The representation of ethnic minorities in twentieth century Turkish fiction

Abstract

During the first half of the twentieth century, the ethnically segmented Ottoman empire was transformed into a nation state of Turkish citizens. This thesis explores and evaluates the representation of ethnic minorities in Turkish fiction against a background of demographic, political, and social change. Within this context, novels and short stories of selected writers have been studied with a view to determining differences of experience, perception and attitude. The writers include: Huseyin Rahmi Gurpmar, Halide Edip Adivar, Resat Nuri Guntekin, Halikamas Balikcisi, Orhan Kemal, Haldun Taner, Sait Faik, and Yasar Kemal. The thesis comprises an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. The Introduction gives a brief overview of historical events relating to demographic changes and ethnic minority status, and looks at the popular perception of minorities in the Ottoman performance arts. Chapter One is a study of literature written before, during, and after the Balkan wars, the First World War, and the Turkish War of Liberation. Chapter Two continues with a study of literature published during the years leading up to multi-party democracy. Chapter Three traces the emergence of an Anatolian literary perspective in which, with a few exceptions, ethnic issues were generally ignored or suppressed, and observes the gradual re-emergence of ethnic identity in Turkish literature. The conclusion evaluates the extent to which the selected authors; a) reflect the changing ethnic composition of Turkish society during the last century; b) display signs of bias or prejudice in their representations of ethnic minority characters; c) use ethnic minorities as a device to further or enhance the literary quality of their work.