Turkish nationalism, from its beginnings, was essentially a modernization project. It sought to transform the crumbling Ottoman statecraft into a modern, rational form of governmentality in order to confront the increasingly destructive encroachment of imperial powers and to avert the empire’s looming collapse. Thus, the West, as an ambiguous and monolithic concept, was perceived as inherently and exclusively inimical to Turkish modernity, National Enlightenment, and thus “Turkishness” as an overarching historical constant. Posited in this ideational intersection, Turkish nationalism emerged and thrived with an entrenched anti-Westernist ethos. This ideological positioning, however, did not transpire smoothly. Admiration and fascination with the West, “love and hate,” and desperation felt against the imposing Western supremacy were all constitutive in Turkish nationalism and modernism.