With the Enlightenment period, while continental Europe was walking on the plane of “rationality” and “comparison”, a movement that rebelled against classical literature and glorified "folk literature" emerged in England. This movement, which influenced continental Europe in a short time, rejected the classical period in terms of language and style and took folk poetry as a basis. The founder of this movement, which is the pioneer of Romantic literary movements, is the Scottish-born English poet James Macpherson. In 1760, Macpherson published his book Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected from the Highland of Scotland under the pseudonym Osian. This book leaves deep traces in Europe, especially in Germany, as well as in England. On the basis of his pseudonym, the literary figures influenced by Macpherson founded a school of poetry based on folk literature and folk culture, called Ossianism. In this period when every nation in Europe is looking for its own national soul, Ossianism constitutes a suitable ground especially for societies living under the domination of French culture and in danger of losing their own identity. The Ossianism movement, which started in England and reached Germany with Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, raised its greatest representative who would deeply affect future folklore studies with Johann Gottfried von Herder.

Herder’s systematic studies on folklore in Germany created a scientific infrastructure for folklore. He coined the word volkskunde, as a synonym for “folklore” in 1782, long before William John Thoms. After Herder, the strongest, most influential and most visible name in both German folklore studies and folklore history has been the Brothers Grimm. The Brothers Grimm actually came to the fore as a kind of practitioners of Herder's basic ideas about folklore.

With Herder’s definitions of the national spirit, folklore studies began to walk on two basic planes: the evolution of people and cultures and the investigation of the origin of nations. Folklore studies, which were very influential especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, have been effective all over the world with an approach that affirms the “ummah” to the “nation”, from the “bourgeoisie” to the “worker” in the social and state order.

While these developments were taking place in the name of folklore in Europe, unfortunately, the articles in which the term “folklore” was defined and used as the name of a discipline in the real sense in Türkiye coincide with the years 1913-1914. Some researchers mention that folk literature was not ignored before this date, that there were divan poets and folk poets who wrote poems with syllables containing local and cultural values, and that movements such as Türki-i Basit and Localization were mentioned and placed at the beginning of the history of Turkish folklore. However, this approach is not quite correct. Because these movements are not conscious, but are sensitive to local language and culture with different motivations in the background. Therefore, it is futile to look for the beginning of folklore studies in our country before the Tanzimat Edict of 1839.

The concept of folklore in Türkiye began to find value with Fuad Köprülü's article titled A New Science: Halkiyat “Folk-lore” written in İkdam Newspaper on February 6, 1914. Fuad Köprülü is followed by Ziya Gökalp (Halk Medeniyeti I: The Beginning) and Rıza Tevfik Bölükbaşı (Folklore). Folklore studies in the Republican period, on the other hand, have experienced very important developments in terms of the history of Turkish folklore. Undoubtedly, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of our Republic, has a very important place in this. Folklore studies that started with Ziya Gökalp Fuad Köprülü, Pertev Naili Boratav, Mehmet Tuğrul, İlhan Başgöz, Orhan Acıpayamlı, Şükrü Elçin, Hikmet Tanyu, Hamit Zübeyr Koşay, Ziyaeddin Fahri Fındıkoğlu, Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu, Muhan Bali, Saim Sakaoğlu, Bilge Seyidoğlu, Ali Berat Alptekin, Ensar Aslan, Ahmet Edip Uysal, Ahmet Bican Ercilasun, Mehmet Kaplan, Fikret Türkmen, Dursun Yıldırım, Umay Türkeş Günay, Metin Ekici, Ali Yakıcı, Doğan Kaya, Öcal Oğuz, Özkul Çobanoğlu, Esma Şimşek it has been continued by many folklore researchers such as whose names we cannot mention here.

This book was created by folklore researchers who are devoted to Turkish folklore and have adopted the motto of recording Turkish folk culture and transferring it to future generations. The biggest common denominator of these researchers is to serve Turkish folklore and folk culture without any financial expectations. The first article in the book belongs to Prof. Dr. Fuzuli Bayat. Bayat analyzed the proverbs in Dîvânu Lugâti't-Turk in a triple stage by using the Frame Theory in his article titled Proverbs in Kashgarlı Mahmud’s Kitâbu Dîvânu Lugâti’t-Türk in The Context of Frame Theory. Bayat, also made inferences about how the proverbs in the work of Mahmud of Kashgar reflect the cultural codes of the Turkish society of the period, emphasizing that the proverbs function not only as linguistic but also as social indicators. The second article in the book is Assist. It belongs to Meriç Kurtuluş. In his article titled Reflections of “Yılkılık” Tradition to Turkish Literature, Kurtuluş traced a tradition in Turkish folklore, the tradition of yearling, about which it is not easy to obtain information. In his study, the author refers to the horse herders in Central Asia who take care of yearling horses in herds and generally aim to breed them for the army, and the customs and behavior characteristics of yearling horses. Another issue that Kurtuluş touched upon in his work was horse herding and yearling horses raised in herds in the epics of the Turkic world. In the last part, the author evaluated the information given by the famous writer of the Turkic world, Cengiz Aytmatov, about the tradition of yearling in his novel Elveda Gülsarı. The third part, titled Nasreddin Hodja's Successors in Turkish Cinema, is Lecturer. Written by Asst. Dr. Aydın Göktaş. In his study, Göktaş discussed the life of Nasreddin Hodja reflected in his anecdotes, his world of thought, the actors who reshaped Nasrettin Hodja in modern Turkish cinema and television, and the ways in which he presented Hodja. The fourth chapter in the book is Lecturer with his work titled Prayer and Cursing Practices as a Part of Oral Folk Culture in Amasya. It belongs to Dr. Betül Demirelma. The aforementioned section is very important in terms of recording folklore products in the local sense. In her study, Dr. Betül Demirelma discussed the prayers and curses of Amasya in terms of their meanings and functions. The last chapter in the book belongs to Dr. Miyase Güzel Yanpınar with her study titled Hearth-Based Folk Medicine Practices: The Konya Example. This section, just like the fourth section, was created by recording local information. In her study, Yanpınar examined the traditional treatment sessions and folk physicians who continue to practice in Konya. In addition, the current social and cultural effects of folk medicine practices, which are given as examples in the study, were also investigated.

This book is the work of researchers who want to contribute to Turkish folklore to some extent: Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Türkiye; With the phrase “Culture is the foundation of the Republic of Türkiye”, he underlined how important folk culture is and that it should be recorded and transferred to future generations. The folklore researchers who are included in the book with their studies are also people who have adopted this word of Atatürk as their motto. I sincerely hope that this study will be beneficial to Turkish folklore and that it will be a guide for young researchers

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Haktan KAPLAN

Seljuk/Konya 

25.06.2025