The Negative Perception of the Bektashi and the Kizilbash/Alevis in Literature from Nur Baba to Bektasi Kiz (1913-1945)

The Kizilbash/Alevi and Bektashi have been subject to various negative criticisms due to their beliefs outside Sunnism, the official belief system since the sixteenth century. It has been seen that the members of the two groups, whose social bases and beliefs mostly overlap, have faced several accusations because of their exclusive rituals. On that sense, this case came to be a subject matter in Ottoman official documents as well as in the texts written by the Westerners who were active in Ottoman territories. Sexual ones are foregrounded among the accusations that they were subject to owing to this exclusive structure of the Bektashi and the Kizilbash/Alevi communities. This perception of the communities in question came to be a mystery in accord with doubts put into circulation by Sunni communities especially. The growing interest of the society in this mystery were to be a subject matter of both the Ottoman literature and the literature of the Republic. Nur Baba penned by Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu in serials in 1913 and published into a book in 1922 was the first work upon this subject. The repercussions Nur Baba had and its content became an inspiration to following works by others. The opposition to the Bektashi and the Kizilbash/Alevi was employed in common and distinct works by Omer Seyfeddin, Peyami Safa (Server Becli) and Niyazi Ahmet Banoglu in the following years. This paper intends to chronologically study and analyse the portrayal of the Kizilbash/Alevi and the Bektashi in relation to the continuation of the negative perception in literature, starting with Nur Baba, , in Harem, Pamuk Ipligi and Bir Genc Kiz Bektasiler Arasinda and Bektasi Kiz, from the late Ottoman period to the midst of the Republic period except for Sadri Ertem's cikriklar Durunca novel.