Basak Yuce- ESPEA Paper

Mass Media Criticism in the Novels of Halid Ziya Usakligil and Machado de Assis

Cultural globalization was instigated by the communication revolution that started

to take pace thanks to the technological innovations of Industrial Revolution. The
changes in the way and the speed that news, ideas and cultural production circulate
started to have a shaping influence on the societies in a global scale especially in the
second half of the 19th century. In this framework, my research focuses on the peripheral
adaptation/influence of communication revolution and seeks to question if a comparative
reading through fiction and non-fiction of the periphery can provide alternative results
about the circulation and globalization of the cultural production. To demonstrate the
global influence of communication revolution on belles-lettres, I will suggest a
comparative reading of two fin de siècle journalist-authors from Brazil and Turkey.
My project aims to demonstrate the parallelism of centre’s influence on periphery,
in this case the European influence on Brazil and Turkey. Machado de Assis, known as
the most prominent Brazilian writer of the 19th century who wrote both fiction and
journalistic pieces and Turkish writer Halid Ziya Usakligil who also wrote journalistic
pieces are my focus of comparative analysis. What is worth underlining about both
authors’ importance in a comparative perspective is that they also thematize in their
fictions the changes in the print media at the end of the 19 century. In this context, I
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argue that the portrayal of the emerging media in Brazil and Turkey in these writers’
works can also be read as a criticism of the commercialization of newspapers in general
and the influence of this shift on these two societies, which can also be interpreted as the
criticism of capitalism circulated to the periphery through communication revolution.
Machado de Assis, especially in his novels Quincas Borbas, Esau and Jacob and
Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas criticizes the commercialization of the news, the
quality of the journalistic activity and the changing news content by also referring to the
newspapers coming from Europe. For instance his portrayal of the importance of
newspapers and also his latent criticism can be seen in the conversation between Dona
Cláudia and Batista in Esau and Jacob, “‘I can start a newspaper.’‘Forget newspapers
and if you die?’ ‘I’ll die in a position of honor.’ (100).”
Machado de Assis also criticizes the patronage in the commercial newspapers
when he discusses the commodification of the newspapers through the character Rubaio
in Quincas Borbas who also writes for the papers: “Rubiao was generous patron of
letters. (...) He subscribed to newspapers without reading them. One day, when he was
paying the bill for one, he discovered from the collector that it supported the government
party. He told the collector to go the evil (194).” The references to the
internationalization of the newspapers is also a part of Machado’s media portrayal in
Quincas Borbas, Rubaio reads passionately about the Franco-Prussian war from a
Portuguese paper, “He would buy the Correspondencia de Portugal and read it right
there under the street light” (218) whereas the ladies in the novel follows Feuillet’s novel
in Revue des Deux Mondes (224) and Carlos Maria who is returning from Europe reads
an English magazine attentively (240). Just like Machado’s references to the European
newspapers’ reception in his native Brazil, Halid Ziya of Turkey also refers to the ideas
circulated through international newspapers that shape the new Turkish intellectual
during the transition period of the country to the Republican Regime.
Halid Ziya Usakligil (1867-1945) is known as the writer of the first modern
novels in Turkish, Ask-ı Memnu (Forbidden Love) and Mai ve Siyah (Blue and Black).
The latter, which was serialized in the journal Servet-i Funun (Scientific Wealth) is his
fourth novel. Halid Ziya, founded a newspaper in İzmir named Hizmet (Service) during
the first years of his writing career and he started to serialize his chronicles and novels in
this weekly newspaper. After moving to İstanbul and took part in the literary movement
of New Literature, he continued to write for the journal Servet-i Funun and also
published his works in this journal. Halid Ziya published a number of literary and cultural
criticism and chronicles and was defined as one of the most influential public
intellectuals preparing the ground for Westernization of the country both with his non-
fiction and fiction. He was also the writer of the first French Literature Anthology
published in Turkish as well as the first Spanish Literature, German Literature, and Greek
Literature Anthologies. He was also a prolific translator especially from French literature
just like Machado de Assis.
