The Stories in Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete and the İdea of Contemplation
Hüsniye KoçContinuing its publication life between 1895-1908 and the longest running women's periodicals in the history of the Turkish press, Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete appears as a tool in which women's voices are announced through the experiences of authorship in the changing social life of the Ottoman society. Adopting the mission of spreading the ideal of “good mother”, “good wife”, “good Muslim” woman, Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete is an important resource for the educated women writers of the period to announce their works and thoughts to other women living in the Ottoman society in particular. It is seen that the periodical reached a wide range of readers with its articles and news published on various subjects ranging from education to family, home administration, raising children, from hygiene to health, from beauty to sewing to embroidery, from entertainment to fashion, from literature to culture and art. The literary activity in the magazine, along with other fields, continued intensively from the first issues. Women writers such as Fatma Aliye, Emine Semiye, Poet Nigar, Makbule Leman, whose names are often heard today, published their first works in this periodical. In this rich literary activity, it was found that the most published genre in the journal were stories. In this article, Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete will be examined in the context of the stories published. After the general characteristics of the stories are given, reading will be made in the journal close to the works of the authors who have at least two stories. Finally, the selected stories will be evaluated in the context of the idea of gaze.
Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete’deki Hikâyeler ve Temaşa Fikri
Hüsniye Koç1895-1908 tarihleri arasında aralıksız olarak yayın hayatına devam eden ve Türk basın tarihinin en uzun soluklu kadın dergisi olan Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete, değişen Osmanlı toplumsal hayatı içerisinde kadınların seslerini, yazarlık deneyimleri üzerinden duyurdukları bir araç olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. “İyi anne, iyi eş, iyi Müslüman” kadın idealinin yaygınlaşması misyonunu benimseyen Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete, dönemin eğitimli kadın yazarlarının eserlerini ve düşüncelerini özellikle Osmanlı toplumunda yaşayan diğer kadınlara duyurması adına önemli bir kaynaktır. Derginin, eğitimden aileye, ev idaresinden çocuk yetiştirmeye, hijyenden sağlığa, güzellikten-dikiş nakışa, eğlenceden modaya, edebiyattan kültür sanata kadar birçok çeşitli konuda yayımlanmış yazılarıyla ve haberleriyle dönemin okurlarına geniş bir yelpaze içerisinde ulaştığı görülmektedir. Diğer alanlarla birlikte dergideki edebi faaliyet ilk sayılardan itibaren yoğun bir şekilde devam etmiştir. Bugün adlarını sıklıkla duyduğumuz Fatma Aliye, Emine Semiye, Şair Nigâr, Makbule Leman gibi kadın yazarlar ilk eserlerini bu dergide yayımlamışlardır. Bu zengin edebi faaliyet içerisinde dergide en çok hikâye türünde eserlerin yayımlandığı tespit edilmiştir. Bu makalede, Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete, yayımlanan hikâyeler bağlamında incelenecektir. Hikâyelerin genel özellikleri verildikten sonra dergide en az iki hikâyesi bulunan yazarların eserlerine yakın okuma yapılacaktır. Son olarak da seçilen hikâyeler temaşa fikri bağlamında değerlendirilecektir.
The nineteenth century encompasses a period of modernization in the political, economic and cultural realms of the Ottoman Empire. The changes, which were based on traditional foundations, had a distinctive role, not only in the political structure, but also in the restructuring of the society. In this context, “femininity” and “female identity”, which were the important symbols of modernization, formed the basis of the current debates and were problematized by both men and women. After this change, women used their opportunities to “express” and “represent” the space offered by the authorship, and created a vast body of literature. In this period, the most effective role was the press. The problems and expectations of women were included in the newspapers and periodicals published during this period. Continuing its publication life between 1895 and 1908, Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete appears as a tool in which women’s voices are announced through the experiences of authorship in the changing social life of the Ottoman society. Adopting the mission of spreading the ideal of “good mother”, “good wife”, “good Muslim” woman, Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete is an important resource for the educated women writers of the period to announce their works and thoughts to other women living in Ottoman society in particular. It was seen that the periodical reached a wide range of readers with its articles and news published on various subjects ranging from education to family, home administration, raising children, from hygiene to health, from entertainment to fashion, from literature to culture and art. The literary activity in the magazine, along with other fields, continued intensively from the first issues. Women writers such as Fatma Aliye, Emine Semiye, Poet Nigar, Makbule Leman, whose names are often heard today, published their first works in this periodical. Researches about the Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete, analysis of women’s issues in general, emphasizing the importance of the press as a means of increasing the effectiveness of Ottoman women in society, II. Abdulhamid period and reforms through the reading of women’s periodicals emerged as studies. In this article, Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete will be examined in the context of the stories published. In this rich literary activity in Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete, it was found that the most published genre was story. The first works of writers such as Emine Semiye and Makbule Leman, whose names are often heard today, were the stories published in Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete. A total of 161 stories, including copyrighted and translated, were published in the journal. 102 of these stories were copyrighted and 17 were serialized, and the rest were published in a single issue. However, since these stories were not published or transferred to Latin letters, they were not included in the modern Turkish literary history. In fact, most of the texts produced by the women writers of the period, which are significant due to their guiding nature, could not take their places in the literary works, except for the ones that were published. Because they had to be translated into Latin letters and required an extensive archive work. In this context, the focus of the studies on the nineteenth-century Ottoman women’s literature in recent years is the idea of reintroducing women’s texts into the history of literature, which are not included in academic studies and literature. The first step of the research for this article is to turn to the primary sources in terms of reliability. Therefore, this study aims to reveal both the first works of the authors we know, and the women writers whose names are forgotten in time at the moment but who shared their writing experiences with the Ottoman readers through the periodicals. In these stories, which can be located somewhere between Tanzimat and Servet-i Fünun storytelling, the education mission comes to the forefront in parallel with the publication policy of the magazine. In the stories published in the magazine, love and marriage are among the themes frequently studied. The stories of young girls living in a mansion or a mansion at the center of the plot tell the stories of young lovers; sometimes advice is given to the families and sometimes to young people. In brief, the stories in Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete, which aimed to appeal to a wide audience during its publication period, chose a leading role for herself and opened an active writing space for women, emphasized the tendencies of women writers of the period and the differences in the fiction of literary works constructed after the Tanzimat period. İt is remarkable in terms of showing similarities.
