How could the popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna in Turkey over the last decade be explained?
Jirapon Boonpor S1653032 MA Middle Eastern Studies
Professor Dr Erik-Jan Zürcher Leiden University Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter One Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s Past Receptions 15
Chapter Two Book Readers’ particularities and Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s characteristics 30
Chapter Three Contextualising Popular Views and Romantic Realism 47
Conclusion 66
Bibliography 70
1
Introduction
“Madonna in a Fur Coat makes a glorious comeback.”1
“Sabahattin Ali’s Madonna in a Fur Coat – the surprise Turkish bestseller”2
“The mysterious woman who inspired a bestselling novel”3
These are some of the several newspapers and magazines’ headlines appearing in mid 2016 when the English translated version - Madonna in a Fur Coat - of the Turkish novel Kürk Mantolu Madonna was released. These articles introduce the decades-old Turkish novel which has gained an unprecedented degree of popularity, rather surprisingly, in the past decade in Turkey.
Kürk Mantolu Madonna is a story written in Turkish language by Sabahattin Ali, a Turkish journalist, poet and writer who is remembered for his Leftist political stance and articulated criticism towards the Turkish Republic’s Kemalist one-party state of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in 1907 in the Ottoman sancak (district) of Gümülcine (modern-day Greek city of Komitini) in the eastern part of the Ottoman eyalet (province) of Rumelia, Sabahattin Ali was a citizen of the Ottoman Empire and then the newly established Turkish Republic. Therefore, he witnessed his native empire’s transforming into a nation-state. Apart from that, Ali experienced the development in Europe leading up to World War II while studying in Potsdam, Germany from 1928 to 1930. Unfortunately, his prolific literary output abruptly ended when he was murdered in 1948, an incident believed to be because of his anti-government advocacy. Nonetheless, Ali is considered one of the most prominent Turkish literary figures of the early period
1 Anadolu Agency, ‘Madonna in a Fur Coat makes a glorious comeback’, Hurriyet Daily News, 2016,
Essentially a love story without conspicuous political message, Kürk Mantolu Madonna is set during the interwar periods in Ankara and Berlin. The novel consists of two related stories of different time periods. In the first part of the story, an unnamed narrator, who lives in 1940s Ankara, struggles with economic problems as a result of a worldwide economic crisis. He loses his job in banking sector and later manages to acquire a bank clerk position through a friend’s connections in another bank. Social and economic developments of the setting are realistically portrayed, exemplifying Sabahattin Ali’s regarded pioneering of social realism in Turkish literature. At his new workplace, the narrator meets Raif, an older co-worker whom other colleagues call by an Ottoman title of Efendi. Initially, the narrator perceives Raif Efendi as a cold, isolated and ignored person, but gradually, having to share an office with him, develops friendship with him. After that the narrator learns about Raif Efendi’s earlier life which is interesting, something inconceivable on the surface of Raif Efendi’s aging, lethargic, unmotivated and downhearted exteriority. Through a black covered notebook which Raif Efendi keeps in his office desk’s drawer, the narrator learns about Raif’s few years living in Berlin. The beginning of the black notebook is dated 1933, but the events written in the notebook have happened before - around 1924. Then the story in the book becomes the second part of the novel, of which Raif, as a young man, is the main protagonist. Raif, a young and naïve Turkish man, is sent by his family to learn soap trade in Berlin. There he meets a debonair yet puzzling German woman, an artist whose Madonna-like self-portrait mesmerises Raif and makes him keep coming back to see the portrait. Raif’s encounter with Maria Puder, the German artist, turns into friendship, and later their friendship develops into an ambiguous romance. Unfortunately, their romance abruptly halts when Raif has to return to Turkey because of his father’s death. Raif plans to settle and establish himself first before calling for Maria Puder to join him in Turkey. However, shortly after his arrival back in Turkey Maria’s correspondence with him ceases and that leaves him miserably puzzled. Raif resolves to get on with life – 3 marrying a Turkish woman whom he is not entirely in love with and working on the futile inherited land. His scanty fortune eventually dries up and Raif takes up a job as a German to Turkish translator in a bank in Ankara. Years later, Raif accidentally comes across his former co-lodger from his accommodation in Berlin. This lady co-lodger is a distant relative of Maria Puder. Through her, Raif learns that he and Maria have a child together and that Maria has passed away a week after her giving birth to their daughter. As a result of overwhelming grief from the unanticipated news, Raif Efendi becomes closed up, miserable and unenthusiastic to live. Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s contribution to Turkish and world literature is beyond doubt worthwhile and interesting, but a literary analysis of this novel is not within the scope of this thesis. Rather, this paper is interested in its current popularity in Turkey, in other words, the novel’s interactions with today’s Turkish readership.
One of the most interesting aspects of Kürk Mantolu Madonna is that it was written over seven decades ago but over the last decade or so it has become extremely popular in Turkey. Over the last ten years, the novel has been in Turkey’s top-ten bestselling lists. It was number one bestseller from 2014 to 2016, with total sales of 750,000 copies over the three years’ period. In 2015 alone, 350,000 copies of Kürk Mantolu Madonna were sold. These figures are extraordinary for Turkey’s book market. In 2015, Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık (Strangeness in My Mind), the 2014-released novel of Orhan Pamuk, the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature and one of the most popular contemporary Turkish writers, sold 231,000 copies, over 100,000 copies less than Kürk Mantolu Madonna. Turkish Librarians' Association (Türk Kütüphaneciler Derneği) reports that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was the most borrowed book of 2015. On Instagram, a social media very popular in Turkey, there are over twelve thousands posts with hashtag #kurkmantolumadonna.4 In May 2016, Kürk Mantolu Madonna is translated into English and published, titled Madonna in a Fur Coat, by Penguin Classics, joining other 11 foreign-language translated versions of the novel. It is undeniable that Kürk Mantolu Madonna is one of the most celebrated Turkish novels in the last decade. This paper is intrigued by the sudden, unexpected and
4 As of 24 October 2016 4 unprecedented nature of the novel’s becoming very popular in Turkey over the past decade. It aims to understand why this 1940s novel has become popular to such a degree in Turkey in the last decade.
Journalists, rather than academics, seem to be more receptive to the phenomenal rise of Kürk Mantolu Madonna to popularity. There are several magazine and newspaper articles about the novel’s recent popularity. These include interviews with translators, publishers and related figures of the novel, and analyses of what could be reasons for Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s unprecedented degree of popularity. Maureen Freely, one of the two of the English translators of the novel who has also translated works of a few internationally known Turkish writers including Orhan Pamuk and Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, associates the novel’s current hype with young Turkish people and their political struggles with the current government of Turkey. Freely is quoted to be opining that the young Turkish youths protesting at Gezi park in 2013 were asking for something no different from what Raif and Maria found in Berlin which was freedom to express their true natures and shape their own lives, according to their own principles and ideals. 5 In Freely’s opinion, Kürk Mantolu Madonna reminds the youths at a time when the state tries to intrude their daily life that going against the state is possible. She asserts that the Turkish youths at Gezi Park protests were encouraged by Ali’s political activities and the love in his works.6 Freely’s analysis on a basis of Sabahattin Ali’s political legacy is similar to how most academics emphasise Ali’s Leftist political motivation in addition to his social realist portrayal of the life of Anatolian peasants. Freely’s analysis is valuable to this study that it brings out factors – political legacy attached to the novel’s author and a section of the novel’s fan – which could be investigated further.
Meriç Güleç, the managing director of ONK, the copyright agency which holds the rights to publish Kürk Mantolu Madonna, asserts that the novel’s recent bestsellerdom is because of its historical and political contents, and an idealised
5 Emre Kizilkaya, ‘Why an old-fashioned novel is trending among Turkey's youth’, Al Monitor, 2016,
Filiz Ali, Sabahattin Ali’s daughter, states that “Raif Efendi reminds readers of forgotten feeling and Maria Puder character could be seen as the ideal woman”.7 Filiz Ali insists on the message of love and rejects any historical or political implications of the novel. Yet, she associates Maria with feminism, a political movement, and thinks that it is a part of the appeal of the novel to today’s audience. Filiz Ali’s rejection of political implication is likely a reference to her father’s political legacy. It seems that Sabahattin Ali’s political history is largely remembered and highly charged. This notion leads this paper to further investigate the association between the novel’s current popularity and its author’s political legacy.
Like Güleç and Filiz Ali, Sevengül Sönmez deems the novel’s love affair being a prominent factor which attracts readers today.8 Sönmez sees the novel on par with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the 12th century Persian love story Layla and Majnun. The fact that this is not the only love story available on the market shows that Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s being a love story could not be the only factor which attracts readers. Nevertheless, one might argue that Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s love story is so unique that it sets the novel apart from other love novels. This paper
7 Anadolu Agency, ‘Madonna in a Fur Coat makes a glorious comeback’. 8 Anadolu Agency, ‘Madonna in a Fur Coat makes a glorious comeback’. 6 will examine this further. In addition, Sönmez considers that the language of the novel, Sabahattin Ali’s writing style, is easy-to-read and thus makes it accessible to today’s readers. One might question, however, whether an uncomplicated language of the late 1930s could be considered easy-to-read in the 2010s. Considering the large number of editions of the book (81th edition as of August 2016), it might be fruitful to examine if the easy-to-read language of the book is a direct result of Ali’s own speech or publishers’ edition. Sönmez also mentions an increased interest in Ali’s life, including biographies and exhibitions amid the current popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna. Sönmez considers the novel a popular product that, like all popular products, people want to show that they also take part in the consumption of the product. This paper finds viewing the novel as commodity an interesting perspective to understanding its current popularity. Accordingly, this paper will also investigate the novel’s popularity from a Marxist perspective.
Emre Kizilkaya analyses Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s current popularity also in relation to political developments such as the Gezi Park protests.9 First, Kizilkaya acknowledges that Ali was an anti-establishment although one can hardly see any political messages in Kürk Mantolu Madonna. He juxtaposes political landscapes during Ali’s time with today’s time to illustrate a similar oppressive political atmosphere caused by the government. Kizilkaya thinks that some of the young Gezi park protesters felt their freedom being limited by the government and find ‘romantic refuge’ in the novel which is written by a political dissident of a time when political freedom was also limited. This suggests that Kizilkaya perceive Ali’s political legacy the most determinant factor in attracting current readers. Another factor to which Kizilkaya relates the novel’s popularity is its ‘cool’ name which contains the words Madonna and Fur Coat. All other works of Ali’s have Turkish names. One might deduce that Kizilkaya’s ‘cool’ means having a quality of being globally comprehensible. In other words, Kürk Mantolu Madonna could be perceived as resonating the concept of globality. Furthermore, Kizilkaya asserts that some new Turkish fans of the novel may read or buy, without reading, and post photos of the novel only because it is a trend. This shows that Kürk Mantolu
9 Kizilkaya, ‘Why an old-fashioned novel is trending among Turkey's youth.’ 7
Madonna’s current popularity is not only about its having a large readership and commercial success, but also its omnipresence in today’s imagined public space of social media.
Similarly to the aforementioned journalists, Lydia Beardmore argues that Kürk Mantolu Madonna has become very popular because of the way Sabahattin Ali is perceived today as someone leaving a legacy of political resistance against an oppressive government by today’s readers who are also struggling with an increasingly authoritarian government. She thinks that the story of the novel is seen as a reflection of Ali’s years living in Potsdam, a city on the border of Berlin. She also emphasises that several of the novel’s readers are youths who relate to the characters’ rejection of conservative norms and expectations such as gender roles that the society force upon them. She enumerates the novel’s thematic discourses that are talked about by its current readers: freedom, unrequited love, power, and fascination. In addition, she thinks Ali’s prose plays a role in capturing readers’ attention. What is more, it is interesting to read Beardmore’s confident assertion, with unproven historicity, that the novel was not particularly well received upon its initial publication in 1943.10 However considering the fact that the story was initially serialized and a couple of years later published as a novel, the story must have gained a substantial positive reception since its early years. Apart from that, Beardmore highlights one interesting aspect of the novel’s current popularity, which is its being an accessory of Turkish youths to cafés (hipster styled coffee houses) and being a popular object for photos on social media. This interesting aspect leads this paper to further investigate the connections between Kürk Mantolu Madonna, Turkey’s youths and their current social trends.
Hakan Arslanbenzer also highlights Sabahattin Ali’s political legacy. According to Arslanbenzer, Ali was among the writers who thought that after Atatürk’s death, İsmet İnönü’s having entered the presidency, and the end of World War II their writing and political activities could be less restricted. Accordingly, Ali adamantly
10 Lydia Beardmore, ‘Madonna in a Fur Coat’, Reorient, 2016,
As illustrated, newspaper and magazine articles highlight particular ways in which the Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s popularity is expressed. These include its being associated with Sabahattin Ali’s political legacy, Turkish youths, their current trends of coffee drinking and using social media, and their participation in political activities. Their arguments circle around Ali’s legacy of political resistance against the state, the novel’s being his semi-autobiography and a message of anti-conservative norms. In addition, the novel’s love story and its writing style are accredited as crucial factors.
On the other hand, apart from a few volumes of anthology of Turkish literature which introduce briefly Sabahattin Ali’s biography and works, along with other prominent Turkish authors’, the academic works on Kürk Mantolu Madonna are limited to literary analysis of the novel or its comparisons to other works, especially Western classic novels. Academic investigations of this novel’s popularity in 2010s are non-existent. This thesis could accordingly fill this academic gap.
Elisabeth Siedel, a German academic, is perhaps the first scholar who does academic study of Kürk Mantolu Madonna. According to Siedel, despite the fact that Ali was politically active as a socialist during the time in which he was writing the novel, Kürk Mantolu Madonna is not a political critique. 12 Siedel argues that social outsider as a concept was common among the Turkish generation living
11 Hakan Arslanbenzer, ‘Sabahattin Ali: Tragic Romance and Dark Realism’, Daily Sabah, 2015,
Before Kürk Mantolu Madonna was translated into English and published titled ‘Madonna in a Fur Coat’ by Penguin Classics in May 2016, a part of the novel was translated into English titled ‘The Madonna in the Fur Coat’13 and featured in a 2013 issue of Transit – A Journal of Travel, Migration, and Multiculturalism in the German-speaking World. That this translation can be found in the journal is not surprising taken into account one of the novel’s settings – Berlin -, one of its main characters – Maria Puder who is a German woman -, and one of its two translators – David Gramling’s research interests which include migration history in contemporary Germany, with a particular concentration on Turkish-German literature, film, and culture.14 Considering the year (2013) in which this translation was published, the novel’s recent popularity in Turkey might have been a factor which got Gramling and his co-translator – Ilker Hepkaner’s attention.
