Berkes was born in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, on 21 September 1908, shortly after the Young Turk Revolution in Turkey.
[6] He began his university years studying law, but transferred to philosophy in hopes of broader intellectual engagements.
There he was exposed to the ideology of Kemalism, which at the time, allowed for much intellectual debate regarding the construction of a new Turkey.
In 1939 he returned to Turkey and as an associate professor of sociology he attended to the faculty of languages, history and geography of Ankara University which had just opened a Philosophy Department.
In addition to his works reflecting his views and ideas on theoretical sociology, he researched the transition of Turkey from the Ottoman era.