Military service in Anatolian folklore (examples of Adana, Gaziantep, Kayseri)

The fact that every Turkish male reaching his twenty, does his mandetory service, created that many different practices within folk life. These practices continue for one, one and half years in a person?s life (before and after military service), and that the participation of the soldier?s relatives somehow in this proces, created a larger extend of these practices. In this work, folkloric practices in every steps of military service in Adana, Gaziantep and Kayseri were specified in order for a comparative evaluation. The paradigmas of Performance Theory have been taken in to consideration througout this work, and stressed upon the points of communication and contexts of military service folklore that was regarded as a living process. Military service notion in turkish culture, military service folklore, reflexion of this folklore in culture composed the outline of this work. .