Gramling and Hepkaner argue that Kürk Mantolu Madonna, at its initial publication and throughout the 1950s and 60s, was welcomed as a romantic wanderlust but dismissed by literary circle especially Marxist writers such as Nazim Hikmet because it lacks political message. In addition, Gramling and Hepkaner posit that recently scholars and publishing houses have belatedly turn
13 David Gramling and Ilker Hepkaner, ‘The Madonna in the Fur Coat’, Transit vol. 9(1), 2013, < http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4ht6w6zv#page-1> (22 January 2017). 14 German Studies, The University of Arizona,
Kristin Dickinson acknowledges Sabahattin Ali’s pioneering of social realist genre but Dickinson argues that his works are not confined exclusively to social realism.17 She asserts that Ali was influenced by and influenced two kinds of literature of his period: social realist portrayal of life of lower classes and minorities in the city and village novel which is a social realist genre with a focus
15 David Gramling and Ilker Hepkaner, ‘Translating the Translingual Novel in Early Turkish Republican Literature: the Case of Sabahattin Ali’, in Michelle Woods (ed.), Authorizing Translation, New York: Routledge, 2017. 44. 16 Gramling and Hepkaner, ‘Translating the Translingual Novel in Early Turkish Republican Literature: the Case of Sabahattin Ali’, 44. 17 Kristin Dickinson, ‘Translating Surfaces: A Dual Critique of Modernity in Sabahattin Ali’s Kürk Mantolu Madonna’, Transit vol. 9(1), 2013, 2. 11 on rural Anatolia. According to Dickinson, despite the fact that Ali was often imprisoned for his criticism of the one-party Turkish state, his literary works hardly contain obvious political contents. She argues that Ali was drawn to social outsiders and people on society’s margins when it comes to his literary texts which include subjects as identity crises and ill-fated love stories. Dickinson argues that Kürk Mantolu Madonna is an example of Ali’s diverse subjects and Ali’s attempt to contribute to world literature. Dickinson links the story to historical reality of the early years of the Turkish Republic concerning the translation movement Dünya Edebiyatı that there were attempts to bring Western humanist values onto Turkish culture. She argues that the story of the characters in the book is a basis for a critique of Turkish and German modernities. 18 Dickinson explicates that Maria was a representation of neue Frau women of 1920s Weimar Republic and was the lens through which Raif saw Germany. Dickinson reads Kürk Mantolu Madonna also as a critique of Kemalist model of modernisation as Westernisation. According to Dickinson, the novel highlights a difference between adopting Western values to become a modern country and mere copying of the façade of the West; and concepts of outer image and translatability.
Louis Mitler views Kürk Mantolu Madonna, as well as Köstence Güzellik Kraliçesi (The Beauty Queen of Constance), as Sabahattin Ali’s semi-autobiography.19 This corresponds with Ahmet Oktay’s analysis that the main character in Kürk Mantolu Madonna could be identified, though not entirely, with the author himself. 20 However, Oktay’s main discussion about Ali is his pioneering of social realist portrayal of Anatolian peasants. Oktay argues that Ali’s works gained attention because for the first time there emerged written works which brought Anatolian peasants’ life into Turkish literature (of the 1930s).21 According to Oktay, Ali picked up the neglected group of people whose lives were affected by economic and social changes done by the Republican administration, as a subject of his
18 Dickinson, ‘Translating Surfaces: A Dual Critique of Modernity in Sabahattin Ali’s Kürk Mantolu Madonna’, 4. 19 Louis Mitler, Contemporary Turkish Writers: a Critical Bio-bibliography of Leading Writers in the Turkish Republican Period up to 1980, Bloomington: Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1988, 218. 20 Ahmet Oktay, Cumhuriyet dönemi edebiyatı: 1923-1950, Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı, 1993, 1202. 21 Oktay, Cumhuriyet dönemi edebiyatı, 1189. 12 works and portrayed it through social realist eyes without official ideology.22 Oktay also acknowledges that Ali also wrote about an exploitation of labourers. Oktay outlines the three novels which Ali wrote. Kuyucaklı Yusuf (Yusuf of Kuyacak) (1937) is about provincial life and patriotism and the novel was later made into a film. İçimizdeki Şeytan (The Devil within Us) (1940) is a highly political novel about the intellectual circle in Istanbul in the 1940s. Kürk Mantolu Madonna (1943) is a love story set in Germany. Interestingly, Oktay talks about the first two novels in details but not much about Kürk Mantolu Madonna. It would be even more peculiar, if the argument that today’s readers prefer to read works which represent Ali’s political legacy held true, that İçimizdeki Şeytan is less well-known compared to Kürk Mantolu Madonna.
Like Oktay, Talat Sait Halman describes Sabahattin Ali as one of the early figures in social realism in Turkish fiction and a pioneer of village fiction. 23 Social realist fiction realistically portrays the lives of real people. Village fiction refers to a specific genre of Turkish fiction which realistically narrates the life of Anatolian peasants. Halman does not, however, exemplify Ali’s works of each category. Kürk Mantolu Madonna could not be considered a village novel. First of all, the settings of the story are two big cities and none of the main characters is from rural areas. It is interesting that today the most famous work of a village novel pioneer is not of village novel genre.
Erika Glassen categorises İçimizdeki Şeytan a ‘semi-autobiographical’ Turkish novel, which realistically portrays Istanbul’s sobet society whose members cherished unconcerned Bohemian lifestyle of the early Republican period.24 Glassen, similar to Siedel, describes works of sobet writers as showing their disappointment with a lessened will to create a national identity in the later years after the establishment of the Turkish Republic. Considering Glassen’s argument
22 Oktay, Cumhuriyet dönemi edebiyatı, 1190. 23 Talat Sait Halman, Rapture and Revolution: Essays on Turkish Literature, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press; New York, NY: Crescent Hill, 2007, 365.; Talat Sait Halman ed., Contemporary Turkish Literature: Fiction and Poetry, Rutherford: Associated University Presses, 1982, 443. 24 Erika Glassen, ‘The Social Self: The Search for Identity by Conversation (Sohbet): The Turkish Literary Community and the Problem of Autobiographical Writing’, in Olcay Akyıldız, Halim Kara, Börte Sagaster (eds.), Autobiographical Themes in Turkish Literature: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives, Würzburg: Ergon in Kommission 2007, 153. 13 that İçimizdeki Şeytan is Ali’s semi-autobiography and journalists’ argument that people read Ali’s works today because of his personal legacy, it is interesting as to how İçimizdeki Şeytan is not as popular as Kürk Mantolu Madonna. Despite that, one could argue that Kürk Mantolu Madonna reflects Ali’s years in Germany, personality cult of Sabahattin Ali does not seem to be the only reason for the current popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna.
Hercules Millas puts Sabahattin Ali in a category of Turkish Marxist novel writers. Millas describes these authors as internationalist,25 meaning surpassing nationalist discourses. According to Millas, themes in Marxist novels include social classes (instead of national or religious groups), minorities, anti-nationalist sentiment, and anti-state authority sentiment. Unfortunately examples of these Marxist novels, either by Ali or other writers in the category, are not given. Kürk Mantolu Madonna could well fit into this category. The narrator is a job seeker who lost his job in a bank. Raif Efendi, the main character, is a translator in a bank. The story narrates images of factories, lives of the working class who look for work in factories, domestic workers, people whose lives are strictly socially stratified. While young Raif is living in Berlin, his co-lodgers are from different countries. Millas’s reading of Ali’s works offers a different perspective to understand Kürk Mantolu Madonna as a novel with internationalist outlook, a perspective similar to Gramling and Hepkaner’s transnational and global perspective of Kürk Mantolu Madonna.
Reviews of academic studies illustrate that Sabahattin Ali is highly regarded as an important figure in Turkish literature. Most scholars underscore his writings as social realism which portray both marginalised lower class in city and poor Anatolian peasantry. In addition, Ali’s lived experience and legacy of articulated Leftist political stance are well remembered and often juxtaposed with his written works. Several scholars focus on Ali’s works which reflect his legacy more than others. Kürk Mantolu Madonna is often viewed simply as a love story with the themes of social marginalisation and identity crisis. There is virtually no academic
25 Hercules Millas, ‘Constructing Memories of Multiculturalism and Identities in Turkish Novels’, in Catharina Dufft (ed.), Turkish Literature and Cultural Memory: Multiculturalism as a Literary Theme after 1980, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009, 82. 14 studies on Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s phenomenal rise to popularity over the last decade. This paper deems the popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna in Turkey in the last decade is peculiarly interesting and that a detailed study might further an understanding of recent political as well as social developments in Turkey.
This paper sets out to explain the increasing popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna in Turkey over last decade or so. This study looks at different elements related to the novel including its themes, publishers, readers and author. Chapter one investigates a history of Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s reception(s) over time since its first publication in the early 1940s. The chapter examines the novel’s publishing history, takes into account social and political contexts, and consults academic literatures. It aims to lay out the novel’s popularity or unpopularity over time as a point of departure in order to be able to analyse what the current popularity means. Chapter two focuses on contemporary contexts. The chapter aims to bring out and analyse interactions between the novel’s characteristics which set it apart from other books on the market and its current readership’s credentials which include young people and hipsterism. The Marxist approach of culture industry is employed as an analytical framework. Chapter two aims to illustrate how the novel’s unique characteristics could fulfil preferences of its today’s readers. Chapter three investigates the novel’s popular reception over the last decade. This chapter employs critical discourse analysis to analyse reviews of the novel taken from two major online book retail stores’ websites where customers can leave their opinions about the novel. Chapter three aims to lay out and make sense of the discourses which readers express about the novel.
Chapter One Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s Past Receptions
“When it was first published in Istanbul in 1943, it made no impression whatsoever. Decades later, when Madonna in a Fur Coat became the sort of book 15 that passed from friend to friend, the literary establishment continued to ignore it. Even those who greatly admired the other works of Sabahattin Ali viewed this one as a puzzling aberration. It was just a love story, they said – the sort that schoolgirls fawned over.”26
Maureen Freely’s statement above shows how she views Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s popularity over the past decade a remarkable phenomenon because, in Freely’s view, it is a seventy year old novel, which was not well-received when first published and overlooked, but has become a recent fad in Turkey in the past ten years. This notion of an old novel’s comeback after several decades of little attention certainly makes Kürk Mantolu Madonna appear mysteriously appealing to current and future readers of the novel, which Freely translated from Turkish into English in 2016. Unfortunately, Freely’s statement is not accompanied by sufficient well-grounded evidence in an academic sense, which is understandable since the quote is taken from Freely’s newspaper article, which was not subjected to thorough academic investigation. Hence, an academic investigation of Freely’s statement is necessary.
This chapter aims to examine, the history of the reception of Kürk Mantolu Madonna, in addition to its success in the last ten years among Turkish readers. Knowing whether the novel was popular before or not, at different periods over the seven-decades of its life, is fundamental to investigating and analysing the novel’s current popularity. By using the novel’s publishing history, literature reviews and exploring the social and political contexts which the novel has lived through, it should be possible to map how the novel’s reception has changed over time. A deeper understanding of the novel’s history should also help to shed some light on its recent popularity.
The story which was to become known as Kürk Mantolu Madonna was first serialised, though uncompleted27, in the Turkish newspaper Hakikat from 18
26 Freely, ‘Sabahattin Ali’s Madonna in a Fur Coat – the Surprise Turkish Bestseller.’ 27 Yasemin Yener from Bilgi Publishing, through email correspondence, offers this information that the story was published by the newspaper Hakikat but “due to some unknown reason it was never completed”. 16
December 1940 until 8 February 1941. Initially, it was called Lüzumsuz Adam (Unnecessary Man) and later changed to Kürk Mantolu Madonna because Ali was not happy with the sound clash of the Z and S in the word Lüzumsuz.28 The story was then completed and published as a novel in 1943. Publishing history of the novel could well be evidence of how successful or unsuccessful the novel has been through times since its first publication. However, by and large publishing records in Turkey, until very recent years, were not systematically kept. Hence, tracing the reception(s) of Kürk Mantolu Madonna through publishing history proves to be difficult. The first (1943) edition of the book was published by the publishing house Remzi Kitabevi who did not keep records of the number of copies it printed.29 Naturally this insufficient figure alone could not hint the reception of the novel at its first publication. The novel was published again in February 1966 by Varlık Yayınevi as a part of the 3,000 copies of Ali’s complete oeuvre. 30 It is known that authors whose works are published by Varlık, a publisher which owns a literature and art magazine of the same name, are or later become famous writers or poets. The fact that Ali’s oeuvre was published by Valık suggests that Ali was already a significant literary figure by 1966; or after 1966 Ali became a known author. Indeed, Sabahattin Ali must have been an established author in Turkey since his lifetime, long before this 1966 posthumous oeuvre. Between 1934 to 1936, several of Ali’s writings were published by Varlık, including Kağnı (short story, 1936), Esiler (Prisoners, play, 1936), Kanal, Kırlangıçlar, Arap Hayri, and Pazarcı.31 The presence of his works in Varlık suggests that Ali must have gained a certain recognition at least by the second half of 1930s. Yet, a problem with a complete oeuvre is that it is not possible to gauge a reception of each individual work within the oeuvre. Hence, it is not possible to know the reception of Kürk Mantolu Madonna at the 1966 publication. Notwithstanding, Kürk Mantolu Madonna must have reached a number of readers.
28 Asım Bezirci, Sabahattin Ali Hayatı Hikâyelleri Romanları, Istanbul: Oluş yayınları, 197. 29 An email requesting for Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s publishing records was sent (24 Nov 16) to Remzi Kitabevi but the publisher did not have any other information apart from the novels’ publication year – 1943. 30 This information is provided by Varlık Yayınevi through email correspondence. 31 Behçet Necatigil, Edebiyatımızda İsimler Sözlüğü, Istanbul: Varlık, 1960; 1968; 1972; 1975; 1978; 1980; 1989,304. 17
After Varlık, Bilgi Yayınevi became the publisher of Kürk Mantolu Madonna. According to Yasemin Yener, Bilgi Publishing’s Translation Coordinator, around 1966 to 1970 the publisher published more than 5,000 copies, but, “sadly, I cannot be more precise than that,” remarked Yener. Yener’s figures might actually not be accurate due to few facts. Valık published the novel in 1966. It is not a common practice for a novel to be published by two different publishers at the same time. According to Behçet Necatigil’s Edebiyatımızda İsimler Sözlüğü (1960), Bilgi was the publisher which published Sabahattin Ali’s works from 1972 to 1976. 32 The information provided by Necatigil is more convincing considering that fact that a copy of the 1976 edition by Bilgi has survived and is one of the sources for this paper.33 Hence, it is more convincing that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was published again in 1976. Supposedly, the novel was published again in 1976 for 5,000 copies, this still cannot precisely illustrate whether the novel was popular or not around mid 1970s.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Cem Yayınevi was the novel’s publisher and held the rights to publish until 1998 when Yapı Kredi Yayınları took over the right to publish the novel. A request for publishing records of the novel has been sent to Cem Yayınevi, but there came no response. Hence, there is no publishing records of Kürk Mantolu Madonna during the 1980s and 1990s. Yapı Kredi Yayınları (YKY) is the current publisher of Kürk Mantolu Madonna and has published over one million copies of Kürk Mantolu Madonna in eighty-one editions (as of August 2016) since 1998. The numbers of copies published by YKY have continuously increased over the years starting with around 1,500 copies per year from 1998 to 2000; to 3,500 copies on average each year from 2001 to 2003. The numbers continually increased from 2004 to 2011: 6,200 copies; 8,700 copies; 10,400 copies; 14,200 copies; 20,000 copies; 22,000 copies; 40,000 copies; 60,000 copies consecutively. From 2012, the figures jump to 6 digits: 120,000 copies in 2012, 180,000 (2013), 240,000 (2014), 350,000 (2015) and 250,500 copies (2016). 34 What can be said about these well-recorded figures by the current publisher of the
32 Necatigil, Edebiyatımızda İsimler Sözlüğü, 304. 33 This information is received through email correspondence with Yasemin Yener, Bilgi Publishing’s Translation Coordinator. 34 These figures are obtained from an email correspondence with Yapı Kredi Yayınları. 18 book is that there have continually been increasing supplies of the novel over the last decade and the supplies are extremely high in the last half decade.
