Mustafa Kutlu’s Long Story Tarla Kuşunun Sesi (Song of the Skylark) as a Native Criticism of Modernization
Muhammed HükümMustafa Kutlu has a unique position regarding to the reconciliation of the story genre with modern narrative forms in Turkish literature. This position manifests itself in both the form and content of his works. With the value he attaches to tradition, the way he perceives history, and his Islamic sensitivity, Mustafa Kutlu is a writer who gives much more places to the soul and moral position of people in his works. The collision of universal moral rules and the values of Muslim Turkish society with the modern world determine the main conflicts in Kutlu’s works. This attitude Kutlu has creates unique structures in his writing style and in the language, genre, and content of his works. Mustafa Kutlu is better known as a storyteller who creates texts closer to stories through all their traditional connotations and techniques instead of the strict realism required by the novel genre. However, the dimension of his writings and his relationship with the modern narrative allow some of his works to be referred to as novels. Kutlu’s (2017) long story Tarla Kuşunun Sesi [ Song of the Skylark] aims to establish a broad historical perspective in line with the characteristics of the novel genre. As a work, it incorporates the storytelling characteristic of the narrative form of Turkish-Islamic culture and in terms of its content describes social processes. The tensions created by the combination of a realistic historical perspective and original indigenous narrative features in the story prepare the grounds for the combined use of traditional story and modern narrative techniques by resolving these tensions. This study will focus on the harmony between form and the critical historical perspective in the content of Tarla Kuşunun Sesi.
Yerli Bir Modernleşme Eleştirisi Olarak Mustafa Kutlu’nun Tarla Kuşunun Sesi Adlı Uzun Hikâyesi
Muhammed HükümTürk edebiyatında hikâye türünün modern anlatı biçimleri ile kurduğu uzlaşıda Mustafa Kutlu’nun özgün bir konumu vardır. Bu konum, eserlerinin hem biçim hem içeriğinde kendini gösterir. Mustafa Kutlu; geleneğe verdiği değer, tarihi algılama biçimi ve İslamî hassasiyeti ile eserlerinde insanların ruhuna ve ahlaki konumuna geniş yer veren bir yazardır. Evrensel ahlak kuralları ile Müslüman Türk toplumunun değerlerinin modern dünya ile çarpışması, Kutlu’nun eserlerinin temel çatışmalarını belirler. Kutlu’nun bu tutumu, yazma biçimi ile ortaya koyduğu eserlerin dilinde, türünde ve içeriğinde özgün yapılar ortaya çıkarır. Daha çok hikâyeci olarak bilinen Mustafa Kutlu, eserlerinde roman türünün gerektirdiği katı gerçekçilik yerine geleneksel tüm çağrışımları ve teknikleri kullanarak hikâyeye yakın metinler oluşturur. Fakat yazdıklarının boyutu ve modern anlatı ile kurduğu ilişki, bazı hikâyelerinin roman olarak adlandırılmasına da olanak tanır. Kutlu’nun 2017 yılında yayımlanan Tarla Kuşunun Sesi adlı eseri, roman türünün özellikleri ile uyumlu biçimde, geniş bir tarihî perspektif kurmayı hedefleyen bir uzun hikâyedir. Türk-İslam kültürünün anlatma biçiminin hikâye etme özelliğini, roman gerçekçiliği ile birlikte barındıran bu eser, içerik olarak da toplumsal süreçleri anlatır. Hikâyedeki gerçekçi tarihsel perspektifle özgün ve yerli anlatım özelliklerinin birlikteliğinden doğan gerilimler, bu gerilimlerin çözülmesi ile geleneksel hikâye ve modern anlatı tekniklerinin birlikte kullanımına zemin hazırlar. Bu çalışmada Tarla Kuşunun Sesi’nin içeriğindeki eleştirel tarihî bakışla, biçimin uyumu üzerine odaklanılacaktır.
Born in 1945 in Erzincan, Türkiye, Mustafa Kutlu is a writer who emphasizes native values and the basic qualities of the Islamic faith in the form and content of his works. Kutlu’s writing style can be said to have been determined by the values of Anatolia, where he had been born and completed his education. Being a native can also be said to have determined Mustafa Kutlu’s profile as a writer.
