THE ECHOES OF FORCED DISPLACEMENT: READING GURBETTEN İNİLTİLER 3 FROM EDWARD SAID’S PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

Mircevat Ahiskali is one of the outstanding and influential external exile authors of Ahiska, Georgia, descent. Through his wide engagement with multiple literary genres, the author plays a crucial role in enriching Ahiska exile literature as a distinct field of literary studies. Ahiskali’s literary works are generally based on real-life events such as the mass exile of Ahiska Turks from Georgia by the Soviet authoritarian and totalitarian regime in 1944 and the Fergana massacres in 1989. Through his fictional characters from the Ahiska Turk community, the author artistically and effectively illustrates the adversities, discrimination, racism, and impediments they encounter within the Soviet Union. In the third volume of his Gurbetten İniltiler series, titled Karış Karış Fergana 3 (2010) , which constitutes the focus of this study, Ahiskali recounts the agony and suffering of the Ahiska Turks during the Fergana pogroms. Through the protagonist Cömert Şakir, the author demonstrates how the Soviet authorities obstructed the efforts of the leaders of the Ahiska Turks as well as the community as a whole. He also illustrates the just struggle of Cömert and his comrades, who seek to secure the right to repatriation and reclaim their rightful entitlements. Furthermore, the author depicts his personal experience of internal, external, and self-imposed exile, which he succeeds in transforming into an enriching experience.The aim of this study is to examine the struggle for repatriation of the protagonist, Cömert Şakir, and the Ahiska Turk community, while also analysing the experience of exile endured by both the individual and the community in the aftermath of the violent events that took place in the Fergana region of Uzbekistan. Furthermore, the study explores how, during his exile in Azerbaijan following prolonged and arduous struggles, the protagonist seeks to enrich Ahiska literature by revealing the oppression inflicted upon both himself and his community to the wider world, aspiring to become a writer and to produce literary works as a form of testimony. Therefore, the study places particular emphasis on Edward Said’s reflections on exile and displacement to interpret how exile provides the protagonist with a distinct and transformative perspective.