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ABSTRACT
John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress is a narrative that has been translated into Turkish several times. Strangely, histories of Turkish literature and of literary translations into Turkish rarely make any reference to it. The fact that the early translations were in Armeno-Turkish and that they were promoted by Protestant missionary organizations might explain why they were ignored in the historiography of a field in which the contributions of non-Muslims are hardly acknowledged. In recent years, however, Armeno-Turkish literature has become a new area of study in Turkey. Young scholars, mostly in Turkey's leading private universities, have started to explore Armeno-Turkish literature and the exchanges between western Armenian and Turkish literatures in the Ottoman Empire, and have challenged the nationalist discourse underpinning traditional Turkish literary historiography. Mignon's paper gives an overview of Armeno-Turkish literary studies from the rare early republican scholarly publications on the topic to the latest postgraduate research projects on the Armeno-Turkish novel and on nineteenth-century Turkish and western Armenian dramatic traditions. His paper also discusses recent debates on Kurdish poets writing in Turkish and ‘literature in Turkish’, in contra-distinction to Turkish literature, which have opened new spaces of freedom that should facilitate an integration of Armeno-Turkish literature into mainstream Turkish literary history. Beyond academic debates on the challenges to cultural historiography and literary theory, the rediscovery of Armeno-Turkish literature and the acknowledgment of Armenian contributions to Turkish literature represent a major opportunity in the Turkish context to reassess the place of non-Muslim ethnoreligious communities in late Ottoman political and cultural history.
Notes
1 John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, or The Brief Relation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ to His Poor Servant John Bunyan (Glasgow: Porteous and Hislop 1863), 39.
2 John Bunyan, Kristiyan’ın Yolculuğu: Bu Dünyadan Gelecek Dünyaya, Rüya Şeklinde Yapılmış (Istanbul: H. Minasyan 1864).
3 John Bunyan, Kristiyan’ın Gelecek Şehre Doğru Olan Yolculuğu (İzmir: Dedeyan 1876) and Kristiyan’ın Gemiyle Ahrete Doğru Olan Yolculuğu (İzmir: Dedeyan 1877).
4 John Bunyan, Hristiyan Yolculuğu (Istanbul: A. H. Boyajiyan 1879). See also Johann Strauss, ‘Is Karamanli literature part of a “Christian-Turkish (Turco-Christian) literature”?’, in Evangelia Balta and Matthias Kappler (eds), Cries and Whispers in Karamanlidika Books (Wiesbaden: Harassowitz Verlag 2010), 153–200 (180).
5 John Bunyan, Kristiyan Yolculuğu, Yani, Müminin Helak Şehrinden Semavi Şehre Seyahatı, trans. by Abdülmesih Yuhenna Avidaranyan (Istanbul: A. H. Boyajiyan 1881).
6 John Bunyan, Yolcunun Azimeti, Bu Dünyadan Gelecek Dünyaya, trans. by Abdülmesih Yuhenna Avidaranyan (Shumen: Avidaranyan Press 1905).
7 John Bunyan, Mesihin Seyahatnamesi: Bu Dünyadan Gelen Dünyaya (Plovdiv: Avidaranyan Press 1908).
8 John Bunyan, Hac Yolunda: Bu Dünyadan Öteki Dünyaya, trans. by Mustafa Necati (Istanbul: Agop Matyosyan 1923; revised Istanbul: Selâmet Matbaası 1932 and Istanbul: Redhouse Yayınevi 1967).
9 John Bunyan, Müminin Yolculuğu, trans. from the English by Nurhan Acar and Paul Nilson (Istanbul: American Board Neşriyat Dairesi 1961).
10 John Bunyan, İnanlınin Yolculuğu, Yeruşalim Yolculuğu, trans. by Bünyamin Candemir (Istanbul: Doyuran Matbaası 1987).
11 John Bunyan, Çarmıh Yolculuğu (Yeruşalim Yolculuğu), trans. by Umut Alper Ceylan (Istanbul: İnkılap 2003).
12 Walter Allen, The English Novel: A Short Critical History (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1958), 32.
13 Isabel Hofmeyr, The Portable Bunyan: A Transnational History of The Pilgrim's Progress (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press 2004), 18.
14 John Avetaranian, A Muslim Who Became a Christian: The Story of John Avetaranian (born Muhammad Shukri Efendi), ed. Richard Schäfer, trans. from the German by John Bechard (Hertford: Authors OnLine 2002), 136.
