From Mustafa Necati Sepetçioğlu’s ‘Magical World’ to his Dream of ‘Great Turkey’

Abstract

Legends have an important place in social memory; they reflect the identity and personality of societies. But they differ from historical accounts from cause-effect relationship. The main purpose in legendary explanation is not to hand down supernatural events and to learn lessons and get messages from the life experiences of distinguished persons like dervish, veli, intellectuals and erens. Stories concerning their lives were handed down from generation to generation during the reign of Ottoman Empire occupying a special place in the minds of people, and gaining different variants in the course of time. They were a kind of symbol representing the unity, courage and the consciousness of being a state. Sepetçioğlu regards, organizes and even forms these legends not as a folklore researcher but from a perspective of a story writer.