawfinch. ⅓ natural size.
Lore, throat, and plumage at the base of the bill black; crown
and cheeks reddish brown; nape ash-grey; back dark reddish brown;
wings black; great coverts white; under parts light purplish red.
Length, seven inches.
The hawfinch has a somewhat curious history in this country. It

was always believed to be an accidental autumn and winter visitor
until, a little over half a century ago, the naturalist Doubleday, of
Epping, discovered that it was a resident all the year round, and not
a very rare species in that locality. Later it was found breeding in
other places, and it is now known to inhabit all the Home Counties
and various other parts of England. At present the belief is general
that the bird is increasing in numbers and extending its range. This
would seem the most natural explanation of the fact that the bird is
often seen now in places where it was not seen formerly; but it must
be taken into consideration that nobody looked to find the hawfinch
when it was not known to be a British species, and that now many
sharp eyes watch for it. As it is, we are seldom rewarded by a sight
of it, even in localities where it is known to exist, in spite of its
conspicuous colouring and the somewhat singular appearance given
to it by its large head and massive, conical beak. Its excessive
wariness prevents it from being seen even when it is not rare. No
other small bird is so shy with us, so vigilant, and quick to make its
escape at the slightest appearance of danger. When not feeding it
passes the time in woods, plantations, and copses, at a spot where
the trees grow thickest and the foliage is most dense. Its love of
concealing itself in the deepest shade is like that of a nocturnal
species. When away from its obscure place of refuge it is extremely
alert, perching in the tops of trees to survey the surrounding scene,
and from which to drop silently into any garden or orchard which
may be safely visited. Naturally, it has been assumed that this shy
and watchful habit has been brought about by persecution,
gardeners and fruit-growers being deadly enemies to hawfinches on
account of their depredations; but in the forests of North Africa, Mr.
Charles Dixon found the bird just as vigilant and quick to take alarm
as in England.
Hawfinches are rather silent birds: when flying from tree to tree
in small flocks they utter a call-note with a clicking sound, and in
spring the male sometimes emits a few low notes by way of song.
The nest is placed in a tree, or bush, or hedge, a thorn being the
tree most frequently chosen for a site. The nest is rather large and
well made, outwardly of twigs, dead stalks, and lichen, inside of dry
grass, and lined with rootlets and a little hair. The eggs are four to
six in number, pale olive or bluish green in ground-colour, spotted
with black, and irregularly streaked with dark olive. In some eggs
the ground-colour is buff. The young are fed on caterpillars, and only
one brood is reared. After leaving the nest the young birds live with
the parents, and sometimes several families unite into a flock; as
many as a hundred birds, or more, may be seen together.
In autumn and winter the hawfinches feed on seeds of various
kinds—hornbeam, beech, yew, and hawthorn. The kernels only of
the haws are eaten; and, in like manner, cherries and other fruits are
robbed for the sake of the kernel, the hard stones being split open
with the powerful beak.
House-Sparrow.
Passer domesticus.
Lores black; a narrow white streak over each eye; crown, nape,
and lower back ash-grey; region of the ear-coverts chestnut; back
chestnut-brown streaked with black; wings brown, with white bar on
the middle coverts; tail dull brown; throat and breast black; cheeks
and sides of neck white; belly dull white. Length, six inches. Female:
without the black on the throat, and upper parts striated dusky
brown.
More, far more, has been written about the sparrow than about
any other bird, but as it is not advisable here to enter into the
controversy on the subject of the injury he inflicts, or is believed by
many to inflict, on the farmer and gardener, a very brief account of
its habits will suffice. They are almost better known to most persons
than the habits of the domestic fowl, owing to the universality of this
little bird, to its excessive abundance in towns as well as in rural
districts, and to its attachment to human habitations. For his
excessive predominance there are several causes. He is exceedingly
hardy, and more adaptive than other species; his adaptiveness
makes it possible for him to exist and thrive in great smoky towns
like London. He is sagacious beyond most species, and although
living so constantly with or near to man, he never loses his
suspicious habit, and of all birds is the most difficult to be trapped.
He is very prolific: as soon as the weather becomes mild, at the end
of February or in March, he begins to breed, and brood after brood
is reared until September, or even till November if the weather
proves favourable. He also possesses an advantage in his habit of
breeding in holes in houses, where his eggs and young are much
safer than in trees and hedges. There is a curious diversity in his
nesting habits: he generally prefers a hole in a wall, or some safe,
convenient cavity, and will make vigorous war on and eject other
species, like the house-martin, from their nests and nesting-holes;
but when such receptacles are not sufficiently numerous, or it
appears safe to do so, he builds in trees, making a large,
conspicuous, oval, domed nest of straw, mixed with strings, rags,
and other materials, and thickly lined inside with feathers. Five to six
eggs are laid, of a pale bluish white ground-colour, spotted,
blotched, or suffused with grey and dusky brown. The young are fed
on caterpillars; and the adults also are partly insectivorous during
the summer months, but in the autumn and winter grain, seeds, and
buds are chiefly eaten.
Tree-Sparrow.
Passer montanus.
Crown and back of head chestnut-brown; lore, ear-coverts, and

