Conservatism in the 19th century Turkish novel

This study aims to evaluate the 19th century Turkish novel's relationship with conservatism which covers the period from the beginning to 1901. Conservatism is a notion related to modernization. In the West, conservatism emerged in the political realm with the reactions to the French Revolution, and in non-Western societies it was mostly discussed in social and cultural areas. It can be said that rather than being a radical opposition to the change associated with modernization, conservatism which seeks to relate it to tradition, has a broad content ranging from politics to theology, philosophy, sociology, economy to culture and literature. It is seen that it endeavours to synthesize, with a conservative approach, the conflicts between traditional values of non-Western societies which have implemented modernization through imitation beyond their own experiences, and the innovations transferred from the West. Turkish modernization, whose beginning could be taken as the 18th century, gained momentum with the declaration of the Tanzimat in 1839. Modernization activities, which in the first stage were mostly limited in the technical field, have made it's presence felt in all areas of life since the mid-19th century. This process which produces a new human model with the transformation of traditional values has also witnessed many dichotomies. To these dichotomies which can be summarized as old-new conflict, solutions have been attempeted to be generated with a conservative approach. The novel, which is a genre of Western origin, was included in Turkish literature in the last quarter of the 19th century, and while in the first examples it maintained the influence of tradition, gained a modern form and content towards the end of the century. In the first part of the study, the definition, scope and themes of conservative thought will be elaborated and in the second chapter, the reflections of conservatism in the 19th century Turkish thought and it's influences on the modernization process will be evaluated. In the third section, which includes the novel analysis, how the conservatism, which is defined in the first two chapters, is reflected to the content, technical characteristics and fiction of the 19th century Turkish novel, which started with the Taaşşuk-ı Tal'at and Fitnat in 1872 and closed with Eylül in 1900, will be explored.