Studia Litterarum

Alfina  T.  Sibgatullina,  DSc  in  Philology,  Professor,  Senior  Alfina  T.  Sibgatullina,  DSc  in  Philology,  Professor,  Senior    Researcher, А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of Russian Academy of Sciences

This  article  analyzes  the  search  for  the  national  and  confessional  identity  of  Tatar  This  article  analyzes  the  search  for  the  national  and  confessional  identity  of  Tatar    and Turkish writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and identifies similarities    and differences in their understanding of Westernization and modernization. The com  patibility of the Muslim East with the Christian West became an acute problem for the    ummah that realized the need for progressive changes in the society. Tatar and Turkish   literature openly criticized one-sidedness and infatuation with external signs of West  ernization and borrowing of the European way of life that was called lafranga, which was    opposed to the traditional way of life laturca. In literature, this confrontation was reflect  ed in the conflict between the “old” and the “new” generations. Describing the achievements of the Western culture, writers had to take into account the realities, morals and   values of their society, the role of religion and traditions, the ethics and obligations of    men and women in everyday life. Therefore, the authors of novels and stories created    images,  events  and  spaces  that  reflected  the  ethics  and  values  of  their  society,  where   relations between men and women had a very different format than in the West. Incom  pleteness of modernization process and only partial “Europeanisation” of the Muslim    society gave rise to a special type of people who found themselves between two fires  —   between the Eastern and Western cultural values  — and who eventually became neither    a European nor an Asian.

2       Ganieva P.K. Ishaki Gajaz .  Tatarskaja jenciklopedija [Tatar encyclopedia],  ed. M.H. Hasanov. Kazan, 2005, vol. 2, p. 629. (In Russ.) 

3       Gasprinskij Ismail. Francuzskie pis’ma [French letters]. Simferopol’, “Dolja” Publ.,  2009. Available at: http://www.kitaphane.crimea.ua/ru/roman-«frantsuzskie-pisma». html (Accessed 12 January  2017). (In Russ.) 

4       Oldzhaj Tjurkan. Ol’ga Sergeevna Lebedeva i ee vklad v russko-tureckie literaturnye svjazi   [Olga Lebedeva and her contribution to the Russian–Turkish literary ties] Available  at: http://psyjournals.ru/files/32866/philology_2010_1_Oldzhay.pdf (Accessed  12 January  2017). (In Russ.) 

5       Ceran Dilek. Mürebbiyelik Ve Türk Romaninda  Bazi Mürebbiye Tipleri. Available at:  http://www.turkiyat.selcuk.edu.tr/pdfdergi/s12/ceran.pdf (Accessed 12 January   2017). (In Turkish)