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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 20:6 (2021) ► pp.873–893

Retrieving the new from the legacy of history

Discourse and symbols of history in Modern Turkey

ORCID logo | Acıbadem University
| Erciyes University

Contemporary Turkey has gone through many reforms that have been legitimized by country’s historical legacy. The constitutive elements of this legacy are images, historical figures, events, and symbolisms embedded in memory. It is through those elements that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the leader of the Justice and Development Party sets himself up as the appropriate narrator and appropriate doer, incrementally gaining an upper hand in the legitimacy struggles by telling stories from history, emerging as the new founding father of Turkey and introducing new policies rooted in the legacy of the past. How has he been able to occupy such a position of superiority through the struggles for legitimacy in Turkish politics? This paper critically argues that Erdoğan first set up his personality, imposing himself as the most appropriate narrator and finally showing himself to be the most appropriate doer, by crafting his political communication with symbols and figures from history.

Keywords: Turkey, Erdoğan, AKP, legitimacy, founding father, symbols, historical figures, Ottoman legacy, fathers, storytelling
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical source of publicness
  • 3.Instituting the self
  • 4.The appropriate narrator
  • 5.Appropriate doer
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 20 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.19076.cak
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