Research Information System
JOURNAL OF BALKAN AND NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
This study investigates how early Republican educational inspectors evaluated and regulated the Halki Seminary, using it as a focused case to analyse the mechanisms through which the new Turkish Republic reshaped minority religious schooling. Based on 82 pages of archival inspection reports, official correspondence, and ministerial directives obtained from the Turkish State Archives, the study employs a qualitative documentary analysis to trace how state power was operationalized in practice. Five analytical themes emerged from the coding process: (1) state authorization and legal redefinition of minority schools, (2) enforcement of national curriculum and Turkish-language instruction, (3) ministry-controlled staffing and administrative compliance, (4) surveillance of student population and facilities, and (5) multi-layer bureaucratic oversight. The study contributes to the literature by demonstrating how inspection functioned not merely as administrative supervision but as an instrument of nation-building and secular state consolidation revealing, through original archival evidence, the concrete practices by which minority educational institutions were incorporated into the centralized Republican order.