Kemal Tahir’in Milli Mücadele Konulu Romanlarında “Seçilmiş Kahraman” ve “Büyülü Nesne”
Kurmaca dünyasının içinde gerçekliği de barındıran romanlar; siyasi, sosyal, tarihi, dini pek çok hadiseyi anlatarak “sosyal” bir sorumluluk üstlenirler. Edebiyat ve toplum ilişkisinin bir gereği olan bu durum aynı zamanda yazarın içinden çıktığı topluma karşı üstlendiği sorumluluğun da bir parçasıdır. Özellikle ulusların yaşadıkları bu hadiseler dönemin ve dönemden sonra gelen neslin yaşam öyküsünün şekillenmesinde oldukça etkili olduğu için yazarlar edebi eserlerde bu sorumluluğun bilincinde hareket ederler. Kemal Tahir bu bilince sahip Cumhuriyet dönemi yazarlarından biridir; pek çok eserinde hem sosyolog hem de tarihçi kimliği taşıyan yazar, entelektüel tavrıyla toplumsal kimliğin inşasında önemli bir role sahiptir. Yazarın bu bilinçle kaleme aldığı Milli Mücadele’yi konu edinen Esir Şehrin İnsanları (1956), Esir Şehrin Mahpusu (1961) ve Yorgun Savaşçı (1965) romanlarında kurguladığı “seçilmiş kahraman” ve bu kahramanların idealize ederek ulaşmaya çalıştığı “büyülü nesne/vatan savunması” aydınların bu savunmadaki yeri ve konumunu ortaya koymaktadır. Aynı zamanda okuyucu düzleminde milli bilincin uyandırılması için aydının uyanışını somutlayan bu romanlar, bir ulusun yaşadığı olağanüstü bir hadiseyi hafızalarda diri tutarak kültürel bir bellek oluşturmaktadır. Bu çalışmada Kemal Tahir’in Milli Mücadele konulu romanları, yolculuk arketipi/arayış miti bağlamında çözümlenerek milli kimliği simgeleyen unsurlarla beraber romanların büyülü nesnesi konumunda bulunan “milli idealler” ve “toplumsal duyarlılık” örneklemini oluşturan seçilmiş kahramanlar tahlil edilecektir. Sonuç olarak Kemal Tahir’in Milli Mücadele içindeki yeri ve önemi kurgusal dünyanın perspektifinden aktarılacaktır.
Kemal Tahir's Novel on The National Struggle “Choice Hero” And “Magic Object”
Novels, which include reality within the fictional world, take on a “social” responsibility by telling many political, social, historical and religious events. This, which is a necessity of the relationship between literature and society, is also a part of the responsibility of the author towards the society he comes from. The authors act with the awareness of this responsibility in literary works, especially since these events are very influential in shaping the life story of the generation and the future generations. Kemal Tahir is one of the writers of the Republican era with this consciousness; In many of his works, he is both a sociologist and a historian, and plays an important role in the construction of a social identity with his intellectual attitude. The selected hero and the magical object which the heroes tried to reach by idealizing these characters in his novels, Esir Şehrin İnsanları (1956), Esir Şehrin Mahpusu (1961) and Yorgun Savaşçı (1965), which are the subject of the National Struggle which the author wrote with this consciousness, reveal the place and position of the intellectuals in this defense. At the same time, these novels embody the awakening of the intellectuals in order to awaken the national consciousness at the reader’s level, create a cultural memory by keeping alive an extraordinary event experienced by a nation. In this study, Kemal Tahir's novels on the National Struggle will be analyzed in the context of the journey archetype/quest myth and the selected heroes that constitute the sample of “national ideals” and “social sensitivity” which are the magical objects of the novels, along with the elements that symbolize national identity. As a result, the place and importance of Kemal Tahir in the National Struggle will be conveyed from the perspective of the fictional world.