throat black; neck almost surrounded by a white collar; upper parts
as in the last; wing with two transverse white bars. Length, five and
a half inches.
By a careless observer the tree-sparrow would, in most cases, be

taken for the house-sparrow, and not looked directly at. When we
know that there is a tree-sparrow, and meet with it, we notice the
chief points in which it differs from the common species—the
chestnut-coloured head, with black and white patches at the side,
and the double bar on the wing.
The tree-sparrow is locally distributed throughout England and
Scotland, but is nowhere abundant; in Wales and Ireland it is rare.
With us it is a shy bird, being found, as a rule, at a distance from
houses, in fields, on the borders of woods, in thickets growing
beside streams, and in fir plantations. In some districts on the
Continent it is far less shy of man, and lives in villages and towns,
where it associates with the common sparrow, and is said to be just
as tame. In many parts of Asia it is still more domestic. Edward Blyth
wrote of it: ‘In the great rice-exporting station of Akyab we have
seen this species so familiarly hopping about in the public streets
that it would only just move out of the way of the passers-by; and
we have also known it breeding so numerously in dwellinghouses as
to be quite a nuisance from its shrill, incessant chirping.’ This bird is
the common house-sparrow of China and Japan, the Philippines,
Burma, and more or less over the whole Malayan region.
In its habits it is more active and lively than its more domestic
relation, and is more at home on trees, and may be seen moving
about among the lesser branches and twigs with much freedom,
sometimes seeking its food there, after the manner of the siskin and
redpoll; but it feeds principally on the ground. It can scarcely be
called a song-bird, its most song-like sounds being composed of a
few chirruping notes uttered in the pairing season. Its voice, both in
its attempted singing and in its ordinary chirp and call-notes, is
much shriller than that of the common sparrow.
Like that species, it breeds both in holes and on trees. A hole in
the rotten wood of a pollard willow by the waterside is a favourite
site, and it also nests in holes under the eaves or thatch of a barn or
other outhouse, and in holes in ruins, old walls, and rocks. The nest
is made of dry grass, loosely put together, and lined with some soft
material—wool, or feathers, or hair. Four to six eggs are laid, bluish
white in ground-colour, the whole egg thickly mottled with brown of
different shades. Two, and even three, broods are reared in the
season.
In winter the tree-sparrows gather in small flocks, and are often
found associating with the common sparrow, chaffinch, brambling,
and other species. At this season they subsist principally on seeds of
weeds and grass, but in summer they are partly insectivorous.
Chaffinch.
Fringilla cœlebs.
Forehead black; crown and nape greyish blue; back and

scapulars chestnut tinged with green; rump green; breast chestnut-
red, fading into white on the belly; wings black, with two white
bands; coverts of the secondaries tipped with yellow; tail black, the
two middle feathers ash-grey, the two outer, on each side, black,
with a broad, oblique white band. Female: head, back, and scapulars
ash-brown tinged with olive; lower parts greyish white; the
transverse bands less distinct. Length, six inches.
The chaffinch is one of the most popular song-birds in Britain; it

