Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

To God belongs the East and the West. —KORAN, “THE COW” 1 Everyone is sometimes a Westerner and sometimes an Easterner—in fact a constant combination of the two. —Orhan Pamuk 2

1. Background of the Study

Geographically, Turkey—officially the Republic of Turkey—is a very special country. It lies mostly in western Asia and on the east trace of south- eastern Europe. This unique location has made Turkey have various cultures—a blend of Eastern culture and Western culture and traditions—the “Westernisation” of the Ottoman Empire by Mustafa Kemal 3 . With the determined leadership of Kemal Atatürk, the elite that founded the Turkish Republic pursued a more radical modernization. 4 Richard Eder, in “My Name is Red” explains that the “Westernisation” had destroyed 600-year Islamic Ottoman Empire tradition and become a secular country, which was the valuable price as the consequence of Turkey’s membership in the European Union. He transformed the religion-based former Ottoman Empire into a modern nation with a separation of state an 1 Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red Benim Adim Karmizi translated by E. M. Göknar, London: Faber Faber, 2001 vii. 2 Orhan Pamuk, Other Colours: Writing on Life, Art, Books, and Cities translated by Maureen Freely London: Faber and Faber Limited, 2008. 3 Douglas A. Howard, The History of Turkey London: Greenwood Press, 2001 1; Mustafa Kemal Pasha is the first President of the Republic of Turkey and one of the most important world figures of the twentieth century. 4 Soli Özel, “Turkey Faces West”, The Wilson Quarterly 31, 1 Winter, 2007: 20. 2 religion, such as the restriction of veils in the parliament and school and alteration alphabet from Arabic in the Turkish language into Latin 5 . Pamuk’s Other Colours 2008 tells that none of the Turks can read the Arabic script now for Turkey has adopted Latin alphabet in order to be more European. 6 Since the Ottoman Empire, Turkey always moves closer to the West. Mehmet II, the Sultan who conquered Constantinople, invited many artists from Florence and Venice in the 15 th century to create medals and paintings. 7 Gentile Bellini, the most famous artist in Venice during his lifetime 1429-1507, for instance, was invited to İstanbul to create the Portrait of Mehmet II 8 . He was Jacopo Bellini’s elder son who was also sent by the Venetian senate as a cultural ambassador for eighteen months as the result of the peace treaty between the Ottomans and Venetians in 1479. Bellini’s oil portrait of Mehmet has been regarded as not only as the icon of the Ottoman sultan 9 but this European image of the great Ottoman leader might also serve as an appropriate focus for modern Turkey’s desire to retrieve some of its European roots and influences in its “new turn toward Europe”. 10 Mehmet’s eyes were certainly on the West for he spent much time studying the position of Italy and learning the situation of the West. His troops did arrive in Italy but not until 1480 when Ottoman forces landed at Otranto, only to 5 Richard Eder, “My Name is Red”, New York Times September 2, 2001, May 20, 2013 http:NYTimes.com.htm. 6 Pamuk, Other Colours, 192. 7 Feride Çiçekoglu, “A Pedagogy of Two Ways of Seeing: A Confrontation of ‘Word and Image’ in My Name is Red”, Journal of Aesthetic Education 37, 3 Autumn, 2003: 4. 8 Lisa Jardine Jerry Brotton, Global Interests: Renaissance Art between East and West London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2000 8. 9 Pamuk, Other Colours, 313-314. 10 New York Times December 25, 1999, cited in Lisa Jardine Jerry Brotton’s, Global Interests: Renaissance Art between East and West, London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2000 32. 3 evacuate on the following year due to the death of the Sultan. 11 In 1438, the Ottoman Sultan Murad II’s forces also moved up through Hungary and Transylvania. 12 The other moving westward is the transfer of Sultan’s palace, from Topkapi 13 palace to the palace of Dolmabahçe 14 around the mid of nineteenth century, which was considered at that time more suited to the modern age. 15 If the Ottoman Sultans tried to come closer to the West and Kemal Ataturk destroyed all Eastern and Islamic traditions and transforms them to the Western traditions, Orhan Pamuk combines those two traditions, the East and the West, to produce a hybrid in his works. As a novelist—who won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature for his highly appreciated work My Name is Red 2001—Pamuk, firstly, wants to delineate the endless oscillation between the East and the West in his works; especially in My Name is Red and The White Castle 16 . These two novels depict the internal struggle within the Italian Renaissance painting and the traditional miniature style as well as the modern technology and scientific invention from Europe and the prediction and interpretation of dreams and stars. 