Transnational Turkic identity in Hilal Görününce by Sevinç Çokum

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between space and transnational Turkic identity in Sevinc Çokum's novel, Hilal Görününce (1984; The Crimean Times, 2015), published in the early 1980s when a deep-rooted social change began in Turkey. This article draws attention to the role of the hinterland of the Ottoman Empire in how the author used distant Turkic communities to construct a Tatar national identity among ethnic Tatars in Turkey, utilizing geography and linguistic, historical, and blood ties. By imagining a community based in both tangible and intangible cultural spaces, the novel nurtures a cultural identity of the Turkic community and highlights the trauma that was created by mass migration from the periphery of the Ottoman Empire to Anatolia. The novel additionally integrates Turkish identity into a broader Turkic identity. I argue that the author makes the sites and spaces in Crimea familiar to a Turkish audience while mirroring transnational Turkish identity.