15 Murat Belge, Edebiyat Üstüne Yazılar (Istanbul: İletişim 2000), 56.
16 Daniel Defoe, Hikâye-i Robenson, trans. by Ahmed Lütfü Efendi (Istanbul: Takvimhane-i Âmire Matbaası 1864).
17 On this topic, see Laurent Mignon, Ana Metne Taşınan Dipnotlar (Istanbul: İletişim 2009), 121–32; Laurent Mignon, ‘Lost in transliteration: a few remarks on the Armeno-Turkish novel and Turkish literary historiography’, in Evangelia Balta and Mehmet Sönmez (eds), Between Religion and Language (Istanbul: Eren 2011), 111–23 (119–22); and Laurent Mignon, ‘Minor literatures and their challenge to “national literature”: the Turkish case’, in Shane Brennan and Marc Herzog (eds), Turkey and the Politics of National Identity: Social, Economic and Cultural Transformation (London: I. B. Tauris 2014 forthcoming).
18 İsmail Habib Sevük, Avrupa Edebiyatı ve Biz, 2 vols (Istanbul : Remzi Kitabevi 1940–1). Sevük, however, mentions the 1932 translation (II, 482).
19 Post-Tanzimat literature refers to the literature that began to be produced in the aftermath of the westernizing Tanzimat reforms of 1839 and continued throughout the nineteenth century, a literary period characterized by the appropriation of western literary genres such as the novel, the short story and the drama, as well as the transformation of poetry.
20 François Fénélon, Tercüme-i Telemak, trans. by Yusuf Kamil Paşa (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Tasvir-i Efkâr 1862).
21 Defoe, Hikâye-i Robenson.
22 Johann Strauss, ‘Who read what in the Ottoman Empire (19th–20th centuries)?’, Middle Eastern Literatures, vol. 6, no. 1, 2003, 39–76 (46).
23 Silvio Pellico, Mes Prisons Tercümesi, trans. by Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Tasvir-i Efkâr 1874).
24 The Carbonari were members of a secret revolutionary society that played a major role in the struggle for Italian unification and the rise of Italian nationalism in post-Napoleonic Italy.
25 Namık Kemal, ‘Mes Prisons Tercümesi Üzerine Muaheze’, in Kâzım Yetiş (ed.), Nâmık Kemal'in Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı Üzerine Görüşleri ve Yazıları (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi 1989), 236–58. For Pellico's work in the Ottoman Empire, see Strauss, ‘Who read what in the Ottoman Empire?’, 62–3. For Christian themes in Turkish literature, see Laurent Mignon, ‘Türkçe Edebiyatta Haçın Gölgesi’, Varlık, no. 1247, August 2011, 16–18.
26 Avetaranian, A Muslim Who Became a Christian, 144.
27 Strauss, ‘Is Karamanli literature part of a “Christian-Turkish (Turco-Christian) literature”?’.
28 Strauss, ‘Who read what in the Ottoman Empire (19th–20th centuries)?’.
29 Mignon, ‘Minor literatures and their challenge to “national literature”’.
30 Strauss refers to A. Karamatosyan's Miftah-ı Kıraat-ı Hurufat-ı Ermeniyye fî Lisân-ı Osmanî in ‘Is Karamanli literature part of a “Christian-Turkish (Turco-Christian) literature”?’, 182.
31 Ahmed Muhtar, Kendi Kendine Ermenice yahud Mükemmel Ermenice Elifba (Istanbul: Artin Asaduryan ve Mahdumları Matbaası 1917).
32 Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, ‘Türk Edebiyatının Ermeni Edebiyatı Üzerine Tesiratı’ [1922], in Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, Edebiyat Araştırmaları 1 (Ankara: Akçağ 2004), 221–44.
33 Fikret Türkmen, Türk Halk Edebiyatının Ermeni Kültürüne Tesiri (İzmir: Akademi 1992).
34 Archag Tchobanian, Les Trouvères arméniens (Paris: Société du Mercure de France 1906).
35 M. Cevdet (İnançalp), ‘Ermeni Mesâî-i İlmiyesi: Venedik'te (Sen Lazar) Dervişleri Akademisi’, transcribed by İsmail Akçay, Müteferrika, vol. 10, Winter 1996, 201–10.
