Ekolojik Etiğin Deneme Türünde İnşası: Hikmet Birand’ın Anadolu Manzaraları
The Construction of Ecological Ethics in the Essay Genre: Hikmet Birand’s Anadolu Manzaraları

Summary/Abstract: Eco-criticism theory offers an approach that critiques humanity’s tendency to place itself at the center of nature and view the environment as an unlimited resource, while also discussing the ethical dimensions of the human-nature relationship in literary texts. Although known for his identity as a scientist, Hikmet Birand (1904- 1972), whose essayist side remained relatively in the background, wrote Anadolu Manzaraları (1957), which is one of the striking examples of early ecological sensitivity towards nature in Turkish literature. In this study, I aim to reveal how Birand constructed his environmental ecological ethics through the intellectual freedom of the essay genre his observation-based narrative, and his ability to establish his subjective experience within an aesthetic structure. I aim to show how the structure of the essay genre, which brings together personal testimony and scientific knowledge, strengthens Birand’s understanding of nature as a holistic realm of existence. For this reason, I approach Anadolu Manzaraları as a text that establishes ecological consciousness through essay aesthetics. I adopted a qualitative method in my research and conducted the study within a descriptive framework. I evaluated the essays through a text-centered reading in line with the fundamental concepts of eco-criticism theory. I examined discourses pointing to the relationship between humans and nature and environmental destruction using thematic analysis. I interpreted the themes I identified within the framework of the meaning relationship they establish with ecological ethics, considering the aesthetic and intellectual structure of the essay genre. As a result of my analysis, I found that Birand positioned nature as an integral part of the whole and particularly emphasized that human intervention in nature causes irreparable damage to the ecosystem. I believe that Birand’s essays are shaped by a consciousness that prioritizes ecological ethics and that this consciousness becomes an effective discourse thanks to the aesthetic possibilities of the essay genre. With this study, by subjecting Anadolu Manzaraları to a genre-focused eco-critical reading, I aim both to make Hikmet Birand’s essay writing more visible within literary history and to reveal the unique role of the essay genre in the production of ecological consciousness.

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