The historical presence of Alevi-Kizilbash communities in Anatolia is not merely the adventure of a faith tradition; it is an uninterrupted continuity of centuries of repression, exile, massacres and demographic engineering policies of state-centered powers. This continuity forms a broad historical line starting from the forced migrations of the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia, through the Seljuk suppression of traditional dervish movements, the Ottoman campaigns against the Safavids, and the assimilation and denial policies of the Republic during the nation-state building process. Despite the changing forms of the state, the unchanging mentality of the Alevi-Kizilbash communities in every period “Dangerous Elements”, “Deviant”, “Rebel” or “The other one that doesn't fit the state's uniform project” This coding has profoundly affected their geography, population structure, cultural continuity and social memory.
The Ottoman conflict with the Safavid State in the 16th century created a rupture that made the Kizilbash identity a direct target. Yavuz Sultan Selim's campaigns against Shah Ismail were not only a military struggle, but also a major internal extermination operation against the traditional communities in Anatolia. The edicts issued during this period targeted the Kizilbash “Rafiqi”, “heretic”, “mischief-maker” and “Safavid agent” This definition paved the way for the mass execution of the Kizilbash, the burning of their villages, the confiscation of their property and the dissolution of their tribal structures. Sivas, Tokat, Amasya, Çorum, Yozgat, Erzincan, Maraş, Malatya, Malatya, Tarsus, Adana, Kayseri, Niğde, Karaman, the line of the state “Suspicious Population” in the region. The Kizilbash communities living in these regions were kept under constant surveillance through both military campaigns and administrative decisions, sometimes villages were evacuated en masse, sometimes families were selected and exiled to distant sanjaks.
One of the most prominent practices of this period was the Cyprus deportations. After the conquest of Cyprus in 1571, the island became both a strategic military base for the Ottomans and “Elements deemed objectionable” It became a place of exile from which they would be removed. In the 1572 survey, when it was determined that most of the island was empty, families from sanjaks such as Konya, Karaman, Niğde, Kayseri, Aksaray, İçel, Adana, Maraş, Sivas, Tokat and Amasya were sent to Cyprus. This population is recorded in official records “Festivization” Although it appears that they were sent for the purpose of deportation, modern research shows that a significant number of these groups were communities that had been labeled as Kizilbash. These deportations were not only punitive, but also a means of dislocating the Kizilbash communities from their geographical context, fragmenting their social fabric and dismantling their forms of organization outside of State control. The areas around Nicosia, Famagusta and Larnaca were the areas where these deportations were concentrated, and families uprooted from Anatolia were dispersed to different parts of the island and prevented from establishing ties with each other.
One of the most systematic policies of Ottoman despotism against Alevi-Kizilbash communities was the implementation of demographic engineering. State, “Loyalty Questionable” In order to change the population structure in the regions it saw, it strategically settled populations from the Balkans, the Caucasus and partly Afghanistan. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Balkan Muhajirs, Turkish and Muslim populations from Rumelia were settled in Western and Central Anatolia. Bursa, Balıkesir, Kütahya, Eskişehir, Bilecik, Manisa, Aydın, İzmir, Çanakkale and the Central Anatolian sanjaks of Ankara, Konya, Kayseri, Yozgat, Kırşehir, Çorum, Çankırı were at the center of this demographic change. Some of these regions were already home to Alevi-Kizilbash villages, especially in Kırşehir, Yozgat, Çorum, Tokat, Amasya, Sivas, where the Kızılbaş population was dense and surrounded by the newly settled Sunni muhajir population. These resettlements helped to make Alevi-Kizilbash communities a minority in their own geography, to break their social and cultural influence, and to fulfill the state's “Balance”and served to establish.
Demographic engineering was carried out not only through population relocation, but also through the economic, administrative and military reorganization of the Alevi-Kizilbash geography. Alevi villages were often penalized by increasing their tax obligations, excluding them from trade routes, keeping them away from administrative centers and marginalizing them. In order to weaken the internal organization of Alevi-Kizilbash communities, the state targeted tribal chiefs, Ocak Dedes and local leaders, sometimes through bribery, sometimes through repression, sometimes through exile. Thus, the geographical, social and cultural integrity of Alevi-Kizilbash communities was systematically fragmented.
Infiltration, Liquidation and New Intimidation Projects with the Republic
By the founding of the Republic, the oppression of Alevi-Kizilbash communities had changed in form, but not in essence. The Ottoman “Dangerous Element” these communities, which the new Nation-State coded as “One nation, one religion, one identity” project, the state was targeted again. The form of the state had changed compared to Ottoman Despotism, but its mentality had not. The security approach developed by the Ottoman Empire against Traditionalization was reproduced in the Republican era with modern institutions, laws and ideological apparatuses. During this period, Alevi-Kizilbash were subjected to both policies of denial and direct State violence, and their identity, beliefs and geography were “Internal Threat” was placed at the center of its definition.
