The use of a novel as a source for the study of Turkish-Japanese relations: Shiba Shiro's Kajin no Kigu (Change Meeting with Beautiful Women)

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the Turkish-Japanese relations in the Meiji period through the frame provided by the political best-seller novel Kajin no Kigu which was written by Shiba Shiro (1852-1922) between the years 1885-1897. While doing this issue related to the usability of a literary works as historical sources will also be addressed. In the first chapter of the syudy, "The Late Tokugawa and Early Meiji Political, Cultural and Literary History", the political, social and cultural events that Shiba Shiro experienced and that prepared the era in which Kajin no Kigu was written are cited. The basic characteristic of the transition between the Tokugawa era and the Meiji era are explained in the chapter as well. Moreover, the effects of the transition era on the mantality and ideas of the Japanese society are also analyzed in that chapter. In the following chapter, "The Life of the Writer and the History of the Novel" the innovations and differences the author went through and the reflections of these changes are explained. "The Concept of Pariotism in the Novel and Transformation of Patriotism into Imperialism" describes change the concept of patriotism goes through in the novel due to the changes in the author's life and the political events of the era. The analysis of the relations among Shiba Shiro, Kajin no Kigu and the Ottoman world is carried out in the following three chapters. In the chapter titled "Shiba Shiro's Travel to Turkey in Ottoman Documants", events such as the author's Istanbul visit and Osman Paşa meetings are described and the reflection of the events in question in the Ottoman sources are analyzed. In "Tani Tateki Iko; Visit to Turkey" chapter, Tani Tateki's journal, is compared with Kajin no Kigu and the other sources. Finally, in the chapter titled, "Meetings of Urabi Paşa and Osman Paşa in Kajin no Kigu" the events which are cited in the two chapters mentioned above and which are based on Ottoman sources and Tani's journal are compared with the events cited in the novel.