Imperialism and literature: An imperialism-oriented reading of modern Turkish literature

Introduction

Postcolonial studies, or postcolonialism, can be defined as the academic study of the social, cultural, historical, linguistic, psychological and economic effects of the historical condition of colonialism upon the colonised. Although the term postcolonial refers chronologically to a post-independence period after the Second World War, it focuses on the interaction between the colonised and the coloniser in the colonial centre while seeking to examine the processes of exploitation, oppression, subjugation and transformation from the perspective of the colonised. It encompasses different approaches and arguments in a diverse range of academic fields, including literature (McLeod, 2000), international relations (McGlinchey et al., 2017), political sciences (Chandra, 2013) and psychology (Parker, 2012) and problematizes the discursive operation of colonialism. It also explores the representation of the colonial subject and the production of knowledge, ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ in an attempt to unearth the deep implications of the coloniality of power and therefore to hear about the experiences of the colonised and to make their voices heard.

Although it might sound almost like a cliché, mainstream postcolonial theory in its current form tends usually to articulate victimisation mostly in relation to identity-based arguments and, therefore, overlooks the class aspect of oppression to a large extent (Bağlama, 2018; Chibber, 2013; Dirlik, 1999; Hardt and Negri, 2000; Kaiwar, 2014; Özbilgin and Vassilopoulou, 2018). This is, of course, not to suggest that we should be dismissive of postcolonial theory and that class-based theories are fully able to account for the victimisation process of the colonial subject. Considering that sociocultural and economic inequalities operate in an intertwined way, a new conception which would dialectically synthesise both class- and identity-based arguments intersectionally would help offer theoretical insights into the deep sources of injustices, exploitation, dehumanisation and marginalisation in postmodern capitalism.

For us, imperialism and colonialism, which frequently appear in tandem, refer to two similar, but distinct exploitation mechanisms. Postcolonial theory meanwhile does not help understand conflicts which fall outside the dichotomous relationship between the coloniser and the colonised. In a literary context, postcolonial works address the consequences of the decolonisation process through the represented experiences of the colonial subject; postcolonial literary studies, from a cross-disciplinary perspective, examines the role of literary texts in terms of undermining and/or perpetuating the colonial situation. However, such a framework excludes the literatures of those nations which were not colonised in a ‘typical’ sense. To give an example, after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922), the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) was fought between the Turkish National Movement and the Allied powers, including Britain and France, and their local allies, Greece. The Allies were defeated and then left Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, which entailed the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Christian Greeks and Armenians, and the Republic of Turkey was founded as a modern and secular nation-state on 29 October 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The allied intervention followed a pattern of Western imperial involvement in Turkish affairs which stretches back at least a century. The Independence War against imperialism is a recurring literary theme in this period; however, the scope of postcolonial theory does not wholly rationalise anti-imperial resistance and discourse in such a context. This is what we set out to do: (a) to contribute to and develop the arguments of postcolonial theory within a new framework, an ‘imperialism-oriented literary theory’, in order to read the under-considered corpus of Turkish literature; (b) to provide a theoretical basis for articulating the literalisation of prevailing hierarchies, deep inequalities, and resistance in relation to imperialism and to shape a new perspective regarding the institutionalised discursive practices of imperial discourse; and (c) to suggest the need for a development of an anti-imperial aesthetics which would help articulate the operation of imperialism and imperial discourse in literature.

Before focusing on the characteristics of ‘imperialism-oriented literary theory’ and its employment to analyse the fictionalisation of imperialism-related circumstances in two Turkish literary texts, the differences between colonialism and imperialism need to be clarified.

Imperialism and colonialism

Imperialism and colonialism are often confused with each other due to their similar aspects, such as appropriation of raw materials, exploitation of labour, racial and cultural inequality, use of powerful agencies and apparatuses for domination, and interference with sociocultural, political and economic issues in another territory or nation. However, the two concepts are used to describe different forms of domination and exploitation. Edward Said defines imperialism as ‘the practice, the theory, and the attitude of a dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory’ and puts forward that ‘colonialism, which is always a consequence of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements on distant territory’ (Said, 1993: 8). Thus, colonialism is a subform of imperialism, specific to particular periods and places and needs a formal presence to function. In contrast, imperialism emerges in the metropolis itself, operates in a more systematic and centralised way, and does not depend on a formal physical presence (Childs and Williams, 1997: 227; Loomba, 1998, 28; Young, 2001: 16–17).

