The Female Readership in Ömer Seyfettin’s “Bahar ve Kelebekler” Story

According to Ömer Seyfettin, Turkism must realize radical changes in all parts of life from political and social life, to writing and reading practices; and nationalism must be its main target. He purports the authorship of books whose language is close to colloquial dealing with issues about the modernization of the nation. Writing in this fashion meant that he would be able to explain to a much wider audience his ideal modernization project and to propose solutions to the problems he finds unsystematically dealt with in society. According to his opinion, authors must write new literary works different from the influence of Eastern literature whose language and content are no longer useful to society and should eradicate works imitating Western literature. Moreover, Ömer Seyfettin calls for change in reading practices for his envisaged new, ideal society. According to him, literary works should be read in a language understood by the general public, with content appropriate to national taste and education, addressing the problems brought by the age, and seeking solutions to social problems. Thinking that such works have yet to reach a sufficient level, in 1911 he writes a story, “Bahar ve Kelebekler” which is an example of the new language, the new literature he advocated. In his story, he also evaluates the new place women should have in his ideal modern society associating them with readership. In this context, this article focuses on how Ömer Seyfettin, in this story, defined what “correct work” means and how important “correct reading” is for the new generation women who expanded their mental horizons and realized the possibility of other life styles in the ever transforming, though the modernization reforms, Ottoman Empire.