Formation of the first legal opposition to secularism in Turkey: The Journal Büyük Doğu (Great East) in the period of transition to democracy (1945-1950)

The aim of this study is to contribute the secularism debates in Turkey by providing an analysis of the Turkish secularization by focusing on not only process of political reforms to transform the social and poltical life, but also a process of formation the opposition to this transformation through a detailed case study analysis on the journal Biiyuk Dogu (Great East). This study is limited with the period of transition to democracy between 1945 and 1950, in which the first legal religious political opposition to the secularization reforms of the single-party regime was shaped. Based on the analysis of Buyiik Dogu's opposition to the single-party regime and its secularization policy, this study attempts to answer the following question: what can be derived from the case of Buyiik Dogu's criticisms about the conceptual framework of Turkish secularism and secularization process in Turkey. This study also tries to give an insight about the Buyiik Dogu's Islamist and religious nationalist (,milliyetU mukaddesatgi) perspective, which is also called as conservative nationalism, towards Kemalist ideology and the impact of Kemalism on conservative nationalist stance