On the first academic critiques of the first Turkish novels

The first examples of the novel genre in Turkish literature are seen in the 19th century. These first examples are written by the authors who only know traditional narration besides poem tradition. Hence these examples which are imitated from French literature tried to find their own reader by remaining in a position between traditional and new. When this period is over, effective discussions on acknowledgement / understanding of the novel as a genre was initiated. The first academic critiques which took place in the early Republic Period described the first novels in the last period of Ottoman as ‘a bad imitation’; ignoring the discussions on “novels” in that period. Moreover, in these critiques the academicians neither give a clear definition of ‘novel’, nor explicitly state what the deficiencies are in these first examples. As we understood from the context of these critiques an academic mistake is made by making comparisons of the first Turkish novel examples to the most successful examples of French novel which are developed lately even in French literature. In this research examples from Ottoman authors’ views and the novel discussions in this period will be given in order to show the relevant academic interpretations aim to degrade these novels