Publishing history does not directly speak about the degrees of Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s popularity over time. Yet, useful information could be retrieved from the publishing records above. When Kürk Mantolu Madonna first came out, it must have been widely read as the latest novel of an established Turkish writer whose former writings were well received, though some of Ali’s works, such as İçimizdeki Şeytan, a controversial novel with political contents, received negative reception from certain groups. Kürk Mantolu Madonna was available again in 1966 as a story in Ali’s complete oeuvre, which must have been read by a number of people. The novel was then published as an individual novel in 1976. Publishing records for 1980s and 1990s are not available unfortunately but the book was also published in this period. From 1998 to 2005, the numbers of the book published remained moderate yet increasing. From 2006, there were continually remarkable increases of the book’s published copies each year until 2011. From 2012 to 2016, the figures of published copies reached one of the highest in Turkish books’ publishing history. If supplies of a book can be an indication of the book’s popularity, from 2012 to 2016, Kürk Mantolu Madonna is an extremely popular book, to an unprecedented level of popularity in Turkey.
Like Maureen Freely’s, most newspaper articles present Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s popularity in the last decade as unprecedented that the novel was not at all popular in the past, bordering unheard-of. Often, these articles highlight the uninvestigated story of Ali’s murder, which results in a sense of mysterious appeal to the novel. This representation of the novel would certainly help commercially promote the novel to its future readers and add a sense of mystifying entertainment to its current readers. However, it would not be fair to judge that all newspaper or magazine articles about certain books are only for the purpose of increasing sales of the books. But one crucial problem with this kind of reportage is that often there is no sufficient evidence, which is required by academic scholarship, to support their claims. Hence further study needs to be done to 19 confirm or refute the assertions that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was not at all popular in the past.
Kürk Mantolu Madonna has attracted little scholarly attention despite its phenomenal popularity in the last decade. To survey academic studies of Kürk Mantolu Madonna, it is inevitable to go through its author because most academic works focus on Sabahattin Ali, instead of specific works of his. When certain works of Ali are discussed in details, often than not these do not include Kürk Mantolu Madonna. Only a few studies have Kürk Mantolu Madonna as their subject. Most of them are literary criticism or comparative literary - between Kürk Mantolu Madonna and other, often Western, novel. There is virtually no academic studies on Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s recent popularity in Turkey, or information about the reception of the novel in the past. In order to trace the novel’s past popularity, fragments of information need to be pieced together and interpreted. An issue which one might encounter when tracing Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s reception is the absence of its author from Turkish literature reference books from a certain period. Few academics of certain periods left Ali aside from their books. However, the fact that Ali is not mentioned in reference books of a certain time does not necessarily mean that Ali or his works were unknown during that time.
A survey on academic publications might confirm Freely’s statement above that Kürk Mantolu Madonna did not attract attention in the past. Since the subject of this paper is the novel’s popularity in Turkey, it is possibly best to start with reference books on Turkish literature. Kürk Mantolu Madonna does not extensively appear in academic publications. One of the earliest and rare mentioning of Sabahattin Ali in academic books is in Behçet Necatigil’ Edebiyatımızda İsimler Sözlüğü (1960) (Dictionary of Names in Contemporary Literature). The book briefly introduces Ali and his works. The half-page paragraph gives a very brief biography of Ali and lists Ali’s works, without discussion. There is no relevant information to be gauged for Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s receptivity. Two other reference books– Seyit Kemal Karaalioğlu’s Resimli-Motifli Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi (1973) (History of Turkish Literature) and 20
Vasfi Mahir Kocatürk’s Büyük Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi: Başlangıçtan Bugüne Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi (1970) (History of Turkish Literature from the Beginning to the Present) – mention neither Kürk Mantolu Madonna, nor Sabahattin Ali in their entire volumes. The absence of Kürk Mantolu Madonna and Ali from these two important reference books could be an indication that, at least in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kürk Mantolu Madonna was not a well-known novel as Freely claims.
However, the absence of Sabahattin Ali from the two reference books is peculiar. It was unlikely that Karaalioğlu and Kocatürk, both a prolific Turkish literature scholar, never heard of Ali and his works. Certainly works of Ali were present in Turkey during the two scholars’ time. At least, in 1966 Varlık published 3,000 copies of complete oeuvre of Ali’s works. In addition, there were books about Sabahattin Ali published in the late 1960s and throughout 1970s, including Sabahattin Ali’nin Dosyası (Sabahattin Ali’s Files) (1968); Ön Türk Roman (Ten Turkish Novel) (1971) containing Ali’s novel Kuyucaklı Yusuf; and Sabahattin Ali, Hayati, Hikâyeleri, Romanları (1974). Karaalioğlu and Kocatürk must have read or at last heard about Ali and his works. The omission of Ali and his works from Karaalioğlu and Kocatürk’s reference books then seem intentional for certain reasons. The fact that neither reference works talk about Sabahattin Ali and Kürk Mantolu Madonna does not compulsorily mean that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was unheard of during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
With incomplete sources, whether the novel was widely or limitedly read could not be confidently determined. Available publishing records are that 3,000 copies of Kürk Mantolu Madonna were published in 1966 and 5,000 in 1976. There might have, or have not, been more publications and copies during this period. As Sevengül Sönmez points out, the current fad of Kürk Mantolu Madonna has led people to be interested in Ali’s biography as well as his other works.35 If an interest in a novel can lead to an interest in the novel’s author, then an interest in an authorial personality could also lead to an interest in this writings. It is then
35 Handan Kazanci, ‘The Book that Turks cannot put down’, Anatolian Agency, 2016,
The current phenomenal rise to popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna sees these 1960s/1970s books about Ali reprinted or on sale as second-handed books. Sabahattin Ali’nin Dosyası is available as an electronic book on Worldcat.org since 2002. Sabahattin Ali, Hayati, Hikâyeleri, Romanları is published again in 2007 by Evrensel. Sabahattin Ali Olayı is printed again in 2012 by Tanyeri Kitap. Filiz Ali and Atilla Özkırmlı’s Sabahattin Ali is republished in 2014 by YKY, with additional inputs by Sevengül Sönmez who is the author of the book A’dan Z’ye Sabahattin Ali (2009). Apart from these biographical books, Ali’s other works such as İçimizdeki Şeytan (The Devil Within), begin to catch attention, being purchased, by Turkish readers as well. In the past few years, Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s popularity has brought about an interest in Ali’s biography and his other works. By the same token, the interest in Ali in the late 1960s and 1970s suggests that Kürk Mantolu Madonna, among Ali’s other works, might have caught attention of the Turkish public to a certain degree. At last, one might assume that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was known and read by a number of Turkish readers during the late 1960s and throughout 1970s. 22
Viewing Karaalioğlu and Kocatürk’s omission of Sabahattin Ali from a political perspective might yield some clues on why the two Turkish literature scholars did not mention Ali as one of notable Turkish literature personnel. Ali’s political legacy and the political landscape in which Karaalioğlu and Kocatürk lived might help one understand this. Ali’s legacy includes his Leftist political stance; his articulated criticism towards the one-party Kemalist state governed by the Republican People’s party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi: CHP) of the 1930s and 1940s; and his murder which is widely suspected to have been conspired by the CHP government. Sabahattin Ali was recalcitrant in his writings against the CHP government of the 1930s and 1940s. His murder in 1948 was not thoroughly investigated and the news of the discovery of his mutilated body emerged on a national newspaper in 1949. The legacy of his Leftist political idea, his articulation of the idea, his harsh criticism towards the government, and his death because of what he stood for must have still been fresh in the memory of the Turkish people of the 1950s. This memory was carried through the 1960s and 1970s, exemplified by the proliferation of books about Ali’s life and works published during the 1960s and 1970s as laid out above. Turkey’s political landscapes of the 1960s and 1970s were marked with popular uprisings of the Leftist workers and students and the military’s intervention in politics. Tumultuous political situation together with economic recession gave rise to social unrest including street demonstrations, labour strikes and political assassinations throughout the 1960s. The Leftist workers and students’ movements were antagonistic towards successive governments, most of which were motivated by Kemalist ideology, and the military. The Turkish coup of May 1960 got rid of the democratically elected government of the Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti; DP) and brought general İsmet İnönü, the head of the CHP, to prime ministerial office form 1961 to 1965. The military continued to dominate the political scene until October 1965. Election was held in 1965 brining democratically elected government but another coup struck in 1971, known as 1971 Turkish military memorandum, removing the democratically elected government and installing Ferit Melen, another CHP leader, as Prime Minister. Although the DP was formed to oppose the CHP, the party was also ideologically Kemalist. After the dissolution of the DP in 1961, Justice Party 23
(Adalet Partisi, AP) succeeded and carried on the basic principles of Kemalism throughout its lifetime and prominence in the 1960s and 1970s. What is more, there were clashes between the Leftist movements and the nationalist Rights, most prominently the Grey Wolves. The Grey Wolves (Bozkurtlar), though officially named Ülkü Ocakları Eğitim ve Kültür Vakfı (Idealist Clubs Educational and Cultural Foundation), is a Turkish ultra-nationalist organization born in the late 1960s. During its vigorously active years of the 1970s, the organisation was paramilitary and staunchly anti-Communists.36 It is widely believed that the then Turkish state was complicit to the Grey Wolves’ attacks on Left-wing groups. 37 Members of the Grey Wolves allegedly assassinated Left-wing and liberal intellectuals, labour organisers, activists, officials, journalists and Kurdish people during the political violence between 1976 and 1980.38 In actuality, being (seen as) politically Left in Turkey during the late 1970s could be life threating. The political landscape in which Karaalioğlu and Kocatürk produced their reference works was one intensely dominated by Kemalist ideology and violent ultra-nationalist Rightist activities of which Leftist political attitude was enmity. Sabahattin Ali’s legacy, which was still fresh in the memory of the Turkish people, would not have positively impressed the CHP, DP, AP and the military, and would certainly have infuriated the Nationalist Movement Party (Turkish: Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP), a Turkish far-right political party and its ally Grey Wolves. This might explain why Karaalioğlu and Kocatürk did not register Ali as one of noteworthy Turkish authors. In the case of Kocatürk, reading from this perspective is hugely convincing that the exclusion of Ali was political. Kocatürk was a DP politician in the Turkish parliament. As a DP member, the principles to which he, at least officially, subscribed were Kemalist nationalism and secularism; and political and economic liberalisation. The Rightist nationalism; religiously Kemalist secularism and economic liberalism were clearly antithetical to the
36 Stephen E. Atkins, ‘Grey Wolves (Turkey)’, in Encyclopaedia of Modern Worldwide Extremists and Extremist Groups, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2004, 110–111.; Gus Martin, The SAGE Encyclopaedia of Terrorism, Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2011, 236. 37 Ganser Daniele, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe, London: Routledge, 2005, 238-239.; Martin A. Lee, ‘On the Trail of Turkey’s Terrorist Grey Wolves’, Consortium News, 2015,
Leftist political and economic standpoint that the legacy of Ali represented. Thus it is less surprising that Kocatürk’s Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi left Sabahattin Ali aside. Providing this scenario and viewing from a political lens, one might understand why Ali was excluded from Karaalioğlu and Kocatürk’s reference books. If this were the case, the absence of Ali from the two reference books would not mean that Sabahattin Ali or his works received no interests from academia or the public. This might actually suggest otherwise: that Ali and his political legacy were well remembered, better yet highly charged, throughout the 1950s until the 1970s. The exclusion of Ali and his works from the two reference books makes it difficult to trace Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s reception during the 1960s and 1970s. Nevertheless, the above mentioned situations could suggest that Kürk Mantolu Madonna, as one of Sabahattin Ali’s works, at least as a side-effect of the interest in the author, was known among the Turkish public.
There seems to be only one Turkish Literature reference book – Behçet Necatigil’s Edebiyatımızda Eserler Sözlüğü (1971)39 – that registers and gives details of Kürk Mantolu Madonna. This book is a glossary of stories written in Turkish. It gives a brief summary and literary criticism of Kürk Mantolu Madonna. The receptivity of the novel is not discussed however. What could be said about Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s presence in this 1978 glossary book is that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was a known, at least within the circle of Turkish literature literati. This would refute Freely’s claim that Kürk Mantolu Madonna “made no impression whatsoever… the literary establishment continued to ignore it.”40
Comparing Necatigil with Kocatürk, it is revealing that the exclusion of Sabahattin Ali from Kocatürk’s volumes was political. As discussed earlier, Kocatürk was a politician who adhered to Kamalist nationalism, hence Right-leaning. Ali’s Leftist credentials must have distasted Kocatürk. On the other hand, Ali and his works are discussed by Necatigil who was not political. Necatigil was one of the poets whose idea was that poetry should be ‘uncontaminated’ art devoid of political
39 Behçet Necatigil, Edebiyatımızda Eserler Sözlüğü, Istanbul: Varlık Yayınevi, 1971; 1979; 1989; 2003, 210-211(1971), 258(2003). 40 Freely, ‘Sabahattin Ali’s Madonna in a Fur Coat – the Surprise Turkish Bestseller.’ 25 contents and the apolitical viewpoint was reflected in their works. 41 Necatigil’s stance against political motivation in his literary works might explain why he does not exclude Sabahattin Ali, who was most likely a controversial figure amid the then intense political struggles between the Left and the Right, from his works - Edebiyatımızda İsimler (1960) and Eserler (1971) Sözlüğü.
Despite the likeliness that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was read during the hype of interest in Sabahattin Ali’s legacy in the late 1960s to 1970s, the novel might have not impressed Turkish readers as much compared to Ali’s other two novels. It is evident that Kürk Mantolu Madonna did not attract a lot of academic interest among native Turkish Turkish literature scholars. Apart from Necatigil’s Edebiyatımızda Eserler Sözlüğü, Kürk Mantolu Madonna is rarely discussed or mentioned in other academic books. Most of them, when they do acknowledge Ali, talk about Ali’s biography, especially the legacy of his Leftist political stance and an overview of his works, with a focus on his pioneering of social realism in Turkish literature, and an overview of his works, of which the ones with social realist characters are discussed in details. Kürk Mantolu Madonna is mentioned simply as one of his three novels, without any specific credentials to be discussed. An example of this practice can be found in Ahmet Oktay’s Cumhuriyet Dönemi Edebiyatı 1923-1950.42 In addition to Ali’s contribution to Turkish literature by bringing the Anatolian peasants’ life, never before were they subjects in literature, into light; Ali’s detailed biography; and mentioning of Ali’s less known writings, Oktay lays out Ali’s three novels. More details are provided for Kuyucaklı Yusuf (Yusuf of Kuyucak; 1937) and İçimizdeki Şeytan (The Devil Within; 1940); and less for Kürk Mantolu Madonna (1943). Oktay explicates that Kuyucaklı Yusuf is about rural life and nationalism; Icimizdeki Seytan a politically controversial novel about university and intellectual circles in Istanbul in the 1940s. As for Kürk Mantolu Madonna, Oktay simply says that it is a love story set in Germany. 43 The fact that Oktay goes into details and explains what he perceives of the first two novels suggests that he sees the two novels as significant and worth discussing. On the
41 Cangül Örnek and Çağdaş Üngör, ed., Turkey in the Cold War: Ideology and Culture, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 116. 42 Oktay, Cumhuriyet Dönemi Edebiyatı. 43 Oktay, Cumhuriyet Dönemi Edebiyatı, 1197. 26 other hand, Kürk Mantolu Madonna is referred to as simply a love story without further comments. This might suggests that there was nothing special about the novel which would urge Oktay to discuss. Asım Bezirci talks about Kuyucaklı Yusuf as a very popular and successful novel of Ali that it was published four times and İçimizdeki Şeytan as a politically controversial novel. When it comes to Kürk Mantolu Madonna, similarly to Oktay, Bezirci refers to it simply as a love story. 44 The mere mentioning without detailed discussion of Kürk Mantolu Madonna in these books could be employed to substantiate Freely’s claim that “it (Kürk Mantolu Madonna) was just a love story, they said – the sort that schoolgirls fawned over.” Indeed, Oktay refers to the Kuyucaklı Yusuf and İçimizdeki Şeytan as “Sabahattin Ali’nin başyapıtı sayılan” (“master pieces of Ali’s”)45. This might suggests that Oktay does not consider Kürk Mantolu Madonna as a significant writing of Ali’s; or that Oktay sees Kuyucaklı Yusuf and İçimizdeki Şeytan fit Ali’s political legacy, whilst Kürk Mantolu Madonna does not, and hence discusses the two novels in length. Referring to Oktay’s Cumhuriyet Dönemi Edebiyatı 1923-1950 (1993), one might speculate that, at least, around the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kürk Mantolu Madonna was only a known novel in Turkey but not of a remarkable acclaim, at least from a literary criticism point of view. Had it been popular, to a degree close to its current popularity, during the period, Kürk Mantolu Madonna would have been elaborated more by Oktay.
