Militancy in Exile, Tracking the Diverse Trajectories of Political Migrants from Turkey

Militancy in Exile: Tracking the Trajectories of Socialist Political Migrants from Turkey is a four-year research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, starting in April 2025. It explores the distinctive — but also remarkably diverse — experiences of Turkish and
Kurdish socialists in exile and seeks to integrate this understudied history into the flourishing literature on Turkey’s diaspora(s) and transnational radical activism during the late and post–Cold War eras.

Focusing on three “exilic hubs” — Basel, Berlin, and Paris — the project aims to reconstruct a highly turbulent and formative period in the intertwined histories of Turkey and Europe, beginning with the military coup of 1971. While this event, vernacularly known as 12 Mart Darbesi, is of particular significance for having triggered the first mass influx of socialists from Turkey abroad, a sizeable and politically influential socialist migrant community was arguably constituted only in the wake of a subsequent coup in 1980, which forced tens of thousands of politically engaged individuals to seek asylum in Europe.

No matter how relieving it might initially have been to escape deadly persecution and find security beyond the reach of the ruling junta, a wide range of archival sources and oral testimonies jointly attest that Europe has rarely been a place of retreat for socialist militants
from Turkey. Rather, the arrival of thousands of people armed with militant energy, capability, and experience profoundly refashioned the diasporic space into a major site of struggle over Turkey’s politics. This revolutionary fervour reached its peak during the first half of the 1980s and was embodied in large anti-junta mobilisations, colourful May Day processions, as well as more disruptive forms of dissidence — including occupations of consulates and armed attacks on presumed pro-regime forces in Europe.

Against this backdrop, and considering the substantial divergence observed on both individual and organisational levels, this project posits two main questions. First, how and why have the trajectories of socialist militants diverged to such an extent following their exit
from Turkey? Positioned at the intersection of social and political history, the second question is: How did the everyday experiences of socialist militants in exile shape and reshape their ideological commitments, political identities, and repertoires of action?

Principal investigator:  Prof. Dr. Maurus Reinkowski 

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Maurus Reinkowski

Co-Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Bilgin Ayata

Co-Supervisor: Dr. Elise Massicard