In his non-fiction and fiction, Halid Ziya, thematizes the intersection between
literature and mass media as it is represented in his novel Mai ve Siyah (Blue and Black)
that can be read as the criticism of the new mass media in the country but in the broader
context in terms of the country’s passage to capitalism. Mai Ve Siyah portrays the
transition the country was experiencing in the social, political, cultural and economical
fields focusing on a romantic poet-journalist protagonist, Ahmet Cemil. Although the
novel thematizes an unfinished love, Blue and Black shows the emerging of the Turkish
intellectual. Even from the very first page of the novel, media criticism becomes a theme:
ʺ″One day, the owner of the newspaper Mirat-ı Şuun (The Mirror of the
Events) enters the publishing house with a glimmering joy in his face and
says Ali Sekip who was scribbling with bold letters the last words of his
article about National Arts that has been published in the last four issues
of the newspaper: ‘The day after tomorrow, Mirat-ı Şuun is celebrating the
its tenth publication anniversary’″ (2).
Halid Ziya, just like Machado does, criticizes the inability of the journalists and gives his
readers an insight of the new commercial newsroom. In this context, a wannabe poet
character Raci, who edits the news stories without having any knowledge about the
contents and with no educational background reminds the reader the characters in
Machado’s Quincas Borbas as well as in a broader perspective American writer Mark
Twain’s satirical short stories about journalism as a profession in the second half of the
19th century in the US.
The novel also introduces the job definitions in this new newsroom, the editor, the
correspondent, the redactor and the publisher which were then newly defined professions
as a result of the communication revolution. With the depiction of the newsroom, the
reader is also informed about the sources of information for the new emerging press and
also foreign news being continuously translated from French to fill the pages of the new
commercial newspaper (33). Not only newspapers but also literary journals and their
changing characteristics with the new mass media are also touched upon in the novel. For
instance, the publisher mentions that a literary journal titled Gencine-i Edep, (Literature
of the Youth) is sold 2000 copies and it is defined as a very important success of the new
mass media (15). In Mai ve Siyah, there is a continuous reference to the low wages in the
media sector, which also influence the quality of the papers and the people working in the
sector. On the other hand, despite the low wages it can be concluded from the novel that
journalism was a prestigious profession during that era and the protagonist was also
influenced by the possible fame and monetary success he could find in the sector as a
successful publisher. Ahmet Cemil, who was depicted as a romantic poet, starts to dream
about being powerful in the street (famous Bab-ı Ali Street, known as the center of press
and publishing houses in İstanbul) as a publisher or the owner of a newspaper and make
money (40). At the same time, the reader can follow the influence of Ahmet Cemil’s
readings from French literature on his thoughts, making him an oscillating figure between
symbolist poetry and the real life in the new capitalist Bab-ı Ali, between the dreams of
being a well-known poet and being a money maker publisher influential in the sector.

He asks his mother: ʺ″You would be proud of your son when you see him as the
owner of a publishing house or the manager of a newspaper, right mom?ʺ″(88) The dream
of a rich life as a publisher leads the protagonist to chase success in the sector and he
devotes all his energy and time to the newspaper, managing its content and form at the
same time. The novel ends with the death of Ahmet Cemil’s sister, portraying Ahmet
Cemil as the loser and the victim of the new capitalist system. It also demonstrates what
Nergis Erturk underlines in her Grammatology and Literary Modernity in Turkey as a
general characteristic of the period, ʺthe peripheral integration of Ottoman Empire into
the capitalist world system″ (Erturk, 5). In this peripheral integration, mass media turns
out to be a big machine crushing the protagonist Ahmet Cemil at the end of the novel.

In this context, my project demonstrates the parallelism between these two

writers, Machade de Assis and Halid Ziya Usakligil coming from Europe’s periphery in
the second half of the 19 century and also whose cultural production (both their fiction
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and nonfiction as well as their translations) is under the European influence. Machado de
Assis and Halid Ziya who can also be regarded as the public intellectuals of their
countries demonstrate and criticize their countries’ passage to capitalism with a
criticizing stance to the new mass media.