The Discursive Clash Between the Portraits of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire in Relation to Their Foreign Policy: The ‘Victorious’ Turkey Versus the ‘Defeated’ Ottoman Empire

Abstract

This article argues that the Turkish press of the early republican years was one of the instruments used by the Turkish political discourse of the early republican years to disseminate and reproduce its values in the public sphere. This article attempts to examine the discursive distinction between Turkey and the Ottoman Empire in terms of their international relations through the Turkish press discourse. To this end, this article focuses on the Turkish newspaper column "Sabah Gazeteleri ne diyorlar?" published in the Turkish newspaper Haber Akşam Postası on June 11, 1938, and conducts an argumentation analysis of the column by applying the Vienna School of Discourse-Historical Approach (Reisigl & Wodak 2001; Wodak 1990, 1994; Wodak & Meyer 2001; Wodak & Chilton 2005; Wodak et al. 2009). This article examines the rhetorical, discursive, and argumentative strategies used by the editorial writer Asım Us to persuade readers. One of the key findings of the article is the following: the negative portrayal of the Ottoman Empire versus the positive portrayal of Turkey. While the Ottoman Empire was described as "defeated" in World War I, Turkey was portrayed as a "victorious" country that was able to sign the Treaty of Lausanne with the Entente powers on an equal footing.