In the second half of the 19th century, nationalist movements in the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire have increased. As the ‘millet’ system can no longer address this challenge, the Turks, as the ‘dominant millet’, will be the last to take over a purely nationalist ideal. With the arrival of the Union and Progress Party to the Government, the Turkmen movement, confined to a first stage in the field of cultural nationalism, will become a political instrument (touranism) during the First World War. Cultural turquacy, the primary objective of which will be the search for a culture specific to Turks, will then experience a period when associations aimed at the spread of Turkish nationalism will bring together part of the Turkish intelligentsia of the time.