According to Lenin, imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. This is predicated on the argument that there is a partnership between imperial power dynamics and colonial power dynamics, that the dynamics of the colonial period facilitated finance capitalism and that finance capitalism, which was made possible mainly through colonial expansion, needed greater profits, paving the way for imperialist countries to export to and invest in ‘underdeveloped’ countries (2008). This might underline that there is a historical continuity between colonialism and imperialism and that, although traditional colonialism has come to an end in a formal sense, imperialism structurally continues its pursuit of cheap material sources and labour, new markets, and profit maximisation by crossing the borders of the nation-state and using soft power without concern for territorial sovereignty. The domination of ‘underdeveloped’ countries by Western capitalist economies in political and economic terms cannot, for that reason, be explained through colonial discourses and practices alone. It would be more appropriate to understand this recent form of exploitation mechanism with arguments such as the centralisation and monopolisation of capital, the international competition of the capitalist blocs and fractions, the tendency of profit rates to decline in the long run with excessive capital accumulation and the pursuit of new markets.

In the literature, although the critique of imperialism is often associated with Marxists scholars, Marx himself, despite focusing on colonialism and the relationship between class and identity, did not directly deal with the phenomenon of imperialism. However, Marx’s arguments on the colonial process in the context of the historical development of capitalism influenced how scholars conceptualised the development and transformation dynamics of imperialism. In the Marxist literature, theories about imperialism can be examined under three main headings. The first, the classical theory of imperialism, analyses the transformation of capital, monopolisation, the search for new markets, internationalisation, control of raw material resources, competition, international crises, and hegemony before and after the First World War. ¹ The second-wave imperialism theory views it as a conflict between capitalist classes, which have a national character in essence, and states that imperialism cannot be handled independently of the capitalist mode of production, as in the classical imperialism theory. ² The third-wave imperialism theory is a critical reflection of the political and economic developments since the 1990s, and underlines that imperial discourse has ‘justified’ its operation and narratives in the postmodern capitalist period, that contemporary imperialism has gained legitimacy and acceptance almost all over the world under the guise of globalisation and that the conflict between the capitalist blocs has been left behind in the global new world order where borders have disappeared, while ‘developed’ countries lead the way in terms of anti-terrorism, democracy, economics, the rule of law, and human rights and should, therefore, be followed. ³ The phenomenon of ‘soft power’ has consequently come to the fore, which has made the political and economic domination of imperialist states less visible.

This argument actually offers a better starting point for the investigation of the ‘smooth’ and noncoercive operation of imperialism, which is colonialism’s umbrella concept after the First World War, in the literary texts of Sadri Ethem Ertem and Cahit Külebi. In other words, as mediated and made present especially underneath the surface events of Çıkrıklar Durunca (When Spinning Wheels Stop) (1930) by Sadri Ethem Ertem, the discursive formation of truth, knowledge and judgement governs the tendencies of the people under the domination of imperialism and interpellates them into the dominant system culturally and ideologically, assuring the continuity of the existing system on behalf of imperial powers. Before our analyses of the texts, in order to disperse the fog of confusion regarding the anti-imperialist nature of the literary texts produced after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, we discuss whether the Ottoman Empire can be categorised as a colonial state in relation to the Turkish War of Independence.

Ottoman Empire and Turkish War of Independence

Despite being often identified with the expansion of European powers from the sixteenth century onwards, colonialism has recurrently been part of human history. The Aztecs, Romans and Incas all ruled empires before the sixteenth century. However, their colonial practices were structurally different from those of European colonial powers in that they were only concerned with extracting tribute, goods and wealth from the territories they conquered, while the Europeans also restructured the economies of the countries they colonised, securing a constant flow of natural resources, raw materials, and human power. Therefore, the earlier forms of colonialism were pre-capitalist, and the more modern version of colonialism – European colonialism – was founded alongside capitalism in the West (Loomba, 1998). In this context, the case of the Ottoman Empire does not fit into the categorisation of a modern colonial power. The Ottoman Empire did not experience a process of rapid industrialisation, thus could not become part of capitalist production relations and could not consequently join the ‘scramble’ for new colonies. Those groups under its domination, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, were able to enjoy ‘privilege’ as long as they paid tax and sent tribute (Baykut et al., 2021). For instance, the Ottoman ‘çift-hane’ system, under which agricultural land belonged to the Sultan in the name of God and peasant families were given the right to earn enough from the land to provide for their livelihood in line with their acceptance of the Sultan’s sovereignty and in return for taxation, underlines that the Ottoman Empire was an agrarian economy and did not have hereditary titles, and that land was not owned privately, unlike in the modern colonial powers in the West (İnalcık, 2020).

