Tradition and Identity Construction in Cengiz Aytmatov's Novel "The White Ship"

Aytmatov is one of the most important novelists of the Turkic world, who managed to express the story of the Kyrgyz in all its aspects but implicitly during the Soviet Russia period. In an environment where writing, especially as a Turkic novelist under the yoke of the Soviet administration, voicing national/traditional values, bears a heavy price to pay, Aytmatov has undertaken a difficult task. He instilled in the Kyrgyz people, who lived in a colonial state, the consciousness of being a nation through national romance, and thus made them realize their "self". In this sense, the works of Cengiz Aytmatov have an irreplaceable value not only for the Kyrgyz but also for all Turkic. The dominant theme that affects almost all of these works is the theme of being able to re-create oneself despite all the negativities, embracing the future by embracing the revitalizing power of tradition and establishing a national identity in the face of "mankurtism". Aytmatov, who built his works by benefiting from the accumulation of tradition, thus wants to give a historical message to the nation he belongs to. This message includes the meaning that an imagination of the future will be created by being inspired by the past. In this study, the possibilities of constructing an identity based on the fairy tale, which is one of the carrier elements of the tradition in the author's novel “The White Ship”, were emphasized.