Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish government tried to form a national and capitalist economy in Turkey by integrating different parts of the country and collaborating with business classes on several grounds, among which commercial fairs stand out. The fairs brought together hundreds of businessmen from all around the country. In doing so, the fairs not only enhanced trade activities but also facilitated economic integration within Turkey. Former Ottoman merchants, most of whom had been unfamiliar with each other, found a chance to locate new partners thanks to the fairs. In addition to local partners, they were also able to sell their products to foreigners who came to visit the fairs in Turkey. The success of the fairs regarding capital accumulation largely came from the cooperation between governmental authorities and businessmen. As both groups wanted to facilitate capitalist development in Turkey, particularly during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the business-government collaboration in general and the commercial fairs in particular heavily contributed to the emergence of a national and capitalist economy in interwar Turkey. These two factors, at the same time, deeply shaped the social and cultural identities of Turkish businessmen. In line with the economic nationalism and protectionism of the Turkish government, former Ottoman merchants increasingly identified themselves as ‘Turkish’ businessmen, who began to do business at a national level instead of a local one. In order to demonstrate the crucial role of the commercial fairs and exhibitions in creating new identities of business classes in post-Ottoman Turkey, this study focuses on three case studies, which are floating exhibitions, the International Izmir Fair, and exhibitions of domestic goods. Based on documents that are held in the Turkish State Archives as well as periodicals of Turkish chambers of commerce and Turkish newspapers, this study aims to provide a nuanced account of capitalist development in Turkey in general and socio-cultural aspects of business classes in the interwar period in particular.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed a steady influx of Muslim émigrés into Anatolia from the Balkans and the Caucasus. The same period also saw the equally forceful emigration of Christians from Anatolia. The ethnoreligious composition of the Anatolian population dramatically changed, accordingly. The only exception to this long-standing trend was the migration of Gagauz people, a Turkic yet Orthodox Christian group, from Moldova and Romania to Turkey in the interwar period. Although the number of the Gagauz immigrants was very few, their case was still exceptional among all the population movements that took place in the same period. Contrary to the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange, for example, it was Christians but not Muslims who migrated to Turkey. Although the Gagauzes were Turkic people and there were secularizing attempts in Republican Turkey, the majority of the Turkish population was still Muslim. The religious difference between the Gagauzes and local people occasionally created problems, particularly for female students. Regarding the studies on the migration to Anatolia from the Balkans, most of the studies have been about Bulgaria and Greece while English-writing scholars have given too little attention to the case of the Gagauzes. The studies on the migration of the Gagauzes, most of which have been produced by Turkish-writing historians, have emphasized the diplomatic and political aspects of the migration. Benefiting from archival documents, periodicals, as well as oral history sources, this study aims not only to explore a topic that has been relatively neglected by the scholars it also wants to evaluate the case of the Gagauzes within a larger framework of changing identities in interwar Turkey.