11 Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet, A Social History of Ottoman İstanbul, First Edition New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010 9. 12 Jardine Brotton, Global Interests, 26. 13 Topkapi Palace was constructed under the reign of Sultan Mehmed II. It was primarily residence of the Ottoman Sultans for about 400 years. From here, the sultans were to run the affairs of state until the mid-nineteenth century, when they transferred to the palace of Dolmabahçe. Boyar and Fleet, Social History, 28. 14 Under Mahmud II’s successor, Dolmabahçe Palace became the residence of the sultan. Topkapi Palace was abandoned totally and the multi-storey European-style places continued to be built on both shores of the Bosphorus—Çirağan and Yildis on the European side and Beylerbeyi on the opposite, Asian side. The most important interior feature of these palaces was their gigantic staircase imitating the European style. Moreover, the nineteenth-century palace built in European style was also embellished with European-style gardens. Boyar and Fleet, Social History, 28, 245, 310. 15 Boyar and Fleet, Social History, 28. 16 These books will be cited as, respectively, MNR and TWC in the text for all subsequent references. 4 Afridi and Byuze say that Pamuk’s stories focus on the question of searching for the identity of the Turks and the encounter between the East and the West, which are not the contemporary issues since the Ottoman Empire is “dramatized” in the new symbol of the clash and mix of cultures in his works. In addition, they usually circle around the construing of East and West as a conflicting yet reconciling aspect in his works. 17 Secondly, as a writer, Pamuk does not choose one of the sides explicitly neither judge nor criticize. 18 He gives space and appreciates the process of an individual who is looking for his identity without any claims from the others, which can distract him from his identity formation process. According to Iyer, in his article “A View of the Bosphorus”, Pamuk’s refusal to settle into one position has made him the target of both secularists and religious conservatives 19 for the religious conservatives and Turkish politicians demand that Turkey should have only one soul that it should belong to either the East or the West or to be nationalistic. 20 To quote Pamuk’s own words: “It is not a big problem for Turkey to have two different cultures and spirits and they should not worry about it because it is not a bad thing. Just let this process become natural for if you worry too much about one part of you, which can kill the other part, you will be left with a single spirit.” 21 Moreover, slavishly imitating the West or slavishly imitating the old dead Ottoman culture is not the solution. 22 His denial to choose one position has 17 Mehnaz M. Afridi and David M. Byuze, Global Perspectives on Orhan Pamuk New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012 5. 18 Çiçekoglu, “Pedagogy”, 3. 19 Pico Iyer, “A View of the Bosphorus”, New York Times September 30, 2007, November 6, 2013 http:www.nytimes.com. 20 Pamuk, Other Colours, 369. 21 Ibid. 22 Pamuk, Other Colours, 370. 5 delivered books, which are a mixture of Eastern and Western methods, styles, habits, and histories. He confesses that he can wander between the two worlds and in both he is at home. 23 Turkey’s desire and longing to Westernize and the dilemma of the Ottoman Turks who are searching for their identity in the influence of Western values have been captured by Orhan Pamuk into his works through the history of the miniature painting in the Ottoman miniature guild, which is filled by conflict, jealousy, and murder among the painters MNR and also through the character of Hoja, which is presented by the scientific inventions and technology TWC. In general, Pamuk sees the tension arising out of a clash between the traditional— represented by the East—and the modern—represented by the West—as a powerful force in his works. 24 This condition is supported by Edward Said who argues that Western political and intellectual domination over the East has defined the nature of the Orient potentially as weak and of the Occident as strong. 