The classification of the Ottoman Empire as a pre-capitalist colonial state does not, however, seem to be a very relevant argument, especially after the second quarter of the nineteenth century, since during this period, the decline of the Ottoman Empire’s economy and power became more apparent, the ‘great’ powers of the period began to interfere in Ottoman affairs, and the Ottoman Empire itself started to become a semi-colony of the West (Avcıoğlu, 2013). For example, under the 1838 Treaty of Balta Liman with Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire abolished all monopolies, granted British merchants and their allies unrestricted access to all Ottoman markets and taxed them equally to local merchants and restricted imports from other countries. In 1839, the Edict of Gülhane (the Imperial Edict of Reorganisation) was proclaimed, promising the abolition of tax farming, reform of conscription, and rights for all Ottoman citizens, irrespective of their ethnicity or religion; however, whether the reforms were implemented or not would be supervised by the ‘friendly’ Western countries. On 28 June 1855, the Ottoman Empire used foreign debt for the first time in its history to cover the increased expense of the Crimean War, and Britain and France assumed the supervisory role in spending the borrowed money and making repayments, leading the two states to have a say over the Ottoman financial system (Kızıltoprak, 2022). In 1881, the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, a European-controlled organisation, was established in order to collect payments that the Ottoman Empire owed to European companies as part of its public debt and played a significant role in helping European companies seeking ‘investment’ opportunities in the Ottoman Empire. Unable to pay its debts, the Ottoman Empire made concessions on ports, sea routes, highways and railways within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, helping the Western countries, including Britain, France, and Germany, to establish zones of influence and incorporate them into their ‘colonies’ when the Ottoman Empire collapsed (Avcıoğlu, 2013). Those countries also obtained concessions on agricultural production, which resulted in lower prices in Europe, met their raw material needs, and sold the processed products obtained from these raw materials to the Ottoman Empire with high profits, which is indeed the process depicted in Çıkrıklar Durunca by Sadri Ethem Ertem.

That the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, İstanbul, was officially occupied between 1918 and 1923 does not, therefore, mean that the Ottoman Empire had been an independent state before that date, since it was dependent on and dominated by the European powers. It should also be noted that the Ottoman Empire, as a semi-colony of the West, participated in the First World War not because it competed with the other Empires of the period for new colonies but because the crumbling Ottoman Empire opportunistically entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, identifying the main threats to its sovereignty to come from the Entente and Russia. The Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) was, in this context, a series of military campaigns against the ravages of both Western imperialism and the old Ottoman Empire, and had an anti-imperialist nationalist nature.

The anti-imperialist tendency of the literary texts we analyse should, for that reason, be contextualised through the consideration of the anti-imperialist character of the Turkish revolution.

An imperialism-oriented reading of modern Turkish literature

Our conceptualisation, imperialism-oriented literary theory, is actually a condensed and revised version of the central thesis of our book Emperyalizm ve Edebiyat: Emperyalizm-Odaklı Eleştiri Işığında Türk Edebiyatına Bakış published in Turkish in 2020 by Paradigma Akademi. In the book, we explicate the theoretical underpinnings of imperialism-oriented literary theory through an analysis of imperialism and its related concepts and subsequently demonstrate several applications of this critical perspective through an examination of a carefully chosen selection of works in modern Turkish literature. Our book attempts to provide a preliminary overview of the intricate and evolving realm of imperialism, encompassing its diverse dimensions and implications. Despite our efforts to provide methodological explanations and literary analyses, we are well aware of the fact that the potentialities of theory and practice in imperialism-oriented literary theory are vast and cannot be fully exhausted in a single study. We therefore think that while we provide a starting point for further research and discussion, it is necessary for future scholars to build on our work and contribute to the ongoing conversation. That is why we would like to internationalise our arguments with this article in English and reach a global audience.

Our approach which we call ‘imperialism-oriented theory’ makes three significant contributions: (a) it contextualises and exposes imperialism-related social processes and actualities within the framework of the political and economic forces of a given period; (b) it politicises the reciprocal relationship between personal experiences and historical formations; and (c) it opens up dialectically a new perspective regarding sociocultural, ideological, and economic contradictions within the social relations of production. Imperialism-oriented literary criticism, therefore, analyses the incarnation of imperialism in narrative fiction. It draws attention to the impact of imperialism upon ‘common’ individuals through the represented experiences of fictional characters; traces symbols and suggestive details, sign systems and nodal points which are repressed under the ideological surface of texts; and attempts to unearth the operation of imperial discourse as well as anti-imperial discourse in literary works.