Mustafa Kutlu is recognized as one of the strongest writers of the story genre in modern Turkish literature and all its traditional connotations. The choice of genre in his works is also related to his life view. Mustafa Kutlu has mostly written works that can be defined as stories since 1970 and also has a position that attaches importance to nativeness in terms of the environment from which he comes. Based on this perspective, his works show nativesociablecharacteristics.
In his long story titled Tarla Kuşunun Sesi [Song of the Skylark] published in 2017, Kutlu endeavors to describe the social developments through which the Anatolian people have gone, starting in the 1800s from the perspective of a conservative Anatolian native and Muslim worldview. The effort to draw a social panorama from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic through the experiences of three generations of a family forms the backbone of the story. The story follows the periods of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, İttihat ve Terakki [The Committee of Union and Progress], Sultan Vahdettin, and the Revolutions of the Republic. The social corruption experienced during this time and the roots of this corruption determine the background of the story. The author’s book Tarla Kuşunun Sesi has had five editions published as of 2023 and is a text that fulfills the combined requirements of the novel and traditional story genre in terms of technique and expression, as does other works of his. This book can be said to contain a different critical attitude that do not exist in other Kutlu’s books. This critical attitude is remarkable in terms of revealing the points of societal conflict, resistance, and reconciliation in the face of the great changes that Turkish society has undergone since the late 18th century. The critical position in the story also creates a unique formal preference. On one hand, the author utilizes all the possibilities of the modern novel genre to create his story, while on the other hand he consciously activates the strategies of the narrative genre in opposition to the modern novel on points where he wanted to defend tradition.
The story can be evaluated in two main parts, with the first part containing the characteristics of traditional storytelling and the epic structure of a holistic worldview. This first part describes the changes that occurred from the late Ottoman Empire to the early years of the Republic. Yörük Molla Murat, who implies a Turkish-Islamic synthesis, lies at the center of these events. The early years of Molla Murat’s life story are set against the background of the transition from a nomadic to a settled life, the change in Anatolian conditions because of the weakening of central authority, and the dissolution of the imperial social structure. Fact and events that caused major changes in the social structure, such as the proclamation of the Constitutional Monarchy, the reign of Abdul Hamid II, and the İttihat ve Terakki [Committee of Union and Progress] administration are used in the novel to explain the changes in Turkish society.
During the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the War of Independence, Molla Murat and hisbfamily represent the middle ground of Anatolian people who strove to defend their country and are supported in this endeavor by their traditional way of life and the religion of Islam. The revolutionary period after the proclamation of the Republic reveals some points ofm conflict in the Anatolian people’s relations with the new administration. In particular, the fiction brings the religious masses’ discomfort with the harsh Westernist practices to the fore. This discomfort does not turn into a concrete conflict in accordance with historical reality. Each point of conflict finds a point of reconciliation, again linked to tradition. The first part of the story, which is mostly event-oriented, chronologically follows the change in historical conditions. The reactions of the large conservative mass living in Anatolia to these changes constitute the main dramatic tensions in the story.
The second part, titled “Kaybolmuş Tarih” [The Forgotten History] draws a social panorama of Turkey after the 1970s. The children and grandchildren of the protagonists of the story’s first part are the protagonists in the second part. The types of people emerging from the social structure described through neighborhood life have severed their relations with their ancestors’ way of life due to the necessities created by social changes. Therefore, none of the characteristics of their ancestors, such as being self-sacrificing, being resilient in the face of difficulties, or having an ideal, are observed in the grandchildren and children. This situation can be defined as corruption or cultural regression and is associated with the fact that the lifestyle modern conditions and capitalism had offered the people does not produce values. Those who have severed their ties with tradition and faith, no matter how good they are individually, cannot be happy in their lives because they are deprived of the collective protection created by tradition and religion.
Kutlu’s (2017) long story, Tarla Kuşunun Sesi is a work in which the conservatives’ criticisms against the Republic in Türkiye have found room and a prudential form. These criticisms can be evaluated as the conciliatory objections of the broad masses of people against those who have been determining the fate of their country since the last period of the Ottoman Empire.
