ed-Din el-Afghani (who is philosophically the
connecting link between Pan-Islamism and Moslem nationalism), while the
Turkish reformers of the mid-nineteenth century were patently influenced
by nationalism as they were by other Western ideas. It was, in fact, in
Turkey that a true nationalist consciousness first appeared. Working
upon the Turks' traditional devotion to their dynasty and pride in
themselves as a ruling race lording it over many subject peoples both
Christian and Moslem, the Turkish nationalist movement made rapid
progress.

Precisely as in Europe, the nationalist movement in Turkey began with a
revival of historic memories and a purification of the language. Half a
century ago the Ottoman Turks knew almost nothing about their origins or
their history. The martial deeds of their ancestors and the stirring
annals of their empire were remembered only in a vague, legendary
fashion, the study of the national history being completely neglected.
Religious discussions and details of the life of Mohammed or the early
days of Islam interested men more than the spread of Ottoman power in
three continents. The nationalist pioneers taught their
fellow-countrymen their historic glories and awakened both pride of past
and confidence in the future.

Similarly with the Turkish language; the early nationalists found it
virtually cleft in twain. On the one hand was "official" Turkish--a
clumsy hotchpotch, overloaded with flowers of rhetoric and cryptic
expressions borrowed from Arabic and Persian. This extraordinary jargon,
couched in a bombastic style, was virtually unintelligible to the
masses. The masses, on the other hand, spoke "popular" Turkish--a
primitive, limited idiom, divided into many dialects and despised as
uncouth and boorish by "educated" persons. The nationalists changed all
this. Appreciating the simple, direct strength of the Turkish tongue,
nationalist enthusiasts trained in European principles of grammar and
philology proceeded to build up a real Turkish language in the Western
sense. So well did they succeed that in less than a generation they
produced a simplified, flexible Turkish which was used effectively by
both journalists and men of letters, was intelligible to all classes,
and became the unquestioned vehicle for thought and the canon of
style.[138]

Of course the chief stimulus to Turkish nationalism was Western
political pressure. The more men came to love their country and aspire
to its