Journal of Mother Tongue Education

Abstract

Novel, which has found its proper place among the written forms of Turkish literature, is a continuation of oral story telling and listening. It first appeared as translations or imitation of Western Works, but despite tendency for westernization, local cultural elements were used in many cases together with western elements. Our novelists, who opened a new way between the tradional and the western, made use of the elements of folk culture in order to get people embrace novels, which was in deed a new genre in Turkish literature. The Convention for the Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which was accepted by UNESCO in 2003 and came into force in 2005, determined that “Intangible Cultural Heritage” include oral traditions and expressions, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and universe and traditional craftsmanship. The aim of this Convention is to protect the elements of “oral and traditional culture” which are subject of disciplines of folklore and antropology. This article aims at demonstrating elements of intangible cultural heritage, which were present in the Turkish novel since Tanzimat period. The study has descriptive character and it evaluates the ways, through which novelists were fed by folk culture and how these were reflected in their novels with a new perspective through document analysis technique. The novels under this study, are evaluated from the viewpoint of how intangible cultural heritage, such as rituals, oral presentation, knowledge, skills and cultural environments were used in these novels.