Despite a view that Kürk Mantolu Madonna is simply an ordinary love story, there is another view which reads the novel as more than just a romance. Louis Mitler sees Kürk Mantolu Madonna as Sabahattin Ali’s semi-autobiography.46 It is conceivable why Mitler thinks so considering the fact that the novel’s setting is Berlin of the inter-wars period and that Ali was living and studying in Potsdam, a city on the border of Berlin, between 1928 to 1930. Even Oktay, who sees a significance of Kürk Mantolu Madonna no further than a love story, opines that the character Raif can be identified with Ali himself.47 Asım Bezirci also thinks that
44 Bezirci, Sabahattin Ali Hayatı Hikâyelleri Romanları, 203. 45 Oktay, Cumhuriyet Dönemi Edebiyatı, 1197. 46 Louis Mitler, Contemporary Turkish Writers, 218. 47 Oktay, Cumhuriyet Dönemi Edebiyatı, 1202. 27
Raif has Ali’s personality.48 The notion of Kürk Mantolu Madonna partly being Ali’s autobiography, though mostly devoid of political contents, could have also been a reason for its suppression by the Rightist groups; or for its popularity during the hype of interest in Sabahattin Ali during the 1960s and 1970s. The association between the novel and Ali’s life is indeed a discourse within the current popularity of the novel. ‘The mysterious woman who inspired a bestselling novel’ is a headline of Emma Jane Kirby’s article on the BBC. ‘The mysterious woman’ refers to Maria Puder, the main female character in the novel. The article suggests that there existed a German woman whom Ali might have acquainted and then created a novel character out of. The biographical aspect of Ali in Kürk Mantolu Madonna might suggest that the novel is popular partly because of a part of Ali’s legacy lives in the novel; or that the interest in Sabahattin Ali comes from a curiosity originated from reading the character Raif. Nonetheless, what might be said with certainly is that the current fad of Kürk Mantolu Madonna also involves the legacy of Sabahattin Ali.
It seems that Kürk Mantolu Madonna has always been a recognised novel, neither one largely neglected as some newspaper and magazine articles suggest nor one with stratospherical receptivity. Its receptions over time are not possible to be straightforwardly estimated. Talat Halman’s Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi (2006) (History of Turkish Literature) details Sabahattin Ali most extensively.49 Haman’s focus is to illustrate that Ali was the first to bring the life of Anatolian peasants into Turkish literature, through the lens of social realism which thence brought a new genre – Anatolian social realism - into Turkish literature in the early years of the Turkish Republic. To exemplify this, Halman discusses a short story and a novel of Ali which represent this genre. Despite the fact that in 2006 Kürk Mantolu Madonna must have gained an increasingly notable popularity in Turkey, Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi, a work authored by Talat Halman, a politically liberal scholar, does not discuss the novel at all. If Sabahattin Ali’s pioneering of social realism were the only significant aspect of Ali in Halman’s view, the absence of a discussion of Kürk Mantolu Madonna could be understood. Yet, one could wonder how a prominent
48 Bezirci, Sabahattin Ali Hayatı Hikâyelleri Romanları, 199. 49 Talat Halman’s other books on Turkish Literature also talk about Sabahattin Ali and his works similarly that Sabahattin Ali is the pioneer of Anatolian social realism. 28 work in Turkish Literature could eschew such a phenomenon as the expeditious rise to popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna. Even with the most extensive discussion of Ali and his works, it is not possible to sketch out Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s former receptions.
The last decade has witnessed studies on Kürk Mantolu Madonna, ones along the disciplines of literary criticism or comparative literature, not specifically about its current popularity. These literary criticism and comparative literature studies of Kürk Mantolu Madonna come out at the same period at which the novel becomes increasingly popular. This contemporaneity might suggest that the novel’s popularity is what draws scholarly attention and germinates these studies to commence. If this were the case, it would mean that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was not particularly popular in the past, which is why there were not detailed studies of the novel. Oktay’s is an example for the period around the 1980s to 1990s that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was not of significant interest to scholars. During the 1960s and 1970s, there were no academic studies of Sabahattin Ali at all, although there were books about Ali and his works amid political struggles between the Left and Right, including the government. Nevertheless, in these commercialised books, Kürk Mantolu Madonna is not one of the main stories on which the books focus. This might suggest that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was not particularly popular also during the 1960s and 1970s. The period from the second half of 1940s to 1950s could have been a time when Kürk Mantolu Madonna as well as other works of Ali’s were less well-known partly due to political domination of the Kemalist CHP, DP, AP, the military and the clashes between the Leftist and Rightist movements. Oktay argues that after World War II Ali’s works began to be overshadowed by works of other Turkish writers.50 Nonetheless, Ali’s life story must have been fresh in people’s memory since the news of his mysterious murder surfaced in January 1949. There are indications that when Kürk Mantolu Madonna gained a certain recognition, if not noteworthy popularity, shortly after its inaugural publication in 1943 as a completed novel, as opposed to the unfinished story serialized in Hakikat newspaper. By the 1940s, Ali was already an established author in Turkey. His works must have been anticipated and read,
50 Oktay, Cumhuriyet Dönemi Edebiyatı,1197. 29 regardless of subsequent reviews and receptions. Kürk Mantolu Madonna must have reached a significant number of Turkish readers when it first came out. Not long after this initial publication, the novel became regarded as a Turkish classic. Still, being a classic does not mean that a work naturally was or is or will be popular, unless there were clear indications that classic literature is preferred in a particular place and time. What can be said with certainty is that Kürk Mantolu Madonna was a known novel when it first came out in 1943. But it is not possible to meticulously sketch out the scale of its popularity or receptivity over the different periods of its lifetime due to insufficient publishing records and former academic studies. Notwithstanding, it is indubitable that the scale of the last decade’s popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna appears unprecedented. This level of popularity – appearing as a fad, a mania in Turkey - is uniquely noticeable. It is unlikely that the novel had gained such receptivity in the past. Accordingly, the study of the unprecedented popularity of the septuagenarian book is profoundly exciting. This popularity could offer several ramifications be acknowledged about Turkey in the last decade. This paper thence commences on a quest to explain this unprecedented receptivity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna.
Chapter Two 30
Book Readers’ particularities and Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s characteristics
Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s becoming increasingly popular in the last decade and topping Turkey’s bestselling lists, among over forty thousand book titles in Turkey51, in the last few years means that a large number of Turkish people who read books purchase, read, enjoy and talk about the novel. Kürk Mantolu Madonna must possess certain specificities which make itself stand out from other books and capture a very large number of today’s Turkish book readers. This chapter aims to identify these specificities. First, the chapter sets out to identify today’s Turkish readers and their possible preferred types of books. Second, this chapter tries to bring out Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s specific qualities which set it apart from the majority of books on Turkey’s book market. Third, the chapter compares the readers’ preferred types of books and Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s specificities.
This chapter employs parts of Theodor W. Adorno’s theory of culture industry52, a Marxist approach to cultures, as an analytical framework. These cultures refer to artistic creations such as films, music, literatures, and other invented arts and activities which are made for mass consumption. This approach highlights a relationship between culture industries (profit seeking enterprises, not be confused with culture industry as an approach), cultures as commodities, and the masses. The gist of culture industry is that culture industries, driven by profit motive, commodify and market cultures to be consumed by the masses. The approach distinguishes culture industries’ commodified cultures from mass cultures that independently rise from the masses without culture industries’ influence. 53 Yet, culture industries do not necessarily invent new artistic creations; they can simply select existing artistic creations and garb them as cultures worthwhile for consumption. Viewing Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s rising popularity in the last decade through culture industry lens, interconnected factors can be
51 NTV, ‘Her Gün 5 Roman Yayımlanıyor’, Türkiye Haberleri, 2012,
Understanding Turkey’s current book market helps identify today’s Turkish readership. Evidence suggests that a certain age group in Turkish society makes up more book readers than the others. Özkan Özdem argues that Turkey’s large young population is a significant factor which makes romance and Young Adult (YA) the most popular book genres in Turkey.54 This is understandable taking into account that Turkey has a large young population. Turks aged 15 to 24 total 12,782,381 persons which are 16.5 per cent of Turkey’s total population. 55 This is the highest percentage of young people in Europe. Spain and Italy, for example, have their young population at 9.9 per cent of total population.56 Considering the large young population and their favourite genres being nationally popular genres, one could argue that youths are the most substantial and influential book readers in Turkey.
On the other hand, one might argue that not only young people read and enjoy romance and YA fictions. The scale of the romantic Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s popularity suggests its being popular among different age groups. Its being
54 Özkan Özdem, ‘Unravelling the Turkish Book Market for Foreigners’, Publishing Perspectives, 2015,
It could be argued, nevertheless, that young people are more preoccupied with love and romance genres than adults because young people often experience romantic relationship for the first time. Romance and love are a novelty to the youths. Although adults also experience love and romance, their interactions with these sentiments are less of a novelty. B. Bradford Brown, Candice Feiring and Wyndol Furman argue that romance is central in adolescent pop culture in most Western countries. Their examples include that love or romance is the main theme in over 70 per cent of popular songs in the United States; and that sex, dating, and romantic relationships are the most common scripts for young adult characters in television.57 This is the case not only in the US and other Western countries but also Turkey. Nine of the TOP 10 songs of 2016 in Turkey are about love. These include Murat Boz’s Janti (Gentle), Gripin’s Beni Boş Yere Yorma (Don’t exhausted me for nothing), Aynur Aydın’s Emanet Beden (Safety body), Berkay’s Ağla Gözüm (Cry my eye), Hakan Peker’s Ateşini Yolla Bana (Send me your fire), Bengü’s Hodri Meydan (I dare you).58 The number 1 Top song of January 2017 is Aşk Mı Lazım (Do we need love) by Buray.59 One of the most successful Turkish TV series in the last few years is Medcezir (Tide), a teen drama aired from 13 September 2013 to 12 June 2015, totalling 77 episodes. A remake of the American show The O.C., the story revolves around a romance between a young man from a poor background and a young woman from a wealthy family. These illustrate that, like other parts of the word, Turkey’s young people are preoccupied with romance and love, and perhaps more than any other age groups. Turkey’s large young population and that sections of other age groups also enjoy romantic story means a potential for romance genre becoming widely popular.
57 Benson Bradford Brown, Candice Feiring, and Wyndol Furman, ‘Missing the Love Boat: Why Researchers Have shied Away from Adolescent Romance’, in The development of Romantic Relationships in Adolescence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 4. 58 Emre Dalkın, ‘Türk Telekom TOP 100 Türkçe Pop Müzik Full Albüm İndir Haziran 2016’, Radyo Album, 2016,
Turkey’s large young population likely means a large number of young book readers. Özdem points out that the success of Wattpad, a Canadian-based social reading mobile application and website which is heavily filled with amateur author’s love and romance stories in Turkey is partly due to Turkey’s having a lot of children and young adults.60 The fact that successful publishers’ primary concerns are youths suggests that as a whole young Turkish book readers are the most prolific book consumers in Turkey. Özdem points out that Turkish publishers know this and the most successful Turkish publishers hence cater to the youths.61 The large number of youths; the fact that many of them read; and that they are considered commercially significant for publishers suggest that Turkish youths are ones of the most substantial and determinant book readers in Turkey’s book market.
Livres Canada Books reveals that Istanbul, with its inhabitants of at least 15 millions, represents about 60 per cent of many Turkish publishers’ sales62 In 2013, 1,732 publishers were functioning in three key cities: Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara.63 These are the biggest cities where people with the highest literacy, the country’s best educational institutions and the majority of books distributing outlets are. Among publishers’ promotional methods to get their books noticed are book signing events at bookstores and university campuses.64 Book promotion at bookstores gives publishers access to various types of book readers, whether older or younger generations. Publishers’ decision to promote their books at university campuses, instead of shopping malls, mosques or other places where people gather, suggests that publishers see commercial potential among young
60 Özdem, ‘Unravelling the Turkish Book Market for Foreigners.’ 61 Özdem, ‘Unravelling the Turkish Book Market for Foreigners.’ 62 Livres Canada Books, ‘The Book Market in Turkey for Canadian Publishers: Report of the Livres Canada Books Scouting Mission to Turkey, November 8–12, 2014’, 2015, 3,
In Turkey’s book market, fiction sells better than nonfiction, and international authors do better than local ones, Özdem opines further.65 Yet, he acknowledges that there is a rise in interest in local Turkish authors. According to Özdem, the number of Turkish authors reaching a wide readership has increased over the past ten years (approximately from 2004) which is about the same period as Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s increasing popularity. This corroborates Özdem’s position that the increasing popularity of local Turkish authors is due to their novels’ being YA and romance.
The rise to popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna in Turkey happens approximately at the same time as the spreading of hipsterism in Turkey. Originally, hipsters, people who identified themselves or were identified with hipsterism, were 1930s/1940s white urban middle-class American youths. They, “as a reaction to the mass-produced and mediatised mainstream culture, turned towards the articulation of the self in terms of non-conformity to mainstream culture”66 by seeking to emulate the lifestyle of the largely black jazz musicians they followed. After World War II, the subculture spread and was welcomed by a growing American literary scene known as the beat generation (1950s – 1960s) which rejected standard societal convention, valued free self-expression and favoured modern jazz. After the beat generation, hipsterism faded and became popular again in the 1990s. The 90s hipsters were middle-class youths who were interested in alternative art and music scenes.67 Contemporary hipsterism, which has become prominent in the late 2000s and 2010s, derives parts of its culture from their predecessors in order to express individuality and authenticity. Today’s
65 Özdem, ‘Unravelling the Turkish Book Market for Foreigners.’ 66 Ico Maly and Piia Varis, ‘The 21st-century hipster: On micro-populations in times of superdiversity’, European Journal of Cultural Studies vol. 19(6) (2016), 638-639. 67 Dan Fletcher, ‘Hipsters: Brief History’, Time, 2009,
Hipsterism has become global that large sections of urban middle-class youths in countries around the globe associate or are associated with hipsterism. A large group of urban middle-class Turkish youths are no exeption. The scale of hipsterism in Turkey is substantial. Hipster-styled cafés have sprung up all over Istanbul’s gentrified neighbourhoods of Cihangir, Karaköy, Moda and around Bülten Sokak (street) in the Ankara neighbourhood of Tunali Hilmi. In these cafés and neighbourhoods, Turkish youths with grown beard, oversized eyeglasses, rolled-up jeans, colourful socks, grandma coats and second-handed jumpers can easily be spotted. Browsing the popular social media Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, of which Turkey is placed one of the top 5 countries in the world with the biggest number of active Instagram users68, pictures of hipsters, often posed with their cup of coffee taken in these neighbourhoods can easily be found. These characteristics testify that a large section of urban middle-class Turkish youths are a part of global hipsterism. The participation in hipster lifestyle is not only about fashion or exteriority, but also implicational subtleties of being urban, middle-class, politically progressive, internationally oriented sections of society.
