Bir kış Godot'sunu beklerken: Yer Demir Gök Bakır'da korku, inanç ve direniş

This article examines the ontological and thematic divergences between the “village novels” of Village Institute authors and Yaşar Kemal’s “Dağın Öte Yüzü” trilogy, focusing particularly on Yer Demir Gök Bakır. While Village Institute writers—shaped by Enlightenment ideals—tended to portray villages as static sociological case studies, often reducing religion and traditional customs to mere symbols of backwardness, Kemal’s narrative transcends such limitations by embedding rural life within broader human struggles. Through a close reading of Yer Demir Gök Bakır, the article highlights Yaşar Kemal’s nuanced exploration of fear, collective mythmaking, and resilience. The villagers of Yalak, paralyzed by debt and the looming threat of the merchant Adil, collectively elevate Taşbaşoğlu to sainthood—a desperate act of resistance against existential despair. Kemal’s narrative, however, gradually subverts this myth in response to shifting material conditions, evoking Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in its meditation on the fragility of hope. Unlike the typified figures in village novels, Yaşar Kemal’s characters exhibit psychological complexity and agency. The elderly Meryemce and Koca Halil, once revered as wise elders, are rendered powerless, reflecting the erosion of traditional hierarchies. Religion, rather than being rigidly vilified, is reimagined as a flexible, functional strategy for survival. The article underscores Yaşar Kemal’s ability to transform local narratives into universal allegories, rendering the village not as a static repository of tradition but as a microcosm of human vulnerability and ingenuity. By contrasting Yaşar Kemal’s literary strategies with the didacticism of Village Institute authors, the study positions Yer Demir Gök Bakır as a seminal text bridging social realism with existential inquiry, affirming Yaşar Kemal’s legacy as a novelist of both Anatolian specificity and global relevance.