Perception of Gypsiness in the Children's Books and İmage of Gypsy Child

Abstract

Gypsies are one of the most studied ethnic groups in Turkey. Gypsies who frequently become subject material of sociologic and anthropologic researches are also important part of social diversity and literature. Gypsies are mostly shown in a life which is reigned by an alienated and empowered sub-culture, in line with the data gained from sociologic studies. Literary studies about Gypsies, with the influence of popular culture and romantic point of view, focused on adult main characters who are represented as people engaged in love affairs and entertainment, and thus ignored child characters. However, children, who are one of the main research materials of subaltern studies with women, turn out to be a group even more victimized than adults, in the context of Gypsies who are already overwhelmed by social discrimination. Total disdain of the society, together with the inferiority complex taught by the uneducated adults, makes aforementioned victimization even deeper for the Gypsy children. This is the common point of the image formed by Gypsy children found in the books examined in this article. In this context, this article aims to focus on the reproduction of the victimization language Gypsy children learn from adults in their relations both with their parents, Gypsy/non-Gypsy peers, and elders, and the way they perceive Gypsiness and being Gypsy children. It is also of great significance to understand the representation of Gypsy children by comparing the Gypsy children and the non-Gypsy children characters in the children’s books. In this article, common and different points in regards with image of gypsiness and gypsy child in Şevket Bilgisel’s Çingene Serdar (Gypsy Commander, 1948), Hasan Kıyafet’s Çingene Çocuğu (Gypsy Child, 1975) and Kemalettin Tuğcu’s Çingene Kızı (Gypsy Girl, 1991), three children’s books with child protagonists, have been studied.