A LOOK AT LUAN STAROVA'S THE PALACE OF DREAMS NOVEL

Abstract

The Ottoman Empire ruled in the Balkans for about 500 years. During the rule, the Balkan countries were significantly influenced by the Turkish and the Islamic culture. Although this effect was welcomed by some literature and historians, some of them provoked the public with their works and caused them to hold grudges against the Ottomans and Turks.
It is very natural that the magnificence of the Ottoman Empire left such a blueprint after its long lasting domination. Apart from politics, changes experienced during the historical development of nations have also had impact on literature. Practically in the literature - which is a product of imagination - the traces of the Ottoman Empire are deeply embedded. Some of the nations living in the Balkans accepted and adopted the facts brought by the Ottomans, while some nations, on the contrary, tried to sow the Ottoman / Turkish hostility by organizing propaganda about the Ottoman Empire and encouraging the people.
In our study, the Turkish image depicted in the novel “Rüyalar Sarayı” (The Palace of Dreams by Ismail Kadare, one of the important representatives of Albanian contemporary literature, is emphasized. As a result of the emergence of a certain ideological entities, herewith are presented the destinies and reflections of the “Turkish image” that emerged amongst the Albanian writers and readers, – though far from the historical truth. It has been seen that we encounter the Turkish image in the novels in the context of “us” and “the other”.
Throughout the analysis and research, it was found that the author portrayed the Ottoman Empire as a monster against the Albanians. The image of ottomans in the novel associates them with backwardness, chaos, war and misery. In the novel, the West is glorified, imagined as developed, free, fair, democratic and prosperous, and according to the author, even the dreams from the West of the country are reflected more beautifully.
As a result of our analysis, it has been determined that Kadare tried to design the “other” nation with fake impressions and identities by conflicting national identities in this work, in order to prove the existence of his own nation in the literary text.