The effect of nationalist movements on Turkish and Irish children’s literature: swans and epic heroes: ‘Fly like great birds, who have no voice’

Abstract

The establishment of the Turkish and Irish republics took place nearly simultaneously, under the influence of the nationalist movement. This study discusses the cultural foundations of nationalism that emerged during the independence struggles and the necessity of transferring them to children in comparison. In particular, it is claimed that nations that have fought for independence want to create myths about these difficult times, immortalize them with works such as poetry, stories, and novels, and then pass them to the next generations. This study indicates that although they have different languages, religions, and traditions, these two countries tell fairy tales and epics for children in almost the same period for the same purposes. To illustrate this, two folk narratives of both cultures were compared in this study. In conclusion, these comparisons show that the Irish and Turkish nationalist movements exercise their freedom to ‘conceive themselves’ and hope to benefit somewhat from reflecting this on children’s literature.

Keywords:

• Nationalism
• Ireland
• Turkey
• children’s literature
• myths and legends

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr Clíona Ó Gallchoir for her encouragement. She was the first person to read our early draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Helen A. Fairlie, Revaluing British Boys’ Story Papers, 1918-1939 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), p.210.

2 For the concept of cultural revolution, see Leora Auslander, Cultural Revolutions: Everyday Life and Politics in Britain, North America and France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009).

3 Neslihan Albay, ‘Halide Edib Adıvar and Lady Augusta Gregory: Literary Configurations of Nation-State Identity’ (PhD thesis, Istanbul University, 2018).

4 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993).

5 Marnie Hay, ‘Children and the Irish Cultural Revival’, in Giulia Bruna and Catherine Wilsdon (eds), UCDscholarcast Series 12 (Spring 2015), pp.2–17.

6 The Irish literary renaissance ‘was inspired by the nationalistic pride of the Gaelic revival (q.v.); by the retelling of ancient heroic legends in books such as the History of Ireland (1880) by Standish O’Grady and A Literary History of Ireland (1899) by Douglas Hyde; and by the Gaelic League, which was formed in 1893 to revive the Irish language and culture’ (https://www.britannica.com/event/Irish-literary-renaissance).

7 Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 2007), p.92.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid., p.93.

10 Ibid.

11 See Roy Foster, The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making it up in Ireland (Oxford University Press 2002); see also Terence Brown, ‘Cultural Nationalism’, in Seamus Deane (ed.), The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol.2 (Derry: Field Day Publications, 1991), pp.188–93; see also Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (London: Penguin, 2001 (1961)).

12 See the important works about the First World War and Ottoman Empire: Stanford Jay Shaw, Birinci Dünya Savaşı'nda Osmanlı İmparatorluğu [The Ottoman Empire in World War I], trans. Beyza Sümer Aydaş (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2014); Pierre Renouvin. Birinci Dünya Savaşı ve Türkiye: 1914-1918 [World War I and Turkey], Ö. Andaç Uğurlu (ed.) and trans. Örgen Uğurlu (Istanbul: Örgün Yayınevi, 2004).

13 Kemal H. Karpat, ‘The Entry of the Ottoman Empire into World War I’, Belleten Vol.68 (2004), pp.687–734: DOI:10.37879/belleten.2004.687.

14 Dankwart A. Rustow, ‘The Army and the Founding of the Turkish Republic’, World Politics Vol.11, no.4, (1959), pp.513–52: DOI:10.2307/2009591.

15 For more information about The Special Organization (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa), see Polat Safi, ‘History in the Trench: The Ottoman Special Organization – Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa Literature’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.48, no.1 (2012), pp.89–106.

16 Erol Köroğlu, Türk Edebiyatı ve Birinci Dünya Savaşı 1914-1918 [Turkish Literature and the First World War 1914-1918] (Istanbul: İletişim Yayıncılık, 2010), p.198.

17 Ibid.

18 The New Language Movement’s literary works were themed around nationalist ideas about origins of Turks and Turkish history. Ziya Gökalp's ideas pioneered this movement. See Ziya Gökalp, Türkçülüğün Esasları [The Principles of Turkism] (Istanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat, 2015).

