The Organic Connection Between Introduction of The Book of Dedem Korkut and The Stories

Abstract

The Book of Dedem Korkut which is one of the most important cultural heritages for Turkish and world literatures arrives today with two copies, one of which is shorter. The Dresden copy has an introduction and twelve stories. The shorter Vatican copy has an introduction and six stories. The introduction is on the pages between 3a (1) - 6b (12) in the Dresden copy and 58b (2) - 60a (13) in the Vatican copy. In the beginning of the introduction, there is a prayer and Korkut Ata / Dede Korkut is introduced. Then, his aphorisms in the presence of the Oguz lords take place. These aphorisms divide into 4 groups, the sentences in the first group end with the addition '-mez', the second group's addition is 'yig', third group's addition is 'bilur' and the fourth group's addition is 'gorklu' and there is always a prayer at the end of every group. The intro ends up with the assessments about the female types. Especially Muallim Rifat from Kilis city (Kilisli Muallim Rifat) and the other researchers think that, the intro has been added into the book later. But, noone knows who has added the intro in the book. In the researches about the book, there is no assessment on a direct connection between intro and the themes in the stories, except the little ascriptions. In this study, the elements in the introduction are shown as the reflections of the stories; the organic connection between intro and the stories is powerful, however the female types in the intro are different from the female types in the stories.