68 Statista, ‘Leading countries based on number of monthly active Instagram users as of 1st quarter 2016 (in millions)’, 2016,
The fact that hipsters are mostly youths means that hipsters could enjoy romance novel. And their hipster inclination means that classic literature would seem appealing to them. Hence, classic romance makes an ideal literary genre with a potential for commercial success in Turkey whose book market is dominated by urban youths several of whose lifestyle is influenced by hipsterism.
Hipsterism has been adopted widely in recent years. Its stress on exteriority means that a wider society notices it. It is then possible that hipsters’ styles and choices of consumption interact and spill over to various sections of society. Maly and Varis highlights the paradox of hipsterism that hipsters’ strive for authenticity, paradoxically ends up forming a basis of a collective style.69 This means that an initially hipsters’ favourite style or product could eventually lose its imagined authenticity once more people, thinking that they are joining the authentic club, have adopted them. Janna Michael argues that hipsterism is a “mere ideal-type of trendiness failing to convey authenticity.”70 Because being hipster is seen as a social prestige, more people, especially the youths whose self-discovery and identification are part of their primary preoccupations, are likely to be drawn into adopting certain elements of hipsters’ styles, especially the exteriorly noticeable ones as these elements could convey favourable social values in the eyes of several other people. Jonathan Touboul employs a canonical model of statistical physics to explain how hipsters, despite trying hard to be different, often end up taking the same decisions and all looking alike.71 These argument illustrates that hipsterism could eventually turn into something close to mainstream. In actuality, during the spreading of hipsterism over the last decade or so, there emerge collective styles inspired by hipsterism: vintage clothing, indie fork music, and classic literature to name a few. Growing hipsterism in Turkey means a potential for classic romance to become widely popular.
Kürk Mantolu Madonna is a classic novel with romantic theme. The media talks about how people take pictures of Kürk Mantolu Madonna with their cup of coffee
69 Maly and Varis, ‘The 21st-century hipster’, 8. 70 Janna Michael, ‘It’s Really not Hip to be a Hipster: Negotiating Trends and Authenticity in the Cultural Field’, Journal of Consumer Culture vol. 15(2) (2015), 164. 71 Jonathan Touboul, ‘The Hipster Effect: When Anticonformists All Look the Same’, Cornell University Library, 2014,
Surveying Turkey’s bestselling lists from 2013 to 201673, a period when Kürk Mantolu Madonna reached its highest popularity, yields interesting discoveries. First, foreign-language classic novels (translated into Turkish) of various themes and genres are the most popular, placed in Top 20 bestselling books. These include 1984, George Orwell’s 1949-published dystopian political classic novel; Şeker Portakalı (Portuguese: Meu Pé de Laranja Lima; English: My Sweet Orange Tree), a 1968-published Brazilian Portuguese-language classic novel about a Brazilian boy’s family life and friendship; Kırmızı Pazartesi (Spanish: Crónica de una muerte anunciada; English: Chronicle of a Death Foretold), a 1981-published Spanish-language novella by Gabriel Garcia Marques in a style of a journalistic reconstruction about a murder case; Bilinmeyen Bir Kadının Mektubu (German: Brief einer Unbekannten; English: Letter from an Unknown Woman), a 1922-published German-language classic novella about an unrequited love of an Austrian woman for her fellow Austrian former neighbour; Simyacı (Portuguese:
72 As of 24 October 2016. 73 These are compiled from various available bestselling lists including Mahmut Tezcan, ‘CNN Türk 2016'nın En Çok Satan Kitapları’, CNN Turk, 2016,
O Alquimista; English: The Alchemist) a 1988 published Brazilian Portuguese-language classic novel about an Andalusian shepherd’s journey to Egypt. Yabancı (French: L’Étranger; English: The Stranger), Albert Camus’s 1942 philosophical novel of absurdity and existentialism; Hayvan Çiftliği (English: Animal Farm), George Orwell’s 1945 novella reflecting the leading up to Russian Revolution of 1917 and Stalinist Soviet Union. Similar to Kürk Mantolu Madonna, several of these classic novels remain in the Top 20 lists for a few years. One could argue that the popularity of these Western classic literatures is partly a result of Turkish state school’s curriculum which establishes these Western classics as required readings. This was initiated by the Kemalist government since the early years of the Republic. The Kemalist government deemed Western ideas worthwhile for citizens of the new Turkish Republic to be acquainted with, and hence established Translation Bureau under the Ministry of National Education whose primary task was to translate Western literatures for school education (more on this in chapter three). On the other hand, one might argue that Turkish state’s assertion of Western literatures to Turkish people since when they are young school pupils must have influenced their, at least a section of them, perception of Western literatures as models of worthwhile literatures and ideas. Kürk Mantolu Madonna fits into the group of classic novels, except that Kürk Mantolu Madonna is native Turkish. There are virtually no other native Turkish classic novels which are on the Top 20 along side foreign classics.
Another finding from the survey of Turkey’s bestselling lists is that contemporary love or romance (aşk veya romantik) novels, both native Turkish and foreign, are ones of the most popular. These include Nazan Bekiroğlu’s Nar Ağacı (first published in 2012); Kahraman Tazeoğlu’s Vazgeçtim (first published in 2015), Yaralı (2014), Burke (2013); Ahmet Batman’s Soğuk Kahve (2013); British novelist Jojo Moyes’ Senden Önce Ben (Me Before You) (2012); American novelist Sarah Jio’s Böğurtlen Kışı (Blackberry Winter) (2012), Son Kamelya (The Last Camellia) (2014), Yeşil Deniz Kabuğu (Always) (2015), Kelebek Adası (Back to You) (2016), Brazilian author Paolo Coelho’s Aldamak (Adultery) (2014). Leaving Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s being an old classic novel aside, the novel can be placed alongside these (contemporary) romance/love novels. As illustrated, two kinds of novels 39 dominate Turkey’s Top 20 bestsellers in the last few years. These are international (mostly Western) classic novels of various genres and contemporary romantic novels by native Turkish as well as foreign authors. Kürk Mantolu Madonna is a native Turkish classic novel with love and romantic theme. This is what make Kürk Mantolu Madonna stand out from other Top 20 bestsellers and might be a reason why it has been placed at the very top of the list.
One might argue, nevertheless, that if the combination of being native Turkish classic and romance contributions to Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s becoming the most successful book in the last few years, why other native Turkish classic romance novels are not particularly popular. There are several other native Turkish classic novels with love or romance stories. These include Dudaktan Kalbe (From the Lips to the Heart), Reşat Nuri Güntekin’s 1923 novel set in Turkish islands about complicated relationships including love, loyalty, ethics, and ambition of Kenan, Lamia, Cemil and Cavidan; Çalıkuşu (The Wren), Reşat Nuri Güntekin’s 1922 novel, which was made into a television series aired from 2013 to 2014, about the destiny of a young Turkish female teacher named Feride and her engagement with her cousin Kamran; Huzur, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s 1949 novel about a development of love between Nuran, a Turkish widow with a child, and a Turkish man Mümtaz; Aşk-ı Memnu, Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil’s 1899 Ottoman Turkish novel about forbidden love of two late-Ottoman youngsters; Bir Gün Tek Başına, Vedat Türkali’s 1975 novel about love and struggles of Turkish Communist lovers; Bir Kadının Penceresinden, Oktay Rifat’s 1975 novel about a forbidden love between a married young Turkish woman and a married Turkish revolutionist; Eylül, Mehmet Rauf’s 1901 Ottoman Turkish novel about a love triangle between three late-Ottoman Suad, Süreyya and Necip. Hence, Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s being native Turkish, classic, and romantic is not sufficient to explain its recent popularity.
Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s particular characteristics which make it stand out from other native Turkish classic romance/love novels might give clues why Kürk Mantolu Madonna is the most popular among today’s Turkish readers. The main story of Kürk Mantolu Madonna is a falling in love between a Turkish man and a 40
German woman. The novel’s settings are Potsdam, Germany and Ankara, Turkey. Other native Turkish (and Ottoman Turkish) romance/love novels set in Turkey (or Ottoman Empire) and their main characters are all Turkish or Ottoman. Transnational love and East-meet-West duality of settings are what set Kürk Mantolu Madonna apart from other native Turkish classic romance/love novels. Juxtaposing Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s internationlity with hipsterism’s globality and Turkey’s current bestselling trend, one can see cordiality between the unique characteristics of the novel and the contexts in which it has become popular. Kürk Mantolu Madonna has all the elements which could satisfy what today’s Turkish book market prefers: one) internationally oriented classic literature, partly because of hipsterism; two) romance/love novel because of Turkey’s large young people several of whom are parts of hipsterism; three) native Turkish literature which is growing in popularity among Turkish people in the last decade. Accordingly, one might argue that Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s duality of East-meet-West works effectively as an intermediary between Turkey’s originality and hipsterism’s globality. This might be the reason why Kürk Mantolu Madonna, instead of other native Turkish classic romance novels, is the most successful novel in today’s Turkish book market.
Highlighting a particular nature of Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s current popularity and the way in which hipsterism affects Turkish society in the past years makes relationship between the novel’s popularity and hipsterism comprehensible. First, one should understand that the current popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna does not mean only commercial success and that many people read it. Despite the fact that these are parts its popularity, they are not the essential characteristics of the novel’s current popularity which draw media and this paper’s attention. The most interesting characteristic of Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s current popularity to his paper is its symbolic image. Its being featured on social media is one of the main foci of newspaper and magazine articles. In addition, its being a novel written by Sabahattin Ali, a symbolic figure of political resistance against the government, is a major theme in articles’ discussing the novel’s popularity. Maureen Freely is often quoted opining "his (Ali’s) spirit is alive with the young. We see it in the students of the Gezi Park protests in 2013. It was Sabahattin Ali who gave them 41 courage and he reminds them to protest without losing their sense of the surreal or forgetting how to love".74 Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s current popularity is unique. The uniqueness is its symbolic exteriority associated with young people, political resistance and social media, instead of its commercial success, large readership and literary quality.
In addition, the book’s popularity is parallel to a trend or fashion. This trending popularity has been made possible by how hipsterism influences Turkish society, a society where youths are the biggest group. There are reasons for this chapter to believe that hipsterism makes the novel’s unique popularity possible. First, most hipsters are youths or young adults who are the biggest group in Turkish society. It is evident that a large section of Turkish youths read considering the fact that publishers target them, with romance/love genre, as their lucrative consumers. Even if only a small section of Turkish youths or hipsters read, that would not automatically stop their impact on trending the novel’s popularity because the novel’s current popularity is not crucially about widespread readership, but more of its widespread symbolic presence on social media which Turkish youths, especially hipsters, are the largest users. Second, the nature of treading popularity of the novel on social media is the novel’s being photographed with a cup of coffee in a hipster café/setting. This clearly shows a direct action of hipsters upon promoting the novel through social media. Both creators of these pictures and the people who see these pictures on social media mostly are hipster, semi-hipster and non-hipster youths, instead of older generation. To these viewers of the hipstered pictures of the novel, there are reasons for them to perceive the novel as a worthy book, better yet item, to be possessed, not necessarily read. It is noted that “some new Turkish fans of his (Ali’s) work (Kürk Mantolu Madonna) may only follow the herd superficially, perhaps without even reading the book, posting photos of it on social media simply because it is the latest trend”. 75 One’s association with hipsterism conveys a social prestige including being authentic, urban, middle-class, socially progressive, cosmopolitan and global. Hence, being seen with Kürk Mantolu Madonna, a hipster item with a special quality of being
74 Emma Jane Kirby, ‘The Mysterious Woman Who Inspired a Bestselling Novel.’ 75 Kızılkaya, ‘Why an Old-fashioned Novel is Trending among Turkey’s Youth’. 42
Turkish originality and international outlook, can be appealing to many young people. These illustrate hipsterism’s role in Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s particular kind of popularity.
On the other hand, one might argue that a natural gravitation which brings romanticist Turkish youths to hipsterism’s literary internationaliy and classicism is not sufficiently powerful enough to give rise to such a phenomenal popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna as shown in the last few years. Considering the sea of available novels, contemporary or classic, Turkish or foreign, romance/love or otherwise, it would have been rather difficult for the natural gravity to bring today’s Turkish readers to meet and cherish Kürk Mantolu Madonna. Thus one might suppose that there is a more powerful force in introducing the novel to its prospective readers. In order to bring out this powerful force, culture industry is a useful approach. As Özdem points out, most successful Turkish publishers know that Turkish youths are their important prospective customers and hence cater for them.76 Examining publishing and marketing mechanisms of the novel’s culture industries might yield interesting findings.
YKY’s decision on keeping the Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s book cover style similar to the covers of older editions indicates YKY’s contemplation of its contemporary prospective customers. The current cover of the novel might be described as vintage and intellectual. The classic cover makes up of three colours – black, white and blue. Sabahattin Ali and Kürk Mantolu Madonna are printed in white against black and blue background, respectively. The middle of the cover features a black and white portrait of studious looking Ali donning rounded eyeglasses, a white buttoned up shirt and a bowtie. This classic simplicity is likely to have an effect on young Turkish hipsters and other people who live in a time when hipsterism is conspicuous. As illustrated, exteriority is one of fundamental elements of hipsterism. The fact that thousands of Turkish youngsters take picture of themselves, their coffee, the novel (cover) shows that the classic design is meaningful and implicational. YKY’s insistence on using the vintage look
76 Özdem, ‘Unravelling the Turkish Book Market for foreigners.’ 43 illustrates its profit-making mechanisms: tailoring its commodified culture to fit contemporary trend of its market.
