Nation-building and Gallipoli: representations in Turkish, Australian and New Zealand literatures

Abstract

The battles of Gallipoli have a significant place in the recent history of Turkey, Australia and New Zealand. The war is considered to be a defining moment in the long process which shaped the development of their national identities. The experience has since been the subject of a large volume of writing ranging from military accounts to academic and popular histories, from personal narratives to works written in literary form. This dissertation focuses on the latter. One objective is to introduce a literary discussion in a field mostly examined from a historical point of view. Another is to bring forth a comparative dimension in the study of a topic generally considered from a single country perspective. This dissertation aims to discuss the literary representations of Gallipoli in these countries with special emphasis on their relation to their respective nation-building efforts. The texts that are dealt with have been selected based on two main criteria. The first concerns their place in the literary history of each country; the second is the time period in which they were composed and published. The study mainly concentrates on a number of examples from the first few decades following the Gallipoli battles; the outcome of the revival which marked the field from the late 1980s onwards has not been included in the discussion. Anthony D. Smith’s notion of the artist as a link between the cognitive dimension of a nationalist project and its expressive end has been taken as the main theoretical framework. The portrayal of the hero is taken here as a thematic strand which constitutes the main axis of comparison between the three cases studied. The characteristics attributed to the soldier on each side are given particular attention. Another theme that provides a ground for comparison is the ways in which the “enemy” are depicted in the works in question.