Yön
Editor-in-chiefDoğan Avcıoğlu
CategoriesPolitical magazine
FrequencyWeekly
Founder
Founded1961
First issue20 December 1961
Final issue30 June 1967
CountryTurkey
Based inAnkara
LanguageTurkish

Yön (Turkish: Direction) was a weekly Turkish political magazine published between 1961 and 1967.[1][2] It was a Kemalist and leftist magazine.[3] In fact, Yön was more than a publication in that its contributors represented a political movement in the 1960s, Yön movement, which was a successor of the leftist-Kemalist movement in the 1930s, Kadro movement, which also gathered around a publication, Kadro.[4][5]

History and profile

Yön started publication in Ankara on 20 December 1961.[3][6] The founders included Doğan Avcıoğlu, Mümtaz Soysal, İlhan Selçuk and İlhami Soysal.[6] Avcıoğlu was also the editor of Yön.[6] The first issue of the magazine contained a declaration of 500 Turkish intellectuals about a formal doctrine of socialism.[7][8] Therefore, the establishment of the magazine was the first serious attempt to publicize socialist views in Turkish society.[9]

Yön was an organ of Doğan Avcıoğlu's movement, namely direction-revolution movement, which is one of the most influential leftist movements between 1961 and 1971 in Turkey.[10] In line with this function the magazine had a social democratic and Kemalist stance.[11] For the magazine editors Turkey was a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country which was dependent on the western countries, particularly the United States.[12] Therefore, the magazine supported antifeudalism and Third Worldist approach.[11] It attempted to establish a national front to achieve national democracy in Turkey.[11] Yön paid attention to the collaboration between the working class and progressive state bureaucracy in this endeavour.[13] It also emphasized the significant role of the Turkish army in a forthcoming revolution.[14]

Yön was closed following its 77th issue published on 5 June 1963 due to the allegations of supporting the failed military coup by an army officer, Talat Aydemir, on 21 May 1963.[5] The weekly was restarted after fifteen months on 25 September 1964.[5] The magazine permanently ceased publication in 1967,[15] and its last issue was published on 30 June that year.[6][10] In fact, it was closed down by Doğan Avcıoğlu who declared that Yön reached its target.[8] During its lifetime the magazine produced a total of 222 issues.[15]

The closure of the magazine, in fact, reflected a significant change in the ideology of the direction-revolution movement.[10] Yön was followed by Ant and Türk Solu, two political magazines.[11]

Contributors and content

Major contributors of Yön included Niyazi Berkes, Sadun Aren, Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Cahit Tanyol, İdris Küçükömer and Fethi Naci.[16] Leading writers Attilâ İlhan and Çetin Altan also contributed to the magazine.[17] Another significant contributor was Kemal Kurdaş who was the rector of Middle East Technical University.[18] His articles contained bitter criticisms of capitalism and offered a model for Turkish-type socialism.[18] Turhan Selçuk published political cartoons in Yön which published articles on the topics that were taboo in Turkey in the 1960s.[16] One of these topics was the Kurdish issue in Turkey for which the magazine employed the term the Eastern problem.[19]

In addition to political writings, Yön also cultural and literary sections.[2] The cultural section was edited by Fethi Naci and Konur Ertop.[17] The magazine featured a poem of Nazım Hikmet (published in 1964) whose works had not been published in the country for a long time.[20] Mihri Belli, another influential figure, joined Yön in 1964.[18] His contributions affected the political stance of the magazine in that Yön began to become closer to the right-wing views and to support the Republican Peasants' Nation Party which had been headed by Alparslan Türkeş, one of the army officers who participated in the military coup on 27 May 1960.[18]

