The People's Rooms (Turkish: Halkodaları) were community centers established in rural Turkey beginning in 1939. The Turkish government established the People's Rooms to promote secular and Western cultural activities and to indoctrinate the residents in
Kemalist
Kemalism ( tr, Kemalizm, also archaically ''Kamâlizm''), also known as Atatürkism ( tr, Atatürkçülük, Atatürkçü düşünce), or The Six Arrows ( tr, Altı Ok), is the founding official ideology of the Republic of Turkey.Eric J. Zurcher ...
state policies. By 1950, the number of People's Rooms was over 4,000.
The
Republican People's Party
The Republican People's Party ( tr, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, , acronymized as CHP ) is a Kemalist and social-democratic political party in Turkey which currently stands as the main opposition party. It is also the oldest political party ...
(Turkish: ''Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi''), or the CHP established the first People's Rooms in 1939.
[Eyal Ari. "The People's Houses and the Theatre in Turkey." Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 40, no. 4, 2004, pp. 33-58., www.jstor.org/stable/4289927.] The CHP designed them to encourage secular social activities and to promote a sense of unity and nationalism.
The People's Rooms provided formal education, rural development and venues for cultural events. Even though the local populations tended to be conservative and religiously oriented, the People's Rooms were very successful. According to historians, they helped to unite most classes and societal divisions.
References
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Politics of Turkey
Kemalism
Republican People's Party (Turkey)