Within the Turkish academic milieu, a number of scholarly inquiries have focused on the analysis of literary works that revolve around the concepts of colonialism and imperialism or are closely associated with them. Among these scholarly endeavours stands out Sevim Kebeli’s (2007) master’s thesis, ‘Against Colonialism: Abdülhak Hâmid’s Plays’, which was completed under the supervision of Laurent Mignon. The study delves into Hâmid’s dramatic oeuvre, including Duhter-i Hindû (1876) and Yabancı Dostlar (1924–1925), and explores their depiction of colonial processes and their multifaceted political, cultural, and psychological implications. Öykü Terzioğlu’s (2008) master’s thesis, ‘Novelization, Polyphony, and Humour in Nâzım Hikmet’s Anti-Colonial Poetry’, represents another scholarly contribution to the field. The thesis, completed under the supervision of Talât Halman, investigates some of Nâzım Hikmet’s literary works, including Jokond ile Sİ-YA-U (1929), Benerci Kendini Niçin Öldürdü? (1932), and Taranta-Babu’ya Mektuplar (1935), with particular attention to their engagement with postcolonial themes. It is also noteworthy to mention Laurent Mignon’s article entitled ‘Sömürge Sonrası Edebiyat ve Tanzimat Sonrası Türk Edebiyatı Üzerine Notlar’ [Notes on Postcolonial Literature and Post-Tanzimat Turkish Literature] (Mignon, 2003) which is concerned with the applicability of postcolonial theory in the context of Turkish literature. Through a critical examination, Mignon evaluates the utility of the perspective provided by postcolonial theory within the domain of Turkish literature. In a similar way, Murat Belge’s (1997) essay, ‘Üçüncü Dünya Edebiyatı Açısından Türk Romanına Bir Bakış’ [A Look at the Turkish Novel from the Perspective of Third World Literature], offers an insightful analysis of the Turkish novel within the framework of third-world literature. By employing the concept of national allegory as a point of reference, Belge’s essay contributes significantly to the scholarly discourse on third-world literature.

The aforementioned academic works contribute to the articulation of a concrete understanding of Turkish literature within the broader tendencies and possibilities of postcolonial theory. However, they do not necessarily align with a perspective that rigidly demarcates a boundary between imperial and colonial processes, nor do they necessarily adhere to an analytical logic that presumes imperialism’s comprehension around certain categories. Imperialism-oriented literary criticism, in this context, helps to explore the fictionalisation of the ‘scramble’ for Anatolia at the beginning of the twentieth century and articulate the resistance against Western imperialism during the Turkish War of Independence in modern Turkish literature (Güngör, 2018). In Turkish literature, there is often entirely a dominant negative view towards imperialism, and Turkish writers and poets, thus, tend to adopt an almost unequivocal anti-imperialist stance. Especially those literary works published during and after the Turkish National Movement directly or indirectly narrate the declaration of the Republic, the significance of the Kemalist revolution and the transformation of social and cultural life, and aim to construct the ‘proper’ Turkish identity in line with the secular values of the Republican period on the axis of praise and blame (Sevinç, 2009; Türkeş, 2003). For example, Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu’s (2019 [1922]) Kiralık Konak (The Rented Mansion) takes place during the First World War and tells the story of Hakkı Celis’s voluntary recruitment to the army in order to fight in the Battle of Gallipoli against the Allied powers, and his Sodom ve Gomore (Sodom and Gomorrah) (2010a (1928)) fictionalises the occupation of Anatolia and associates the Allied powers with moral corruption, while in his Yaban (A Wild One) (2010b (1932)), the perception of the Turks regarding the imperialist occupation in Anatolia and the struggle against it are revealed through the experiences of Ahmet Celal, the protagonist, in a village. Tahir Karauğuz’s poetry books Orta Anadolu’da Yunan Faciaları (Greek Atrocities in Central Anatolia) (1922b) and Orduya Armağan (Gift to the Army) (1922a) vividly portray the devastation inflicted by the Greek occupation aided by imperialist forces in Anatolia and capture the fervour of the anti-imperialist sentiment in the Turkish War of Independence. Peyami Safa’s (2016 [1923]) novel Sözde Kızlar (So-called Virgins) tells the story of Mebrure, who comes from Anatolia to Istanbul to find her father during the Armistice period, and problematises the uncritical adoption of Western cultures and values, while his Biz İnsanlar (We the Humans) (1959) focuses on individuals providing assistance to the occupying forces in Istanbul during the Armistice period and explores the societal resentment and anger felt towards them by the general public. In a similar way, Halide Edip Adıvar’s (2007 [1922]) Ateşten Gömlek (The Shirt of Flame) narrates the armed resistance of Turkish people against imperialism through the love affairs of Peyami and Ayşe. Nazım Hikmet’s Kurtuluş Savaşı Destanı (The Epic of the War of Independence), which was completed in 1941 but published in 1965, narrates the War of Independence and thematises the tragedy of war through the perspective of ‘ordinary’ people, including workers and peasants, such as Kartallı Kâzım and Kara Yılan. Mehmet Rauf’s (1998 [1929]) Halâs (Liberation), Reşat Nuri Güntekin’s (1995 [1928]) Yeşil Gece (The Green Night) and Falih Rıfkı Atay’s (2004 [1932]) Zeytindağı (Mount of Olives) can be given as further literary examples which problematise the Independence War and its sociocultural and political effects on people in Anatolia.

