VİRAN DAGLAR ROMANI UYARLAMASI LE DERNIER SEIGNEUR DES BALKANS ADLI DIZIDE BALKANİST SÖYLEM

Born on January 13, 1921, in Florina, which is located within the borders of modern-day Greece, Necati Cumalı settled in Turkey with his family following the 1923 population exchange. His 1994 novel Viran Dağlar (Ruined Mountains) recounts the story of a wealthy family by drawing on the social and political transformations that took place in Macedonia from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, as the Ottoman Empire lost its influence in the region. He adapts to his new life, filled with pain and bloodshed because of the conflicts that erupt in the Balkans, and displays a heroism similar to that of Alexandre Dumas’ fictional characters. The novel bears the subtitle Macedonia 1900/Book Two. The first book, Macedonia 1900, consists of short stories. Viran Dağlar was translated into French by Orhan Altan in 2001 under the title Le Dernier Seigneur des Balkans. In 2005, it was adapted into a four-episode television series broadcast on French ARTE television. Directed by French filmmaker Michel Favart, the series spans from the independence movements to the Balkan wars, the Italian and German occupations, and the Communist era. Spanning a period longer than the historical process covered in the novel, the first episode and the first 30 minutes of the second episode are based on Viran Dağlar. There is a substantial body of academic work on how the Balkans are perceived in Western Europe. The concept of “balkanism”, which is conceptualised by Maria Todorova, occupies an important place in this field of study. Most broadly, the term refers to the Balkans being othered by Western Europe as “savage,” “a place where small communities are constantly at war with each other,” and “backward.” Within this framework, the aim of this study is to examine how the TV series adaptation relates to the novel Viran Dağlar, which characters and storylines from the novel are foregrounded in the adaptation, and to what extent they are subjected to change. The study indicates that the series adaptation offers a significantly different portrayal of the Balkans compared to the novel.