27 May Independence and Constıtutıon Day

Abstract

Remembering the days that are important for the societies with activities like celebrations, memorials and ceremonies is a long-established pattern of behavior. From the perspective of states, these days are regarded as ways of remembering, transferring to next generations and legitimizing.

Since ancient times, these activities have been shaped according to the circumstances of the time. Since the establishment of national states, many national holidays and memorial days have been structured mainly for the purposes of proving the legitimacy of the new state, remembering the struggle put up for the establishment of the state and transferring this consciousness to the next generations. In Turkey, many national days have been established since the Second Constitutionalist Period and these days have been memorialized by organizing different activities and some of them have come until today. The subject of this study consists of the Independence and Constitution Day that had been celebrated during the period between the years 1963 and 1980, after 27 May 1960 Military Intervention.

The day, which can be summarized as the celebration of the military intervention and the constitution that was issued afterwards, was not adopted by all segments of the country, the celebrations were realized at an official level and the day was celebrated as a holiday without the participation of people despite the fact that it was introduced as the day of people, celebration of freedoms and day of revolution that the country gained democracy.

Press was widely utilized in the study and attention was paid to reflect different political views on the subject. As it can be understood from the data collected, May 27 as a national holiday has always been a controversial issue from the day it was first celebrated up to the present and the controversies have usually ensued from ideologically-based viewpoints. In addition, the turbulent situation that the country went through in the period between the years of 1963 and 1980 and the clashes between the different political opinions were reflected on holiday news and the discussions have taken place until today, as in the period between 1963 and 1980, on the day that had been continued to be celebrated until the next military intervention.