Abstracts

The intersectionality of history and literature, the logic of postmodern examination
MEHMET ŞAMİL DAYANÇ
History and literature have taken on distinct orientations through the process of disciplinary formation in the modern era. History has been shaped as a field aiming to convey objective and linear truths, while literature has positioned itself around the autonomous and aesthetic nature of fiction. This separation allowed both disciplines to construct their internal logic, grounded in claims of scientific rigor. However, theoretical approaches that emerged after structuralism began questioning these disciplinary boundaries and assumptions. Postmodern theories, in particular, emphasize the permeability between history and literature by focusing on the concept of “truth.” In this context, historical texts can be read as fictional narratives, while literary texts are treated as cultural documents that reflect socio-historical meanings. As a result, the initial distinction between the two disciplines becomes increasingly blurred, to the point where they appear interchangeable. This paper aims to examine history and literature from an interdisciplinary perspective and to explore how postmodern critiques have shaped and challenged the foundational claims of both fields. It further seeks to question the theoretical validity, implications, and limitations of these critiques.
Keywords: literature, history, fiction, truth, interdisciplinarity, postmodern inquiries

Writing, feminist memory, objection: The ethics and aesthetics of feminist intervention in literary history
OLCAY AKYILDIZ - BİLGE ULUSMAN
This article critically examines the male-dominated structure of literary historiography and foregrounds the foundational role of feminist intervention. The exclusion of women writers is addressed not merely as a matter of invisibility but as a systematic act of suppression. The article argues that feminist intervention to literary historiography goes beyond supplementing the canon to fundamentally transforming what counts as literature. Drawing on the work of feminist theorists such as Joan Scott, Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar, Toril Moi, and Linda Hutcheon, the discussion underscores the need to redefine the literary corpus through a gendered lens. It concludes that rewriting literary history is not only an academic pursuit but also an ethical and aesthetic intervention.
Keywords: literary historiography, feminist literary history, female writer, women’s literature, male canon

Sultan Hamid Düşerken: Novel, history and coincidences
TÜLİN URAL
The article begins with a discussion on the relationship between history and literature, and an essay on the nature of this relationship, written by Nahid Sırrı Örik in 1933, is also included in this discussion. Then, the novel would be read mainly within the framework of the exclusion mechanisms that it involved, with special focus on the ‘civilization’ dynamic. In this context, the social background that forms the basis of the novel will be investigated, and the question of “who excluded whom and on what basis” will be answered against this background. At this point, it would be examined how the novel pictured the political and social consequences that emerged with the breakdown of the mechanism based on carrying talented young men to higher social strata by the great houses in the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, how the desire for power and freedom and the dynamic of the calculating mind, assumed as a stable constant of human existence, are addressed in the novel is also included in the analysis. Finally, the novel’s approach to history will be evaluated on the basis of these analyses.
Keywords: history, literature, Union and Progress, big houses, calculation, exclusion mechanisms

A historical, political, mysterious, literary, and significant case: Abdülhamid and Sherlock Holmes
SEVAL ŞAHİN
The most remarkable examples of the intertwining of fiction and reality are not only historical fiction, but history itself. Both fiction and history are presented in a structured manner, with a narrative plot. From this perspective, the task of the literary historian, whose work is both fiction and history, is to examine this intertwining in a more complex manner. A book by Yervant Odyan, serialised in 1911 in the Arevelk newspaper in Armenian and Ottoman Turkish written in Arabic letters, and published in different alphabets and languages from 1912 onwards, whose protagonists are the Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid II, a world-historical figure, and Sherlock Holmes, one of the world’s most famous fictional characters, provides historians and literary scholars new opportunities to re-examine the relationship between fiction and reality. In this article, I examine the reality of fiction and history through this literary work, along with the role of the literary historian. I argue that this exceptional example of world literature provides both historians and literary scholars very diverse perspectives, both in terms of the book’s narrative form and its publication history, and I follow the traces of how this transforms the experience of the literary historian.
Keywords: fiction, history, Abdülhamid and Sherlock Holmes, Yervant Odyan

