The Effect of Translations on Cultural Change from The Ottomans to The Turkish Republic

The innovation movement in the Ottoman Empire, which lasted more than a hundred years, involved an intense translation activity in nearly every field. These translation activities eventually led to the creation of cultural, literary and political works in the Western model. The ideas and thoughts which changed the Ottoman Empire into a democratic republic arose from these westernization movements. During the early years of the Turkish Republic, culture, literature, politics and law were all guided by translations from the Western world. This paper seeks to examine how government-led innovation movements took place in fields such as the military, law, literature and culture during the transition period between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, and describe the translation methods which were at the centre of these movements. It will discuss how these translation-oriented innovations shaped the target society in the defined period, the way the target culture was directed and how the government-led cultural change, which did not take into account the cultural norms of the target society and traditions, affected the society.