CUMHURİYET’İN GÖLGESİNDE OSMANLI’YI HATIRLAMAK: ZEYTİNDAĞI’NDA ÖZNE, İKTİDAR VE KİMLİK
REMEMBERING THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN THE SHADOW OF THE REBUPLIC: SUBJECT, POWER AND IDENTITY IN ZEYTİNDAĞI

Summary/Abstract: Falih Rıfkı Atay was a well respected Turkish writer and journalist, and one of founding elites of Modern Turkey. In this paper, we shall examine his memoir Zeytindağı within the framework three concepts: subject, power and identity. Here, we aim to illuminate how he constructed his own identity. We will look at the text in its respective historical, ideological, and literary discourses. We also will discuss the connection between autobiographical narratives and power, and show that such texts are a means for the writer to establish themselves as a subject of power. Later, we will look at Falih Rıfkı’s distance from the power structures of the past, and his attitude towards the dominant ideology at the time. Our preliminary findings reveal that he coded his work, divided it into themes, and arranged it in such a way that it would serve the purposes of the founding ideology of Modern Turkey. They also demonstrate how memoirs can very much be part of the actuality in which they are written, even though they are retrospective in nature as a literary genre. Likewise, we’ve also come to the conclusion that memories can be read both as identity narratives, and how though them, the author can serve the continuity of the discourses of power

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