From the Aesthetics of Nomadism to the Irony of Displacement: Dede Korkut and Ezel Akay

This study addresses the meaning of migration and nomadism in Turkish culture within a historical, aesthetic, and intellectual continuity, examining the transformation of movement in cultural memory from the past in The Book of Dede Korkut to the present in Ezel Akay’s 2006 film Killing the Shadows [Turkish: Hacivat Karagöz Neden Öldürüldü?]. In the Dede Korkut narratives, migration represents an ideal way of life as part of a moral order in harmony with nature and as the source of freedom, dignity, and solidarity. Nomadism is the balance humans establish with both nature and their own existence. In contrast, migration in Ezel Akay’s film is a state of wandering that has lost its meaning; ideal nomadism has given way to the crisis of identity and despondency of the displaced individual. The concepts of Jan Assmann’s cultural memory, Deleuze and Guattari’s nomadic thought, and Gadamer’s interpretive philosophy form the theoretical basis for analyzing this transformation. These theoretical perspectives reveal migration to not merely be a spatial movement but also a displacement of meaning, identity, and belonging. Thus, the historical phenomenon of migration becomes a cultural, artistic, intellectual, and aesthetic field of interpretation; the transitions between word, space, and memory provide an opportunity to understand the continuity, transformation, and resilience of Turkish culture. In conclusion, the study reveals how migration has evolved from its ideal meaning in the past in the Turkish context to an ironic displacement in the present; nevertheless, this memory continues to live due to the interpretive power of art.