With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, tribes, hearths and communities in many parts of Anatolia began a more visible struggle to preserve their national and cultural identities. Especially in Kurdistan and the province of Dersim, both Alevi-Kizilbash and Sunni-Kurdish tribes sought to strengthen their autonomy in the vacuum created by the collapse of Ottoman despotism. This quest emerged in some places as demands for autonomy, in others as forms of local governance, and in still others as practices of cultural resistance. However, this mobility was not recognized by the cadres of the newly established Republic. “Separatism”, “Reactionism” and “Challenging State Authority” as a "security". Thus, the security approach that started in the last period of the Ottoman Empire became more systematic in the first years of the Republic.
Even before the proclamation of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal and his inner circle developed a comprehensive infiltration strategy to unravel and control the internal dynamics of the tribes in Anatolia. Representatives, agents, “Trusted Men” and intelligence elements were placed inside the tribes. These infiltration activities aimed both to weaken the internal structure of the tribes and to prepare the ground for future intimidation operations. Especially the tribes in Sivas, Erzincan, Mameki, Erzurum, Kars, Muş, (Dersim Province) and their surroundings had been acting in line with their own identities both in the late Ottoman period and during the War of Independence. Republican cadres saw these communities as a threat to the centralist structure of the new state.
The biggest breaking point of this period was the Koçgiri Massacre of 1922. Koçgiri was not just a “Mutiny” It was not, it was the demand of Alevi-Kizilbash and Kurdish communities to exist with their own identities. Republican cadres labeled this demand as “separatism” even before the State was officially established. Topal Osman and his militia forces were sent to the region and a great massacre was carried out. Villages were burned, people were killed and tribal structures were dismantled. This operation was the first major sign of the Republic's policy towards Alevi-Kizilbash. The Ottoman “Dangerous Element” logic was taken over by the new State. Koçgiri was a threshold that clearly showed how the founding ideology of the Republic positioned the Alevi-Kizilbaş identity.
This logic was institutionalized after the proclamation of the Republic. The 1925 Eastern Reform Plan directly targeted Alevi-Kizilbash and Kurdish regions. “Internal Colonization=Colonialism” project. The plan included military control of the region, the dismantling of tribal structures, forced migrations, exile, economic encirclement and cultural assimilation. This plan was a modern version of the Ottoman logic of suppression against the Kızılbaş. With this plan, the state has transformed the Alevi-Kizilbash geography “In Need of Reform” as a space, a definition that formed the ideological basis for future operations.
The Law on Dervish Lodges and Zawiyahs, enacted in the same period, ostensibly closed down sects, but in practice targeted the Alevi-Kizilbash hearth system. Hearths, the institution of Dedelik, Cem Rituals, Community organization “Illegal” was rationalized. This was one of the heaviest blows to the social backbone of the Alevi-Kizilbash belief system. By dismantling the internal organizations of Alevi-Kizilbash, the state aimed to absorb them into the official ideology. The establishment of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, the Sunni-Hanafi interpretation of the State “Official Religion” Alevism was an institutional step in this process. Alevism was excluded from this structure and was ignored and not recognized.
One of the most important projects of the Republic, the Diyanet's budget, powers and ideological role were expanded over time, thus institutionalizing the state's religious policy on the Sunni-Hanafi axis. Alevi-Kizilbash communities were excluded from this structure and marginalized both religiously and culturally. The opening of Imam Hatip schools was a project to train Sunni-Hanafi clergy. These schools were extended to Alevi areas, and later expanded to Regional Boarding Schools, which aimed to educate Alevi children in Sunni-Hanafi doctrine. This was the educational pillar of cultural assimilation. Through the education system, the state aimed to render the Alevi-Kizilbash identity invisible.
One of the main backbones that transformed the project into a State system was the Izmir Economic Congress. It was ostensibly an economic congress, but it aimed to create an integral national identity based on the model of German Mandate, which was defended in the congress where British capital was prominent, and Nation-State Capitalism, which was based on European capital. This model contradicted the multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-identity social structure that Alevi-Kizilbash historically carried. The decisions taken at the Congress formed the basis of the economic and cultural oppression policies to be implemented in the future.
This process culminated in the Dersim Massacre of 1937-38. Dersim was the region where both Alevi-Kizilbash identity and Kurdish cultural autonomy were strongest. The state had taken this region “In Need of Reform” as a field. It was an operation that Mustafa Kemal, with an even stronger rhetoric, recorded in the Parliamentary Reports, saying Mameki is a boil, it must be treated as such. It was not only a military operation, but also a denial of identity and genocide. Tens of thousands of people were killed, thousands of children were separated from their families, villages were burned, people were exiled. Dersim remained an unhealed wound in the memory of Alevi-Kizilbash. When many details are analyzed in the memoirs of the then Minister İhsan Sabri Çağlayangilin, it is a massacre that corresponds to a genocide rather than a military operation.
