The Role Of National Culture And Civilization In Nation Building

In this article, which aims to examine the strategic mission of the concepts of National Culture and Civilization in the transition from the multinational empire to the nation-state, which is almost the obligatory direction of the period, the etymological structure and word meanings of both concepts within the conceptual framework of both concepts are first explained. It is considered important to mention the people who have expressed an opinion on the perceptions of culture and civilization in order to see the change of the concepts, and the definitions of culture and civilization by foreign scientists are given first. This was followed by a brief definition of National Culture, which was introduced to our literature by the Turkish intellectual Ziya Gökalp and is closely related to the title of the article. The perception and interpretation of the concepts of culture and civilization by the Turkish intellectuals of the 19th and 20th centuries in chronological order from the Tanzimat period, when the concepts of culture and civilization began to enter the agenda of the Ottoman intellectuals, are given with examples. In the last section, as indicated in the title of the article, the use of the concepts of culture and civilization as a tool in the new system and nation-building phase, which is the last link of the Turkish States in the 20th century, has been tried to be examined.