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This study seeks to analyze the Turkish nation-building process during the early Republican period (1920-1938). In doing this, the substantive focus will be on three main dimensions --language, education, and citizenship -- with particular emphasis on the rhetoric and actions of the political elite. / By looking at language, education, and citizenship policies, and their formulations, the present analysis will make three main propositions: First, and in contrast to the existing literature on nations and nation-building, it will be demonstrated that the process of Turkish nation-building was neither a smooth nor an automatic process. Moreover, during the period under analysis, there were competing definitions of nationhood which were taken up, and discussed by the political elite. The final conceptualization of nationhood --which took an assimilationist form with an ethnic understanding attached to it -- was formed over time. At times, the process was wrought with tensions as illustrated by the heated debates among the political elite. / Second, the present analysis will seek to bring together two different ways of looking at nation formation. More specifically, the analysis will attempt to bridge the gap between those works which only underline the role of ideas in the formation of nations, and those which emphasize the role of structural forces. By paying attention to the "voices" (and actions) of the political elite, this study will demonstrate that it is not only ideas, nor is it only structural forces that matter. Rather, the crystallization of the contents of Turkish nationhood illustrates the interplay of ideological as well as geopolitical and political forces. / Third, a detailed analysis of the trajectory of Turkish nation-building and the formulation of Turkish nationhood reveals the complexity of this process. The existing literature on Turkey tends to treat the Kemalist era as an undifferentiated whole. The present work will remain critical to such an outlook. Instead, and by looking at the shifting conceptualizations of nationhood, it will seek to demonstrate the complexity and contingent nature of the Turkish nation-building process.

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This dissertation asserts the British primacy in the deliberations of the League of Nations Council between the two world wars of the twentieth century. It maintains that it was British imperial policy rather than any other consideration that ultimately carried the day in these deliberations. Given, as examples of this paramountcy, are the discussions around the finalization of the borders of the new republic of Turkey, which was created following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. These discussions focused on three areas, the Mosul Vilayet or the Turco-Iraqi frontier, the Maritza Delta, or the Turco-Greek frontier, and the Sanjak of Alexandretta or the Turco-Syrian frontier.