is very much with us, being universal in its distribution in this
country, and a bird that attaches itself to the neighbourhood of
houses, an inhabitant of gardens and orchards, and a resident
throughout the year. He is a pretty bird, and, if not a brilliant
songster, is at all events a very vigorous one; his lively, ringing lyric,
being short and composed of notes invariably repeated in the same
order, is capable of being remembered longer and more vividly
reproduced in the mind than any other song. Sitting by the fireside
in January, you can mentally hear the song of the chaffinch; but the
brain is incapable of registering the more copious and varied bird-
music in the same perfect way—the music, for instance, of the
skylark and thrush and garden-warbler. It is not strange that, when
Browning wished to be back in England in April, he thought of the
spring song of the chaffinch, before that of any other species.
O to be in England
Now that April’s there;
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs of the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England now!
The chaffinch makes the most of his song. He appears, indeed,

very much in earnest in whatever he does, his character in this
respect offering a strong contrast to that of the goldfinch, siskin, and
various other melodists. They sing at all times, anywhere and
anyhow. With the chaffinch, singing is a business just as important
as any other—feeding, fighting, pairing, and building. He flies to a
tree, and deliberately takes his stand, often on the most
commanding twig, and there delivers his few notes with the utmost
energy, and so rapidly that they almost run into each other, ending
with a fine flourish. At regular intervals of a few seconds the
performance is repeated, the bird standing erect and motionless all
the time; until, having given the fullest and most complete
expression to his feelings, he flies away, to engage elsewhere in
some task of another kind.
It is a loud song and a joyous sound—‘gay as a chaffinch’ is a
proverbial saying of the French; but there is also a note of defiance
in the song, as in the crow of a cock. Chaffinches sing, as cocks
crow, against each other, and the music often ends in a combat. It is
not, as some imagine, that there is a spirit of emulation in birds with
regard to their singing—that they are rival musicians, like the
shepherds in the old pastorals, that contended in song for mastery:
it is simply that the cock chaffinch, like the robin and some other
species, is a bird of a jealous and pugnacious disposition, and can
brook no other male chaffinch near him. Another’s singing tells him
that another male is present, and his jealousy is at once excited. If
the sound is at a distance, he will content himself by answering song
with song; if near, he will quickly seek out the singer, and drive him
from his chosen ground. It is this jealous temper of the chaffinch
that gives it value to the bird-fanciers of a base kind.
The chaffinch is first heard before the end of February. He pairs
early in March, and in April begins to build. The nest is placed in a
shrub or tree, in a cleft, or on a horizontal branch. An apple, pear, or
cherry tree in an orchard is a favourite site; but any tree, from an
evergreen in a garden to the largest oak or elm, may be selected,
and the nest may be at any height from the ground from half a
dozen to fifty feet. It is a very beautiful structure, formed outwardly
of lichen, moss, and dry grass, compactly woven together, and
mixed with cobwebs; the cup-shaped inside is lined with hair,
vegetable down, and feathers. In most cases the outer portion of
the nest is composed of materials that give it a close resemblance to
the tree it is built on. Thus, on an oak or apple tree overgrown with
grey lichen, or on a silver birch, the framework is chiefly composed
of lichen; but in deep green bushes evergreen moss is used. The
nest is built by the female, but the male assists in collecting and
bringing materials. A fortnight, or longer, is taken to complete this
elaborate nest; but from the beginning, and even before the nest is
begun, the birds exhibit the greatest excitement and distress if the
chosen tree is approached, flying round and flitting from branch to
branch, incessantly uttering their well-known alarm-notes, usually
spelt pink-pink or spink-spink, a clear, penetrating sound, slightly
metallic in character; also another sound, a lower and somewhat
harsh note of anxiety.
The eggs are four or five in number, of a pale bluish green,
spotted and blotched with dull purplish brown. The young are fed on
caterpillars and small insects. The adults, too, subsist chiefly on
insects in summer, seeking for them on the ground, and sometimes
capturing them in the air, like the flycatcher.
In autumn the chaffinches congregate in flocks, and at this
season the separation of the sexes, about which so much has been
said since the days of Linnæus, takes place. Something remains to
be known on this subject. It is beyond dispute that large flocks
composed entirely of birds of one sex are often met with in autumn
and winter, both in this country and on the Continent. The question
about which ornithologists differ is as to whether or not a separation
of the sexes takes place among chaffinches of British race. Seebohm
says: ‘It is probable that this peculiar habit is confined to the birds
that come to our shores in autumn’; and we have it on good
authority that no separation of males from females takes place in the
south and west of England. In the month of September, at one place
in Scotland, I observed the male chaffinches gathered in small
parties of three or four to a dozen individuals; these were the birds
belonging to the district; but the females had vanished. Selby
observed the same thing many years ago in Scotland and the north
of England. One can only suppose that the migratory impulse is a
little stronger or earlier in the female of this species, and that the
divergence between the sexes, in this respect, becomes greater as
we go towards the northern limit of its range.
Brambling.
Fringilla montifringilla.
Head, cheeks, nape, and upper part of back black, the feathers
(in winter) tipped with light brown or ash-grey; neck and scapulars
pale orange-brown; wings black variegated with orange-brown and
white; rump and lower parts white; the flanks reddish, with a few
dark spots. Female: crown reddish brown, the feathers tipped with
grey; a black streak over the eye; cheeks and neck ash-grey; all the
rest as in the male, but less bright. Length, six and a quarter inches.
The brambling, or mountain-finch, comes nearest in relationship

