Ethnocentrıc Discourse in Şemseddin Sami’s Play Titled as Besâ Yahud Ahde Vefâ, or Homeland or Albania
Nuri SağlamThis article examines the play, Besâ Yahud Ahde Vefâ, written by Şemseddin Sami, who is considered to be a Turkish nationalist with a firm place in canonical Turkish discourse. We maintain that Sami devised a metaphorical layer of meaning in the text to instill a national consciousness in Albanians. In the subtext of nationalist significance, certain conventional codes, alluding to that of Albanians, is separated from the dominant codes, referring to the Ottoman people. One example emphasizes the contrasts between “we/you” and “mountaineer/townsman.” Another example is the semantic correlation between natural objects, such as “mountain,” “flower,” and “leaf,” as well as concrete nouns like “motherland,” “honour,” “shephard,” and “love,” is meant to arouse a national conscience in the collective consciousness of the Albanian people. Finally, such terms and ethnocentric discourses are employed to concretize the idea of an independent Albania.
Şemseddin Sami’nin Besâ Yahud Ahde Vefâ Adlı Piyesinde Etnosentrik Söylem ya da Vatan Yahud Arnavutluk
Nuri SağlamTürk dili ve Türk kültürüne yaptığı bilimsel katkılarından dolayı kanonik Türkçü söylem tarafından Türk milliyetçisi olduğu iddia edilen Şemseddin Sami’nin Besâ Yahud Ahde Vefâ adlı piyesini incelediğimiz bu makalede, metnin Arnavut örfüyle alakalı görünen yüzeysel anlatısının altında, yazarın mensubu bulunduğu Arnavut kavmine millî bir bilinç aşılamak amacıyla kurguladığı metaforik bir anlam katmanı bulunduğunu; bu alt metinde “biz/siz”, “dağlı/şehirli” karşıtlığı üzerinden Arnavutlara mahsus bazı konvensiyonel kodlara vurgu yapılarak Osmanlı toplumunun egemen kültürel kodlarından ayrıştırıldığını; bununla beraber “dağ”, “çiçek”, “yaprak” gibi doğaya ait bazı nesnel adlarla “vatan”, “namus”, “çoban”, “aşk” gibi insana ve topluma ait birtakım soyut adlar arasında kurulan anlamsal korelasyonun esasen Arnavut kavminin kolektif belleğindeki ulus bilincini harekete geçirmek üzere örgütlendiğini ve nihayet bütün bu teknik tasarruf ve etnosentrik söylemin bağımsız bir Arnavutluk düşüncesini somutlaştırmak üzere işlev gördüklerini iddia ediyoruz.
In the late nineteenth century, in addition to the scientific works of the Turkish language and the history, written by Ottoman writers, who were not Turks or Muslims in origin, certain strategic works were published. These works include, Şemseddin Sami’s Besâ Yahud Ahde Vefâ (an ethnocentric play), Wiesenthal’s Asya’da Çernayef ve Türk Kahramanlar, and a newspaper’s columnist Tercümân-ı Hakikat. These theatrical texts create a weird “Turkishness consciousness” by sanctifying the concept of “Türk.” Those nonTurkish Turkists, whose real aim was to make the nationalistic claims of their own nations and gain legitimacy, contined their ethnocentric activities in the formation of the empire and, acting as if they had only good intentions. However, they were setting the stage for a political movement, which could accelerate the decline of the Ottoman government and endanger the survival of the Turkish nation. Thus, those non-Turkish Turkists kept in check the Turkist movement, which had become a political current since the beginning of the twentieth century. This Turkish movement also steered the cultural and political policies of İttihat ve Terakki Fırkası to a large extent. Therefore, to the Turkish nation whom they had driven through the harrowing wars of Tripoli, the First and Second Balkan, to the threshold of destruction named Common War, at this very threshold-when we were apparently weak in terms of politics, economics, and military strength-, they strived to inculcate the political and utopic ideal called “Turan,” which describes the aim to gather all Turks in the world under a common flag. We encounter the first traces of that political and utopic ideal in the article titled as “Lisan-ı Türkî (Osmanî)” by Şemseddin Sami, who is recognized as a Turkish nationalist by the canonical Turkish discourse. Although it is against the laws of nature to describe Şemseddin Sami in terms of his contributions to Turkish language and Turkish culture, it is equally most natural for him to strive and make the Albanian nation to which he belonged both ethnically and culturally as well as gain an independence-oriented national conscience. In the same way, we encounter an ethnocentric discourse in the play, Besâ Yahud Ahde Vefâ, which has been supposed to be related only to the Albanian custom and ethics till date. Although Şemseddin Sami writes in the introduction to the play that the work means to describe “certain ethical features and customs of the Albanian people,” he has also constructed, under the superficial meaning of the play, a completely different subtext, aiming to inculcate a national consciousness in the Albanians. Thus, the love between Meruşe and Recep, in the construction of that subtext, transforms into an ideological phenomenon, implying the desire and search for a national independence as a natural right against the sovereign system. That desire and search, which will be interrupted by barriers both in the fields of theory and activity, will cause the Albanian nation to pay a heavy price. Demir Bey and his men, who represent the government as a social class and who are lazy soldiers in the eyes of Zübeyir, will not refrain from acts of injustice and tyranny to prevent these two lovers from getting married; in other words, the character’s actions also function to prevent the independence of Albania. Thus, when he is forced by Demir Bey to let Selfo, one of Demir Bey’s men, marry Meruşe, Zübeyir, states that no one could do things by way of threats any more thanks to Tanzimat-ı Hayriyye, and is forced to pay the price of this noncompliance with his life. Reading from the subtext of a national conscience, this individual dramatic rebellion transforms into a common revolt, and the Albanian people, finally, are to gain independence after an immensely dramatic and tragic struggle.
