Banned, Bagged, Bowdlerized: a Diachronic Analysis of Censorship Practices in Children's Literature of Turkey

Abstract

The primary aim of this study is to explore the historical dynamics of censorship practices as an organized state policy which sustains and promotes the control and suppression of both home-grown and translated children's books in Turkey from a diachronic perspective. Analysis of Turkish politics regarding censorship policies for children in curricula and literature reveals a continuum from state-centered public censorship policies of early republican period to Islamist structural censorship policies in more recent times. In other words, historical records reveal that the promulgation of ideologies in children's literature is operated along the axes of Republican mentalities and pro-Islamist conservative ideology. Within this political climate, different modes of censorship practices highlight the critical role of children's books as a didactic political instruments, which are banned, covered in plastic bags, hidden, and stigmatized on the grounds that they constituted harm to minors.