Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
MILLI FOLKLOR: INTERNATIONAL AND QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF FOLKLORE, sa.148, ss.53-64, 2025 (AHCI, Scopus, TRDizin)
This article examines the legends involving the earthquake theme obtained from interviews with people affected by the February 6, 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes. The aim of the study is to uncover the relations hip between the collected legends and the earthquake designs in mythology. As a result of the compilation study carried out in 9 cities of Turkey, inferences were made about the understanding of earthquakes in Turkish folk culture through 48 earthquake legends obtained from 42 interviewees. Based on the view that it won’t be enough to benefit from natural sciences alone in determining the policies to be developed while fighting earthquakes in a country located on important earthquake zones like Turkey, the importance of social sciences in general afolklore discipline in earthquake research in particular, after revealing the understanding of earthquakes in myt hology, which’s the most archaic forms of oral narratives, has been tried to be shown. In the article, 48 earthquake legends obtained from field research were classified and recurring motifs in these legends were determined. As a result of the classification, it has been determined that earthquake legends are especially evi dent in three areas: The first of these’s the cluster that can be defined as earthquake signs, and in this cluster, the presence of motifs such as dreams, old seers and animal howling/bellowing/singing that indicate that an earthquake will occur has been determined. The second category consists of the lights that are believed to have appeared during an earthquake, and in narratives of this cluster, it has been determined that the extraordinaries in question that appear during the earthquake are considered as a sign of salvation from the divine world. It has been observed that the legends about the rescue efforts after the earthquake, which constitute the third category, are the cluster with the highest number of examples. There are narratives that a mysterious helper who appeared in this third cluster supported the rescue efforts by giving vital information to the rescue team, by bringing food to the earthquake victims waiting to be rescued under the debris, and s by performing difficult physical tasks so difficult that even construction equipment couldn’t perform. It is understood that the mysterious helper could be either a deceased relative of the earthquake victims from years ago or a figure reminiscent of Hızır, but is also believed to have manifested as a martyr soldier. In all of these third categories of narratives, the mysterious helper disappears immediately after the help in accordance with tradition. When the mythological earthquake designs are compared with the understanding of earthquakes in today's legends, it’s seen that the most striking result emerges in the separation of the subjects they deal with. The earthquake, which’s understood as a divine response to human behavior in mythology, isn’t understood in the same way in collected legends from area. Although the explanations brought by natural sciences about how the earthquake occurred cause the mytholo gical earthquake designs not to be transferred to a large extent, today's earthquake legends maintain their con nection with the traditional one to a great extent with motifs such as Hızır, dream, light, ancestor cult, and martyrs' cult. All these data; It shows that folklore’s a type of knowledge that has the potential to be updated in line with needs. While the findings obtained as a result of the article have the potential to make it possible to look at the earthquake event, whose social dimension should never be neglected, from a folklore perspective, on the other hand, it also has the potential to be used in the policies that Turkey will develop while fighting the earthquake.