After the 1950s, the theme of imperialism was dealt with in line with imperialism’s different dimensions rather than that associated with the War of National Liberation. The prominent figures using such imperialism-related themes in their works include, but are not limited to, poets such as Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca, İsmet Özel and Cahit Külebi and writers such as Mustafa Kutlu, Atilla İlhan and Turgut Özakman. To exemplify, Haldun Taner’s (1951) short story ‘Made in USA’ mocks the fascination with American culture which began in Turkey after 1945; Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca’s (1958) poetry book Batı Acısı (The Pain of the West) narrates the conflict between the West and the Rest in relation to imperialist interventions; Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s (2011 [1973]) Sahnenin Dışındakiler (Those Outside the Stage) fictionally reflects on the effect of the war on Turkish intellectuals in Istanbul during the Turkish National Movement; Mustafa Kutlu’s (2014 [1981]) short story ‘Yoksulluk İçimizde’ (Poverty is Within Us) examines cultural imperialism within the framework of the conflict between tradition and modernity; and Turgut Özakman’s (2022 [2005]) Şu Çılgın Türkler (Those Crazy Turks) fictionalises the Turkish War of Independence in the form of a documentary novel by highlighting significant historical processes such as the Battle of the Sakarya (1921) and the Great Offensive (1922).

In the next section of the article, as it would not be practical to analyse all literary texts related to imperialism in modern Turkish literature, we focus on two authors, Sadri Ertem (1898–1943) and Cahit Külebi (1917–1997), from the perspective of imperialism-oriented literary theory because the two writers problematize imperialism, anti-imperial resistance and anti-imperial discourse most clearly. To be more precise, Ertem’s (2017 (1930)) Çıkrıklar Durunca, which is an understudied novel even in academic studies written in Turkish, reveals the implicit operation of cultural and economic imperialism through its complex articulation of the impact of imperialism on ordinary individuals within a broader framework, whereas the selected poems of Külebi, an undeservedly neglected poet of modern Turkish literature, explore the rhetoric of anti-imperial discourse which deconstructs dominant means of representation. Instead of conducting a comprehensive analysis of various literary texts by Sadri Ertem and Cahit Külebi, we opt to focus on one novel by Ertem and some specific poems by Külebi, as these particular works of fiction most poignantly illustrate the processes related to imperialism that we seek to explore.

Çıkrıklar Durunca by Sadri Ethem Ertem

Çıkrıklar Durunca (1930) is Ertem’s first and best-known novel and narrates the impacts of the capitulations, according to which traders entering the Ottoman Empire were exempted from local taxation and local prosecution, on Turkish society and the consequent destruction of the domestic textile industry. This social realist novel, which is set at the end of the nineteenth century, presents the subjugation of the Ottoman Empire to Western imperialism through local collaborators and thus functions as a harsh critique of the socio-political policies of the late Ottoman period. The novel also conveys the economic and ideological contradictions and conflicts of the period within the framework of the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy and reveals the radicalisation and mobilisations of characters of different origins against the repressive mechanism of those forces, including the gendarmerie, governors, aghas (chief/master), tax-gatherers, and Western merchants.

