Folklore studies in Turkey and reflections of nationalism on 19th and 20th century folk poets

Since minstrel literature is a literature that was born and developed among the people, it has always reflected the lives of the people. It is seen that the minstrels, who carry the traces of the life they live in in their works, also influence this life. When the works of minstrels are read, the social, political and cultural life of the people can be witnessed. In this respect, it can be said that minstrels, in addition to providing aesthetic pleasure, also aimed to convey the conditions of the period and even change these conditions for the benefit of the public. In addition, it is seen that minstrels undertake responsibilities such as supporting the people in difficult times, guiding the people, creating a support with the hope they instill, and facilitating the adaptation process to the innovations they encounter. When the products of minstrels are examined, the changes in society can be seen. For this reason, when a political, social and cultural study is made about any period, it is seen that the poems of the minstrels should be examined, and when a study is made about the poems of the minstrels, the social, political and cultural conditions of the period should be examined. It can be said that the main feature that makes these examinations necessary in order to make the works meaningful is the work-period relationship. The influence of minstrels on the public is obvious. However, this impact has not been in the same form and level in every period. Identifying and trying to explain this difference constitutes the aim of the study titled "Folklore Studies and Reflections of Nationalism on 19th and 20th Century Folk Poets". It is seen that minstrels used nationalism in different ways in their works in these two centuries. In this study, the development process of folklore in Turkey and the nationalism discourse in 19th and 20th century poets were examined. The 19th and 20th centuries were chosen as the period in the study because the nationalism movement spread rapidly in the world during these periods. Minstrels contributed to learning the conditions of that period by reflecting the changes in the society they lived in, their difficulties, their victories, that is, their experiences, in their works. In addition, minstrels had a great impact on the emotions and enthusiasm of the people. As discussed in the study, while minstrels contributed to the resistance of a people who fought their national struggle and established their national state in the 19th century by whipping up their national feelings, they also created a nationalism discourse based on loyalty to the established state and its leader in the 20th century. Since the focus of the study is the examination of nationalism and its effect on minstrels, the nationalism-based development of Turkish folklore is mentioned in the first chapter. After mentioning the formation of Turkish folklore, the effect of the functions of folklore on the formation of the nationalism movement was tried to be explained. After the interpretation of folklore and nationalism is given, the effect of minstrels on the public, specifically the sense of nationalism, is given. The concept of folk philosophy, which was formed and shaped by this influence, is the subject of the next chapter. In the next two chapters, the reflections of the social and political life of the 19th and 20th centuries on the minstrels were tried to be given, respectively, by interpreting selected poetry samples. The 19th century was examined under three subheadings with the themes of "hope for liberation, national power and oppression caused by resistance", and the 20th century was examined under four subheadings with the themes of "love of the republic, love of Atatürk, nationalism and joy against the revolutions". While making this analysis, it was seen that the difference in social and political context between the two centuries directly affected the people, folk poets and their poems. For this reason, the next chapter is devoted to the differences in the reflection of 19th and 20th century nationalism in poems. In this study, nationalism-oriented poems belonging to 19th and 20th century poets were examined using the sampling method, and the difference in the purpose of processing nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries was revealed through the analyzed poems.