Dersim as an Internal Colony

Much like the rest of the world before modernity, Dersim had a history that belonged to the people. Imperial intrusions in the long nineteenth century were followed by the violent forces of Union and Progress. While the republican Terror of 1938 created an internal colony at the mercy of Ankara.

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Dersim is a region within Turkey that has deep meaning for Alevis, Armenians, Kurds, and Zazas. Even the Hittites seemed to have had difficulty governing this mountainous region where today Turkish military drones target suspicious activity. Dersim as an Internal Colony: The Turkish Civilizing Mission (1927-1952) explores how the region had a deep history of autonomy and autarky that was challenged and then crushed by the forces of union and progress trying to keep together and perhaps give rebirth to a dying empire. It focuses on what happened after the Tertele of 1938, also known as the day on which the world ended, and what, was this so-called “Turkish civilizing mission” in action during the First Internal Colonial Period (1927-1952). Did the state in fact bring civilization to this region’s people that it had just terrorized? What were the achievements of this Turkish civilization in this historically independent land of high mountains, torrential rivers, oak forests, and goats? This book aims to answer these questions with a critical reading of reports written by the then representative of Tunceli in the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye.