“The Aspect of Reality in Turkish Novel”
Hikmet Temel Akarsu
15, April 2015
Translated by: Cansu Akarsu & Pervin Ayça Akarsu
What Novel is, and is not?
What is the art of novel? What it is not? There cannot be a unique, embracing and clear answer that can be given to such a question. Nevertheless, we always have explicit views about what a novel is not. Even if the impressionist narrative in the early and rising period of the art of novel caused the perception of this genre to be a “fair” literary form, revealing reality through an omniscient wisdom; even the ones who have a mediocre level of literature knowledge know that novel is a fictive creation in its essence. It cannot be expected from a fictive creation to represent the reality perfectly. In the art of novel too, just like in the other branches of art; perspectives presenting us different synthesis and doors leading us to the perceptions of different directions of life are developed through the partial distortion, disregard or replacement of different elements of reality.
This very fact is what renders the art of novel magnificent: venture of the destruction of reality with a godlike state of being indebted! Also its bestowing the mankind who reflect upon his fate helplessly a new way of seeing, its offering new vital perceptions and presenting new models of existence…
In fact this is no different from assuming a non-existing factorial to reach logical solutions of a numeric equation. Thus, the art of novel renders possible for us to get new vital guides for our little, sad and tragic lives through an adaptation of the world that is constructed by human instances tested by the problematics of a burlesque world constituted through abstract assumptions and presuppositions. It makes possible for us to learn different aspects of life and various perspectives. Through this, it makes us wiser, improves us and enriches our imaginary world and also renders us more resistant to troubles of life.
These abstract worlds at hand may sometimes present a significant part of the reality; or, may have started out by an attitude as if they are narrating directly the real world. Even this does not change the result. Because the world being narrated is the world of the narrator. Hence, it cannot be identical with reality. Namely, even a narrator claiming himself telling the reality, consciously or unconsciously narrates his own subjective world and this is different from the “real” reality for anyone who is other than himself because every single man grasps reality in a particular manner.
If we suspect even the creation of a writer who has started off to narrate completely the truth and consider his work as a production of a mortal who depicts another dimension of reality; then where is the real?!.. Another question which is more piquant is this: Historical novel which enables a resultant force to our formation of historical awareness that shapes our ideas about our civilization and past falls within where in the reality?
And there is another question: To what extent the Turkish novelist with his history of more than a century has been remained loyal to historical facts, has added his interpretations, has he altered and what are the reasons and aims for all these alterations? What may be his artistic intentions while deforming and curving the history and equipping it with brand new fictitious characters?! What in fact is the reflective path behind his mind during all this process?
In order to be able to analyze this, we shall establish a pattern by systematizing the ways of approaches to historicity in Turkish novel and shall try to draw a conclusion and review the subject matter. We will attempt to figure out how the Turkish novelist has approached the history and how he has got in touch with the reality…
Ways of approaches to historicity in Turkish novel
Novel is the art of bourgeoisie. Don Quixote of Cervantes that is accepted as the origin of the art of novel by many notable critiques coincides with the first explorers who are considered as “proto-capitalists” too. The art of novel has reached its magnificent period with the development and expansion of capitalism and bourgeoisie’s taking over the power after the American and French Revolutions and 19th century has become the age of the art of novel.
It has taken more than a century for the waves of the French Revolution to arrive in Turkey. At the end of this process that ended up with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, everything has turned upside down and thousands of people have perished. In this period of catastrophes, which had begun in 1911 and ended up in 1923, Turkish novel has risen. Therefore, this period of collapse is intensively handled in Turkish novel and the first examples of our Historical novel consist of the narratives of this period.
Collapse Novels
The narratives that are written immediately after and in the following 60 years of this period give many important clues about the historical facts. One of the most delicate evidences for this is Tolstoy’s masterpiece War and Peace. Our decadence novels also share this characteristic. Their being written after 10 to 60 years of this historical period and the possibilities of testimonial and research they offer to their writer are the common features of these novels. Falih Rıfkı Atay’s Zeytindağı is very significant among our narratives that have these characteristics even if it does not precisely fit the form of novel. This work that has its source directly from personal witnesses, narrates the loss of Jerusalem. We follow this precious narrative with sorrow, through the touching image of soldiers who perish in inane front lines and wars. Falih Rıfkı Atay has a lot of narrative about the First World War and the Raid on the Suez Canal that may be called memory-novel and these witnesses impressively shed light on the reality. Because of the fact that afterwards Falih Rıfkı Atay had been the guest of the state dignitaries in Çankaya and that he had took charge in the applications of the modern state with the title of an official historicist, he is considered as a writer who has lost his autonomy in his literary discourse; thus, his late narratives are not considered that much. However, it is possible to reach some notable information about the first applications of the modern republic in his works like Çankaya.
Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu is another leading figure among these writers who narrate the decadence period. We may see his impressive style of historical narration in either his novel entitled Sodom ve Gomore where he tells the story of the English occupation in İstanbul, or in Yaban which is about the War of Independence. Sodom ve Gomore is a very significant novel which portrays the decadence and corruption in Istanbul under invasion. Loose women who lead mistress lives with the English officers, minorities who jitter the Turkish subject, libational revelries in Pera and the dreary state of a society who do not know what to do; they all are true cases in point.
Yaban, which is about the progression of the Greek corps into Anatolia during the War of Independence, is considered as a founding work for years in Turkey and ranks among the books that are recommended by the ministry of public education. Yakup Kadri’s Yaban honestly is a novel that can be read with pleasure with its impressive characters, swift style and literary ingenuity; and also, it makes us realize why the tension between the public and the elite do not cease and evolve into a breakup at the end. Yaban maybe is a notable novel that gives significant information about the historical witnesses; however, today it has become an old-fashioned work considering its thesis advocating the pragmatic characteristics of the modern state, which compliments Jacobinism and promotes the alienation of the modern state to its own citizens.
Among the decadence novels, Mithat Cemal Kuntay’s Üç İstanbul, which tells the story the pre and post armistice period in İstanbul should also be named. It is a successful and rich narrative that depicts the characteristics and the vision of life of the epoch.
Nahit Sırrı Örik’s Sultan Hamit Düşerken is another example that should be mentioned in this era. Nahit Sırrı was not a novelist who goes along with the republic; therefore people began reading him commonly after 80s. However this novel is a must-read, which presents an inspiring composition of the period in question.
We should cite without doubt Kemal Tahir’s invasion novels like Esir Şehrin İnsanları and Yorgun Savaşçı. Nevertheless, it would not be sufficient to classify Kemal Tahir’s authentic and important place in Turkish literature only in the decadence novels, so we will discuss this issue in another category where it will be mentioned the reasons of his being one of the most significant historical novelists in the history of Turkish novel.
Necati Cumalı’s Viran Dağlar which narrates our loss of Balkans in a form of a melancholic novel is maybe one of the most touching of these decadence novels. The sad story of the last Ottoman lord of Macedonia, Zülfikar Bey, Rumelia getting lost; a story that may make you cry out of nothing.
Similarly, even if they are not written with the intention of being historical novels, some of the novels of Halide Edip, like Vurun Kahveye or Ateşten Gömlek offer us broad observations as if they are historical novels.
Tarık Buğra’s Küçük Ağa should also be stated among this class. His work Osmancık that narrates the foundation period of the Ottoman Empire, even if it does not belong to this category, should be mentioned among the valuable historical novels.
Another name to be remembered is Attila İlhan with his Dersaadette Sabah Ezanları; because he draws up in a unique aesthetic language the collapse of the epoch in question. He prefers to make references to the political ideals instead of being committed to the objective directions of the art of novel while he manifests an extraordinary rhetoric.
Naives
The Ottoman Empire collapses and 1930s and 40s are coming. Revolutions are on the way. There is also a bourgeoisie of commerce that is developing. Now, what is necessary is a bourgeois nationalist historical consciousness, which is convenient with the story of the epoch and the structure of the recently founded modernist state. That is why this is the age of the naïve historical novels which would reveal the feeling of national belonging and enthusiasm in vast masses. In those years, Ahmet Refik Altınay who is known as a writer who endears history to society successively wrote novels. He is a historicist-novelist whose works are popular among the society with his successful style that is directly dedicated to history. He has a delicate language, a broad knowledge of history, deep research, and a joyful and passionate narrative. His works have promoted the national historical consciousness and historical narratives in the society. His significant works like Bizans Karşısında Türkler, Sokullu, Cem Sultan, Alimler ve Sanatkarlar, Kadınlar Saltanatı, Felaket Seneleri, Lale Devri are novels that are naïve, occasionally epic, national belonging promoting and enthusiastic. Therefore Ahmet Refik Altınay occupies quite an authentic place in our art of historical narration and ranks in the very first place among the naives.