Examining (co)operations of Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s copyright, publishing and marketing agencies - its culture industries - one might be able to see that there are significant inputs from the culture industries to make the novel reach the largest number of readership possible. The astonishing number of 81 editions points to YKY’s effort to make the written language of the novel comprehensible to today’s Turkish readers. Sönmez argues that Kürk Mantolu Madonna is written in Ali’s easy-to-read language and that is one of the reasons why the novel reaches so many people.77 However, Ali’s written style to which Sönmez refers is from the 1930s/40s. An easy-to-read Turkish of the 1930s/40s might not be an easy-to-read Turkish in the 2010s. By comparing different editions of the novel, this chapter finds that, there are changes done to make reading the novel fluid and comprehensible to today’s readers. A comparison between Kürk Mantolu Madonna published in 1981 by Cem Yayınevi and one published in 2016 by YKY reveals that there are changes in words throughout the book, varying from a couple of changes to more than ten changes on a page. Examples of word changes include from fevkalâde to fevkalade, İşlemeğe to işlemeye, bilinmiyen to bilinmeyen, Raif Efendiyi to Efendi’yi, bilmiyorum to bilemiyorum, icabettiriyordu to icap ettiriyordu, red to ret, arasıra to ara sıra, nisbette to nispette, istemye istemiye to istemeye istemeye, rasgeldiğinden to rast geldiğinden, vuramayacağımdan to vuramayacağımdan, Hadi bakalım to haydi bakalım, mesafe hâsıl to mesele hasıl, Kekeliyerek to kekeleyerek, Hulâsa to Hülasa, soğukalgınlıkları idi to soğuk algınlıklarıydı. Most of these are spelling changes or slight pronunciation deviations. There are rarely any drastic changes in meanings and there are virtually no changes in sentence structure. Despite that each of the changes is not drastic, the very large number of changes in total in the entire book suggests that the older version could make today’s readers struggle over unfamiliar spellings or pronunciations while trying to comprehend and enjoy the
77 Anadolu Agency, ‘Sabahattin Ali's 'Madonna in a Fur Coat' still a Bestseller 70 Years after First Edition’, Daily Sabah, 2016,
Rıfat Bali points out that Turkey’s book market is a ferociously competitive one. Publishers vie for their titles being visible in the market. Their promotional methods include lengthy interviews with authors in mainstream media; book signing events at bookstores and university campuses (illustrating that young adults are substantial customers); product placement in popular media, such as television series in which the characters are shown reading the books in question (Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s being featured on popular social media is likely to have caused the same effect); laudatory articles by columnists; and billboards and advertisements in the Turkish media.79 ONK Agency and YKY have done several of these tactics. There are a great number of laudatory articles about Kürk Mantolu Madonna. Although it is not possible to know whether ONK and YKY back these articles, most of the articles interview or quote ONK’s spokesperson or authors who write about Sabahattin Ali. YKY published a book called A'dan Z'ye Sabahattin Ali in 2009, the same year which YKY published 22,000 copies of Kürk Mantolu Madonna, a substantial increase from 14,000 in 2007. A'dan Z'ye Sabahattin Ali, written by Sevengül Sönmez, is about Ali and his works. It is widely agreed that Ali’s works are highly associated with him as a political figure. Turkish scholars
78 Steven H. Miles, Youth Lifestyles in a Changing World, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2000, 143-144. 79 Rıfat Bali, ‘The Turkish Book Publishing Market at the End of 2009’, 43. 45 such as Louis Mitler80 and Ahmet Oktay81 view Kürk Mantolu Madonna as Ali’s semi-autobiography. Filiz Ali, Sabahattin Ali’s daughter, and journalist Emma Jane Kirby believe that Maria Puder, the main female character in the novel, is based on a real person whom Ali might have known or had a romantic relationship with while he was living in Germany.82 YKY’s publishing of A'dan Z'ye Sabahattin Ali must have responded to and added a degree of interest in Sabahattin Ali and his works. In addition to publishing Sönmez’s newly written biography of Sabahattin Ali, in 2014 YKY edited and published an already written book about Ali called Sabahattin Ali. Sabahattin Ali contains memoirs of those who knew him. The book was authored by Filiz Ali and Atilla Özkırımlı and initially published in 1979 by Cem Yayinevi, the then publisher of Kürk Mantolu Madonna. The 2014 YKY-edited version of Sabahattin Ali also contains additional chapters by Sönmez. Like A'dan Z'ye Sabahattin Ali, the publication of Sabahattin Ali adds a notion that Sabahattin Ali and his works are significant. Amid the hype of Kürk Mantolu Madonna, Sönmez, Filiz Ali as well as ONK’s Güleç have become the novel and Sabahattin Ali’s spokespersons, whom journalists flock to interview. The timings of the publications of Sabahattin Ali’s biography and memoir; the fact that YKY publishes both Kürk Mantolu Madonna, Sabahattin Ali’s biography, memoir and Ali’s other works; and the fact that Ali’s biographer, daughter and copyright agency have become his PR persons for newspaper and magazine interviews are interrelated. These interrelated factors create a consensus that Sabahattin Ali and his works are significant, worthwhile, and omnipresent. This invented consensus must have contributed to Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s being a popular book.
This chapter has shown that analysing connections between today’s Turkish book readers and Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s specificities could yield explanations why the novel has become extremely popular in Turkey in over the past decade. Today’s Turkish book readers are dominated by young people who have specific preferences in their choices of lifestyle - leisure as well as intellectual activities. Their preoccupations with love and romance translate into their tastes for romance/love novels. The last ten years also see a substantial number of Turkish
80 Mitler, Contemporary Turkish Writers, 218. 81 Oktay, Cumhuriyet dönemi edebiyatı, 1202. 82 Kirby, ‘The Mysterious Woman Who Inspired a Bestselling Novel.’ 46 youths acculturate to the conspicuous global trend of hipsterism whose participation could be translated into a certain social prestige. This provides a favourable space for classic literature to become popular. Despite their strive for a part in global culture exemplified by their hipsterism acculturation, Turkish youths also deem maintaining their Turkish identify vital. Kürk Mantolu Madonna is a novel which can fulfil these specificities because of its being native Turkish classic novel with themes of transnational romance and dual locale of East-meet-West. The phenomenal popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna in Turkey in the last decade might be understood by the congruence between the novel’s unique characteristics and contemporary Turkish book market’s specificities. The novel’s copyright, publishing and marketing agencies might have realised this specific congruence, then tried to introduce the novel to Turkey’s book readers, and thus contributed to the novel’s becoming extremely popular. 47
Chapter Three Contextualising Popular Views and Romantic Realism
The previous chapter engages with particular spatial and temporal environments in which Kürk Mantolu Madonna has become popular on the basis that Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s readers are shaped by these unique circumstances. This chapter focuses on the readers themselves, particularly their explicitly stated views about the novel. This chapter sets out to examine what today’s books readers in Turkey say about Kürk Mantolu Madonna, particularly why they like the book. In order to do so, reviews of the book available on Turkey’s two major online bookstores83 are examined. Kitapyurdu84 and Idefix85 are the two main online retail bookstores whose websites allow customers to write reviews of books they have purchased. Kitapyurdu.com has approximately 6-10 per cent market share in Turkey’s retail book sales.86 Similar to Özdem’s comment that the youth population is extremely active on social media and actively sharing their opinions online, there is a huge amount of reviews available on the two online bookstores’ websites. There are 192 reviews on Idefix and 6,173 reviews on Kitapyurdu.87 This platform, which is not offered by physical bookstores, is useful for exploring popular opinions on Kürk Mantolu Madonna. This chapter begins with an examination of examples of these reviews.
To examine these examples, this chapter employs basic statistics and critical discourse analysis. Basic statistics illuminates the most cited discourses – specific terms, topics or conversations – which appear on the sampled reviews. These discourses are taken as the most conspicuous elements of the novel which make Kürk Mantolu Madonna a great novel in the eyes of today’s Turkish readers. What is more, this paper aims to investigate these discourses further in order to fully understand the entire phenomenal rise to popularity of the novel. Thence, this
83 Livres Canada Books, ‘The Book Market in Turkey for Canadian Publishers’, 7. 84
300 reviews are taken from the two websites as samples for this study – 148 from Idefix and 152 from Kitapyurdu. Although these reviews are taken randomly, the chapter tries to attain a degree of inclusivity of views over the period in which the novel has become popular by selecting the samples from the years 2007 to 2017. The oldest review dates 5 January 2007 and the newest review dates 8 January 2017. It should be noted, however, that on the two websites there are more reviews from most recent years and fewer reviews from earlier years. Hence, the body of this chapter’s review samples inevitably comprises of reviews from recent years more than ones from earlier years. Among the 300 samples, 97 reviews (32.33 per cent of the reviews) are from 2016 and 2017, a period after the novel’s three years of being the top bestseller. 132 reviews (44 per cent) are from 2013 to 2015, the three years when the novel toppled Turkey’s best selling lists. 41 reviews (13.67 per cent) are from 2010 to 2012. And 30 reviews (10 per cent) are from 2007 to 2009, a period when the novel began to attract popular attention. The findings prove that these reviews, despite being from different periods and varying in numbers, can be grouped as a relevant corpus as overall findings present similar discourses and patterns. An overview of the findings produced by 49 simple statistics are as follows: in each of the periods (2016-2017; 2013-2015; 2010-2012; 2007-2009) of the sampled reviews, positive reviews account for between 85 to 95 per cent. As for the whole corpus of sampled reviews, 85.7 per cent of the 300 review samples are positive, 6.4 per cent negative and 7.85 per cent neutral. Accordingly, it might be deduced that the majority of Turkish book readers, providing that these samples are representative of the masses of Turkish book readers, enjoy reading Kürk Mantolu Madonna and think that it is a good book.
Similar discourses appear in reviews from different years throughout the selected periods. A part of a review dated 3 December 2011 reads “Benim için klasik niteliğinde bir kitap,” (For me, it's a classic book). A part of a review dated 5 July 2013 goes “Türk Edebiyatının klasikleri arasına girmeye çok önceden hak etmiş bir şaheser,” (It is a masterpiece which should have been among Turkish classic literature a long time ago). A part of a review dated 2 March 2015 comments “Klasik!,” (Classic!). Despite coming from different years, these reviews unanimously regard Kürk Mantolu Madonna as a classic literature. This is only one of several discourses which are repeated in different reviews dated different years. This finding should not be surprising when one considers the fact that Kürk Mantolu Madonna has been becoming increasingly popular in Turkey over last decade or so, the same period in which there is conspicuous cultural and literary trends – namely hipsterism, and classic and romantic genres.
The findings suggest that empathy might be one of the most crucial factors for Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s being perceived as a good book. A few repeated discourses deduced from the sampled reviews could be grouped as empathy. 44.6 per cent of the reviews, the highest percentage among all repeated groups of discourses, gives out discourses which could be summed up as that the novel’s efficacy of bringing out readers’ empathy. Examples include that several reviews allude to reviewers’ personal identification with the novel’s story and characters. A review dated 31 August 2014 voices “Çoğu cümlede kendinize ait bir parça bulacaksınız,” (You will find a part of yourself). Several reviews mention that the novel makes them cry. A review dated 2 January 2012 states “Raif & Maria aşkı o 50 kadar etkiledi ki beni, bittiğinde hala ağlıyordum,” (Raif and Maria’s love affected me so much that I was still crying after finishing reading). Several other reviews refer to the psychology of the characters. A review dated 22 May 2013 says “Psikolojik çözümlemeler çok başarılı dram yüklü bir eser gerçekten çok beğendim,” (I really liked the work, it is full of drama and very successful with psychological analysis). Another review from 28 December 2016 voices that “Psikolojik olarak sizi derinde bir yerlere alıp götürüyor,” (Psychologically (mentally), the novel takes you away somewhere in the deep). These are examples of the 44.6 per cent of the 280 sampled reviews which express readers’ personal identification with the novel’s human characters, personalities and emotions. The novel’s quality of brining out readers’ empathy means that the characters, their psychology and their story seem real and convincing to today’s Turkish readers. It might be deduced that Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s realism is one of the most detrimental to its being enjoyed by today’s Turkish readers.
It might be worth pondering personal identification of the readers with the story. Prominent themes in Kürk Mantolu Madonna include Raif Efendi’s social alienation; his impressive life story which is hidden under his passive exteriority; Raif’s sorrow and lack of motivation in life after learning about the fate of Maria and their child; Raif and Maria’s ambiguous relationship between friendship and love; a juxtaposition of Eastern (Turkey)’s attempted modernity with imagined Western (Germany)’s civilisation; and a transnational love. The readers are dominated by Turkish youths who are drawn to globality, yet have a grounded sense of being Turkish, and preoccupied with exploring various sentiments such as love, which could also bring sorrow. Examining these elements, one might be able to see why the themes in Kürk Mantolu Madonna are able to bring out empathy from the readers. The themes and discourses in the novel must be similar to what the readers experience. In other words, the story seems realistic to today’s Turkish readers.
It is undeniable that the realness of the story which is able to create empathy requires effective narratives to get messages across to the readers. Sabahattin Ali’s particular style of writing in Kürk Mantolu Madonna might be an instrumental 51 element which makes readers find reading the novel believable and enjoyable. 42.1 per cent of the sampled reviews mention the language of the novel. These reviews say that they like the novel’s language because it is fluent (akıcı bir dil), uncomplicated (sade), beautiful (güzel) and effective (etkili) (in conveying messages). A review from 27 April 2016 states that “Gayet sade ve akıcı bir anlatımı var. Çok duru ve abartısız. Bir mesaj vermek için kılı kırk yaran gizemli anlatımlara başvuran kitaplardan değil,” (The narrative is uncomplicated and fluent. It is very clear and without exaggeration. It is not like some other books which use complicated and mysterious narratives to get messages across). Another review dated 25 February 2016 says that “Yazarın dili öyle sade öyle akıcı ve çekici kendinizi hem Raif Efendi hem de Maria Puder'in yerinde buluyorsunuz yaşantınıza gore,” (The author’s language is very plain (uncomplicated), flowing and attractive that you find yourself in the shoes of Raif Efendi and Maria Puder, depending on your way of living). A review dated 4 December 2015 sums up that “İnsan psikolojisinin çok iyi tasvir edildiği, aşkın da, ümitsizliğin de, tutkunun da, acının da mükemmel bir şekilde resmedildiği bir eser,” (A work in which human psychology is described very well and love, despair, passion and pain are very well portrayed). Another review from 8 March 2015 comments that “Yazar, sizi alıp o karanlık sokaklarda Raif Efendi ile birlikte dolaştırıyor sanki onunla beraber gezip hissediyorsunuz o sokakları ve onun tutkulu aşkını,” (The writer takes you through those dark streets together with Raif Efendi, as if you were walking along with him and feeling those streets and his passionate love). These examples illustrate that the novel is able to get its messages across to readers because the novel’s language appear pleasant and comprehensible to the readers.
The fact that today’s readers in Turkey think Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s language beautiful is an interesting point. Despite being said to be uncomplicated, beautiful and effective, the novel’s language is certainly not of a standard of 2010s Turkish speaking and written language. Ali wrote the novel in the late 1930s, his language though comprehensible must be relatively different from today’s Turkish. Chapter two illustrates that the novel’s language which today’s readers read is significantly and repeatedly edited by the publishers. Some of the sampled reviews comment on a degree of difficulty of the novel’s language. A review dated 15 December 52
2016 states that “Dili biraz ağır olsa da mutlaka okunması ve kitaplıkta bulunması gereken bir Sabahattin Ali başyapıtı,” (Although the language is a little heavy, it is a masterpiece of Sabahattin Ali that must be read and found in the library). Another review from 16 December 2012 says that “Çok kitap okumayanlar için dili biraz ağır ve edebi gelebilir,” (For those who do not read many books, the language is a little heavy and literary). These reviews point out that the novel’s language is far from today’s everyday usage. A review dated 9 May 2016 opines that “Bana bu kitabı asıl türkçesi için tavsiye ettiler, o nasıl bir dil kullanımıdır o nasıl bir türkçedir, meğer biz türkçe falan konuşmuyormuşuz, bozulmuş çıplak kalmış bir dil konuşuyoruz,” (They recommended me this book because of its being original Turkish - what a use of language, what a use of Turkish. It is clear that we are not talking the real Turkish anymore, we are talking a broken and naked language). From this review, though exaggerated it may sound, can be deduced that the Turkish language in the novel is different from today’s standard usage. It is more likely that the novel’s language is different to a certain degree from today’s Turkish yet still comprehensible. A review dated 5 May 2014 comments that “Ki kitap çok güzel bir Türkçe ile yazılmış,” (The book is written in a very beautiful Turkish language.). What is interesting is that today’s readers think this relatively different version, old and classic, of Turkish language beautiful. Meanings of things including beauty change according to time and space. Contextualising the 1930s Turkish language’s being perceived as beautiful by 2010s readers might yield interesting understandings. The previous chapter shows that today’s books readers in Turkey are heavily composed of Turkish youths several of which, influenced by hipsterism, relish vintage, old, classic substances including literature. Bearing this in mind, one could understand how comprehensible narratives written in older Turkish speech could be appreciated and viewed as beautiful by a large section of today’s Turkish books readers.
