This study analyzes how Turkish national identity was produced and experienced in everyday life between 1945 and early 1960s through the records found in the archieves of four high penal courts of Istanbul Caglayan Adalet Sarayi. The decision boards of more than 400 cases of political crime have been explored in order to understand alternative imaginings of Turkish nationhood. The cases are related to crimes stated in Articles 141, 142, 158, 159 and 160, such as “insulting Turkishness, state institutions, armed forces or the President and making communist or religious propaganda.” A comprehensive analysis of these case files reveal how ordinary people experience and understand Turkishness and “otherness” in everyday life. Indeed the available literature on Turkish nationalism has largely concentrated on the official/formal and state side. How the nationalist ideology was instilled in a top-down way through state institutions and laws is the main focus. What is missing in the literature is an analysis of informal/unofficial ways of reproducing Turkish national identity in the realm of everyday life. An analysis of how people interact in everyday life offers a new insight and besides unveils hegemonic narratives of official nationalism. The period between 1945 and early 1960s is the main focus of research since this period witnessed various political and social transformations; such as the transition to multiparty politics, relaxation of law restricting the freedom of press until 1961 military intervention and departure from a long-standing policy of international isolation and neutrality as the result of Cold War politics. Offering multiple imaginations of Turkishness through real-life examples, court cases are valuable sources for discovering everyday expressions of Turkish nationhood in addition to state society interactions that present how people perceive, understand and interpret laws imposed on them by the state.