Burcu Alkan, Promethean Encounters: Representation of the Intellectual in the Modern Turkish Novel of the 1970s

Abstract

Reviewed by: Promethean Encounters: Representation of the Intellectual in the Modern Turkish Novel of the 1970s by Burcu Alkan Béatrice Hendrich Burcu Alkan. Promethean Encounters: Representation of the Intellectual in the Modern Turkish Novel of the 1970s. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2018. 144 pp. + xi. Paper, €39. ISBN: 978-3447109833. In the literary history of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, the genres novel and short story appeared only in the later nineteenth century as the characteristic forms of the so-called modern literature. From this perspective, we are talking about a relatively young genre which has developed since then, at a breathtaking pace, not only catching up with the much longer development of these narrative forms in other countries and embedding itself into World Literature, but also producing genuine sub-genres and, even if to a lesser extent, genuine literary forms which cater to the specific themes of these sub-genres. It is regrettable that literary criticism, which would both raise awareness about this cultural production and serve the reception side with more insight and literary expertise, has not (yet) achieved the same level. Instead, it lags far behind the scope, quality, and sheer number of the literary texts. For these and other reasons, the publication of Burcu Alkan's Promethean Encounters. Representation of the Intellectual in the Modern Turkish Novel of the 1970s is a very welcome and absolutely necessary work tailored for academics as well as for a broader readership. Beyond that, it is particularly helpful for literary scholars with no access to secondary sources in the Turkish language and/or in need of further background information regarding certain aspects of the story or implicit references which are otherwise obvious to the readership of Turkey. [End Page 286] Promethean Encounters focuses on the nature and place of intellectuals in Turkey as they are presented in a number of skillfully selected novels. These novels were published in the 1970s, while the narrated time span covers the years between the end of the First World War and the period after the military intervention in 1971, that is in the early 1970s. Almost fifty years after their publication, Ölmeye Yatmak (Lying Down to Die, 1973) by Adalet Ağaoğlu, Bıçağın Ucu (Edge of the Knife, 1973) and Yaraya Tuz Basmak (Rubbing Salt in the Wounds, 1978) by Attilâ İlhan, and Kırk Yedili'ler (Generation of '47, 1974) by Füruzan can be considered modern classics of Turkey's prose literature. The novels display a world which hovers at the edge of oblivion inside Turkey, while being fairly unknown in their political and societal significance to the international readership. And just because these novels have become so "canonical," there is a danger that the powerful descriptions of these masters of the word will be taken for reality, for a historiographic description of "what has really happened." This is where the academic's job starts, to read the novel as a representation written under certain circumstances by authors which—particularly in Turkey—quite often "have a cause." Burcu Alkan defines her research focus as the presentation of the intellectual in his/her "relation to the transformation of the political culture in Turkey" (p. 2). The tides of political life in Turkey have always been impressively quick and harsh, so a timespan of ten years can include the announcement of a rather progressive state constitution, the emergence of armed radical groups, and the violent suppression of political freedom by military intervention, together with mass imprisonment and torture. While the coup of 1960 had been welcomed by many intellectuals as a move towards a secular and progressive state, the emerging political strife and eventually the intervention of 1971 put an end to the hopes, or illusions, of a young generation which had been shaped by the belief in Kemalism and secular progress, but also had fought against a "wrong Westernization" in the form of dependency on the capitalist West and NATO. This generation, which was, among other factors, influenced by the international students' movement of 1968, is named "The '47s" by Füruzan in allusion to their birth year. As Alkan correctly mentions, in Turkey authors of modern literature have always...