19 Hülya Argunşah, ‘Milli Edebiyat’ [National Literature], in Ramazan Korkmaz (ed.), Yeni Türk Edebiyatı 1839–2000 El Kitabı [New Turkish Literature 1839–2000 Handbook] (Ankara: Grafiker Yayınları, 2013), pp.184–91.

20 Cevdet Küçük, ‘Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda ‘Millet Sistemi’ ve Tanzimat’ [The ‘Nation System’ and the Tanzimat in the Ottoman Empire], in H. İnalcık and M. Seyitdanlıoğlu (eds), Tanzimat: Değişim Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu [Tanzimat: The Ottoman Empire in the Process of Change] (2nd ed, Ankara: Phoenix, 2006), p.394.

21 Halil İnalcık, ‘The Caliphate and Atatürk's Inkilâb’, Belleten Vol.46, no.182 (1982), pp.353–66.

22 Conor Morrissey, Protestant Nationalists in Ireland, 1900–1923 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp.1–2.

23 Richard English, Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (London: Macmillan, 2009), p.162.

24 Timothy J. White, ‘The Impact of British Colonialism on Irish Catholicism and National Identity: Repression, Reemergence, and Divergence’, Études irlandaises Vol.35, no.1 (2010), pp.1–17.

25 Tony Fahey, ‘Catholicism and Industrial Society in Ireland’, Proceedings of the British Academy Vol.79 (1992), pp.241–63.

26 Timothy J. White, ‘The Impact of British Colonialism’, pp.1–17.

27 Ibid.

28 Amanullah De Sondy, The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).

29 Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 2007), p.74.

30 Ibid., p.75.

31 In this novel, the struggle for independence is described in fiction. It is said that one of the characters of the novel is the writer herself. Halide Edip was one of the important people next to Atatürk, who was on the battlefields. Halide Edip Adıvar, Ateşten Gömlek [Shirt of Fire] (Istanbul: Can Yayınları, 2009).

32 Ibid.

33 Şefika Kurnaz, ‘Millî Mücadelede Türk Kadını’ [Turkish Women in the National Struggle], Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi Vol.34 (1996), p.34.

34 Discussions on Irish women's fight to enter the public stage, feminism, nationalism are controversial. See Carol Coulter, The Hidden Tradition Feminism, Women and Nationalism in Ireland (Cork: Cork University Press, 1993).

35 Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (Harvard University Press, 1996), p.200. William Butler Yeats, ‘Cathleen ni Houlihan', in E. Larrissy (ed.), W. B. Yeats: A Critical Edition of The Major Works (New York: Oxford University Press), pp.211–20.

36 Hans Christian Andersen, ‘The Wild Swans’, in Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (London: George G. Harrap, 1916), pp.220–36.

37 Yeats wrote ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’ which expressed his ideas with the symbol of the swan, so ‘the poem becoming thus another reiteration of the theme of historical cycles that seems to have greatly impressed Yeats’. See Maria-Camelia Dicu, A Study of Yeats’s Poetic Discourse Versus the Concept of History (Kocani: European Scientific Institute Publishing, 2013), p.166.

38 Ibid., p.23.

39 Hans Christian Andersen, ‘The Wild Swans’, p.220.

40 Ziya Gökalp, ‘Kuğular’, p.26.

41 Hans Christian Andersen, ‘The Wild Swans’, p.229.

42 Ziya Gökalp, ‘Kuğular’, pp.27–28.

43 Ibid., p.29.

44 ‘The Fate of the Children of Lir’, in Irish Fairy and Folk Tales Edited and Selected by William Butler Yeats (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1993), pp.1–10.

45 Ibid., p.2.

46 Ibid., p.3.

47 Ciara Ní Bhroin, ‘Mythologizing Ireland’, in Valerie Coghlan and Keith O’Sullivan (eds), Irish Children’s Literature and Culture New Perspectives on Contemporary Writing (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp.7–29, p.11.