In the following period, Aptullah Ziya Kozanoğlu appears an influential figure. He is almost a writing machine. Actually he is an architect and entrepreneur. However, he is full of a unique joy of life. He writes countless historical novel with the influence of this childish exuberance. Among these, there are characters still appearing in film and television. Even if the most significant one is Malkoçoğlu, he has innumerable adventure novels like Kızıl Tuğ, Patronalılar, Battal Gazi, Atlı Han, Kozanoğlu, Savcı Bey, Türk Korsanları, Seydi Ali Reis, Cengiz Han’ın Hazineleri, Hülagu’nun Gözdesi, Bozkurt’un İntikamı, Kızıl Kadırga. The common trait of those novels is that their way of blending a childish excitement, an epic realm of sentiments, naïve intrigues and cliché techniques of narration and presenting them as extraordinarily agitating, sentimental and national stories. We also encounter the first examples of the historical fantastic fiction in western sense in Kozanoğlu. In conclusion, regarding functionality, Aptullah Ziya Kozanoğlu has been in the right place, at the right time and has succeeded to be the creator of the popular novels of a society who is in an attempt to form the nation state through a historical consciousness.
Afterwards, writers like Feridun Fazıl Tülbentçi with his works like Tarihe Şan Veren Türk, Barbaros Hayreddin Geliyor, Büyük Türk Zaferleri and Türk Tarihinden Sayfalar have jollified the area by producing various epic oeuvres. However, nobody has been as productive as Aptullah Ziya Kozanoğlu in this area.
The followers of this style have started making graphic novels later on. They have exceeded the endeavors of adapting some characters of Kozanoğlu to graphic novels and characters like Karaoğlan, Tarkan, Kara Murat, Durakoğlu and Koca Yusuf had been created. Among these, there are characters that have been attracted a great deal of attention and appreciated by society like Suat Yalaz’s Karaoğlan “Altaylar’dan Gelen Yiğit”, Sezgin Burak’s Tarkan “Attilla’nın Elçisi” and Rahmi Turan’s Kara Murat “Fatih’in Fedaisi”. Even today the movie and novel adaptations of these characters are being published.
All these naives, even if with a childish sense of art, have provided the opportunity for the Turkish reader to appreciate historical novel. It goes without saying that we should not expect much from the works of naives regarding being realistic. In their works, the elements of enthusiasm, romanticism, epic, agitation, sense of adventure and promotion of national pride are more significant than their being fit to reality. Therefore, in these kinds of works “A Turk is worth to a world, A Turk is inexpugnable and God saves (spares?) Turk”.
Therefore, when we consider historical novel, naïve style is the area where one is distant to the reality the most. As a matter of fact it would be absurd to seek the traces of the reality in the novels of this category. The fact that the historical consciousness that keeps peoples together through a spiritual solidarity arises mostly from these naïve novels that are irrelevant to objective reality is like a cruel joke. The same fact is also valid more or less for the other cultures too, as well as it is for Turkey.
That is the very reason why the society “engineers” adore these types of naives.
The Idealists
There has always been a tendency among men of letters that constructed their worlds around their political ideals, to form and shape the society and to lead the masses to a certain ideological orientation within this context through historical novels; for the cultural consciousness and the sense of belonging initiated by the historical novel is fairly strong. In fact this tendency can be seen in more or less every author. Willingly or unwillingly, every author wants to pull masses closer to his own political culture with his/her work.
Among ones doing this most strikingly, Nihal Atsız takes the lead. Atsız is a true idealist and an uncompromising Turkish Nationalist. The times he published his works are the times nationalist tendencies are widespread all around the world. And he writes in accordance with these ideals and creates extremely sentimental and astonishingly aesthetical novels. Bozkurtların Ölümü and Bozkurtların Dirilişi are two extremely successful novels having incomparable agitative powers. Even today, it is these novels that provide the greatest motivation for the nationalist movement in Turkey. Nonetheless, one must admit that Nihal Atsız is way too radical regarding today’s intellectual perception. Considering some of his views, he may even claimed to be too near to racism and these tendencies are not welcome in today’s world. It is better to evaluate him according to the criteria of his own times and leave it there.