In the novel, Stavyers, who comes to Anatolia as an officer of a large UK-based company, introduces himself as a theologian and over time gains the love of the villagers (76–77). Discovering that Anatolian Angora goat’s wool resembles the famous cashmere wool, Stavyers establishes a farm in North Africa with the Angora goats he has collected from Anatolia and starts trading. After a while, the villagers learn that they cannot bring hand-woven fabrics to market anymore and that only fabrics produced in European factories can go on sale, which gradually leads to hunger, misery and poverty. In order to ensure that the villagers comply with the decision, the governor, the law enforcement officers, the mufti (Islamic jurist), and Sıddıkzade, the richest and most influential person of the region, act jointly. This actually suggests that imperialism seizes resources in countries it indirectly dominates and sells products it processes back to the markets of those counties and that imperialism relies on the alliance of local governors, landlords, religious authorities and traders for its own benefit in order to sustain its economic existence and socio-political hegemony.

In one episode, Stavyers, for example, gets involved in a discussion between the governor and a Turkish engineer about stars. He states that he agrees with the governor in contrast to irreligious young people: ‘Although our religions are different, we are on the same front against irreligion’ (77). Upon receiving the approval of Stavyers, the governor becomes proud of himself since he, who ‘instinctually’ feels to be historically and culturally othered and excluded, shares the same thoughts with an Englishman. Assuming that he has risen to the cultural level of a ‘white’ person, he becomes a close friend of Stavyers and orders his sergeant to accompany Stavyers and to make things easier for him (78). Stavyers recognises the pathological obsession of the governor and acknowledges him as a member of civilised and cultured Eastern elite who begins to gain economic and political privileges, which exemplifies imperialism’s use of soft power through social, cultural and personal relations with local powers. In another episode, Stavyers would like to buy more goats and gives a gold coin to Sıddık Agha, the Governor Pasha’s sergeant. Sıddık Agha feels honoured and orders a random shepherd to bring seven female and seven male goats. When his order is not followed within an expected duration of time, he insults and whips the shepherd and confiscates the goats: ‘Hey you! I’ll burn everything, you won’t find any wool from the flock. Be quick you fucking dog!’ (81). The victimisation of the shepherd by Sıddık Agha for the interests of Stavyers stands for the implicit operation of imperialism in countries it exploits because imperialism, on the one hand, makes use of politically correct arguments, such as peace, human rights, freedom and so on, as in the twenty-first century, to legitimise its own hegemony, while, on the other hand, it acquits itself by means of ‘collaborators’ who would use force in favour of its profits. In this context, it should not be forgotten that, in the eyes of the public, Stavyers is a ‘good’ and ‘respectable’ man and Sıddık Agha, the governor, and the other local powers are seen as villainous persons who humiliate the villagers:

I [Stavyers] got used to traveling in the Orient, but this time I did not openly say that I was a merchant clerk, and I presented myself as a theologian on a mission. How beautiful it was to be a theologian; it opened the hearts of many colleagues in another religion who were kind-hearted, pure and sincere (77).

Imperial discourse sets itself up as the ‘good’, the ‘proper’, the ‘beautiful’ and the ‘original’ within a discursive space through different ideological apparatuses and subsequently pacifies the masses under its indirect control and ‘colonises’ their minds. This soft power process reveals itself in the negative perceptions of the characters about the fabrics produced by the domestic textile industry. The governor, for example, thinks that clothes made from local fabrics are ‘outdated’ (64) and would like to popularise ‘new clothes’ (64) made from European fabrics in city life. The local characters also believe that handmade fabrics used by the previous generation are ‘old’ (101), and liken the villagers wearing clothes made from local fabrics to ‘ghosts’ (101). The identification of those who wear clothes made from handmade fabrics with peasanthood and backwardness results in a rural/urban conflict; the characters who are seen as ‘villagers’ voluntarily internalise the absolute truths and aesthetic values of imperial discourse and are interpellated into the dominant logic of the system because they do not want to be ridiculed and othered. Such mimicry essentially acknowledges the civilizational superiority of the West and perpetuates the cultural, intellectual and ideological hegemony of Western imperialism. To put it another way, this is related to the operation of imperial discourse, which aligns itself with civilisation, morality, progress, enlightenment, reason, grace and superiority while identifying those persons or nations that are not like ‘them’ with backwardness, savagery, irrationality and worthlessness. This is what leads the characters to act in accordance with the ‘good’ and ‘acceptable’ image of what an Oriental or Easterner should be like, thus actualising themselves with a Western episteme.

