The denial of Kurds was the official state policy of

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

for several decades, which denied that

Kurds ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ira ...

constitute an own ethnic group and alleged that they instead are a subgroup of

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic o ...

and the words Kurd and Kurdistan were omitted by state institutions.

1920s–1960s

The

euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...

"Mountain Turks" for the Kurds was invented by General and initially used to describe a people living in the mountains who did not speak their own language but a Turkish dialect. Tevfik Rüştü Aras, the Turkish foreign minister between 1925 and 1938, defended the idea that the Kurds should disappear like the Indians in the United States.

Kâzım Karabekir Musa Kâzım Karabekir (also spelled Kiazim Karabekir in English; 1882 – 26 January 1948) was a Turkish general and politician. He was the commander of the Eastern Army of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I and served as Speaker of ...

, a former commander of the

Turkish Army The Turkish Land Forces ( tr, Türk Kara Kuvvetleri), or Turkish Army (Turkish: ), is the main branch of the Turkish Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The army was formed on November 8, 1920, after the collapse of the ...

during the

War of Independence This is a list of wars of independence (also called liberation wars). These wars may or may not have been successful in achieving a goal of independence. List See also * Lists of active separatist movements Presented below is a list of ...

, said the Kurds in

Dersim Tunceli ( ku, Dêrsim) is a city and municipality in eastern Turkey. It is the capital of Tunceli Province, located in the middle of the Eastern Anatolia Region. The city has a Kurdish-majority population and was a site of the Dersim rebellion. ...

were in fact assimilated Turks and they should be reminded of their Turkishness. The Turkish Minister of Justice

Mahmut Esat Bozkurt Mahmut Esat Bozkurt (1892 – 21 December 1943) was a Turkish jurist, politician, government minister and academic. His birth name was Mahmut Esat. But after the adaptation of the Turkish Surname Law in 1934, he chose the surname ''Bozkurt'' i ...

, stated that there is no other nation which could claim rights in Turkey than the Turkish race, and that all non-Turks would only have the right to be a servant or slave. Subsequently, the simple mention of the words Kurds and Kurdistan was prohibited, and replaced with terms like "Mountain Turks" and " The East", respectively. The prohibition also included text in foreign languages. That there has ever existed a Kurdish nation was denied, according to the Turkish History Thesis the Kurds migrated from Turanic Central Asia in the past. During the 1920s and 1930s, merchants were fined for every word of Kurdish they used separately. In school, students were punished if they were caught speaking Kurdish and during the 1960s Turkish language boarding schools were established in order to separate the students from their Kurdish relativesHassanpour, Amir (1992). p.133 and Turkify the Kurdish population.

1960s–1980s

The term "Mountain Turk" became more commonly used in 1961. The Turkish president Cemal Gürsel denied the existence of

Kurds in Turkey The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey. According to various estimates, they compose between 15% and 20% of the population of Turkey.; ; Sandra Mackey , “The reckoning: Iraq and the legacy of Saddam”, W.W. Norton and Company, ...

in a press conference in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

and also during a speech he held in Diyarbakir. To the book ''History of Varto and the Eastern Provinces'' by Mehmet Şerif Fırat Gürsel wrote a foreword, in which he credited Fırat for providing scientific evidence for the Turkishness of the Kurds and demanded scientific studies to leave no doubt that Kurds were in reality "Mountain Turks". The book was made available to University Professors, students and journalists for free and also included into libraries of educational institutions. Cemal Gürsel was also closely linked to the then newly established Turkish Cultural Research Institute (TKAE) which published several books on the topic. Besides, Gürsel encouraged the use of the phrase "Spit in the face of him who calls you a Kurd". During the trials against the Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths (DDKO) following the coup d'état in 1971, the prosecution argued that Kurds do not actually exist, and their language was in reality a dialect of Turkish. Also

Kenan Evren Ahmet Kenan Evren (; 17 July 1917 – 9 May 2015) was a Turkish politician and military officer, who served as the seventh President of Turkey from 1980 to 1989. He assumed the post by leading the 1980 military coup. On 18 June 2014, a Turkis ...

, the chief of the military junta following the coup d'état in 1980, denied the existence of a Kurdish ethnicity and claimed the word Kurd arose from the sound the snow made if one walked in it and restricted the use of the Kurdish language. The term "Mountain Turk" was officially replaced with the new euphemism "Eastern Turk" in 1980. As during the 1980s the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of south ...

appeared, their members were accused of trying to compel the eastern Turks, that they are Kurds.

21st century

Censorship in academia

A 2020 report by the '' İsmail Beşikçi'' ''Foundation'' on the censorship that exists in Kurdish studies in Turkey, the report found that both censorship and self-censorship are frequent when writing about Kurds and their history, geography, culture and language for fear of being penalized. Words like including "Kurdistan", "colony" and "anti-colonial" also remain a taboo in writing about Kurds.

State censorship

In March 2021 the Turkish Ministry of National Education released a school book on the Kurdish majority Diyarbakir Province which makes no mention of Kurds or

Kurdish language Kurdish (, ) is a language or a group of languages spoken by Kurds in the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. Kurdish constitutes a dialect continuum, belonging to Western Iranian languages in the Indo-European language ...

at all. It also claims that the language spoken in the city

Diyarbakır Diyarbakır (; ; ; ) is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, ...

is similar to the Turkish dialect spoken in

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...

. In August 2021, authorities changed the name of a 17th century mosque in

Kilis Kilis is a city in south-central Turkey, near the border with Syria, and the administrative centre of Kilis Province. History Although there aren't any definite information related to its foundation, today's Kilis mainly developed and became ...

from "Kurds' mosque" to "Turks' mosque" prompting criticism from the Kurdish community. On the discourse of Erdoğan in regards to Kurds, Mucahit Bilici writes that:

References

Turkish nationalism Racism in Turkey Kurds in Turkey Anti-Kurdish sentiment Denialism Historical negationism Far-right politics in Turkey Kemalism Historiography of Turkey Cultural genocide Pseudoarchaeology Pseudolinguistics Pseudohistory Linguistic controversies Textbook controversies Academic controversies Turkology Kurdish studies Education controversies in Turkey {{Kurdistan-stub