Modernization of the Village Centers in the Kayseri Province within the Framework of the Implementation of the Village Law and Village Visits

Early Republican Period (1923-1945) is a period when intense national efforts began to improve the quality of life in villages and to establish development balance between the urban and villages. In this period, there were numerous villages, which were located in or near woods, near waterfronts, in plains, valleys and mountain sides, and whose population was at different sizes varying from a couple of houses to more than a hundred units. In the Early Republican Period, important practices were realized that aim to re-organise the agricultural production relations of these villages, where 75% of the national population were living, in line with modernization, that may be example of health, cleanliness, beauty and modern culture and that may be explained as village constituent of national development and public works. In order to make a modern "Republican Village" as a spatial representation of the nation state, the villages were purported to be developed economically as well as to restructure their spatial organizations of administrative, commercial, social and agricultural life. In this process, the Village Law numbered 442 is an important document that did not provide for making development plans for the villages, but defined the administrative structures and borders of the villages, that explained their duties related to the public works and that targeted to improve the existing villages. This study aims to explain in particular the works and efforts that affect the spatial organization of the existing villages in the Early Republican Period and the change and improvement in the village center which are affected largely by the practices. In this study, the Province of Kayseri was selected which is one of the provinces wherein the efforts in the villages for development and improvement of the public works were accelerated after the declaration of the Republic. The activities in Kayseri are examined in context of the visits organised to implement the Village Law and to ensure development and reconstruction, and the evaluations explaining the structure of the villages in the data of Statistic of Villages in 1945.