Türkbilig

Öz

The domestication of the horse and its integration into the service of humanity is considered a significant milestone in the history of civilizations. The role and area covered by the horse in daily life and belief has continued to increase for many years, and after its integration into their lives, the Turks lived a life largely dependent on horses, with the Turk and the horse complementing each other. The horse, which has a central position in the development of Turkish culture and civilization, plays an important role not only in every aspect of Turkish people's life but also in its art and literature. It is seen that horses somehow find a place in the fiction in many of the texts of Hasan Ali Toptaş, for whom folk life and belief have an important place in his understanding of art. In the novel Kuşlar Yasına Gider, the horse stands out as an important part of the narrative throughout the work. The journeys made by the narrator by car from Ankara, where he lives, to his hometown Denizli, and the folk songs he listens to along the way have an important function in the plot. The horse imagery present in these folk songs also plays a significant role in the structure of the work. The fact that Toptaş depicts the milk-grey horse almost like an epic/fairytale hero, with extraordinary qualities similar to those in traditional folk narratives, shows that the author processes tradition with new interpretations and symbolic storytelling in the modern era. The milk-grey/white horse, which appears in the novel as a harbinger of death, causes emotions such as surprise, anxiety, and fear in the narrator, which become more complex over time. In this study, the symbolic meanings of the milk-grey horse in the novel Kuşlar Yasına Gider will be examined based on Hasan Ali Toptaş's life and understanding of art.