36 A. Turgut Kut, ‘Ermeni Harfli Türkçe Telif ve Tercüme Konuları: I-Victor Hugo'nun Mağdurin Hikâyesinin Kısaltılmış Nüshası’, in Beşinci Milletler Arası Türkoloji Kongresi: Tebliğler II Türk Edebiyatı Cilt 1 (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi 1985), 195–214.
37 Vartan Paşa, Akabi Hikâyesi [1851], ed. and trans. from the Armeno-Turkish by Andreas Tietze (Istanbul: Eren 1991.
38 Gonca Gökalp, ‘Osmanlı Dönemi Türk Romanının Başlangıcında Beş Eser’, Hacettepe Ümiversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, October 1999, 185–202.
39 İnci Enginün, Yeni Türk Edebiyatı: Tanzimat'tan Cumhuriyet'e (1839–1923) (Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları 2006), 171–2.
40 Kevork Pamukciyan, İstanbul Yazıları, ed. Osman Köker (Istanbul: Aras 2002); Kevork Pamukciyan, Ermeni Harfli Türkçe Edebiyat, ed. Osman Köker (Istanbul: Aras 2002); Kevork Pamukciyan, Zamanlar Mekânlar İnsanlar, ed. Osman Köker (Istanbul: Aras 2003); Kevork Pamukciyan, Biyografileriyle Ermeniler, ed. Osman Köker (Istanbul: Aras 2003).
41 Rober Koptaş, ‘Ermeni Harfleriyle Türkçe’, in Pamukçiyan, Ermeni Harfli Türkçe Edebiyat, xi–xxiii.
42 Hasmik A. Stepanyan, Ermeni Harfli Türkçe Kitaplar ve Süreli Yayınlar Bibliyografyası (1727–1968) (Istanbul: Turkuaz 2005).
43 Selin Tunçboyacıyan, ‘Akabi Hikayesi, Boşboğaz Bir Adem ve Temaşa-i Dünya Romanları Çerçevesinde 19. yy. Osmanlı Modernleşmesi’, M.A. dissertation, Bogˇaziçi University, 2001.
44 See, for example, Mehmet Kutalmış, ‘On Turkish in Armenian script’, Journal of Economic and Social Research, vol. 5, no. 2, 2003, 47–57, and Mehmet Kutalmış, ‘Arap ve Ermeni Harfli Türkçe Hüdâvendigâr Gazetesi’, Ermeni Araştırmaları, nos 12–13, Winter 2003–Spring 2004, 121–34.
45 Rahime Demir, ‘19. Yüzyıl Ermeni Harfli Türkçe Metinlerde Çekimli Şekiller’, M.A. dissertation, Fatih University, 2001.
46 Ebru Gölpınar, ‘Ermeni Harfli Türkçe bir Dram Maşukını Katl idemeyen Kız Üzerinde Metin İncelemesi’, M.A. dissertation, Fatih University, 2001.
47 Pınar Karakılcık, ‘Hovsep H. Kurbanyan’ın “İki Kapu Yoldaşları Yahod Hakku Adaletin Zahiri”si, 1885, İkinci Cilt: İnceleme, Ermeni harfli Türkçe Metin, Dizin’, M.A. dissertation, Marmara University, 2011.
48 Erkan Erğinci, ‘Öteki Metinler, Öteki Kadınlar: Ermeni Harfli Türkçe Romanlar ve Kadın İmgesi’, M.A. dissertation, Bilkent University, 2007.
49 Günil Özlem Ayaydın Cebe, ‘Ondokuzuncu Yüzyılda Osmanlı Toplumu ve Basılı Türkçe Edebiyat: Etkileşimler, Değişimler, Çeşitlilik’, Ph.D. dissertation, Bilkent University, 2009.
50 Mehmet Fatih Uslu, ‘Melodram ve Komedi: Osmanlı'da Türkçe ve Ermenice Modern Dramatik Edebiyatlar’, Ph.D. dissertation, Bilkent University, 2009.
51 Murat Cankara, ‘İmparatorluk ve Roman: Ermeni Harfli Türkçe Romanları Osmanlı Türk Edebiyat Tarihi Yazımında Konumlandırmak’, Ph.D. dissertation, Bilkent University 2009.
