İlhan Başgöz’ün Biografik Türk Halk Hikâyeleri Unvanlı Doktora Tezi Üzerine
Upon İlhan Başgöz’s Dissertation Titled Turkish Biographic Folktales

Summary/Abstract: İlhan Başgöz belongs to the second generation of the Turkish folklore studies. Though the supervisor Pertev Naili Boratav didn’t read the final version and couldn’t attend the jury by reason of his classes were suspended indefinitely, the dissertation, finished in 1949, was the second doctoral thesis completed in Turkey. For the reasons that it was one of the first dissertation and was about a topic not studied previously, it has a significant place in the history of Turkish folklore studies. Nevertheless, the work has not been published. Başgöz composed his dissertation in four parts. Totally, fifty-three texts were studied, twenty-two of which had never been published in any way. He considered the melodious folk tales as an international genre, and thought that Turkish folktales might shed light on some of the issues of world folklore. Thus, as early as his dissertation work, it is understood that his approach was not just to untangle the issues in the field of Turcology. In his study, it was assumed that the basic processes seen in the lives of minstrels were also present in the minstrels that who were not known much about, and then the connections between the lives of old minstrels and biographic folktales were examined using comparison method. In this regard, it is clear that Başgöz noticed the initial data about how the audience and the setting cause changes in story texts. Also, digression was another topic that called his attention during his doctoral studies. In this article, Başgöz’s thesis, preserved in the Library of Ankara University, Faculty of Languages, History and Geography, and the material contained in his thesis were introduced to today’s researchers and then was analyzed with a “hermeneutic” approach in terms of the story texts he used, his approach, his application of ethical rules and their effects. As a result, Başgöz’s thesis preserves its value today in respect of the oral sources he used. However, it doesn’t seem possible today that the applicability of “historical construction” approach, which constitutes the general point of view of his thesis and generalizability of particular examples.

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