While dealing with the phenomenon of imperialism in literature, the focus is generally on the political dimension which refers to the domination of imperial powers in order to make the process of economic exploitation easier. However, the different dimensions of imperialism should not be treated independently of each other, and the cultural and economic dimensions should also be taken into account because imperialism builds absolute truths in sociocultural and theoretical terms in order to keep a country or region under its domination, often using soft power. In particular, cultural imperialism attempts to remould the ‘third’ world by means of different agencies, expands its hegemony in epistemological terms, constructs the ‘proper’ culture, which is the metonymical embodiment of Eurocentric thought and legitimises its intellectual ‘superiority’. Considering that literary works, especially social realist ones, mirror the social, cultural, economic, ideological and historical realities of the period in which they are produced, an imperialism-oriented reading of Sadri Ertem’s novel reveals the operation of economic and cultural imperialism in its historical context and articulates the rapid disappearance of the domestic textile industry and the internalisation of the ‘inherent’ superiority of European textile products in a broader framework. This suggests that the arguments of imperialism-oriented literary theory are relevant and applicable in terms of contextualising and interrogating imperialism-related processes and dynamically dealing with issues which a literary text raises through fiction.

Cahit Külebi: An anti-imperialist poet

The thematic focus of the poems of Cahit Külebi (1919–1997), one of the most significant, but neglected, poets of modern Turkish literature, is usually on the Independence War and its distinctive anti-imperialist characteristics. His poems are mostly propagandistic, didactic and aesthetically uncreative; however, he inspired poets, who came after him, such as Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca and Ataol Behramoğlu. His celebration of the anti-imperialist nature of the Turkish National Movement is grounded on political anti-imperial discourse, which is fictionally reproduced against the axioms of imperialism. His poems, including ‘Atatürk Kurtuluş Savaşında’ (Ataturk in the War of Independence), ‘Atatürk’e Ağıt’ (Lament for Atatürk), ‘Kadınlar, Denizler, Ülkeler’ (Women, Seas, Nations) and ‘Amerika’ (America), are, in this respect, significant. For instance, in his ‘Atatürk Kurtuluş Savaşında’ (Ataturk in the War of Independence) (1952), which consists of 13 parts, Külebi fictionalises the Turkish War of Independence and the victory achieved, praises the progressive aspects of the revolutions of Atatürk with enthusiasm, and reproduces the Kemalist aesthetics, by emphasising Atatürk’s role as the leader of the Independence War.

The poem, except for its first two parts giving a powerful account of the socioeconomic situation of Anatolia under Western economic occupation, follows a chronological order in line with the historical development of the Turkish National Movement, as in Nazım Hikmet’s (1965) Kurtuluş Savaşı Destanı (The Epic of the War of Independence). The third part of the book defines the Turks as part of ‘us’ and presents ‘the fight against imperial powers’ as the only possible option for ‘us’. In the fourth part, the Ottoman Sultan is informed about the tragic and desperate situation in Anatolia on behalf of ‘us’; however, it is understood that the real ‘help’ would only come from ‘Atatürk’. In the fifth part, ‘us’ call out to Atatürk for help; Atatürk accepts the call of the people, gets involved in the war and starts the independence movement in the sixth part. The seventh part of the book is devoted to the congresses of Sivas and Erzurum led by Atatürk, while the poet attempts to challenge imperialism with a rhetoric centred around the mobilisation of ‘us’. In the ninth part, the First Battle of İnönü (1921), the first victory of the Turkish National Movement which took place between the Turkish forces and the Greek forces that landed in Anatolia with the support of the Allies, is depicted. The 10th and 11th parts, in a similar way, transmute the defeat of the Greek troops at the Battle of Sakarya (1921) and the Great Offensive (1922) into fiction. The last two parts of the book narrate the establishment of modern Turkey as well as the significance of Atatürk and his revolutions for the Turkish Republic.

In the poem, the contradiction of political imperialism and anti-imperialism becomes visible within the framework of the War of Independence. The British, French and Greek forces are represented as on the side of political imperialism, while the Turkish nation, which resists the occupation of imperialism under the leadership of Atatürk, is presented as the representative of the political anti-imperialist front. In other words, the war itself is revealed to be a ground between the two representatives in question, and the person who can determine which direction this contradiction would evolve is Atatürk who is described as an ‘invincible brave, glorious commander’ (170). The fact that the Turkish nation is the first nation to have defeated imperialism on behalf of the oppressed is perpetually emphasised:

Hurry up crazy soul!

