A Document on the Vision of Cultural Heritage Conservation and Education in the Early Republican Period: Memorandum on How to Utilize the Antiquities and Historical Artifacts in Classes

Abstract

Public consciousness for the conservation of the cultural heritage had been one of the most significant problems of Turkey hitherto. The founders of the republic, the intellectuals and the statesmen, who knew that the ignorance is the major cause of this problem, proposed the use of the cultural heritage of all types in the history lessons as the course material. This practice took place in the curriculum of the schools for the first time in 1926. In order to define its method better, a guidebook with the title "The Memorandum on the Usage of Antiquities and Historical Artifacts in the Courses", is published in 1935,addressing the teachers. This guidebook, which was strangely named as "memorandum", focuses on the idea of creating heritage conservation awareness in the public by making school age teenagers understand and embrace their cultural heritage. In this context, being completely different from the present-day authoritarian attitudes, the memorandum should be accepted as a significant document, which define a conservation attitude socializing heritage conservation by public education. This document also contains the evidences, which are related to the changes in terminology for defining cultural heritage in T & uuml;rkiye, with respect to the changing attitudes and ways of understanding. Although it is not known how it had emerged, it is very probable that the memorandum was a part of the series of developments relating cultural heritage conservation in T & uuml;rkiye, during the 1930's. The memorandum text was consisting of twenty-four articles. The teachers were being instructed on how they are going to use the cultural heritage of all kinds in the courses, how they are going to make the cultural heritage meaningful for the students and make them enjoy the cultural heritage. It is noteworthy that the text contains application proposals like homework on the cultural heritage examples and establishment of school museums. Although the memorandum is an outdated document, the topics in it have timeless special importance. Therefore, the memorandum can be accepted as the expression of a cultural heritage attitude beyond its age. In this study, it is aimed to carry out extensive research on the memorandum. The memorandum is analyzed with respect to the heritage conservation related developments of its period and its importance is discussed in terms of its relation to present day conservation attitudes. In addition to being valuable as a document describing the conservation approaches of the early Republican Period, it has been revealed that the memorandum is up-to-date in terms of its content and an expression of the willing approach to conservation of its period. This study is prepared by using written and live sources.