The image of the other in the second Constitutional Period travel accounts and the factors that constitute this image

It is a fact that literary texts are not only literary texts but also they contribute to the genre in which they are written. As almost all the literary text contributes to diversify and enrich its genre they also contribute to understand common grounds, socio-political life and epoch paradigms of the period that it is written. This multiple structure of the text is also valid for travel writings. Travel writings are not only space and people oriented texts that tell about the places visited and seen. Travellers try to impress their readers and try to impose their viewpoints while they mostly tell about the features of the geographies they travel and socioeconomic and cultural lives of those societies; they make efforts of hidden or explicit manipulations while they build their texts. All of the travel accounts that were published in the Second Constitutional period (1908- 1923) were studied in this study. Other? perception of Turk traveller of the period is tried to be ascertained by analysing forty travel books of fifteen with Arabic alphabets and twenty five Romanised ones in the context of other concept. Not only other images were of forty three countries mentioned in travellers works were determined in this study, but also causes of the images were tried to be put forth. Writers who made their observations in three continents could barely cover up their admiration in Europe's modern cities, level of education, armed forces and order of social life based upon the works. Speeches of writers concerning that similar structure of Europe which they admire to its modern life should also be established in Turkey come as a dominant factor. Travellers who travelled Asia saw underdeveloped nations on several counts and ascertained that there were no countries to learn from except Japan. In this period, travellers, who went to Africa mentioned only three countries in this continent and cited the development of Egypt and underdevelopment of others to their readers. When all of the works are taken into account it can be spoken out that the second Constitutional period Turk intelligentsia did not travel these countries as tourists, they tried to lead the way to the modern Turk state which would be established soon by learning various lessons from the countries that they have travelled, and tried to create public opinion by objectivising their own subjective images. Keywords: Second Constitutional period, travel account, image, the other