Abstract
Since the emergence of humanity, symbolic communication has been considered a creative language that has attracted the attention of many different disciplines. Due to the indifference of culture, the phenomenon of folk tales and legends claims that there is more space in literature. The purpose of this study is to create a knowledge base for spatial and cultural memory and to define the cultural heritage of Anatolia, which has hosted many civilizations, through historical periods. This study, which will contribute to a better understanding of the causes of cultural memory in terms of transferring stories for generations, aims to explain the relationship between space and cultural memory through Anatolian legends. For this reason, the study will explain folk tales with a semantic approach in terms of symbols and values. Within the scope of Anatolian legends, the codes and secrets of myths, fairy tales, and legends will be explained using qualitative research method and document analysis technique, and the relationship between space and cultural memory will be examined.
TopMyths, Tales And Symbols As A Reflection Of The Culture Of Fear
There is a close relationship between myth and fairy tale throughout the history. In other words, throughout the history, myths feed on fairy tales and legends, leading to the formation of social life on the basis of a mystical world. Moreover, the myths, which base social events on a mystical world law, are identified with nature by attributing tasks with divine and sacred events, although there is no physical connection in the interaction of communities (Tekin, 2019: p. 125). In addition to that, myths, which are attributed as divine and sacred, help reinforce communities' historical past and oriental loyalties, feeding on tales and folk tales (that is to say oral history). In oral culture, people saw threats such as thunder, lightning, fire, sickness, and death as a threat from supernatural forces, and they tried to attribute a meaning to the fears created by the events they could not explain by attributing divine and sacred meanings to these events through legends and myths. Thus, people defined the element of fear by naming and attributing meaning to the uncertainties that aroused them anxiety and the events they could not explain.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Myths: Derived from the Greek mythos (meaning-story) word, the concept of myth can be described as a popular belief in popular use, stereotyped or romanticized. a culture-specific allegorical fairy tale or fable that describes a natural, supernatural, or sociocultural phenomenon that has a sacred status in traditional societies. In addition, all kinds of common narratives that encode cultural norms and serve to maintain social cohesion.
Memory: In psychology, memory is defined as the ability of an organism to store, store and recall information. The first studies on memory were made in the field of philosophy and mostly focused on memory development techniques. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the issue of memory was mostly addressed in the paradigm of cognitive psychology. In recent years, it has become one of the major branches of perceptual-neurological sciences, a branch of science associated with perception psychology and neurological sciences.
Cultural Memory: Cultural memory, as defined by the German cultural scientist Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann, is a tradition of people who have come to the culture and live in the culture and the age that has been repeated and reproduced for centuries and centuries. Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann distinguish this concept from other memory forms in two basic points. The first of these is the daily memory, which they call the communicative (das kommunikative) and which does not contain any cultural reflections, while the second is the scientific approach, which does not contribute to the formation of a cultural collective identity. Maurice Halbwachs also examines the scientific approach mentioned here in two sub-categories: histoire and memory (mémoire).
Memory Space: Space stands out as a tool in revealing and preserving the collective memory of societies. If we think in reverse, the space itself can be the creator and protector of the collective memory of society.
Ars Memoriae: One product that represents the era of spatial stability as a source of its capacity to remember is ars memoria, the art of remembering. The art of remembrance, which is regarded as an important thinking practice until the seventeenth century, is based on the harmonious coexistence of elements such as a consistent space, a person acting in space, and a straight line time during which this movement takes place. It is a method of placing the desires to be kept in mind as images symbolizing them in an imaginary space created in the mind.
Legends: The most widely accepted definition of the legend, which is a type of oral literary tradition created in an oral cultural environment, is “a story told by believing that it is true about a real or imaginary person, incident or place”. The systematic description of the three main elements in this short and concise definition is as follows: 1) The legend is appropriate within the concept of the narrator's historical time. a) The legend is combined with a certain historical (real or imaginary) event. b) The legend is combined with a particular person, that is, a historical (real or imaginary) personality called a name. 2) The legend is in accordance with the concept of the narrator's geographical area; that is, it is combined with a certain place; 3) The legend is a story believed to be true. Though he works with supernatural incidents, but he is believed to be true by his narrators. It is respected as if it belongs to the world in which the narrator and the listener live. It is among the most basic features of legends that these elements are combined with a certain “historical” event and person and combined with a “specific geographical” place.
Folk Tales: It is a type of long-term expression in which real or lifelike events are told. They are stories that have traditional content, which are passed down from generation to generation. It usually deals with love and heroism.