to the chaffinch, but differs very much in its glossy black, white, and
bright buff colouring, and is a much prettier bird. We do not see it in
its bright nuptial plumage in this country; for it is an arctic species,
breeding in very high latitudes, in birch woods near the limit of
forest growth. Its nest and eggs resemble those of the chaffinch, the
nest being a compact and beautifully shaped fabric that assimilates
in colour to the white and grey bark of the silver birch. The
bramblings arrive in this country during September and October, and
are found in winter throughout Great Britain and Ireland. They are,
however, very irregular in their movements, and do not, like the
redwings, return year after year to the same localities; but, as a rule,
where a flock appears in autumn, there it will remain until the end of
winter. Beech-woods form a great attraction to them, beech-mast
being their favourite food, and where it is abundant they will
sometimes congregate in immense numbers. As a songster the
brambling ranks low among the finches, but the lively chirping and
twittering concert of a large flock on a tree-top, and in the evening,
before the birds settle to roost, has a very pleasing effect.
Linnet.
Linota cannabina.
Forehead and centre of the crown crimson; the rest of the head,
nape, and sides of the neck, mottled brownish grey; mantle
chestnut-brown; wing-feathers blackish, with outer edges white,
forming a conspicuous bar; upper tail-coverts dark brown with
whitish margins; tail-feathers black, narrowly edged with white on
the outer and broadly on the inner webs; chin and throat dull white,
striped with greyish brown; breast crimson; belly dull white; flanks
fawn-brown. Length, five inches and three-quarters. In winter the
crimson feathers are concealed by wide greyish margins. Female:
duller in colour and without any crimson.
Next to the goldfinch, the linnet is the most sought after in this
country as a cage-bird, and the demand for linnets is no doubt
causing a great diminution in their numbers. But they are still fairly
abundant, and to be met with in most waste and uncultivated
places, especially where furze-bushes abound.
The linnet is one of the most social of the finches, being found
gathered in small flocks and parties of three, or four, or half a dozen,
even in the middle of the breeding season. When perched or flying
they incessantly call to each other in sharp little chirps and twittering
notes. They are more aërial in habit than most finches, and take to
flight very readily, and fly high, with great velocity; and when at a
great elevation they are often seen to check their rapid course very
suddenly, and dart away in some other direction, or else to drop
plumb down like falling hailstones to the earth. Being so free of the
air, they are great rovers, and, except when engaged in breeding,
are constantly travelling about in the open country at all times of the
year.
In the colour of its plumage the linnet is one of the most variable
of birds: it is common to meet with bird-catchers and bird-fanciers
who hear with surprise, and even with incredulity, that all these birds
of different tints are of one species. The cock linnet never, or very
rarely, puts on his most beautiful colours in captivity, and even in a
state of nature the individuals composing a flock are seen to differ
greatly. Among a dozen birds, perhaps only one will exhibit the
perfect male plumage—the blood-red forehead, grey head, rich
chestnut-brown upper parts, and lovely carmine breast. There is one
variety, known as the lemon linnet, in which the breast is lemon-
yellow instead of carmine-red; and there are other varieties. In song,
too, the linnet greatly varies. When the singer is a good one, and
listened to at a distance not exceeding twenty or thirty yards, the
strain is sprightly, varied, and very agreeable; but the sweetest part
is a phrase of two or three notes which usually comes as a prelude
to the song; the sound has a quality that reminds one of the
swallow’s voice, but it is purer, and suggests a very delicate wind
instrument. During the love season the male sometimes sings on the
wing; rising to a height of several yards, it drops slowly and
gracefully down, uttering a series of beautiful notes and trills.
A furze-bush is the site most often selected for the nest; this is
formed of fine dry grass and fibres, and lined with wool and
vegetable down, sometimes with hair. Four to six eggs are laid,
chalky white, and faintly tinged with blue in ground-colour, and
spotted with light reddish brown and purplish red.
After the breeding season the linnets unite in large flocks, and at
this time there is a southward movement, and large numbers
undoubtedly leave this country to winter elsewhere. But even in the
cold season they are common enough, and their fitful winter-evening
concerts, when they congregate on a tree-top before settling down
for the night, are as pleasant to listen to as the love-song of the
male heard in spring among the blossoming furze and broom.
Lesser Redpoll.
Linota rufescens.
Forehead, lore, and throat black; crown deep crimson; upper