Love comes third as the most stated discourse in the sampled reviews. 14.6 per cent alludes to Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s love story as what impresses them. A review dated 20 January 2015 opines “Sonunu tahmin edebilir ama 1940 yılındaki aşkı tahmin edemezsiniz,” (You might be able to predict the end but you could not guess the love of 1940). A review dated 14 January 2015 says that “bu kitap ve 53 fantenin toza sor okuduğum en iyi aşkı anlatan romanlar,” (this is the best love story that I’ve ever read, along with John Fante’s Ask the Dust). A review dated 13 August 2014 recommends that “aşkın bu halini çok seveceksiniz,” (you will very much love this kind of love). These show that love is a crucial discourse when readers talk about Kürk Mantolu Madonna. Considering the fact that romance novels do well in today’s book market in Turkey, one could argue that Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s being a love story makes it popular. However, the samples show that it is the novel’s particular kind of love which impresses readers. Chapter Two illustrates that Kürk Mantolu Madonna is different from other romance novels on the market because it is an unhappy-ending love story between a Turk and a Westerner, and set in two different spaces – Turkey (the East) and Germany (the West). It might be argued instead that the uniqueness of Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s love story – transnationality and dual locale - is what sets it apart from other love stories on the market. Empathy which Kürk Mantolu Madonna is able to awaken in readers; readers’ perceiving the novel’s language as comprehensible, beautiful and effective; and the novel’s unique kind of love story are the three most cited discourses in the sampled reviews.
Other discourses which appear in several sampled reviews are reviewers’ references to the novel as a masterpiece (başyapıt) or classic Turkish literature (klasik Türk edebiyatı; Türk klasiği). This is interesting when one takes into account the fact that classic novels do well in Turkey’s book market. Despite that the term ‘classic book’ is not unanimously defined and has been contentiously construed by various scholars from Mark Twain to Michael Dirda, this chapter understands a classic book as a book which is widely accepted as being literarily exemplary and having a quality of universal and temporally transcendental relevance. Being a classic book does not necessarily mean that a book is continually popular and read throughout different time periods, instead a book’s being deemed worthwhile and everlastingly relevant is the essence of being a classic book. Chapter Two illustrates that most of best selling classic novels in Turkey are foreign (mostly Western) works translated into Turkish. This suggests that foreign (Western) classic literatures are highly regarded in Turkey. This should not be surprising taking into consideration a legacy of state sponsored 54 translation movements which began since the Ottoman Tanzimat era and peaked in the early years of the Turkish Republics.88 The Kemalist government deemed Western literature, as a part of the whole Western civilisation, essential to nation-building and modernisation. The Translation Bureau was established and functioned between the years 1940 and 1967 with the most productive period was between 1940 and 1946.89 Its primary purpose was commissioning translations of Western classics in order to introduce Western ideas to Turkish people.90 There was unanimity among academics, publishers and writers that translations of classics were important and worthwhile.91 This legacy lasts until today and as a result Western classics still dominate Turkey’s bestselling lists, thanks to state school’s curriculum whose required readings are heavily composed of Western classics.
Kürk Mantolu Madonna is an outstanding piece of native Turkish classic literature that it is one of the very first Turkish books which have become a bestselling classic literature along side Western classics. This suggest that today’s Turkish readers might deem Kürk Mantolu Madonna equally literarily exemplary as those Western classics. Interestingly, a few sampled reviews juxtapose Kürk Mantolu Madonna with some Western classics. A review dated 9 September 2013 comments that “Evrensel Bir Eser. Bu kitabı bitirdiğimde; Evet! dedim, bizim de bir Dostoyevski´miz varmış. Sabahattin Ali; zamansız, evrensel, insana dair ne varsa, bu kısa ama ölümsüz eserde önümüze sermiş,” (A Universal Work. When I finished this book; Yeah! I said we have a Dostoyevsky too. Sabahattin Ali has offered us everything human that is timeless and universal in this short but immortal work). Another review from 5 July 2013 goes “Başyapıt! Türk Edebiyatının "Dostoyevski"vari bir kitabın var olması beni hem sevindirdi, hem de üzdü. Üzüntüm bu kitabın değerinin geç bilinmesinden ve bu türde romanların azlığından dolayı, sevindiğim nokta ise bizde de yabancı yazarların yazmış olduğu
88 Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar, The Politics and Poetics of Translation in Turkey, 1923 – 1960, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008, 13. 89 Nüzhet Berrin Aksoy, ‘The Relation Between Translation and Ideology as an Instrument for the Establishment of a National Literature’, Journal des Traducteurs, vol. 55 no. 3 (2010), 445. 90 Laurence Raw, Translation, Adaptation and Transformation, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012, 6. 91 Gürçağlar, Politics and Poetics of translation in Turkey, 112-113. 55 klasikler kadar hatta onlardan da başarılı eserlerin verilebilir olduğunu görmemdir. Türk Edebiyatının klasikleri arasına girmeye çok önceden haketmiş bir şaheser, kesinlikle okunmalı,” (Masterpiece! The fact that there is a Dostoevsky-esque book in Turkish Literature has made me both glad and sad. My sorrow is due to the late recognition of the value of this book and the lack of novels of this kind in Turkey; and I am pleased that in our country, too, books can be offered that are as successful or even more so, than the classics written by foreign authors. It is a masterpiece that deserved to be among the classics of Turkish Literature a long time ago, definitely to be read). A review dated 17 October 2012 opines “Dostoyevski´yi hatırlattı. Eğer bu ülkede neden Dostoyevski gibi yazarlar çıkmıyor diyenler varsa, lütfen bu kitabı okusunlar,” (Reminds me of Dostoyevsky. If there are people in this country who say we do not have writers like Dostoyevski, please read this book). A comment dated 8 October 2016 reads “Gogol'un neredeyse Türk versiyonu. Harika betimlemeler, ‘küçük insanların’ büyük ve etkileyici yaşantılarını 1-2 saatte okuyacaksınız. Fotoğraf çekinmeyi bırakın da, okuyun derim!,” (Practically a Turkish version of Gogol. Great narratives, you will read great and impressive experiences of ‘small (ordinary) people’ in 1-2 hours. Stop taking selfies, read it!). Although these reviews are not frequently repeated among the sampled reviews, it is understandable since such evaluations must have come from people who are relatively knowledgeable about various types of world literatures. Accordingly, one might then argue that Kürk Mantolu Madonna has become very popular in Turkey today because of Turkish readers’ realisation that this native Turkish literature is equally literarily significant as Western classics. This also suggests that Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s literary quality and uniqueness bring about national pride among Turkish readers.
The comparisons of Sabahattin Ali with prominent Western authors such as Dostoyevski and Gogol are interesting. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was a Russian writer best known for his novels such as Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot and Notes from Underground. Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809-1852) was a Ukrainian-born Russian writer best know for his works including Dead Souls, The Overcoat, and The Nose. In 56
Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism92, Donald Fanger coins the term romantic realism from detailed analyses of works of Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) and Charles Dickens (1812-1870). Romantic realism is a synthesis of two generic categories – romance and realism - as a forceful imaginary response to life in a great modern city. Fanger argues that Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is the epitome of aesthetic and metaphysical fusion of romantic realism. Fanger explains that romantic realism is an individual author’s personal vision of real life of a given time and place. The themes of romantic realist stories encompass life in a great modern city – Paris, London or Saint Petersburg in the cases of Balzac, Dickens, Gogol and Dostoevsky -, “whose transformation was going on before their eyes, signalling the end of ‘nature’ and the ‘natural life,’ and the beginning of ‘modernity’… with the character of this new urban life, with what happened to the traditional staples of human nature and when placed in an unnatural setting and subjected to pressures … the results – strangeness, alienation, crime.”93 A juxtaposition of Kürk Mantolu Madonna with thematic composition of romantic realism yields interesting results. Kürk Mantolu Madonna is set in the transforming interwar Potsdam and modernised Ankara. The story narrates lives of people living through particular time and place of transformations. Raif often contemplates Western modernity in Germany and its implementation in Turkey. The story tells Raif’s disappointed encounter with Western civilisation as Germany was not exactly like what he read in books; his social alienation in the interwar Potsdam as well as modernised Ankara; and people’s confused displacement in Ankara because of modernization. One could see that Kürk Mantolu Madonna conveys Sabahattin Ali’s personal reflection of his lived experiences in the transforming urban societies of Potsdam and Ankara. And one could see that Ali’s reflection and inventioin in Kürk Mantolu Madonna can be categorised as romantic realism. This analysis, inspired by some of the sampled reviews, reaffirms that Kürk Mantolu Madonna could be perceived as equal to several of the highly regarded Western literatures.
92 Donald Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism: A study of Dostoevsky in Relation to Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1965. 93 Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism, viii. 57
Romantic realist novels have a potential to become popular. And it is evident that Balzac, Dickens, Gogol and Dostoevsky’s romantic realist works were popular during their time. Fanger argues that “romantic realists (authors) were among the last great novelists to command a wide popular audience.”94 Fanger elaborates that like popular romantic novels, romantic realist novels plays with issues such as financial need, melodrama and sensationalism which lesser popular romantic novels employ with extremities and contrasts.95 However, what set romantic realist novels from romantic melodramas is that the characters, the situations, the encounters and the raw material “are drawn from reality, and with a maturity and an eye for significance that the more purely popular novelists could not evince.”96 Readers are be able to see that Kürk Mantolu Madonna also plays with issues such as financial struggle, melodrama, and sensationalism, and is realistically portrayed against a backdrop of the transforming urbanities in which Sabahattin Ali’s lived. Fanger’s thesis on a potential for romantic realist novels to become widely popular can lead to an understanding that Kürk Mantolu Madonna is now popular in Turkey because it is a romantic realist novel which possesses characteristics similar to popular romantic novels which are highly cherished by Turkish audience. What is more, as Fanger elaborates, social contexts in which the audience live and which is realistically mirrored in romantic realist novels also contribute to romantic realist novels’ becoming popular. The last decade or so, a period which Kürk Mantolu Madonna has become very popular, witnesses rapid transformations in Turkey, reminiscent of the second half of the nineteenth century’s Europe at which emerged the first wave of romantic realist novels. A close look at the similar pattern between the two times and places might yield an interesting enlightenment.
Parallel social and economic contexts can be drawn between the second half of the nineteenth century’s European cities and today’s major Turkish cities. Major European cities of the second half of the nineteenth century were marked with rapid economic and demographic transformations generated by the Industrial Revolution. European industrialisation was a change from agriculture and
94 Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism, 17. 95 Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism, 17. 96 Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism, 17. 58 craftsmanship based economy to one dominated by industrial and machinery production, which began in Britain around 1760 to 1840 and later spread through other parts of Europe. The new form of economy expanded a country’s economy and required a lot more people to work in mines and factories. Big cities were centres of industries and factories that required workers. A slowing down of agricultural sector and an increase in industrial sector then created a push for people out of rural areas and a pull of people towards cities. Hence, internal migration and urbanisation became one of the most noticeable developments in the second half of the nineteenth century’s European cities.97 Europe’s urban population expanded: 16.3 per cent of Europeans lived in urban areas in the mid 19th century, while at the beginning of World War I the figure jumped to 33.6 per cent.98 39.6 per cent of Britons lived in cities of more than 5,000 people in 1850 and the figure rose to 67.4 per cent in 1900.99 In France, the figure rose from 19.5 per cent in 1850 to 35.4 per cent in 1900.100 Even Gogol and Dostoyevsky’s Russia, with the slowest urban expansion in Europe, saw people living in urban areas doubled from 7.20 per cent of the total population in the mid nineteenth century to 14.6 per cent by the eve of the Great War.101 Despite varying degrees of rate of infant mortality, life expectancy and infectious deceases across European cities during this half-century, urban population largely increases because of waves of immigration from rural and agricultural areas to increasingly industrial urbanities. Saint Petersburg, For example, Russia’s capital city in which Crime and Punishment is set, was one of a few Russian cities with industry-based economy and a busy port city. The city was susceptible to epidemics that mortality rate was higher than birth rate: hence the city relied on and attracted immigrants from rural areas to harness its increasingly factory based economy.102 The influx of rural migrants to cities created several rapid transformations in cities: an increasing prosperity for cities and the country as a whole; a growing size of middle-class in cities, a growing number of poor working class rural migrants, a changing
97 Friedrich Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 1850/1914, Leiden: Brill, 2012, 45. 98 Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 34. 99 Paul Bairoch and Gary Goertz, ‘Factors of Urbanisation in the Nineteenth Century Developed Countries: A Descriptive and Econometric Analysis’, Urban Studies vol.23(4) (1986), 288. 100 Bairoch and Goertz, ‘Factors of Urbanisation in the Nineteenth Century Developed Countries’, 288. 101 Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 43. 102 Lenger, European Cities in the Modern Era, 39. 59 cityscape – notably a contrast between residence of well-to-do middle-class and ramshackle living quarters of poor working-class rural migrants; a confrontation between the rich and the poor, the us and them, the insiders and the outsiders within a society. It was these conditions brought about by rapid changes that set scenes for romantic realism to emerge. Gogol’s The Overcoat (1842); Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Idiot (1869); and Dickens’s Hard Times: For These Times (1854), Great Expectations (serialised December 1860 to August 1861), Our Mutual Friend (serialised May 1864 to November 1865) are examples of literary works which reflect the authors’ romantic realist portrayal of their respective transforming European cities of the second half of the nineteenth century.