In the works of Attila İlhan, who in a way dedicated his art to the success of the modern republic and Revolution, heroes acting within the spirit of Kuvva-yı Milliye (Turkish Revolutionaries) are praised; the national struggle is celebrated and a colloborationist and snob kind of an intellectual is satirized. Attila İlhan is such a great poet who uses Turkish language so masterfully that we cannot stop reading his novels, even the ones that deviated from reality in the name of being critical, for the sake of that magnificent stylism. Dersaadette Sabah Ezanları, in which he tells about the first world war and the period right after it; O Karanlıkta Biz, in which he tells about the second world war and Haco Hanım Vay, in which he provides social sequences about the first phase aristocracy of the Republic, are three novels that should be regarded on this idealist, critical and political line.
It is also possible to count Turgut Özakman within this chapter as a less literary version belonging to the same line, with his popular novels such as Şu Çılgın Türkler and Diriliş that are published in recent years.
Even though they have a different political tendency, Mustafa Necati Sepetçioğlu and Yılmaz Öztuna should also be categorized with the Idealists.
Lastly, Professor İskender Pala should be added to the Idealists because of Muhafazakâr Sanat Manifestosu he published, and his historical novels he wrote in the same direction; Katre-i Matem, Şah ve Sultan, Od, Barbaros. Though it is a bit too early to thoroughly examine this issue, for the time course is extremely recent.
In a nutshell, there are authors in our art of historical novel that are motivated by and through nationalist, neo-nationalist and Ottomanist ideals and their narratives place salient emphases on some points of reality, deeply affecting the society.
Thesis Novelists
If there is one author in Turkey whose name has always been identified with historical fiction, it is Kemal Tahir. His discourses on historical fiction are so widely discussed and affected such great audiences that in the end there emerged a term as “Tahiriler” in our literature: meaning “new followers of Kemal Tahir”. Kemal Tahir is a unique author laying emphasis on the authentic Turkish language, using an impressive stylism and adopting a plain but strong way of expression. He has a masculine and vulgar yet an aesthetic and impressive language.
Even though a socialist author, Kemal Tahir accomplished not being captured by cliches or forced ideologies unlike other socialist thinkers and authors. He chose to have the courage of his own convictions. For him the feudal and bourgeois society and the chain of proletariat, as the natural outcome of Historical Materialism –one of two steps of Marxism– had not developed in Turkey as they had in Europe. Thus the classical Marxist theses cannot apply to Turkey.
We need to have an authentic socialist perception because of our own authentic historical past. Kemal Tahir could not also please Jesus and Moses, with these ideas way too daring for his period. Socialists and conservatives as well as the government were sceptical about him. So much so that, he was imprisoned for a ridiculous reason for twelve years. But still, he managed to write such a unique founding text as Devlet Ana. He can also be regarded as the initiator of Ottomanism in Turkish literature. He regards the Ottoman Empire as our predecessor. But he does not deliver these opinions for the sake of political ideals or personal aims but just because he believes in them. Today we can say that a person who did not read and understand Devlet Ana by Kemal Tahir can never understand us; can never comprehend why we are different and authentic.
Kemal Tahir delves into the issue of nomads in Anatolia before the Ottomans were an Empire, and provides us with micro-sociological façades among pastoral stories there. Spiritual worlds inflamed by stylism becomes exuberant and turns into love of country, nation and state. In the mentioned novel we find the subconscious coordinates of the love of state within Turkish society, and of the way the state is seen as the mother. Therefore Devlet Ana of this unique author appears as a real founding text, going beyond his other valuable novels such as; Yorgun Savaşçı, Esir Şehrin İnsanları, Rahmet Yolları Kesti. A journey to the heart of reality can thus be so skillfully imagined, through a virtual art like literature! What he tells us may be dreams; but these dreams give us such powerful inspirations about reality that actually make us what we are. And this is what literature exactly is!
Even though not an author who directly writes historical novels, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, who managed to leave lasting impressions on our cultural life with two significant novels he wrote, should be classified under tezliler(Thesis). Tanpınar does not actually maintain a literary journey peculiar to the art of novel. He rather enlightens the society as a very significant intellectual, an aesthtete; a highbrow that is beyond his age. He has very important essay books such as Beş Şehir and poems with a deep sensibility. Nonetheless he managed to determine the deep rupture and the permanent fault line on Turkey’s social structure.
