19.Yüzyıl Türk gezi edebiyatında Oryantalizm

Abstract

In this dissertation, twelve travelogues written between 1869 and 1901 and published as books were analyzed in terms of Ottoman orientalism. These travel writings, listed chronologically, are as follows: Mühendis Faik Bey's Seyahatname-i Bahr-i Muhit (1869), Bağdatlı Abdullah Efendi's Brezilya Seyahatnamesi (1872), Ömer Lütfü's Ümit Burnu Seyahatnamesi (1876), Darugazade Mehmet Emin Efendi's İstanbul’dan Asya-yı Vusta’ya Seyahat (1880), Şirvânî Ahmet Hamdi's

Hindistan, Svat ve Afganistan Seyahatnamesi (1884), Mirliva Mehmet Refet's Seyahatname-i Arz- ı Filistin (1889), Ahmet İhsan's Asya-yı Şarkî’ye Seyahat (1891), Direktör Âli Bey's Seyahat

Jurnali: İstanbul’dan Bağdat’a ve Hindistan’a (1898), Ahmet İhsan's Altı Hafta Nil’de Seyahat (1896), Azimzade Sadık el-Müeyyed Paşa’s Bir Osmanlı Zabitinin Afrika Sahra-yı Kebir’de Seyahati (1898), Hacı Mustafa bin Mustafa's Aksâ-yı Şark’ta Bir Cevelân’ı (1898) and Hüseyin Sîret's Anadolu Mektupları (1901). The works of the travelers, who were originally soldiers, engineers and clergymen, written at the end of their journeys to countries such as India, Tripolitania, Afghanistan, Brazil and Cape Town between 1896-1901 for political, commercial and religious reasons were examined. All but two of these works have been read from the old-letter Turkish text and analyzed for the first time and added to the history of literature thanks to our thesis. In the ‘Introduction’ section of the study, the Western understanding of the East, Fluid Orientalism, and Ottoman Orientalism are discussed, and a theoretical framework is established. The Western understanding of the East is analysed through the lenses of Classical and Modern Orientalism. The fluidity of Orientalism and the created Eastern layers are also explored. In the first chapter, the concept of Ottoman Orientalism is examined in detail within the contexts of geography, political history, and literature. The second chapter evaluates the historical development of Turkish travel literature in Classical Turkish Literature and Nineteenth-Century Turkish Literature. In this evaluation, genres that are similar to or differ from the travel writing genre are addressed. Additionally, the embassies established by the Ottoman Empire in eastern regions and the travel writings written by diplomats are discussed. The twelve travel writings to be analysed in this study are also introduced in this chapter. The third chapter focuses on the reasons for travelling to the East, preparations, experiences, identities of the travellers, transportation routes, and accommodation types, all based on the examined travel writings. In the fourth chapter, the encounters between the travellers and the people of the Eastern territories are analysed through the lens of the subject-object relationship. Finally, in the fifth chapter, topics such as language and literature, clothing, social structure, archaeology, daily life, architectural culture, and suchlike are analysed under ten distinct headings. The conclusions reached in this study can be briefly stated as follows: Ottoman Orientalism, along with the modernization of the nineteenth century, changed the empire's view of the East. It can be said that the Ottoman Empire created its own image of the East on the axis of Westernization. Based on the travelogues analyzed, the Ottoman Empire represented itself politically, religiously, commercially, and culturally in the East and presented its own orientalist approach in response to Western orientalism.