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International Journal of Turcologia, vol.8, no.16, pp.7-48, 2013 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)
The Hat Law is one of the hallmarks of the early republican Turkey's modernization process. The nationalist-modernist elite attempted to modernize the society through changing the cultural codes like clothing styles. The symbols such as headgears became an essential means through which the new regime transformed the society from religious-traditional to modern-secular one. The state intervention in symbolic and cultural realms of the society, specifically the Hat Law of 1925, created widespread social reactions and prompted several uprisings. Many Islamic scholars rejected and fiercely criticized the hat reform. In many provinces, masses staged several anti-hat protests. These widely-known individual opposition and collective protests were not the only form of popular disapproval or resistance. Ordinary people drew on several resistance and disobedience strategies in daily life so as to avoid the wearing new hat or keep away from the social changes the hat reform implied. The political and intellectual history approaches, however, have not examined such forms of people's everyday politics. Culturalism also captured modernist accounts and conservative literature, both of which explained the anti-hat protests in reference to the people's religiosity. This article, drawing on new historical sources from several archives, examines the everyday-covert forms and complex causes of people's negative response to the hat reform, and brings to light how the society negotiated the hat reform in daily life, even without organized-political action.