Making the “Other” Your Own

Abstract

The national narrative of Turkish literary history has moved in parallel with Turkish national historiography from the Tanzimat period onward, during which the meaning and origin of “Turkish” has been recast accordingly. The transition from imperial power to nation-state arguably engendered an exploration of the questions “Who is Turkish?” and/or “What is Turkish?” alongside the ethnic remnants of the Ottoman Empire. On the one hand, the hegemonic religious identity, Sunni Islam, swept away the non-Muslim communities within the structure of the new state; on the other hand, it led the other Muslim groups to be thoroughly assimilated and become Turkified. This is how the new ethnic state handled its non-Turkish citizens within the political and social sphere of Turkish nationalism; additionally, such a dramatic ethnic alteration left marks in the literary sphere. Non-Turkish authors become either an exotic subject deserving of scrutiny or deprived of their non-Turkish linguistic, cultural, or ethnic origins. 1 This chapter studies Kurds and their history, yet is always situated in parallel to Turkish literature and its readership.