parts reddish brown with dusky streaks; wings and tail dusky, edged
with pale reddish brown; breast glossy rose-red, passing into light
chestnut-brown on the sides; belly and lower tail-coverts dull white.
Female: less bright. Length, five and a quarter inches.
Fig. 48.—Lesser Redpoll. ⅓ natural size.
The redpoll, or redpole, as it is often written, is a pretty and
interesting little bird of the northern parts of Great Britain. It has
been described by Seebohm as an immature linnet in appearance,
but resembling a siskin in its habits. It is usually called the lesser
redpoll, because it is slightly less in size than the continental redpoll,
which sometimes visits this country in winter. This last subspecies is
the mealy redpoll (Linota linaria). A third form of this wide-ranging
little bird, the Greenland redpoll (Linota hornemanni), has been
included in the list of British birds on account of a single specimen
having been obtained in this country.
In its lively disposition, its flight, and to some extent in its
language, the redpoll resembles the linnet; but its feeding habits
vary according to the season of the year and the conditions it finds
itself in. In summer it keeps much to the higher branches of the
trees, where it moves deftly about like a siskin or a crested tit in its
search after minute insects and their larvæ; but in winter it feeds
principally on seeds which it finds on the ground. It is fond of the
seeds of the birch-tree. The appearance of a flock of redpolls feeding
among the birches is thus described by Warde Fowler: ‘It is one of
the prettiest sights that our whole calendar of bird life affords to
watch these tiny linnets at work in the delicate birch-boughs. They
fear no human being, and can be approached within a very few
yards. They almost outdo the titmice in the amazing variety of their
postures. They prefer in a general way to be upside down, and
decidedly object to the commonplace attitudes of more solidly built
birds.’
The song of the redpoll is described by Seebohm as a short,
monotonous trill, clear, shrill, and not unmusical; and he adds that ‘it
might be said to resemble the rattling of loose cog-wheels.’ It breeds
in suitable localities, chiefly in birch-woods in Scotland, and in
England north of Norfolk and Leicester. It also breeds occasionally in
more southern localities. The nest is made of dry grass and moss on
a foundation of slender twigs, and is well lined with vegetable down,
or with wool and feathers. It is a very neat, cup-shaped nest, and
contains four to six eggs, greenish blue in ground-colour, with spots
and specks of purplish brown.
After the breeding season the redpolls begin to scatter about the
country in small flocks; as autumn approaches these flocks increase
in size, and a southward movement begins, large numbers crossing
the Channel. Many, however, remain to winter at home, and these
may be met with in woods and plantations, leading a vagrant life in
small flocks, and often associating on the trees with titmice,
goldcrests, and siskins.
Twite.
Linota flavirostris.
Upper parts dark brown, the feathers edged with light brown;
rump (of the male) tinged with red; throat tawny brown; breast and
belly dull white, streaked on the flanks with dark brown; beak
yellow; feet dark brown. Length, five and a quarter inches.
The twite, or mountain-linnet, is a bird of the mountain and