Kemal Pasha doesn’t follow orders!

Mothers, sisters, everyone

No nation like us has ever been seen! (173)

In ‘Atatürk’e Ağıt’ (Lament for Atatürk), a similar framework, in which Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is hailed as a great commander, who led the Turkish nation against political imperialism and brought victory during the War of Independence in Anatolia, is set in contradiction to prevailing assumptions regarding the invincibility of the West militarily:

Kemal Pasha showed up

He sparked passion in the heart of our country

He ripped the enemies off like a sock

In the heart of our army. (111)

In the poems of Külebi, the imperial practice of the West, which becomes concrete with wars and occupations in different geographies outside Anatolia, is also produced in its specific historical context, which, in a way, reflects his internationalist attitude. In his poem ‘Kadınlar, Denizler, Ülkeler’ (Women, Seas, Nations), for instance, he depicts the struggle of Soviet Russia in the Second World War against Hitler-led German imperialism in Leningrad with its tragic atmosphere full of poverty and death. Leningrad is metaphorised as a poor and helpless woman and placed at the centre of the tragic atmosphere in question. This time, the armed forces of Nazi Germany are described as the representative of imperialism, while the Soviet army, which chooses ‘either death or freedom’ (239), is presented as the representative of anti-imperialism.

In ‘Amerika’ (America), he symbolises the United States as a terrible imperialist state which has bloodily left its mark on the world. His stance against American imperialism actually corresponds to the political discourse of the anti-imperialist movements in the 1970s since the metaphorical demonization of the United States is a consequence of its political and economic exploitation of many different parts of the world: ‘If they shot someone, if someone’s blood was shed / Know that there is America in those bullets’ (246). The poet also speaks on behalf of ‘us’, the peoples of the ‘third’ world, positions them on the side of political anti-imperialism, and takes a stand for resistance, which reveals that there is no other solution than a ‘multinational’ resistance against the political imperialism of the United States: ‘But we’ll still resist / until our last breath’ (246). In a similar way, the same arguments appear in ‘Biz ve Amerika’ (Us and America), and Külebi emphasises the similarities between the Anatolian people and the ‘black-skinned’ people of the United States through the dichotomy of ‘them’ and ‘us’:

We are also black-skinned persons for them

who hoe the field, pick cotton, harvest tobacco

like mute sheep with no mouth

who do not shout when in pain (210).

The anti-imperialist discourse of Külebi is reflected in his glorification of Atatürk, the leader of the Turkish War of Independence and demonization of the practices of Western imperialism both in Turkey and in other parts of the world. His anti-imperial discourse shares ideological and intellectual tendencies not only with Lenin but also with Atatürk who became a political role model for the decolonisation and emancipation of the oppressed.

Conclusion

Postcolonial theory might highlight the social and cultural experiences of the colonial subject and help understand and dismantle the essentialist arguments of the monologic discourse on the ‘orientalist mentality’. However, its partial engagement with identity politics as secondary to class-based theories seems to lead to its inability to come up with a radical alternative order which would enable radical decolonisation for the oppressed in an intersectional manner and broaden its applicability. Despite the fact that postcolonial theory attempts to strategically undermine the centrality of the West, it paradoxically reproduces it and can, therefore, be said to remain embedded in a predominantly Western epistemology especially in terms of perceiving the world as divided between the colonised and the coloniser. In a literary context, considering the fact that colonialism and imperialism refer to different forms of domination and exploitation, the scope of postcolonial literature does not cover the literatures of those nations which were not colonised in a ‘typical’ sense by the West, but occupied by Western imperialism. This article has shown how a shift towards an imperialism-oriented reading can reveal the operation of imperialism and imperial discourse in mid-twentieth century Turkish literature. These readings illustrate not just the victimisation of the colonial subject but the ways in which imperialism leads to multifaceted victimisation and collaboration as well as economic and cultural dispossession, through the represented experiences of their characters. Imperialism-oriented literary theory also allows literary works to be historicised and located socioeconomically within their particular cultural, spatial, and temporal circumstances, provides an opportunity to pursue a critical engagement with the representation of local populations and imperial powers, and proposes a systematic critique of the discursive reproduction of the rigid dichotomous construction of the ‘West’ and the ‘East’.