Despite this, he was kept in the background because of the political climate; only after the third quarter of the 20th century he was held dear through new readings. Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü brings serious criticism into the new order’s paradigm by parodying some of the practices of the young Republic. These criticisms underestimated at the beginning had been discovered and praised to the skies through the post-modern era, rehabilitated and Tanpınar was declared one of the greatest authors of Turkish literature. As for me, being one of the most important intellectuals raised by the country, Tanpınar is a little overrated as a novelist with the exception of Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü. Political aims played a role.
Even though we should mention Necip Fazıl Kısakürek here, for his very significant discourses affected the recent political epoch considerably, we must just note his only novel Aynadaki Yalan, for it is not a historical novel. His Great Orient adventure, poems, plays and conference texts which all constituted the leading discourses of Political Islam can be an independent paper topic.
Post-moderns
Gradually things begin to change. The end of the Second World War in 1945 actually is the end of modernity. Even though the cultural reflections and the insistence would follow each other, so obviously relations of production are changing, the system of governments is transforming and the modern republics are changing. All the countries must now lean towards free elections based on democracy, market economy, free circulation, open society, in short; towards globalization. The art of this new era is determined in not more than one or two decades: post-modernism.
Post-modern art in a way is ornamentation, pastiche, collectorism, pragmatism; a kind of populism. That is to say; it finds it natural to adapt and internalize all the products of human culture, imitation, copy and parody and even the act of rewriting history.
Orhan Pamuk is one of the authors in Turkey who comprehended and internalized the art of post-modern era and who wrote the best examples of it. Even though his first novel, Cevdet Bey and His Sons, cannot be classified under historical novels, it gives inside information about the republic’s first period bourgeoisie, as a “Buddenbrucks” style of a bildungsroman. Pamuk, gradually enhancing his interest in history with his second novel, Silent House, writes a full-blown historical post-modern novel with his other novel; The White Castle. The story is about the relationship between a European sold to a noble man as a slave and his master. The novel is like the declaration of the beginning of post-modern art, regarding its themes, concerns, style and tone. Promotion campaigns too are run as the industrial literature necessitates. The book sells a lot of copies. The following work; Kara Kitap is more overrated. This time a real post-modern artwork is produced with a layered narrative. The work is complicated and the language is problematic. The populist tendency and market helps again. The “PR” mechanism of the industrial art intervenes and the book sells ten thousands. Later Orhan Pamuk continues to similar books and campaigns. My Name is Red is a real historical novel and can be regarded as one of the peaks of post-modern literature. We see inspirations from Firdevsi’s Şahname in the story that tells about the muralists in nine snowy winter days. Nonetheless the author presents us a completely new historical Istanbul now, minutely treating the work with his knowledge of painting and effort. This is a very attractive Istanbul, considerably different from the one we know.
Later, our novelist, making eyes at the Nobel Prize, writes Snow and sounds off about Turkey. Probably he must have thought that he would win the jury by criticizing the government of that day. Even though the novel is full of information that does not reflect truly the realities of that day, foreigners love it. Because they had found the author they were looking for. Everyone knows what happened afterwards. Orhan Pamuk criticizes Turkey on various media and wins the Nobel Prize in Literature, in whose jury there is not even one Turkish-speaking member.
Among Orhan Pamuk’s historical narratives, the one to be more appreciated is Istanbul: Memories and the City, which is not a novel. Orhan Pamuk presents us a rich Istanbul sequence, through the identity of a bourgeois family. Other than that, his historical narrativism is nothing but a surreal creation made up of ornamentation and collage, just suitable for post-moderns. Something that has nothing to do with reality; rather a deformed imitation of it. Maybe one exception to this is his collection of 70s in his last novel; Masumiyet Müzesi. A passionate, collector-like, micro-sociologically descriptive –about Nişantaşı bourgeoisie, a social group from our recent history– language attracts attention.
Among the post-moderns, another important figure is İhsan Oktay Anar. As an academic, Anar’s literature is more inward-oriented when compared to Orhan Pamuk. Reminding of Ottoman Turkish’s style; he uses parody and his mastery in language is extraordinary. He worked wonders and made a post-modern interpretation of history in Puslu Kıtalar Atlası, which he wrote in new Ottoman language he constructed himself. He tried to repeat it in his later works, and he managed to write a magnificent marine gothic in his historical novel Amat. In his later works Suskunlar and Yedinci Gün he was a bit on decline, not being able to succeed as before; what is more repeating himself. To read the post-modern dream world he wrote about is pleasurable and literarily delightful. Nonetheless nothing he wrote about has anything to do with reality but only a post-modern illusion. That is to say Anar is a typical post-modern a step further than Orhan Pamuk.