From the 1950s onwards, Alevi-Kizilbash communities “Unsolved” but in fact the shadow of the State was clearly felt. The 1971 Kızıldere, the 1971 executions, the 1978 Malatya and Maraş Massacres, the 1980 Çorum and Sivas Massacres, the 1993 Madımak Massacre, and the 1995 Gazi neighborhood attacks were all incidents in which Alevi-Kizılbaş communities were systematically targeted. The common feature of these attacks was that the state was either directly involved or did nothing to prevent the attacks. These events showed that Alevi-Kizilbaş communities were not only historically but also currently the target of state violence.
When all these processes are considered together, the history of those who live according to the Alevi-Kizilbash philosophy and way of life is a history of exile, massacres, demographic engineering, denial and state violence. This history is not only the sum total of the events of the past, but also the struggle of a memory that continues today. Despite all these oppressions, the Alevi-Kizilbaş philosophy of life has survived by preserving their beliefs, culture, oral traditions, Cem Rituals, the Ocak system and the Yol-Erkan, and despite the State's policies of violence and denial, they have managed to survive with their own internal solidarity networks.
The Republic's Institutional Mechanisms of Suppression: Ideological Construction, Legal Framework and New Tools of the State. With the establishment of the Republic, the state's approach to the Alevi-Kizilbash philosophy changed in form, but not in essence. The Ottoman “Dangerous Element”, “Deviation”, “Community Disloyal to the State” coded as Alevi-Kizilbash identity, this time in the modern Nation-State. “One Nation, One Religion, One Language, One Identity” project of the state's new ideological backbone. The new ideological backbone of the state was a combination of Sunni-Hanafi Islam and Turanist-Turkic fascism. This combination created a framework that excluded the Alevi-Kizilbash identity on a religious, ethnic and cultural level. The institutions established, laws enacted, reports prepared and policies implemented in the first years of the Republic created a systematic mechanism of intimidation targeting the belief system, social organization and cultural continuity of the Alevi-Kizilbash life philosophy.
One of the most important pillars of this mechanism was the 1925 Eastern Reform Plan prepared by National Chief İsmet İNÖNÜ. Although this plan was ostensibly intended to “eliminate the backwardness of the East”, an examination of its content reveals that it was an internal plan directly targeting the Alevi-Kizilbash and Kurdish regions. “Colonization = Colonialism” project. The plan envisaged the military control of the region, the dissolution of tribal structures, the implementation of forced migrations, the transfer of economic resources to state control and the acceleration of cultural assimilation. With this plan, the Alevi-Kizilbash geography “In Need of Reform” was defined as an area. This definition formed the ideological basis for future military operations, exiles and massacres. The Eastern Reform Plan was not only a part of the Republic's policy towards Alevi-Kizilbash, but also the main framework that shaped an entire century.
The Law on Dervish Lodges and Zawiyahs, which was enacted during this period, ostensibly aimed to close down religious orders, but in practice it targeted the Alevi-Kizilbaş Ocak system. With this law, the Ocaks, which constitute the backbone of the Alevi belief structure, the institution of Dedelik, Cem Rituals and the organization of the community were abolished. “Illegal” was declared. The state aimed to dismantle the internal organizations of the Alevi-Kizilbash and absorb them into the official ideology. This law was one of the most powerful legal instruments aimed at breaking the millennia-old continuity of belief of Alevi-Kizilbash communities. The closure of the hearths meant not only the closure of a Religious Institution, but also the interruption of a Social memory, a Cultural transmission mechanism and a continuity of identity.
One of the most powerful instruments of the Republic's institutional intimidation mechanism was the Directorate of Religious Affairs. Established in 1924, the Directorate of Religious Affairs was a part of the Sunni-Hanafi sect of the state. “Official Religion” Alevism was an institutional step in this process. Alevism was excluded from this structure, ignored and not recognized. The Diyanet's budget, powers and ideological role were expanded over time, so that the state's religious policy was institutionalized on the axis of the Sunni-Hanafi sect through the sects. Alevi-Kizilbash communities were excluded from this structure and marginalized both religiously and culturally. The Diyanet's sermons, publications, educational programs and personnel not only rendered the Alevi-Kizilbash identity invisible, but also marginalized this identity. “Un-Islamic”, “Deviation”, “False Belief” The ideological framework created an ideological framework that coded them as Sunnites. Many tribes close to the central settlements were Sunnized and the same tribes far from the central settlements were forced to live their lives under oppression as Kızılbaş-Alevi.