ABSTRACT
During the opening ceremony of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in 1934, Mustafa Kemal, founder of the new Turkish State, asserted that the country had to make bold reforms in the fine arts, including music, in order to elevate society to the level of developed Western nations. This chapter covers the period between that year and 1952, when the nationalist elite vociferously engaged in debates over the importance of reinventing national songs as a part of the new domestic identity, and the impact of their efforts on the development over time of musical genres in Turkey. During the collection, teaching, and broadcasting of the songs, the collectors and researchers changed the lyrics and melodies to make them appropriate to the assumed national identity. The lyrics of the collected songs were changed too, by both collectors and researchers. Since folk songs were assumed to express the pure and true Turkish language, any words which were thought to be inappropriate were removed.