We should name Elif Şafak too, among the post-moderns. Şafak managed to write many novels, depending on her doctorate dissertation on Mevlana, even though she lived in the Anglo-Saxon world for many years. A European style “new-age” life couch attitude and post-modern ornamentation rules her works, which sold a lot. In my opinion, it has been affective to lean towards “mainstream – popular” discourses.
Orientalists
When the words Turkey and historical novel come together, we need to mention orientalists. As is known, the exotic nights of the east, the legendary harem lives, still clear images of A Thousand and One Nights and mystical women trapped in man’s world has always been the very dreams of the Westerners. Such narratives that affected the way the Westerners viewed the East are called orientalist narratives. This has implications in painting and cinema too. It would be so naïve to think that the orientalism trend would not jump in in the years of industrial literature. Thus orientalism, which belonged only to the Europeans before, is now something the native authors enjoy too. (Ann Chamberlin) It is not necessary to take seriously and talk about the “Sultan” novels highlighting the “Harem-Eunuch-Servant” triplet, but rather treat them as a kind of “genre novel” in popular culture. But let us state that there are a lot of them, and even foreign authors write novels in this genre, which are ambitiously translated into Turkish. Among the most productive authors of this genre we can count Teoman Ergül, Turhan Tan, Gül İrepoğlu, Demet Altınyeleklioğlu and Nazım Tektaş.
Academicians
Parallel to the increasing interest within the society, historians working as academicians in history departments wrote novels and succeeded in this. It is also necessary to state that these are the authors who cause much concern. Among them are respected academicians such as Reha Çamuroğlu who wrote İsmail, Son Yeniçeri, Sultan Selahaddin El Kürdî; Hakan Erdem who wrote historical satires like Kitab-ı Duvduvanî and Özlem Kumrular who wrote the novel about Kanuni era: Sultanın Mutfağı. Özlem Kumrular’s non-fictions, Türk Korkusu and İslam Korkusu are two valuable historical analyses that give serious information about the origins of Islamphobia and provides us the truth about it with proof. And the recently published novel titled “Gölgeler ve Hayaller Şehrinde” by Murat Gülsoy tells the story of the poet Beşir Fuat who committed suicide and died. It stands out with its authentic portrayals about the period after the Constitutional Monarchy, an experimental novel with lots of literary inspirations and references.
Historical Detective Stories
The well-known author Ahmet Ümit uses the historical detective genre in order to rank among the best-sellers. Not only his novel Sultanı Öldürmek but also previous ones such as Bab-ı Esrar, Patasana, Kavim take place in cinematographic plateaus very distant to historical reality. Ahmet Ümit’s Kar Kokusu in which he writes about Moscow in 1980s, contains important historical evidence.
We also know that Nedim Gürsel is trying to do spectacular things in the same area such as Boğazkesen Fatih’in Romanı, Allahın Kızları.
Selçuk Altun’s Bizans Sultanı, which again is a detective story is an authentic fiction. It especially contains qualified research about the history and the city regulation of Constantinople.
A Couple of Authentic Names
We should definitely name the valuable novelist Vecdi Çıracıoğlu with his literarily distinguished historical novels; Kara Büyülü Uyku, in which he tells the story of the conquest of İstanbul from within the Hungarian cannonball foundry and Cimri Kirpi, that is about the irregularity regarding Anatolian Seljuk Empire in the years of Mongol escape. Similarly, with his authentic psychological historical novels; especially Rüya Körü, Gürsel Korat should be remembered. I should say that I still read the novels of old Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı; Uluç Reis and Turgut Reis with pleasure. It would also be a lack not talking about the valuable historical knowledge Osman Necmi Gürmen’s novels like Mühtedi ve Rânâ contains.
Conclusion
Turkish Literature is a great one. In it there are many unique, incomparable and valuable examples of historical novel. Nonetheless it is necessary to internalize the criteria about reality after building them on strong foundations, in order to understand what really is going on. We made observations here in order to be able to analyze the extent of history’s reality in Turkish novel, wandering among literary genres and styles. Hopefully this essay and these observations could provide a basis for the efforts in understanding and perceiving the dimension of history’s reality in Turkish novel.
