IMPRESSIONIST INDICATORS OF EVERYDAY LIFE IN 19th CENTURY ISTANBUL IN ARABA SEVDASI

Authors : Esra Sazyek

Pages : 332-346

Doi:10.59257/turkbilig.1668440

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Publication Date : 2025-12-30

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :This article analyzes the novel Araba Sevdası (The Carriage Affair; 1897) by Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem, an important figure of 19th century Ottoman-Turkish literature, in the context of impressionism. Because The Carriage Affair centers on an Ottoman youth infatuated with the West, it is often interpreted through the clichéd dichotomies of East–West or tradition–modernity. However, a closer reading of the novel reveals that it reflects the everyday life of late Ottoman Istanbul through an impressionist aesthetic. In this context, the protagonist Bihruz Bey emerges not merely as a caricature of Western obsession but as a representative of a sociocultural transitional space shaped by class-based desires, conspicuous consumption habits, and the dynamics of modern urban life. Described as the turning point of the transition from romanticism to realism in Ottoman-Turkish literature, The Carriage Affair is a novel that is agreed to be realist in terms of form and style, but one cannot decide whether it is romantic or realist in terms of content. In this article, which evaluates The Carriage Affair as an “impressionist” novel outside the realist-romantic context in which it is commonly positioned, it is argued that Recaizade Ekrem depicts the sociocultural life of Istanbul, which changed and transformed under the influence of France in the second half of the 19th century, in a manner similar to the impressionist painters\\\' canvases with disintegrating contours and tries to present “blurred and moving pictures” of everyday life.
Keywords : Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem, Araba Sevdası, İstanbul, Paris, modernleşme, izlenimcilik

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