An Academic Literature Discussion: Why And How Should The People’s Houses Be Researched?

Abstract

The People’s Houses were established in 1932 as the cultural branch of the Republican People's Party (RPP) in order to make the people adopt the principles of the revolution that started with the establishment of the Republic of Türkiye. An ideal People’s House has nine working branches: Language, literature, fine arts, representation, sport, public teaching institutions and courses, library and publishing, peasantism, history and museum. Therefore, in addition to making the people adopt the principles of the revolution, the People’s Houses also worked to meet some of the cultural and material needs of the people. It can be said that the People’s Houses show the reflections of the revolution in daily life, as they enable the revolution and RPP to establish direct relations with the public. This means that there is a need to research the People’s Houses in order to understand what the revolution changed in Türkiye and how it was experienced in practice. As a matter of fact, with the end of the revolution process, the People’s Houses, which were closed in 1951, have become the subject of academic research as of 1964. However, it is understood that the majority of academic studies on the subject prepared between this date and 2022 have not been able to develop an original perspective on the People’s Houses. Because while preparing the studies in question, sources that did not go beyond the official discourse about the People’s Houses were used. This situation gave the impression that all the People’s Houses were working as they should. However, there are primary sources containing the records of the People’s Houses practice, which is a productive field for understanding the manifestations of the revolution in daily life. Therefore, the aim of this study is to try to understand the reasons why most of the academic studies on the People’s Houses cannot produce original information and perspectives, and to show this problem can be overcome by using which resources and in which contexts. In order to achieve this aim, an idea was first put forward as to why the People’s Houses should be researched, and primary sources on the subject were introduced. Then, the main academic studies on the People’s Houses, prepared from 1964 to 2022, were examined by using the content analysis method, and the original and non-original aspects of these studies were stated. Only the content of the primary sources is mentioned; the scope of the study consists of academic studies on the subject. In the conclusion, ideas about the content and method of nonoriginal studies are stated, and the differences between original and non-original studies are mentioned.

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