moorland, and of the north, being most abundant in the Hebrides;
but it also breeds in hilly districts throughout Scotland, and in
suitable localities in the northern and midland counties. In the south
it is a winter visitor, and is then found associating with the linnet,
which it very closely resembles in flight, habits, and appearance;
when near it may be distinguished by its shriller voice, and by its
longer tail, which makes it look slimmer. In its song, too, the twite
resembles the linnet, and, like that bird, occasionally sings on the
wing; but its music is wanting in the finer sounds—just as its
plumage is without the lovely carmine tint—of the other species.
The nest is placed in a bunch of heather, or beneath it, on the
ground, and sometimes in a furze-bush. It is made of dry grass,
moss, and wool, lined with hair and fur. The eggs are five or six in
number, and are like the linnet’s in colour.
In autumn the twites unite in large flocks, and visit the stubbles
and ploughed lands.
Bullfinch.
Pyrrhula europæa
Fig. 49.—Bullfinch. ⅓ natural size.
Crown, throat, region round the beak, wings, and tail lustrous
purple-black; upper part of the back bluish ash; ear-coverts, sides of
the neck, breast, and belly red; lower tail-coverts dull white; a broad
buff and grey band across the wing. Length, six and a quarter
inches.
The bullfinch stands out among British finches with a strange

distinctness. He is gaily coloured, and the arrangement of colours is
a striking one—glossy black, blue-grey, and pure white above, and a
fine red beneath. This is described in the books as ‘brickred’; and
there is no doubt that, among the thousand and more shades of the
less vivid red seen in bricks taken fresh from the kiln, the exact tint
of the bullfinch might be matched. In the same way you could match
the most delicate floral red—that which we see in the spikes of the
red horse-chestnut, and the almond blossom, and the briar rose.
The earthy, uniform red of weathered bricks is not the colour of our
bird. The beauty of such a tint as that of the bullfinch can be best
appreciated where, indeed, it is most commonly seen, amidst the
verdure of clustering leaves; for greens and reds, pleasing in
themselves, ever make the most agreeable contrasts among colours.
In its figure, too, this bird is very singular among the finches: his
curiously arched beak gives him the look of a diminutive hawk in a
gay plumage.
The bullfinch is greatly persecuted by gardeners on account of
the mischief he is supposed to do, for he has the habit of feeding on
the flower-buds of fruit-trees in winter and spring. On the other
hand, he is greatly esteemed as a cage-bird, and the bird-catchers
are ever on the watch for it. But the effect in both cases is pretty
much the same, since the hatred that slays and the love that makes
captive are equally disastrous to the species. There is no doubt that
it is diminishing in this country, and that it is now a rare bird in most
districts. Fortunately, it has a wide distribution in Great Britain: in
Ireland, where it is said to be rare, I have found it not uncommon,
and tamer than in England. It may be increasing there, which would
not be strange in a country where even the magpie is permitted to
exist, and birds generally are regarded with kindlier feelings than in
this country.
The bullfinch does not often go to the ground to feed; he gets
most of his food on trees and bushes—insects, buds, fruit, and seeds
of various kinds. He inhabits woods, plantations, and thickets, and is
often seen in thick hedges and in the tangled vegetation growing by
the side of streams. Where he is not persecuted he is a tame and
rather sedentary bird, and will allow a person to approach within a
dozen yards before leaving his perch. His call and alarm note is a
low, piping, musical sound, very pleasant to hear. The male sings in
the spring, and so, it is said, does the female; but his strain is short,
and so feeble that it can be heard only at a distance of a few yards.
The nest is built during the last half of April in a holly or yew, or
other dense, dark bush or tree, or in a thick hedge. It is unlike the
nest of any other finch, being outwardly a platform-shaped structure
made of interwoven twigs, with a cup-shaped nest in the centre,
formed of fine rootlets, the rim of the cup projecting above the
platform it is built on. The eggs are four to six, greenish blue in
ground-colour, spotted and sometimes streaked with dark purplish
brown, and blotched with pinkish brown.
Bullfinches pair for life, and at all seasons of the year male and
female are seen together; if any young are reared, they usually
remain in company with the parent birds during the autumn and
winter months.
Nearly allied to the common bullfinch are two beautiful birds

