Turkish-Islamic ideal in İsmail Bilgin's historical novels

Emphasizing the cultural and political unity of the Turkish people, Turkism aims to revive the essence of traditional Turkish culture. Turkism, which is based on the premise of a dynamic being that can develop culturally, advocated an inclusive approach to cultural enrichment and laid the groundwork to encourage being open to different cultural influences around the world. Along with this concept, the metaphor of belief emerged in historical popular novels, and this concept formed a defining aspect of Turkish identity. The novel, which is among the important literary genres, has attracted attention as the works in which religion and belief elements are evaluated intensively, together with its structure suitable for long-term narratives. The spread of the concept of faith to the Turkish society has created a tight bond between religion and Turkish culture. Using this bond successfully and reflecting it to his works as a result of extensive research, İsmail Bilgin tells the important events and personalities of Turkish history in his novels with a fictional style, and he has shown the lesser-known figures, who are not even included in the textbooks, as the protagonists in his novels. In this way, the author presented the lives of these heroes who lived in the past to the reader's knowledge. It included the personalities in the process from the establishment of the Ottoman Empire to the War of Independence as a large staff. It is seen that elements of Turkism and Islam come to the fore in the novels. In the first part of the study, information about İsmail Bilgin's life and art was given, and her works were examined in the context of literary criticism. In the second part, the concepts of historical reality and fiction are emphasized, and the relationship of literature with history is discussed. From this point of view, the definition of the historical novel, its place in the chronological process and its reflections on Turkish literature are emphasized. In the third chapter, the ideas of Turkism and Islamism were examined under the title of literature, religion and ideology. In the last part, the analysis and evaluation of the novels of the author within the framework of Turkish-Islamic synthesis are given. Keywords İsmail Bilgin, Fiction, Historical Novel, Turkishism, Religion