ABSTRACT
Kemalism has been a foundation-laying experience in terms of nation and nationalism. Kemalism, which subsequently became the touchstone of political legitimacy, the nationalist project that formed its backbone, ideologically as well, became the primary concern of all political regimes, whoever was in power. In 1923, under the new republican regime, the Kemalist movement possessed, in the service of the Turkish Nation. The three components of the Kemalist experience, national independence, nation-building and then national unity, confirming the legitimacy of the State, condense certain contradictory ideas whilst declaring them cumulatively legitimate, all in a very brief period of time. Nation and Kemalism are so closely identified that the 1961 Constitution, followed by that of 1982, declared certain of the major Kemalist reforms of the 1920s and 1930s unrepeatable. The Turkish Nation is stuck between its traditional style of political culture and the need to put its trust in democracy in order to expand the framework of its political evolution.
