Microsoft Word 1 Arif thesis cover final doc

CHAPTER 3 – SOME TOPOI IN THE KURTULUŞ EDEBİYATI 
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Filled Mother)”, meaning mother filled “whose name conveys the connotations of 
sexual maturity, fertility, maternity and motherhood”
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. 
The validity of such symbolism might be debated at length. A more straightforward 
issue arises from Erol’s unquestioning assertion, despite Reşat Nuri’s obviously 
deliberate avoidance of year indications throughout the novel, that its action takes 
place in the period leading up to and including November 1922 and that the war, 
which causes Feride’s school to be turned into a hospital near the end of the novel, is 
the War of Independence. This is highly implausible. The scenes in Izmir and 
Karşıyaka show no sign of a Greek occupation which might have been expected if 
the dramatic date is between 1919 and 1922. Moreover, the first reference to a 
coming war comes after these scenes. Contrary to Erol’s assertion that Feride’s 
school is turned into a hospital on 1 February 1922, the relevant dates in Feride’s 
diary are 1, 15 and 16 December; the year, of course, is unstated. Erol links her 
supposed date of 1 February 1922 with a speech in which Mustafa Kemal adapted a 
famous couplet from Namik Kemal’s
 Vatan Mersiyesi
(Elegy to Motherland)
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which she follows Ismail Habib Sevük in dating to 1 March 1922 whereas according 
to the 
Atatürk’ün Söylev ve Demeçleri
(Atatürk’s Speech and Statements) it was in 
fact given after the first battle of İnönü on 13 January 1921. 
In the first of the entries Feride writes that there has been talk of war and in the 
second that the war started 15 days before
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. Now, the hospital is in Kuşadası, which 
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Erol, 79 
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Erol also seems to suppose that the “War of 93” took place in 1893 according to the Western calendar. 
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Güntekin 1993, 318 

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