Memory Transformed into a Narrative in “National War Stories” by Yakup Kadri / Yakup Kadri’nin Millî Savaş Hikâyeleri’nde Anlatıya Dönüştürülen Bellek

Abstract

Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu is a significiant author who produced works in different genres such as novels, stories, and theatre. In particular, with the effect of the social issues he witnessed like the Armistice and the War of Independence, the author focuses on the narrating the social transformations and transforms the landscapes he witnessed into fiction via using his own imagination. Dwelling upon the ways memory is reflected in the “National War Stories”, this study examines the narration of the losses of the characters’ consciousness stemming from the persecution of enemy invasion. The purpose of the study is to examine how fractures in identity and memory are reflected in the book as its characters face the pain of the past. The act of remembering and forgetting and as well as the functions of the factors that trigger these practices in “National War Stories”, are examined with a critical methodology of the work. Moreover, the author’s ideology, as it is reflected in the stories, is questioned. The tragic stories found in “National War Stories” are analyzed in the light of memory theories, which are the expressions of subjective experiences that shed light on the remembering and forgetting of both individuals and society. While painful and traumatic experiences are turned into narratives, the tragic dimensions of historical events are central. How can being stuck in the past, pursuing and longing for the past, the inability to accept the absence of losses, and the inability to communicate with oneself and the environment be narrated? How aer the vividness, fragility, and delusiveness of memory reflected in these stories? While investigating answers to these questiones, the author’s approach to the past, present and future chain is also examined.

Keywords

• yakup kadri
• national war stories
• memory