Toplumcu gerçekçi Türk edebiyatında Suat Derviş'in yeri

Abstract

Suat Derviş (1905-1972), one of the few women writers of the late Ottoman period, is a key figure in examining the conflictual phenomena of being a “woman” and a “Marxist” within the context of a predominantly traditional society. Having her first novel published at the age of sixteen, Derviş studied literature at the University of Berlin and worked as a reporter in Germany, until Hitler’s coming to power. Derviş’s life is dramatically affected by the rising of fascism in Europe and Turkey. Her becoming acquainted with Marxist ideas at the end of the 1930s, made Derviş write about the class conflicts both in her articles and novels. She published Yeni Edebiyat (1940-1941), a Marxist literary journal, with Reşat Fuat Baraner, the general secretary of Turkish Communist Party, who later became her fourth husband in 1941. This study focuses on the role of Suat Derviş in the “Socialist Realist” literature of Turkey. The tension Derviş experienced between feminism and Marxism is important for analyzing how feminism is received by the Turkish Left and also for appreciating the premises of feminism itself. The aim of this master thesis is to detect the epistemological and ideological breaking points in Derviş’s literary output and discuss the way she overcame the conflicts between socialist realism and Marxist aesthetics. In this study, three novels each representing a different period in Derviş’s novelistic career are taken into consideration and analyzed.