Displacement and Liminality in Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières

Yıl 2024, , 271 - 280, 22.06.2024

Neslihan Günaydın Albay

https://doi.org/10.53487/atasobed.1416757

Öz

Penned in 2004 by Louis de Bernières and articulated through the viewpoints of diverse characters, Birds Without Wings illuminates the harrowing scenes of war and their impact on local inhabitants and migrants during the formative years of the new Turkish Republic. Examining the reverberations of the national struggle in the international context, this paper specifically investigates the repercussions of the population exchange between Greece and the emerging Turkish state in 1923, focusing on a South-West Anatolian village (Eskibahçe) in a tumultuous historical era, which is the central issue in Birds Without Wings. Employing polyphony, that is, a muti-voiced narrative style with Bakhtin’s terminology about the novels with a variety of perspectives and narrators, the novel explores themes such as war, love, forced migration, and identity. The plot unfolds against the backdrop of a multicultural late Ottoman Empire, where Turkish-speaking Christian villagers and Greek Orthodox migrants initially coexist harmoniously but later face social isolation and loneliness after being exiled to Greece. Therefore, this paper aims to underscore individual and social isolation resulting from the devastating impact of wars on the idyllic lives of villagers in Birds Without Wings, drawing on Homi K. Bhabha’s third space theory. Another objective of this study is to demonstrate that Birds Without Wings celebrates hybridity and ethnic diversity by reevaluating the forced migration between Greece and Turkey, prompting reflection on the villagers’ attempts to redefine their identities after the Turkish Republic’s establishment and an analysis of its long-term implications.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Liminality, displacement, Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings, third space

Displacement and Liminality in a Third Space: Collapse of Hybrid Society in Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières

Öz

Penned in 2004 by Louis de Bernières and articulated through the viewpoints of diverse characters, Birds Without Wings illuminates the harrowing scenes of war and their impact on local inhabitants and migrants during the formative years of the new Turkish Republic. Delving into the national struggle, the novel specifically examines the repercussions of the population exchange between Greece and the emerging Turkish state in 1923, focusing on a South-West Anatolian village (Eskibahçe) in a tumultuous historical era. Employing a polyphonic approach, the narrative explores themes such as war, love, forced migration, and identity. The story unfolds against the backdrop of a multicultural late Ottoman Empire, where Turkish-speaking Christian villagers and Greek Orthodox migrants initially coexist harmoniously but later face social isolation and loneliness after being exiled to Greece. Meanwhile, Muslim villagers yearn for the lost harmony with other cultural and ethnic inhabitants, experiencing a sense of loneliness, helplessness, and economic/spiritual deprivation in the partially deserted and decaying village. The residents of Eskibahçe, who once achieved social cohesion and a hybrid identity through centuries of cohabitation, grapple with the absence of a third space in the national discourse. They must forge a new identity, necessitating a renewed form of hybridity. Woven into the narrative is the biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, emphasizing his pivotal role in shaping the new Turkish state. Birds Without Wings aims to underscore individual and social isolation resulting from the devastating impact of wars on the idyllic lives of villagers, drawing on Homi K. Bhabha’s third space theory. Additionally, the novel celebrates hybridity and ethnic diversity by reevaluating the forced migration between Greece and Turkey, prompting reflection on the villagers’ attempts to redefine their identities after the Turkish Republic’s establishment and an analysis of its long-term implications.

Anahtar Kelimeler

liminality, displacement, Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings

Destekleyen Kurum

Doğuş Universitesi

Teşekkür

İlgi ve desteğiniz için teşekkür ederim, umarım en yakın zamanda yayınlanır.

Kaynakça

• Arı, K. (2017). Manoli’nin Gözyaşları, Mübadele Öyküleri.
• Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso.
• Bedlek, E. Y. (2015). Imagined Communities in Greece and Turkey: Trauma and the Population Exchanges Under Atatürk. IB Tauris.
• Bernières, L. D. (2014). Birds Without Wings. Vintage.
• Bernières, L. D. (2022). Kanatsız Kuşlar. Altın Kitaplar.
• Bhabha, H. K. (1994). ‘Anxious Nations, Nervous States’, in J. Copjec (ed.), Supposing the Subject. Verso.
• Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The Location of Culture. Routledge, p. 12.
• Homi, B. (1990). “The Third Space: Interview with Homi Bhabha,” in Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, ed. Jonathan Rutherford, Lawrence & Wishart, p. 211. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 37-39.
• Bhabha, H. K. (1992). ‘The World and the Home’, Social Text Third World and Post-Colonial Issues 32, 141.
• Cleveland, W. L. (1994). A History of Modern Middle East, Westview Press, p.43.
• Fludernik, M. (1998). “Introduction” to Hybridity and Postcolonialism: Twentieth- Century Indian Literature, ed. Fludernik. Stauffenburg, p.13.
• Golban, T. (2015). ‘The Apocalypse Myth in Louis de Bernières’ novel Birds Without Wings: –Rustem Bey and an Individual Apocalyptic Experience in the Kierkegaardian Frame’, Analele Universităţii Ovidius din Constanţa. Seria Filologie 1, p. 46. Hirschon, R. (2009). “Unmixing Peoples’ in the Aegean Region”, Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey. Vol. 12.
• Hobsbawm, E.J. (1992). Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge University Press. Karakoyunlu, Y. (2012). Mor Kaftanlı Selanik, Doğan Kitap.
• Kristeva, J. (1991). Strangers to Ourselves, Columbia University Press.
• Laing, R. D. (1990). The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness, Penguin Books.
• Macmillan, C. (2021). “Narrating the Nation? National Identity and the Uncanny in De Bernieres’ Birds Without Wings”, Literature & History, Vol. 30(2) 155–174.
• Moustakas, C. (1961). Loneliness. Prentice-Hall.
• Nairn, T. (1977). The Break-up of Britain. New Left Books.
• Royle, N. (2003). The Uncanny. Manchester University Press.
• Said, E. (2000). Out of Place: A Memoir. Alfred A. Knopf.
• Sotiriyu, D. (2014). Benden Selam Söyle Anadolu’ya, Can Publisher.
• Sotiriyu, D. (2017). İ nekri perimenun. Kedros.
• Sotiriyu, D. (2017). Matomena homata. Kedros.
• Tan, C. (2013) Hasret, Doğan Kitap.
• Tillich, P. (1980). Loneliness and solitude. In J. Hartog, R. E. Audy, & Y. Cohen (Eds.), The anatomy of loneliness (pp. 547–553). NY: International Universities Press.
• Weiss, R. (1973). Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation. The MIT Press.
• Wood, L. A. (1986). Loneliness. In R. Harre (Ed.), ´ The social construction of emotions (pp. 184–209). NY: Basil Blackwell.