52 Murat Yusuf Önem, ‘Türkçe Yazan Ermeni Yazarlarda Türk ve Ermeni İmajı (Zaven Biberyan, Kirkor Ceyhan, Agop Arslanyan, Mıgırdiç Margosyan, Markar Esayan)’, M.A. dissertation, Gaziosmanpaşa University, 2009.
53 Alparslan Nas, ‘Between National and Minor Literature in Turkey: Modes of Resistance in the Works of Mehmed Uzun and Mıgırdiç Margosyan’, M.A. dissertation, Sabancı University, 2011.
54 Sarkis Serents, Ermeni Edebiyatı Nümûneleri [1912] (Istanbul: Aras 2012).
55 Pars Tuğlacı, Ermeni Edebiyatından Seçkiler (Istanbul: Cem Yayınevi 1992).
56 Markar Esayan, ‘20. Yüzyıla Girerken Ermeni Edebiyatında Modernite, Yeni Burjuvazi Ve Sınıfsal Çatışmalar’, M.A. dissertation, Bilgi University, 2010.
57 ‘About us’, available on the Institute for Armenian Research website at www.eraren.org/index.php?Lisan=en&Page=Sayfa&No=1 (viewed 11 March 2014). For the denialist perspective of the Institute, see, for example, Ömer Engin Lütem, ‘Basic knowledge and documentation on the Armenian question’, available on the Institute for Armenian Research website at www.eraren.org//bilgibankasi/en/introduction.htm (viewed 11 March 2014.)
58 Varlık published a special issue on Armenian literature in May 1997, featuring articles by Karin Karakaşlı, Jaklin Çelik, Arus Yumul, as well as new literary works by Mıgırdıç Margosyan and Kirkor Yeteroğlu. Hece published an article by Laurent Mignon on Hovsep Vartanyan's Akabi Hikâyesi in its special issue on the Turkish novel in May 2002. The monthly Kaçak Yayın published a special issue on Armenian literature in March 2007, presenting a wide range of samples of Armenian literature from William Saroyan to Kirkor Zohrab.
59 Silva Gabudikyan, Şarkıların Şarkısı, trans. from the Armenian by Raffi Hermon and Emirali Yağan (Istanbul: Belge 2002);Vakhtang Ananyan, Ermeni Av Hikayeleri, trans. from the Armenian by Özgür Kırteke (Istanbul: Totem 2011).
60 Ömer Uluçay, Yaralı Kimlik: Türkçe Yazan Kürt Şairler (Istanbul: Do Yayınları 2006), 21–2.
61 Chinua Achebe (quoting James Baldwin), cited in Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts, 2nd edn (London: Routledge 2007), 16.
62 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, trans. from the French by Dana Polan (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press 2008), 18.
63 Yaşar Kemal, Yaşar Kemal on His Life and Art, trans. from the French by Eugene Lyons Hébert and Barry Tharaud (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press 1998), 65–7.
64 Quoted in Clémence Scalbert Yücel, ‘Languages and the definition of literature: the blurred borders of Kurdish literature in contemporary Turkish’, Middle Eastern Literatures, vol. 14, no. 2, 2011, 171–84 (179).
65 Roni Margulies, Şiir Yahudilik Vesaire: Edebiyat, Kimlik ve Sosyalizm Üzerine Yazılar (Istanbul: Kanat 2004).
66 Özdemir İnce, ‘Türkçe yazan Kürt şairler’, Hürriyet, 26 March 2004, available on the Hürriyet website at http://hurarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/goster/haber.aspx?id=212775 (viewed 27 February 2014).
67 Özdemir İnce, ‘Türkiyelilerin Türkçe edebiyatı’, Hürriyet, 18 November 2006, available on the Hürriyet website at http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=5461112 (viewed 27 February 2014).
68 For a study of Hovsep Vartanyan's language, see Andreas Tietze, ‘Önsöz’, in Paşa, Akabi Hikâyesi, ix–xxi (xiii–xxi).
69 Hofmeyr, The Portable Bunyan.
70 John Milton, Paradise Lost: A Poem in Twelve Books (Dublin: Printed for W. and W. Smith, P. Wilson and T. Ewing 1767), 41.
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Notes on contributors
Laurent Mignon
Laurent Mignon is University Lecturer in Turkish at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Saint Antony's College. His research interests include modern Turkish literature and intellectual history, minority literature, socialist literature, biblical themes in Turkish literature and modern Jewish intellectual history. Email: [email protected]