HISTORICAL JOURNEY OF THE TERM OF UNIONISM: THE COMMITTEE OF UNION AND PROGRESS IN THE TRIANGLE OF PERCEPTION, PRECONCEPTION AND METHOD

During the period from its emergence in 1889 until the end of the Armistice period, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) underwent a transformation from "the seditious committee (cemiyet-i fesadiyye)" to "the sacred committee (cemiyet-i mukaddese)", and then back to “seditious" one. The role played by some former Unionists during the National Struggle and the early Republican periods was the source of the transfer of the perceptions of Unionism to the political arguments in the Republican period. Although the active political life of the Unionists was terminated with the 1926 İzmir Assassination Attempt, the perceptions proceeded within the language shaping the studies on the CUP as socio-political and ideological tools, almost without deviating from their origin. Over the course of time, the old perceptions about Unionism have been enriched with new conceptual approaches that have been shaped by Turkey's current concerns and priorities; however, the perceptions about Unionism, which became apparent around excessive political arguments with the aim of legitimizing or illegitimating the CUP during the Second Constitutional era, have remained in existence as the result of having undergone very little change until today. This continuity, has, on the one hand, influenced the efforts to understand the political developments of the Constitutional era retrospectively from the Republic of Turkey, while, on the other hand, led to the formation of the prejudices and general acceptances in CUP studies by reinforcing the arguments stemming from the perceptions about Unionism during the Constitutional era. Thus, it is significant to reconsider the rational context of the CUP historiography in terms of the future course of CUP studies.