Circulation and popularity

Immediately after its foundation Yön sold 30,000 copies.[11] The magazine was the most popular publication during its run among the university students and faculty members from different universities.[18] Deniz Gezmiş, a leftist youth leader, reported that he became a socialist after reading Yön.[9] The circulation of the magazine decreased to between 4,000 and 5,000 copies in 1965.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Sinan Ciddi (2009). Kemalism in Turkish Politics: The Republican People's Party, Secularism and Nationalism. London; New York: Routledge. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-134-02559-6.
  2. 1 2 Gholamali Haddad Adel; Mohammad Jafar Elmi; Hassan Taromi-Rad, eds. (2012). Periodicals of the Muslim World: An Entry from Encyclopedia of the World of Islam. London: EWI Press. p. 264. ISBN 978-1-908433-10-7.
  3. 1 2 Fahrettin Altun (2010). "Discourse of Left-Kemalists in Turkey: Case of the Journal, Yön, 1961–1967". Middle East Critique. 19 (2): 135–156. doi:10.1080/19436149.2010.484530. S2CID 143478235.
  4. ↑ Şener Aktürk (2015). "The Fourth Style of Politics: Eurasianism as a Pro-Russian Rethinking of Turkey's Geopolitical Identity". Turkish Studies. 16 (1): 54. doi:10.1080/14683849.2015.1021246. S2CID 143964919.
  5. 1 2 3 Nurdan Güven Toker (2019). "Turkish Socialism Thesis in the Axis of Yön Journal". Avrasya Sosyal ve Ekonomi Araştırmaları Dergisi. 6 (4): 254.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Özgür Mutlu Ulus (2010). The Army and the Radical Left in Turkey: Military Coups, Socialist Revolution and Kemalism. London: I.B.Tauris. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-85771-880-8.
  7. ↑ İsmet Giritli (Summer 1969). "Turkey since the 1965 Elections". The Middle East Journal. 23 (3): 353. JSTOR 4324477.
  8. 1 2 Doğan Gürpɪnar (2022). "Turkish Anticlericalism, Republicanism, and the Left: Intersections and Departures". In Deniz Kuru; Hazal Papuççular (eds.). The Turkish Connection. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg. pp. 229–230. doi:10.1515/9783110757293-009.
  9. 1 2 Haydar Seçkin Çelik (2022). "Resurgence of the Cold War state of mind: the debate on constitutional tolerance of socialism vis-à-vis the emerging left in Turkey (1967–1971)". Cold War History. 22 (4): 502–503. doi:10.1080/14682745.2022.2100354.
  10. 1 2 3 Şenol Durgun (2015). "Left-Wing Politics in Turkey: Its Development and Problems". Arab Studies Quarterly. 37 (1): 9–32. doi:10.13169/arabstudquar.37.1.0009.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Ahmet Samim (1981). "The Tragedy of the Turkish Left" (PDF). New Left Review. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  12. ↑ Igor Lipovsky (January 1991). "The Legal Socialist Parties of Turkey, 1960-80". Middle Eastern Studies. 27 (1): 101. doi:10.1080/00263209108700849.
  13. ↑ Erkan Doğan (September 2010). "Parliamentary Experience of the Turkish Labor Party: 1965–1969". Turkish Studies. 11 (3): 315. doi:10.1080/14683849.2010.506722. hdl:11693/22208. S2CID 145739279.
  14. ↑ Gilles Dorronsoro; Benjamin Gourisse (2015). "The Turkish Army in Politics: Institutional Autonomy, the Formation of Social Coalitions, and the Production of Crises". Revue française de science politique. 65 (4): 73. JSTOR revfranscipoleng.65.4.67.
  15. 1 2 Tülay Gencer (April 2020). "Yön Dergisinde Fabiancılığın İzleri". SÜ Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (in Turkish). 49.
  16. 1 2 Gökhan Ak (October 2015). "1960'larda Niyazi Berkes: Sol Kemalist Bir Düşünürün Yeniden Doğuş Temrinleri". İ.Ü. Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi (53): 38.
  17. 1 2 Kenan Behzat Sharpe (2021). "Poetry, Rock 'n' Roll, and Cinema in Turkey's 1960s". Turkish Historical Review. 12 (2–3): 358–359. doi:10.1163/18775462-bja10028.
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 Aslı Daldal (2004). "The new middle class as a progressive urban coalition: the 1960 coup d'etat in Turkey". Turkish Studies. 5 (3): 87, 90. doi:10.1080/1468384042000270335. S2CID 144199072.
  19. ↑ Banu İdrisoğlu (2016). Left-Leaning Interpretations of Kemalism within the Scope of Three Journals: Kadro, Markopaşa and Yön (MA thesis). Leiden University. p. 6.
  20. ↑ Sina Aksin (2007). Turkey, from Empire to Revolutionary Republic: The Emergence of the Turkish Nation from 1789 to Present. New York: NYU Press. p. 270. ISBN 978-0-8147-0722-7.
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