While analyzing the individual staff of literary works in the text analysis, the word “hero” is used for every person in the work; in fact, not all people in the work are heroes. This attitude, which has become a habit in text analysis, has become popular and established. The individual is regarded as the “hero a particular event. The individual does not need to possess innate or acquired heroic qualities. Actually, heroism is like a title that is generally accepted after military, religious, historical, political and social success. In the texts that are the product of national consciousness and collective unconsciousness, like legends, epics and fairy tales, the heroic type which is placed in the center takes on the role of savior / protector by providing extraordinary features, and continues its existence by being transferred from generation to generation. Berna Moran was born in the twentieth century, in his book Literary Theory and Criticism; he states that this theory, which is one of the methods of criticism of work, has benefited from various disciplines such as anthropology, psychology, history and comparative religion. In this respect, he likens it to ”historical and sociological” criticism. The reason why this method of criticism is included in the work-oriented criticism methods is not because it reveals the structure that creates the aesthetic life in the work, but because it reveals the archetypes that have influenced people since ancient times. Archetypes repeating in the literary works with stereotypes such as person, image, symbol and plot help to analyze the meaning universe of the work.1 Loral Lee Portenier in The Heroine’s Journey, according to J.L. Henderson (1964) and Carl Gustav Jung (1964) the most archetypal archetype in the world is the heroic archetype. It also states that the heroic archetype always refers to a powerful human or god person who creates evil. The heroic archetype as a result of a journey includes “action, adventure, excitement, success, renewal, fun and return home...” Overcoming significant difficulties, the hero tests his character.2 The Epic Hero, Dean A. Miller talks about Joseph Campbell, who brought a new perspective to the image of heroism.
Campbell’s first and foremost work in this field is The Hero with a Thousand Faces, is based on the tradition of scholars working in the field of psychology and mythology, such as Otto Rank. Furthermore, Campbell sets out from legends rather than an epic hero in this work. Campbell harmonizes the model of eternal heroism with the cosmic cycle; “Monomite / myth analysis” and Jung’s “archetypes / early examples” theory. According to Campbell, “the hero dies as a modern man; but it is perfected as an eternal man and reborn as a universal man. ”3 Therefore, according to Campbell, the duty of the resurrected hero is to return to us, to turn and to teach his adventure. Therefore, in order to prove his transformation, it is necessary to follow the stages / categories of his biography and his experiences tested.
Kemal Tahir’s novels on the National Struggle show that both his historical and fictional figures resemble mythological heroes in certain aspects. Kemal Tahir’s novels on the National Struggle have played an important role in the construction of national identity. Esir Şehrin İnsanları, Esir Şehrin Mahpusu, Yol Ayrımı and Yorgun Savaşçı tired warriors’ trilogy historical background of the novel describes the transition to the new Ottoman Turkey. The first two volumes of the trilogy reveal the status of Istanbul after the occupation, and the years of National Struggle on the axis of the adventure of Kamil Bey, the “chosen hero” of the works. When Kamil Bey lived in Europe, far away from the realities of his country as the intellectual of the time, he returned to his country in order to save the legacy of his father Selim Pasha after World War I and the occupation of the country, he found himself in the midst of chaos. The hero turned into an intellectual who fought for the salvation of the country on his way to save his father’s land. It was quite effective for this transformation that he met his old school friends, started working in the “Blackuncle” magazine and the Ottoman State desperately took refuge in the American mandate. At the end of the novel, the People of the Prisoner Kamil Bey, who was involved in Kuvayı Milliye and tried to bring the Greek occupation plan to Anatolia and was sentenced to shovel for seven years, was willing to lose his family. He completed the individualization process in prison and became a full hero. Kemal Tahir, with this type of hero, fictionalized both the terms of the National Struggle years, and what the task of the enlightened in these conditions revealed. In the novel “Tired Warrior “, the accusation of the Ottoman Empire, Committee of Union and Progressive Terrorists who succumbed to World War I was fictionalized within the “chosen hero Hell’s Artillery Cemil”. Cemil returned to Istanbul after the defeat in World War I; after twenty years of military service, he became a tired warrior because this process was too heavy for him. He was very unhappy that he had not been able to relieve his mental fatigue and was accused of treason. However, he soon went to Anatolia and joined the National Struggle, and struggled for the liberation of his country. As a hero, he cannot return both in real and spiritual terms, although he has completed his maturity. As a result, the hero created by Kemal Tahir in his novels about National Struggle comes to the forefront, and both heroes chosen in the work do not give up their country against all the “defeat, exile, pain, betrayal and oppression. In fact, the heroes represent the Ottomans in some ways on an allegorical basis. Although Kamil Bey was an intellectual, he could not see the truth, and when his power and money were exhausted, everyone turned his back on him. Cemil is an officer who has succumbed and is exhausted from the twenty years of struggle, and is accused of treason. Both are consistent with the heroes of the tragedy experienced by the Ottoman period, but as both heroes who participated in the National Struggle, heroes of a new Ottoman. The New Republic of Turkey is transformed to reach the “freedom to practice”.