A sketch of Turkish literary culture in Bulgaria (1944-1969): Historical deviations, scholarly gaps, bew possibilities
AHMED NURİ
This article presents a historical and contextual outline of Turkish literary culture that developed in Bulgaria between 1944 and 1969. Taking as its starting point the general lack of scholarly attention to this field, it examines Turkish language literary production within the broader historical, cultural, and ideological frameworks of the Cold War. The first section analyzes how Turkish literary output took shape under state-controlled publishing institutions, particularly within the scope of the communist regime’s post-1944 educational and cultural policies toward the Turkish minority. The article then notes that nearly one thousand Turkish-language books were published during this period, including approximately 150 original works by Bulgarian-born Turkish authors, most of whom remain little known today. This body of literature is evaluated through a classification into nine categories. In its final section, the article offers several theoretical, conceptual, and methodological suggestions for analyzing Turkish literature in Bulgaria, not only in relation to the political and context of the period but also in light of the broader transformation of Turkish culture in the post-Ottoman Balkans. Ultimately, the article argues that Turkish literary culture in Bulgaria should be viewed not merely as a local minority literature, but also as a source of alternative and comparative perspectives for the study and historiography of Turkish literature as a whole.
Keywords: Turkish literature in Bulgaria, socialist Turkish literature, Turkish print culture, Cold War, minority literature

A Leftist literary perspective on the Armistice Period: The case of Kan Konuşmaz (Blood Does Not Speak)
ENGİN KILIÇ
In most novels dealing with the Occupation of Istanbul, Ankara –the headquarters of the National Struggle– represents dignity, Turkishness, heroism, and the nascent nation-state, while occupied Istanbul embodies falsehood, betrayal, the collapsing Ottoman Empire, hedonism, cosmopolitanism, and non-Turkish elements. In other words, the vast majority of works in this corpus present occupied Istanbul as the antithesis of National Struggle Ankara, thereby reinforcing the sanctity and grandeur of the Ankara-centered resistance narrative. However, this framework cannot be applied to all works addressing the Armistice period; some offer alternative perspectives on the era and its dynamics. For instance, Nâzım Hikmet’s novel Kan Konuşmaz (Blood Does Not Speak), the focus of this article, examines this decade of war –and particularly Armistice-era Istanbul– from a socialist perspective. This article will analyze the novel’s approach and its contrasts with nationalist narratives.
Keywords: occupation of Istanbul, Armistice novels, national literature, Nâzım Hikmet, socialist realist literature

Waiting for a Winter’s Godot: Fear, faith and resistance in Yaşar Kemal’s Yer Demir Gök Bakır
ERKAN IRMAK
This article examines the ontological and thematic divergences between the “village novels” of Village Institute authors and Yaşar Kemal’s “Dağın Öte Yüzü” trilogy, focusing particularly on Yer Demir Gök Bakır. While Village Institute writers –shaped by Enlightenment ideals– tended to portray villages as static sociological case studies, often reducing religion and traditional customs to mere symbols of backwardness, Kemal’s narrative transcends such limitations by embedding rural life within broader human struggles. Through a close reading of Yer Demir Gök Bakır, the article highlights Yaşar Kemal’s nuanced exploration of fear, collective mythmaking, and resilience. The villagers of Yalak, paralyzed by debt and the looming threat of the merchant Adil, collectively elevate Taşbaşoğlu to sainthood – a desperate act of resistance against existential despair. Kemal’s narrative, however, gradually subverts this myth in response to shifting material conditions, evoking Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in its meditation on the fragility of hope.
Unlike the typified figures in village novels, Yaşar Kemal’s characters exhibit psychological complexity and agency. The elderly Meryemce and Koca Halil, once revered as wise elders, are rendered powerless, reflecting the erosion of traditional hierarchies. Religion, rather than being rigidly vilified, is reimagined as a flexible, functional strategy for survival. The article underscores Yaşar Kemal’s ability to transform local narratives into universal allegories, rendering the village not as a static repository of tradition but as a microcosm of human vulnerability and ingenuity. By contrasting Yaşar Kemal’s literary strategies with the didacticism of Village Institute authors, the study positions Yer Demir Gök Bakır as a seminal text bridging social realism with existential inquiry, affirming Yaşar Kemal’s legacy as a novelist of both Anatolian specificity and global relevance.
Keywords: Yaşar Kemal, Yer Demir Gök Bakır, village novels, Village Institutes, social realism, mythmaking, resistance, religion