Turkish Desecularisation and Reimagining the Warrior at Çanakkale (Gallipoli): A Social Performance Analysis of the 57th Regiment Re-Enactment March

Abstract

This chapter examines the 57th Regiment re-enactment march at the First World War Çanakkale (known in the West as Gallipoli) battlefield to comprehend how Turkey’s secular militaristic conception of national identity is being reimagined in relation to desecularisation. While a variety of studies have highlighted how the Battle of Çanakkale is now being used to romanticise and naturalise connections between religion, the Ottoman Empire and Turkish national identity, there is little knowledge of how ordinary Turks engage with the battlefield. Employing social performance methods, it was found the motivations and experiences of the rite differed from the intended political purposes of the organisers, with a major attraction and source of meaning being the way the re-enactment allowed for heightened emotional engagements with the past, including through established Republican historical narratives. However, it is argued that the rite furthers desecularisation by associating the social and political movement with compelling ritual experiences, heightening Islamic sensibilities through an alternative heroic focus on ordinary Turkish soldiers and facilitating dialogical connections between traditional republican and new Islamist narrative conceptions of Turkish national identity. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.