CHAPTER 6 – VURUN KAHPEYE
200
this is expressed in a language that would not be difficult for ordinary people to
understand
4
. And all this was put forward during a transitional period when all the
changes were still under discussion. It is worth noting that the novel was written
before the changes towards modernization and westernization had been introduced
officially: the proclamation of the Republic in 1923, the abolition of the Caliphate in
1924 and a month later the introduction of the New Constitution, the abolition of the
wearing of the
fez
in 1925
5
the introduction to the Gregorian Calendar, the Civil,
Penal (consequently replacing the Şeriat) and Commercial Codes based on Swiss,
Italian and German models respectively were introduced in 1926 while the
international numbers first and the new alphabet after it were introduced in 1928. In
contrast to her novel
Ateşten Gömlek,
discussed in the preceding chapter, the author
does not give room to any doubting characters or middle path: there can only be the
right and progressive Nationalists and kind open minded people who side with them
on one hand versus the oppressive and backward religious fanatics along with the
oppressed and ignorant crowd on the other.
4
According to the 1927 first public census in a population of 13.640 270 people only 10% were literate.
5
The ban on the veil was proposed much later in 1935.
CHAPTER 7 – ERGENEKON
201
It was noted in Chapter 5 that Yakup Kadri said shortly after Halide Edip’s death in
1964 that, having ceded the title ‘Ateşten Gömlek’ to her, he wrote
Yaban
and
Ankara
instead. These novels were first published some years later, in 1932 and
1934 respectively. This chapter examines the sense in which they can be thought of
as substitutes for the
Ateşten Gömlek
which Yakup Kadri did not publish and may
not have completed.
It is necessary as a preliminary to summarise the novelistic activity
1
of Yakup Kadri
between 1922 and 1932 and to refer briefly to political developments in that interval.
As noted in Chapter 4, Yakup Kadri published the following novels in the years
before
Yaban
:
Kiralık Konak
in 1921,
Nur Baba
in 1922,
Hüküm Gecesi
in
1927 and
Sodom ve Gomore
in 1928. The first is set in the period of the Tanzimat, the second
in the reign of Abdülhamid, the third in the Second Constitutional period and the
fourth in the period of the Allied occupation of Istanbul. All four are set in Istanbul
and it is interesting that the order of publication follows the chronological order of
their settings. It is striking that Yakup Kadri did not publish a Kurtuluş or even an
Anatolian novel during the war itself or its immediate aftermath. The years before
Sodom ve Gomore
, which at least is set in the war period if not in Anatolia, saw the
publication of a second war novel by Halide Edip,
Vurun Kahpeye
in 1926, as well
1
Some of his short stories written during the war appeared in the collective volume
İzmir’den Bursa’ya
as
mentioned in Chapter 1.
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