On the other hand, Turkey, during a decade in which several people cherish a native Turkish romantic realist novel, Kürk Mantolu Madonna, has also been experiencing rapid transformations. Turkey’s fast economic growth, internal migration and globalisation over the last one and a half decades create in Turkey’s big cities conditions similar to those of major second half of the nineteenth century’s European cities. Turkey has been described as experiencing an economic miracle under the AKP which came to govern the country since 2002. “After more than a decade under the rule of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, Turkey’s trade patterns, diplomatic outreach, and cultural exports have transformed Turkey from an economically disadvantaged secular state into the first large Muslim nation with a middle-class majority.”103 Despite the fact that free-market economic policies were initiated sine the 1980s by Özal government and carried onto the 1990s, it is under the AKP’s neoliberal economic policies in the 2000s that Turkey experiences a remarkable economic growth.104 A statement in a World Bank Group’s report published in 2013 reads “Turkey’s rapid growth and development over the past ten years is one of the
103 Soner Cagaptay, The Rise of Turkey: The Twenty-First Century's First Muslim Power, Dulles: Potomac Books, 2014,
AKP’s neoliberal economic programmes also put a strain on several Turks. As of 2016, 64.3 per cent of Turkey's GDP is supported by service sector, 27.1 per cent by industry and 8.6 per cent by agriculture.107 An economy based on services and industry is a significant shift from Turkey’s previous form of economy which was dominated by agriculture. This change mode of production means a high demand for labour in big cities where most services and industries are located. It is evident that rural Turks have migrated to cities in the past decade. Urban population in Turkey grew by 48 per cent over 11 years from 2000 to 2011.108 Their migration pattern is indicative of their attraction to areas of industries and services. Turkish internal migrants favour moving from the Eastern to Western part of the country because of the Western part’s higher prosperity. As of 2006, the Marmara region, in which Istanbul is, produced around 30% of the overall GDP (2006 figures of TUIK). Most of the industrial activity is located in this region, which still makes the
105 Balkan, Balkan and Öncü, Neoliberal landscape and the rise of Islamist capital in Turkey, 1. 106 Hikmet Kocamaner, ‘Transformation of Islamic Television in Turkey from the Era of Secularist State Monopoly to Family-focused Programming under the Conservative-Muslim AKP Government’, Project on Middle East Political Science, 2016,
However, it is only in the 2005 to 2015 period which sees the romantic realist novel Kürk Mantolu Madonna become phenomenally popular. If rapid urbanisation provides a favourable space for romantic realist novels to become popular, one might enquire why during the rapid urbanisation of 1975 to 1985 Kürk Mantolu Madonna did not seem to be popular. Few factors might be able to explain this. Big Turkish cities’ density might have not been so condensed to create such a proximate contrast between the rich and the poor. In the 1980s, industrialisation of crafts and small industrial enterprises happened in small Anatolian towns such as Gaziantep, Corum, Kayseri, Malatya and Kahramannaras with the introduction of modern technology.109 These cities grew and also drew rural people. In addition, the 1980s and 1990s were a period in which waves of Turkish workers migrated to Western Europe. Hence rural people had more choices to migrate apart from to major western Turkish cities only. What’s more, during the 1975 to 1985, despite rapid urbanisation, the size of middle class might have not been so numerous, significant and noticeable to create a contrast with poor urbanites. As illustrated earlier, significant economic growth had not occurred in Turkey until under the AKP government. This might be the reason why urbanisation between the 1975 and 1985 did not create a favourable enough context for romantic realist literature. On the other hand, the last one and a half decade’s living conditions and lifestyle of workers in shops, restaurants and factories in big cities and industrial
109 Zeynep Kacmaz, ‘Urbanisation in Turkey: Its Implications on Istanbul Metropolitan Area and Ensuing Planning Dilemmas’, 2011, 910,
Turkey has experienced globalisation for decades but the last decade witnesses Turkey’s significant immersion into the globalised spheres of politics, economy and culture. AKP’s neoliberalist economic policies are parts of the free-market world endorsed by the West led by the USA. Turkey’s economic success under the AKP rests on two premises. On the one hand, Turkey welcomes trades and investment with Europe. On the other hand, Turkey simultaneously pushes for trades with emerging markets and Muslim-majority countries.”111 Turkey’s economic growth is directly linked to global commerce. Hence, inequality in Turkey, like that of other free-market states, is partly a result of global free-market economy. In addition to internal inequality, globalisation also allows a realisation of international inequality. Television, international travels and social media allow people to see lives overseas. In addition to a free flow of global cultures, comparisons of one’s country’s political, economic and social circumstances with others’ occur. Turkish people are able to see that areas such as political
110 Giulia Frati, ‘Istanbul Streets: I Hear Music’, Al Jazeera, 2016,
Juxtaposing Crime and Punishment, an epitome of romantic realist novel, with Kürk Mantolu Madonna one could find similar characteristics in addition to their being popular in the social and economic contexts of rapid changes. First both Dostoyevsky and Ali were writing their respective novels in a circumstance filled with psychological pressure. In the case of Dostoyevsky, his writing of Crime and Punishment was when he experienced financial problems after the loss of his wife and his ten years exile in Siberia. 112 As for Ali, his money matter was no better than Dostoyevsky’s and in the late 1930s Ali had already had several struggles with the state because of his articulated political writings. Psychological pressure of each author seems to have poured out onto their respective novel. Readers of each novel are personally engaged with the stories. Arthur analyses that Dostoevsky’s logic in the story interacts with the reader’s consciousness, that the reader is increasingly obliged to see the world through the protagonist’s eyes. “A bond is forged between reader and hero.”113 This would explain why Crime and Punishment gained a significant popularity during its initial publication. On the other hand, the discourse that readers empathise the protagonist is also found among sampled reviews of Kürk Mantolu Madonna. This might explain why Kürk Mantolu Madonna is also very much enjoyed by Turkish readers. The parallel might explain why the romantic realism is popular in Turkey now: economic and social conditions created by rapid changes in big cities as a result of fast urbanisation, displacement of rural people to big cities, and globalisation, have created a favourable condition for romantic realism because what the genre realistically portrays is what the general public really experience and/or see in a lose proximity.
112 Richard Arthur, ‘Introduction’, in Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, vii. 113 Arthur, ‘Introduction’, xxi. 64
Another interesting finding from the sampled reviews is that several of the reviews from 2016 mention the peculiar way in which Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s popularity has been expressed; that is its being photographed next to a cup of coffee and posted on social media, and its being people’s accessory to cafés (coffee shops). A review dated 15 November 2016 says that “Belki okumak için biraz geç kalmış olabilirim. Bir de tabii ki kitap ve kahve fotosunu instagrama atıcam elbette,” (Perhaps I'm a little bit late to read. Also, I’ll be sure to put photos of the book and coffee on Instagram). Another review dated 27 December 2016 voices that “Müthiş kurgusuyla hem kafalara hemde gündemlerimize yerleşen bir kitap. Fotoğraf çektirmek için değil okumak için alınmalı,” (With its great fantasy, it is a book which settles in your heads and in our agendas. It should be bought to be read instead of photographed). These reviews stress a particular way in which today’s readers, influenced by the globality of hipsterism and social media, in Turkey interact with the novel. The novel’s being heavily featured on social media certainly furthers its being well-known. However, this can pull toward as well as push away people from the novel. A prospect of consuming a very popular product does not appeal to everyone. A review dated 28 October 2016 reads “Kitabın çok popüler olması dolayısıyla biraz önyargı ile başlamıştım ancak kitap düşündüğümden iyi çıktı. Okunması gereken başarılı bir eser,” (The book is very popular, so I started reading with some prejudice, but it turned out better than I expected. A successful piece that you should read). Another review dated 27 April 16 comments “Genelde çok fazla popülerleşen kitapları almaya genelde çekinirim ama Kürk Mantolu Madonna'dan sonra bu tarz kitaplara da kütüphanemde yer vermeye karar verdim,” (Generally I am reluctant to buy books which are very popular, but after Madonna in a Fur coat I decided to include this type of book in my library). Nonetheless, the phenomenal popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna in Turkey suggests that the effect of the novel’s being omnipresent on social media is that it has also attracted several additional readers.
The examination of sampled reviews of Kürk Mantolu Madonna leads to a realisation that the novel can be analysed as romantic realism. This is exemplified by that empathy appears to be the most instrumental factor in making readers view the novel positively. This suggests that the novel’s messages of human 65 psychology such as alienation, sorrow, love, and struggles in economically difficult and socially unequal society must seem realistic to today’s Turkish readers in order to bring out such empathy that several of the readers cry or feel the effect of the novel imprinted in their minds long after finishing reading the novel. The novel would not have been able to bring out readers’ empathy without its comprehensible and pleasant language through the eyes and minds of readers. A big percentage of the sampled reviews praise the novel’s language as beautiful. Critical discourse analysis offers an understanding that because of the readers’ contemporary liking of vintage and classic, the language of the novel which is from the 1930s could be perceived as beautiful. The novel’s unique love story of an tragic romance between a Turkish man and a German woman set during crucial interwar years in Berlin, sets it apart from other romance novels on Turkey’s books market in which romance and Western classic novels are popular. The reviews of very recent years also reaffirm a peculiar character of Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s current popularity and its relation to globality of hipsterism and Turkish youths that the novel is pictured among with a cup of coffee and posted on social media. In short, one could see that the human psychology in the novel is so realistic that it is able to bring out empathy from readers; that the language and narratives in the novel are Ali’s personal reflections of his lived experience in transforming societies of the West and his native East; and that a combination of unique love and social alienation caused by a changing world are prominent themes in Kürk Mantolu Madonna. Accordingly, it might be argued that Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s being able to be identified with Western works of romantic realism testifies that Kürk Mantolu Madonna is a native Turkish classic novel which, like Western classics, is literarily exemplary and deserves being popular in Turkey today. 66
Conclusion
Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s increasing popularity over the last ten years or so and topping Turkey’s bestselling lists in the past few years is an unprecedented phenomenon in several ways. Its commercial success with total sales over 750,000 copies over the period of 2014 to 2016 is extremely high for Turkey’s book market. The novel’s being pictured and posted on social media in over hundreds of thousands posts has never before happened to any books in Turkey. The novel’s connection with hipsterism exemplified by its being pictured with a cup of coffee in a hipster styled café and being an accessory of Turkish youths to hipster styled cafés is intriguing. It is indisputable that the popularity of this seventy-five years old novel in Turkey has its own unique characters.
Journalists have captured this phenomenon and written several articles on newspapers and magazines detailing the novel’s phenomenal rise to popularity and the interesting aspects of how this popularity is expressed and perceived. They often highlight a notion that the Kürk Mantolu Madonna was not at all popular or heard of in the past; but surprisingly is very popular now. Some of these articles attempt to answer why this old Turkish novel has become a fad in Turkey over the past few years. Their explanations include various factors such as the novel’s idealised love story, Sabahattin Ali’s legacy of political resistance against the government to which today’s Turkish people can relate, the novel’s being seen Ali’s semi-autobiography and Sabahattin Ali’s prose style. Their analyses are enlightening and observant, but they are not sufficiently academically evidenced.
Academic scholarship, on the other hand, does not seem to capture or be interested in the peculiarity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s recent popularity. There are two types of academic studies which touch on the novel. One is a group of reference books on Turkish literature. These authoritative books, not all of them however, register Sabahattin Ali as one of the outstanding figures in Turkish literature of the early years of the Republic of Turkey, providing a brief biography as well as a list of his works. Only few of these books go into details about 67
Sabahattin Ali’s individual works; mostly Kuyucaklı Yusuf is discussed as a prime example of Ali’s being a pioneer in bringing Anatolian peasants’ life to Turkish literature through social realist prose style. Kürk Mantolu Madonna is mentioned simply as a love story by most academic studies. The novel’s current popularity appears to be overlooked by scholarship.
This paper sets out to address Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s present popularity by examining, through different academic lenses, various types of evidence such as publishing history, customers’ reviews, and social and political contexts. Chapter one refutes an assertion of many journalists that the novel was not at all popular in the past. It is evident that the novel has always been relatively known, to various degrees over time, among general Turkish readers as well as academics. However, the scales of Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s popularity at various points in time are difficult be determined because of incomplete publishing records and omissions of Ali from scholarship of certain periods due to his political legacy. Chapter one illustrates that Ali’s Leftist political stance might have alienated his works from the circle of Turkish literature during politically contentious periods such as the 1960s and 70s with violent struggles between Leftist and Rightist movements and the government’s heavy-handedly dealing with the situation. Nonetheless, it is most likely that the novel’s past positive reception or popularity could not be considered a widespread fad as it is over the past few years.
Then this paper moves on to explore what are particular about Turkey’s readers in the past decade and what are unique about Kürk Mantolu Madonna in comparison to other books on Turkey’s book market. Chapter two sets out to find why this particular novel, with its particular characteristics, is able to capture today’s Turkish readers who are unique in their own ways compared to Turkish readers of prior decades. Juxtaposing the readers’ particularities with Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s specificities offers explanations why the novel has become extremely popular. Chapter two reveals that today’s Turkish book readers are heavily composed of young people who have specific preferences in their choices of lifestyle, leisure as well as intellectual activities. Their preoccupations with love and romance translate into their tastes for romantic novels. In addition, the last 68 decade or so sees a substantial number of Turkish youths acculturate to the conspicuous global trend of hipsterism. Participating in hipsterism could give a certain social prestige to participants; hence more people could be drawn to adopt parts of hipster activities and lifestyle. This provides a favourable space for classic literature to become even more popular in Turkey, a society which highly regards Western classic literature, which is a result of early Republican government’s legacy of translation project to introduce Western ideas to Turkish people. Hipster style of which classic literature is a part can act as a bridge connecting Turkish youths with other international peers. Despite their strives for a part in global culture exemplified by their hipsterism acculturation, Turkish youths also see maintaining their Turkish identity vital. Kürk Mantolu Madonna is a novel which can fulfil these specific preferences than any other books on today’s Turkish book market because of its being native Turkish classic novel with themes of transnational romance and dual locale of East-meet-West. Accordingly, the phenomenal popularity of Kürk Mantolu Madonna in Turkey in the last decade or so could be understood by a befitting congruence between the novel’s unique characteristics of being native Turkish, classic and romantic; and the specificities of today’s Turkish book market which is dominated by Turkish youths who highly favours romance genre and have a vision of globality.
Finally, the paper examines what Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s readers say about the novel in order to understand why they like this novel so much. Chapter three reviews and analyses customers’ reviews of the book which are taken from two major online retail bookstores in Turkey. Chapter three reveals that empathy appears to be the most crucial factor which make the readers captivated by the novel. This points out that the novel’s conveyance of human psychology, including social alienation, sorrow and love, must seem realistic to today’s Turkish readers such that it is able to bring out empathy from readers, several of whom cry or feel the effect of the novel imprinted in their minds long after finishing reading the novel. Chapter three also illustrates that the novel’s language is significant. The novel would not have been able to bring out readers’ empathy without a comprehensible and pleasant language through the eyes and minds of readers. A big percentage of the reviews praise the novel’s language as beautiful. 69
Contemporary readers’ liking of vintage and classic substances might explain why the language of the novel written in the late 1930s could be perceived as beautiful. In addition, chapter three finds that the novel’s unique transnational love story of a Turk and a foreign person sets it apart from other romance novels on Turkey’s book market on which romance novels are popular. The novel’s short length also influences the novel’s being perceived positively because most people are able to finish reading the whole book and thence able to evaluate and appreciate the novel as a whole. Customers’ reviews from very recent years also reaffirm a peculiar character of Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s current popularity and its relation to globality of hipsterism and Turkish youths by mentioning the novel’s being pictured with a cup of coffee and posted on social media. What’s more, some of the reviews lead chapter three to inspect Kürk Mantolu Madonna in relation to romantic realism. Kürk Mantolu Madonna could be categorised as a romantic realist novel because of that human psychology in the novel is so realistic that it is able to bring out empathy from readers; that the language and narratives in the novel are Sabahattin Ali’s personal reflections of his lived experience in transforming societies of the West and his native East; and that a combination of unique story of unrequited love and social alienation caused by a changing world are prominent themes in Kürk Mantolu Madonna. Accordingly, chapter three illustrates that Kürk Mantolu Madonna’s being able to be identified with Western works of romantic realism testifies that Kürk Mantolu Madonna is a native Turkish classic novel which is seen by today’s Turkish readers as having literary quality equal to Western classic literatures which are highly regarded and commercially successful in Turkey.
70
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