Paper short abstract:

After the 1950s, folklore in Turkey grew under the state which created a new 'public' context, whereby intellectuals rediscovered a national folk culture and presented it with polito-economic undertones. I aim to unravel the reasons why scholars guarded an indissoluble relation to state nationalism.

Paper long abstract:

The year 1948 was a breaking point in the folklore studies in Turkey. Among other impediments, the growing racial/nationalist discourses hindered the activities of the newly founded Folklore and Folk Literature department at Ankara University, causing Pertev Naili Boratav, the founder of the department, to leave Turkey and communicate his folklore scholarship from France. While Boratav's case was singled out in the history of folklore, folklore became an issue of debate between the 'nationalistic' Right-Wing and the 'revolutionary' Left, which was an ineffective way for coming to terms with the past. Very few studies aimed to understand the case of Boratav, his political thought, and his folklore scholarship.

Several national ethnological traditions in post-war Europe discussed new epistemologies and theories; and searched for new disciplinary identities. Expediently, the haunting phantoms of nationalism never demised and caused many scholars to cherish the new and abundant relationship of nationalism and folklore. After the 1950s, folklore grew under the state and became a 'public' activity among folklorists, semi-professionals, cultural elite, and bureaucrats who rediscovered a national folk culture and presented it with political-economic undertones. This paper critically asks some key epistemic questions on folklore knowledge in Turkey after the 1950s and tries to unravel the reasons why, despite the emergent forms and sites of folklore knowledge, scholars guarded an indissoluble relation to state nationalism. Furthermore, it aims to de-center epistemic myopia that ignored the national contexts at the margins of Europe.