48 Ibid., pp.7–29.

49 V. Spike Peterson, ‘Gendered Nationalism’, Peace Review Vol. 6, no.1 (1994), pp.77–83.

50 Nira Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias, ‘Introduction’, in N. Yuval-Davis and F. Anthias (eds), Woman-Nation-State (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989), pp.1–16, p.7.

51 Ibid.

52 Hans Christian Andersen, ‘The Wild Swans’, p.220.

53 Halide Edip Adıvar, Dağa Çıkan Kurt [The Wolf on the Mountain] (Istanbul: Can Yayınları, 2014), p.16.

54 Deniz Bozer, ‘The Endorsement of Nationalistic Sentiments in Lady Gregory's The Rising of the Moon’, in Burcin Erol (ed.), One Day, Lady Gregory, Hacettepe University, Department of English Language and Literature (Ankara: Bizim Buro, 2018), pp.21–43, p.22.

55 Declan Kiberd and P.J. Mathews (eds), Handbook of the Irish Revival: An Anthology of Irish Cultural and Political Writings 1891-1922 (Dublin: Abbey Theatre Press, 2015).

56 Deniz Bozer, ‘The Endorsement of Nationalistic Sentiments in Lady Gregory's The Rising of the Moon’, p.22.

57 Ibid.

58 The use of education as a means of governance was also a familiar idea on the Ottoman side. Abdulhamid II implemented this very policy with the aim of creating a unified and controllable populace devoted to the Sultan and imperial values. See Ali Çapar, ‘Governance in the Periphery through Schooling: Educational Policies and Nusayri/‘Alawi children in late Ottoman Syria’, Paedagogica Historica (2022): DOI: 10.1080/00309230.2022.2147015.

59 Ciara Ní Bhroin, ‘Mythologizing Ireland’, p.10.

60 For fuller examples in context, see Mary Shine Thompson (ed.), Young Irelands: Studies in Children’s Literature (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011).

61 Ciara Ní Bhroin, ‘Mythologizing Ireland’, p.7.

62 Judith Hill, Lady Gregory: An Irish Life (Gloucester: Sutton Publishing, 2005).

63 It is a version of the legends of Cú Chulainn, based on earlier oral and written versions, and is the collection and translation of Lady Augusta Gregory: Augusta Gregory, Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster Arranged and Put into English by Lady Gregory with a Preface by W.B. Yeats (Global Grey ebooks, 2018).

64 Greg Goalwin, ‘The Curious Case of Cú Chulainn: Nationalism, Culture, and Meaning-Making in the Contested Symbols of Northern Ireland’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism Vol.19, no.3 (2019), p.315.

65 Ibid., p.317.

66 Declan Kiberd, Irish Classics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), p.400.

67 Ibid., p.401.

68 Augusta Gregory, Cuchulain of Muirthemne, p.19.

69 Declan Kiberd, Irish classics, p.404.

70 Augusta Gregory, Cuchulain of Muirthemne, p.9.

71 Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland: The Literature of Modern Nation, p.202.

72 Ziya Gökalp, ‘Aslan Basat Nasıl Dünyaya Geldi?’; ‘Nasıl ve Nerede Büyüdü’; ‘Daha, Küçük Bir Çocukken Kızgın Bir Boğayı Nasil Yendi?’; ‘Oğuz İlini Tepegöz'den Nasıl Kurtardı?’ [How Was Aslan Basat Born?; How and Where It Was Raised; How Did He Defeat an Angry Bull When He Was Just a Little Boy?; How He Saved Oghuz Province from Tepegoz], in Altın Işık, prepared by Şevket Kutkan (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Ziya Gökalp Yayınları, 1976), pp.161–89.

73 Patrick Henry Pearse and fourteen other leaders were court-martialled and executed by firing squad after the 1916 Easter Rising.

74 Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion (London: Allen Lane, 2006), p.14.

75 Murat R. Şiviloğlu, ‘The Ottoman Empire and the emergence of its “Irish Question”’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.59, no.1 (2023), pp.35–53: DOI: 10.1080/00263206.2022.2042264.

76 Ibid.