The paper provides a brief account of the establishment of the Translation Bureau in Turkey in 1939 as the culmination of intensive efforts by the literary and political elite in the country. It explores the critical links between translation and canon-formation in a culture undergoing a series of drastic changes. It further argues that the establishment of a new literary canon in Turkey was made possible through the creation of a need for such a canon by the intellectuals of the country who emphasised the weakness of Turkish literature vis-a-vis its European counterparts in their discourse.