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 (, also archaically ''Kamâlizm'') or Atatürkism () is a political ideology based on the ideas of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Turkey, Republic of Turkey.Eric J. Zurcher, Turkey: A Modern History. Ne ...
state policies. By 1950, the number of People's Rooms was over 4,000.
The
Republican People's Party
The Republican People's Party (RPP; , CHP ) is a Kemalism, Kemalist and Social democracy, social democratic political party in Turkey. It is the oldest List of political parties in Turkey, political party in Turkey, founded by Mustafa Kemal ...
(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)