which have a place in our list of species. One of these is the rosy
bullfinch (Carpodacus erythrinus), of which two or three stragglers
have been found in England; it breeds in Finland, and is found
throughout the Russian Empire. The other is the pine grossbeak
(Pinicola (enucleator), also a rare straggler to Britain from the north
of Europe.
Crossbill.
Loxia curvirostra.

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Contemporary Turkey at a Glance

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Healthcare simulation at a glance Forrest

Paediatric dentistry at a glance Cameron

Education At A Glance Oecd Indicators 2004 Edition

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Social Sciences 1st

Heterocyclic Chemistry at a Glance 1st Edition John A.

Health at a Glance Europe 2010 1st Edition Oecd

Steroid Chemistry at a Glance 1st Edition Daniel

Medical Genetics at a Glance 1st Edition Dorian

Ayhan Kaya Özge Onursal Beşgül

ISBN 978-3-658-04915-7 ISBN 978-3-658-04916-4 (eBook)

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014945236

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer VS is a brand of Springer DE.

Doğu Durgun, Elif Kalaycıoğlu

İpek Gencel Sezgin

Özlem Altan Olcay, Evren Balta Paker

The series » Contemporary Turkey at a Glance « seeks to promote the work of

K. Kamp et al. (eds.), Contemporary Turkey at a Glance,

Daniel Grütjen, Network Turkey

K. Kamp et al. (eds.), Contemporary Turkey at a Glance,

Kristina Kamp, Berlin Humboldt University

Background and Context

K. Kamp et al. (eds.), Contemporary Turkey at a Glance,

rialization, I aim to expand the focus of the › public ‹ debate on museumification.

K. Kamp et al. (eds.), Contemporary Turkey at a Glance,

Minorities in the Turkish Republic:

A helpful framework for understanding the issue of engagement with authority

Modes of Engagement in the Alevi Movement Nationally

4 Zaza is a northwest Iranian language. See Paul (1998).

5 http://www.aleviislamdinhizmetleri.com/alevilik_nedir.asp. Accessed 01-08-12. English

Ethnographic Case-Study: The Derviş Cemal Ocak

This paper presents an ethnographic approach to understanding the internal dy-

History of the Derviş Cemal Ocak

remote mountains of south-eastern Erzincan, near to the modern-day border with

Revival in The Ocak

Figure 2 Derviş Cemal Ocak cem ceremony at Bağcılar Cemevi,

Dede Heritage as religious Legitimization

› Keramet ‹ (Miracle) Stories

Sacred Sites in Ocak Revival

K. Kamp et al. (eds.), Contemporary Turkey at a Glance,

ized by a neoliberal attitude to health services, in accordance with the world-wide

Pro-Natalist Policy, 1923 – 1960

to encourage birth. According to Akın (2007), » the Laws on Local Administra-

From Pro-Natalist Policy to Anti-Natalist Policy in Turkey

Table 1 Population in Turkey Table 2 Annual Growth Rate of Population in Turkey

Year Population Period Annual population growth rate (‰)

1960 27 755 000 1955 – 1960 28.5

Table 3 Annual Growth Rate of Population in Turkey

Period Annual population growth rate (‰)

1960 – 1965 24.6

1965 – 1970 25.2

1970 – 1975 25.0

1975 – 1980 20.7

(TUİK, Estimations of population growth rate, 1927 – 1985; Piyal 1994: 4)

gram. In addition to this, the UNFPA supported reproductive programs in Tur-