The Place of Tradition in Ziya Gokalp's Perspective of Folk and Folklore Terms

This article includes the findings and reviews on Ziya Gokalp's folk and folklore perspective and the meaning he attributes to the concept of tradition at this point. Ziya Gokalp, who wrote one of the first writings about the scope and definition of folklore in Turkey, can be accepted as one of the founders of Turkish folklore. Gokalp, who gives a special place to the concept of tradition in his scientific and literary works, shaped his perspective of folk and folklore largely on the basis of tradition. By defining folk as the community keeping the traditional culture alive, Gokalp went beyond the prevailing understanding of folk in Europe in his own time. Ziya Gokalp was opposed to the Europeans' perception that folk is a community living in the villages, and he also rejected the Soviet Union's acceptance that folk is a group of people consisting of working class. By claiming that the administrators, poets, philosophers and workers can be considered within the scope of the term of folk, Gokalp have shown that he accepted folk at the level of the nation as an inclusive and holistic term. Ziya Gokalp emphasized the unifying elements between the various communities of society consisting of traditional culture away from the foreign influences. As a result, he drew a broad perspective of Turkish folklore research. We have detected that Ziya Gokalp's understanding of folklore (halkiyat) is based on tradition. He draws attention to the traditionality of the creating and transmission contexts of the folklore products, and he used the term "anane", in other words "tradition" to name these products. As well as the definition and scope of folklore Gokalp has placed priority to the tradition during the collection of folklore products.