Avis de soutenance - doctorat - Sultan ÇETINKAYA

The Fifteenth Century Ghazavatnames, from Murad II to Bayezid II Ghazavatnames are Ottoman popular epics which narrate the ghazas (wars against Christians). The Arabic maghazis, about the Prophet Muhammad's wars, plaid a great role in the formation of the ghazavatnames. A ghazi warrior is the centre of the ghazavatnames, which we can classify in three groups. Some, about the ghaza of a sultan, constitute a specific genre. Some others deal with vizier's or a commander's ghaza. Lastly, some narrate a single conquest. The ghazavatnames appear in the 15th century; their number rises in the 16th century, and then diminishes. 270 have been listed. This literary genre has not been much studied. Apart from transcriptions in Latin script or linguistic analysis, let's quote A. S. Levent's book, where one finds, after an introduction, a list of known ghazavatnames. My aim was to search by the analysis of these texts answers to simple questions: what are the ghazavatnames? What is their literary genre? Why have they been composed? What was their use and for whose benefit? I had to constitute a corpus. The reading of all the published ghazavanames convinced me that the genre appeared under Murad II (r. 1421-1456) and that a new era began after Bayezid II (1481-1512). I chose to limit myself to this first century. By an analysis of the texts and of their common characteristics, I detected some criteria which seemed valid for defining a 15th century ghazavatmane: it narrates the deeds of one sultan, one bey or the ghazis; it only deals with the ghaza, and not with general history; it uses a simple Turkish language, in an epic form; it is a mesnevi poem (but this criterion can be discussed). Six ghazavatmanes fit to these criteria. I compared the manuscript originals with existing publications in Latin script. I also studied, for comparisons, works of the fetihname genre. I used the historical bibliography with the aim of putting the texts in their historical context. After some general information about the poets and their works, a first chapter deals with terms which are important to understand the ghazavatnames (ghaza, ghazi, jihad, mujahid, etc.), and with their changes till they appear among the Anatolian Turks. A second chapter is about where and when appeared the first ghaza narratives, and then deals with their appearance among the Turkish speaking populations of Anatolia and their impact on the ghazavatnames. Then it tries to understand how and why our six ghazavatnames were written in that precise time. After these informative chapters, two chapters are devoted to analytic studies, comparisons, and comments. Each work is analysed in its historical context. I tried to see how the ghazavatnames relate historical events, if they manipulate them, and if so, why. I proceeded by making an abstract of each of them and then comparing them to contemporaneous historical Ottoman and non-Ottoman chronicles, and with the historians' works. It appears that the aim of a ghazavatname was not to offer a historical narrative, but to glorify the ghaza and the ghazis. Historical events that are not linked to this restricted topic have no place in a ghazavatname; its author may manipulate historical facts, or even invent them. The last chapter first tries to define the genre. While the ghazavatnames are of the artificial epic genre (for such is my conclusion), scholars have mainly worked on natural epics. As the artificial epics were not composed within the people but were written in an artificial way, they attracted few literary interest. It is by a comparison with the natural epics that I tried to define the ghazavatname genre. Some types of heroes can be identified. The hero's life is only described during the time of the ghaza. The place and time of the events are in conformity with the historical facts. Lastly, as the events described are not very ancient, the marvellous is rarely to be found.