Analysis of Kurdish nationalist discourse in Mehmed Uzun's literature through the ethno-symbolist approach

Official URL: http://192.168.1.20/record=b1558759 (Table of Contents)

This thesis aims at a critical investigation of Kurdish author Mehmed Uzun’s four selected novels through the lens of ethno-symbolism. In this regard, by focusing on a lengthened period of time, attention is paid to shifting and also unchanging margins of the imagined Kurdish nationalism depicted in the novels of Uzun along with the changing socio-political atmosphere of Turkey. The study starts with socio-political account of Turkey, beginning from the last century of the Ottoman Empire, until the present situation of Turkish politics regarding the Kurdish question and Kurdish nationalism. Particular consideration is given to momentous turning points which also had an influence on the novelistic discourse of Uzun. By analyzing the selected novels of Uzun concomitantly with the theoretical and historical setting of Kurdish nationalism and Kurdish question in Turkey, this thesis suggests answers to the question of “How are the exact elements used in the discourse of Kurdish nationalism utilized in the novels and did they change within time?” The overall analysis shows that, within time Uzun’s novelistic discourse which was burdened heavily with Kurdish ethno-symbolic elements, changes within time with his focus on multiculturalism and relatively distancing himself from the ethnic understanding of nationalism, whereas he continues follow a Kurdish nationalist discourse. As a conclusion it can be said that with ethno-symbolic and cultural elements, also the concept of victimization forms the basis of Uzun’s Kurdish nationalist discourse within his novels.