Biopolitics and Politics of Sport from the Ottoman to the Early Republican Era

The 20th century was a period in which biopolitics was in vogue. In the period between the two major World Wars, many European states turned to their citizens who had suffered the negative effects of the wars that had taken place, and endeavoured to repair the devastating effects of the recent war on their bodies and to prepare these bodies for possible wars. This also includes Turkey. Biopolitical practices in Turkey started with the Balkan Wars and reached a high level especially in the first years of the Republic. This was due to the fact that the demographic structure had lost its normality due to wars on many different fronts, mass migrations and epidemics in the first quarter of the century. The desire to restore the problematic demographic structure to its normal structure and function required the meticulous and intensive implementation of biopolitics. One of the areas where biopolicies, which have been put into practice from different fields, has been the field of sports and physical education. Sports and physical education were transformed from being a health orentertainment-centred activity into a mechanism for raising "fit" and "civilian soldiers". In this study, the process of biopolitics, which was put into practice in the Ottoman period and continued in the Republican period, centred on sports and physical education will be analysed, and the biopolitical aims and tools that enabled the functioning of the process will be documented.