Reminiscences are kinds of scripts in which a person describes their own life, the events seen and heard in their own time and they refer to the unforgettable and memorable events which have left a mark on their personality. “Reminiscences” were written for the purpose of re-living the past, saving memories from being lost, giving permanence to a reality that we cannot dare to lose and drawing conclusions from the past and presenting these to future generations. Reminiscences, for example texts such as Vekâyiî, SergüzeÅŸt, Seyahatname and Sefaretname, are autobiographical texts in which true events are explained and are among the oldest written texts in existence. Among the oldest examples of reminiscences are Gaius Julius Caesar’s 7-book report of the Gallia War, Babür Åžah’s Babür-name and Göktürk inscriptions written in 8th Century.
J. J. Rousseau’s ‘Confessions’ and Goethe’s ‘Poetry and Truths’ in the 18th Century, Victor Hugo’s ‘Things seen: Choses Vues’ and Stendhal’s ‘Memories of an Egoist’ in the 19th century are examples of reminiscences as a widespread literary genre in the West. In the time of the Ottoman Empire, works started to be composed in the reminiscences genre with Tanzimat. From this period, Ali Suavi and Ebüzziya should be foremost memorialized. Namik Kemal, Ahmet Mithat Efendi and Ziya PaÅŸa are among other notable personages to be commemorated in the Ottoman era. In the Turkish Republic period, Halit Ziya UÅŸaklıgil, Falih Rıfkı Atay, Yakup Kadri KaraosmanoÄŸlu, Halide Edip Adıvar, Kazım Karabekir, Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Celal Bayar, Samet AÄŸaoÄŸlu and Aydın Menderes are the main writers who composed works in the reminiscences genre of Turkish Literature
The language, experiences, views of events, evaluations and perceptions of reminiscences are personal. It presents the period described from its own perspective and subjective evaluations. The author of reminiscences looks at the incidents of that period from the subjective, inner and emotional perspective rather than an objective one. It describes the events, details, and experiences etc. within this framework. The author of reminiscences tries to explain their impressions, feelings and interpretations coming from their past with literary language. Reminiscences do not only share things which have left a mark on a person's life. Reminiscences are the most important witnesses of the transfer of knowledge between generations. This requires reminiscences to be evaluated from a broader perspective. It is possible to discover historical and intellectual continuity between periods as Reminiscences present the differences and similarities in ideological structure, political understanding and perspectives on life, namely the links between two consecutive periods.
Reminiscences are the personal histories of socially prominent people who have written information concerning their time. In this respect, reminiscences are important historical sources. Furthermore, reminiscences allow the characteristics of a period to be better understood and also allow the witnessing of political, economic, social and religious transitions, in short all aspects of a society, between periods. By revealing the semantics of the word ‘reminiscences’ from the time of the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, this symposium will generate data which will provide the basis for scientific research by collecting data with respect to the continuity of the Ottoman and Republic periods in Turkish history. A corpus of scientific knowledge about reminiscences on the basis of interdisciplinary cooperation will be generated and presented to the science world. Data presented in the symposium will be evaluated scientifically and published after the symposium.
The theme of this symposium is reminiscences from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic. The aims of the symposium are to present the links between the two eras through the reading of reminiscences and to reveal the impacts and reflections of the period on the witnesses from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey, in this way, to trace human, intellectual and ideological continuity from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic. It is expected that the symposium will reveal the mind map of the two eras, examine the relationships among relatives of the period, help reminiscences to be used to study the diplomacy of the period, emphasize the importance of documents and other sources which will increase the resource value of reminiscences and to discuss the importance of the resource value of reminiscences.