25 There is a revisit of the Orientalism, which comes in a different style and form. The West, that is the deepest image of the other, is actually colonialized by the Ottoman. However, the self-inflicted that is felt by Turkey in the end of the Empire has led to self-orientalism because it tries to erase the grand Ottoman tradition and abruptly change it with Western culture. In Pamuk’s, it is in the way the traditional miniature painting can be replaced by the Italian Renaissance painting and in the way the traditional can be replaced by modern technology. However, it is not an exaggeration if I say that the question on the oscillation 23 Pamuk, Other Colours, 264. 24 Orhan Pamuk, “Turkey’s Divided Character”, New Perspectives Quarterly 17, 2 2000: 20. 25 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture London: Routledge, 1994 66-84. 6 between the East and the West that is knitted in the historical context is the main hinge of Pamuk’s works. Moreover, he confirms this in the opening page of My Name is Red, a quotation from Koran, “To God belongs the East and the West” The Cow, 115 MNR, 2. Pamuk’s oeuvre always demonstrates the binary opposition within them, between the Self and the Other. In My Name is Red, Pamuk uncovers the history of the Ottoman miniature painter, which is also filled with conflicts, jealousy, and murder among the miniaturist. 26 The concern is mainly on the debate around traditions of painting as two different cultures, which comes in contact with each other 27 where the traditional miniature painting is contested by the Italian Renaissance painting style that flourishes during the Ottoman period. According to Farred, Pamuk’s novel can only be understood trough the act of comparison of its Otherness 28 , for instance, “the Venetian master and the master illustrators and calligraphers of Tabriz, Mashhad, and Aleppo” MNR, 25; “the Persian artists, a direct comparison within the world of the East, had made more extraordinary illustrations, more masterpieces, than we Ottomans” MNR, 346; or worse, how the painting that is produced by the Venetian masters has broken into Ottoman miniature painting when “the Jesuit priests of Portugal long ago introduced European painting and methods there. They are everywhere now”. MNR, 433 26 Grant Farred, “To Dig a Well with a Needle”: Orhan Pamuk’s Poem of Comparative Globalization, The Global South 1, 2 Fall, 2007: 87. 27 Çiçekoglu, “Pedagogy”, 3. 28 Farred, “Dig a Well”, 87. 7 My Name is Red is a murder story whose murderer is one of the finest miniaturists who is deeply influenced by the Venetian style 29 and works on the illustration of the secret book. The story is set in the late 16 th century in İstanbul, Turkey, during the reign of Sultan Murat III 1574-1595. To celebrate a thousand anniversary of Islam, Sultan Murat III—who is mostly interested in miniatures and books 30 —commissions a secret book that will show to the world Islam’s military strength and pride as well as the power and wealth of his own dynasty. MNR, 121 Enishte Effendi, Sultan’s ambassador to Venice who is in charge of finishing this book, is secretly instructed to make the illustrations, which adopt the Italian Renaissance style to impress the Western and to prolong the age of His rule. 31 In The White Castle, Pamuk complicates the Self-Other or the binary opposition and grasp the conflict between Self and Other. Here, Pamuk delineates how the Other is thus always present, frequently as a threat and seduction, within the historical confines of the Self. Both Hoja and the Venetian slave share an uncanny resemblance to each other 32 because Hoja is not only the Venetian’s master but also his pupil for Hoja also asks his slave to teach him everything he had learnt in his country TWC, 32. Hoja always dreams to live in the West. From the very beginning, Hoja does not like the activities of the pashas and Sultan for they depend on the astrology and the illogical interpretation of the dreams and stars. He also dislikes them for they have little interest in science. 29 Çiçekoglu, “Pedagogy”, 3. 30 Çiçekoglu, “Pedagogy”, 6. 31 David Martyn, “Turkish-German Literature Goes İstanbul, or, Lessons for Multicultural Germanist in Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red”, Macalester International 15 n.d.: 234. 32 Farred, “Dig a Well”, 88. 8 Complexities in Hoja’s life and his exhaustion on the Sultan and his “traditionality”, “forced” him to adore the identity of his Venetian slave whose life is more interesting in Italy where people do not depend on the prediction and interpretation of the dreams and stars. In the end, master Hoja changes his identity with his Venetian slave—who is more knowledgeable in the science and has physical similarities—after his “war machine” does not give victory to the Sultan. He wants to correspond with men of science in Venice, Flanders, whatever faraway land occurred to him at that moment. TWC, 121

2. Research Questions