Altenburg'un Ceviz Ağaçları'ndaki Enver Paşa Gizemine dair

Abstract

Malraux’s last novel published in Switzerland in 1943 when France was under Nazi invasion is a mysterious novel. If we are to believe the author it is the sole remaining section of a larger handwritten manuscript entitled ‘La Lutte avec l’ange’ destroyed by the Nazis. This novel is mysterious for other reasons in terms of the Turkish readers: In the first part of the novel the adventures of the narrator’s father, Vincent Berger from Alsace, are presented and Vincent Berger is introduced as a friend and one of the counselors of Enver Pasha who happens to be one of the most interesting, most disputed figures in late Ottoman history. This part of the novel was translated by Sabahattin Eyübo¤lu in 1965 and published under the title ‘Turan Yolu’. In the preface to the novel he explains that Malraux spent vast efforts to validate whether his father was really Enver Pasha’s counselor. Though his research does not yield any conclusive evidence to the fact, in the preface the narrator and also the protagonist in the novel refers to Vincent Berger as Malraux’s real father. This may make the novel more mysterious than ever in the readers’ eyes. In this study we try to shed some light on the question whether Malraux’s father was Enver Pasha’s counselor and also dwell upon the role of historical and autobiographical features in the novel.