The Book of Dede Korkut: The Villains in and out of Turks
Özet
The Book of Dede Korkut1
, regarded as the Iliad of the Turks, is an epic of
the Oghuz, one of the major branches of the Turkish Peoples, in other words
Turkomans – a special name acquired after their conversion to Islam. The
Book of Dede Korkut is not only one of the most significant literary
documents but also one of the most important historical documents that lift
the veil of secrecy on the Turks dating back to the Middle Ages. The Book of
Dede Korkut, comprising a prologue and twelve epic stories, is narrated
mostly in prose, but in some cases in verse. Although it seems as if The Book
of Dede Korkut is arranged by independent stories, the literary elements and
stylistic structure make the stories as dependent and unified in a sense. The
epic story beginning in Central Asia between ninth and thirteenth centuries is
narrated by a dramatis personae, in most cases Dede Korkut himself. He
praises the Oghuz’s nomadic way of life, their customs and values. However,
the action-centred stories mainly based upon the themes of pursuit, captivity,
escape and revenge, often revolve around two major villains; villains within
society and villains out of society namely, infidels. Even though the principal
enemies of the Oghuz during the eleventh century were Kipchak Turks who
were practising a shamanistic type of religion common among many Turkish,
Tatar and Mongol peoples, by the end of the eleventh century the enemies of
Oghuz are no longer Kipchaks but the Georgians and other Christians settling
along the Black Sea. These infidels fighting against Oghuz Turks had always
been the real enemies of the Oghuz Turks. In this paper, the villain characters
within society and villain characters as infidels and some supernatural
villains will be searched in terms of their degree of villainy.
