ABSTRACT

In the early republican era, where the rapid modernization of what was regarded as a backward and traditional society was the main motto of the governing elite, nationalism functioned as a dominant state ideology in linking modernity, security and Westernization through the construction of a homogeneous and secular national identity. The idea of a homogeneous and secular national identity, both as a carrier of the will to reach the level of contemporary Western civilization and as a republican citizen-subject who is supposed to give a normative primacy to the realm of duties and responsibilities over that of rights and freedoms, on the one hand, and the protection of the security of the state and its territorial existence on the other hand, together defined the discourse and practice of nationalism in this era, as well as its connection with modernity.