Criticism of orientalist mentality in Turkish literature in the example of Peyami Safa novels

In societies that practice modernization, there is a tendency to be like the West, to think like the West and to reconstruct oneself through the eyes of the West. The modernization process that began in the last days of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent Westernization movement, the tendency to be renewed through the eyes of the West, turned into a state ideology with the newly established Republic of Turkey. Some of the elite, ruling elite and intellectuals within the state adopted this ideology and approached their own society, its traditional and cultural accumulation with a Western perspective and an orientalist mentality. As a result, the Republican ideology, while trying to be modern, could not prevent itself from becoming a modernizing society disconnected from its own tradition. Within the framework of this study, firstly, the orientalist mentality and the Turkish modernization adventure, which is thought to be constructed with a Western perspective, are examined historically, and then the concept of mentality and the Turkish modernization mentality are examined especially in the light of the concepts of tradition and modernity. Following the concept of mentality, the conceptualization of orientalism, the historical process of the concept and the change and transformation in this process are given and finally, the attitude of the "intellectual" figure, who is considered to be in an important position in the Turkish modernization adventure, towards orientalist studies and orientalist mentality is examined. In the second part of the study, after analyzing the problematic of transferring mentalities, ideologies and cultures to society through art in general and literature and fiction in particular, the influence of orientalist mentality in Turkish literature is mentioned. After Peyami Safa's life story, his intellectual journey and his works, his place in Turkish literature is analyzed. In the last section, as the study claims, the discourse of false modernization, misunderstanding the West, and criticism of orientalist mentality that Peyami Safa tries to present to the society through his novels in Turkish literature is examined.