National memory in Tatar novels of of the 1980s

Abstract

The emergence and development of the novel genre in the literature of Turkic people
lived over a wide geographical area happened from the second half of the 19th century. The novel
emerged in Tatar literature that had an exceptional place in the development of the Enlightenment
movement towards the end of the 19th century. The geographical location of Tatarstan and the
unique rules of the novel genre have affected the content and form of the examples created here;
and prose works expressing the thought of the Tatar enlightener arose as a result of the combination
of Eastern thought, Sufi-philosophical ideas and the Masnavi style with the Western novel form in
the second half of the 19th century. Tatar prose and novels incurred a serious paradigm shift in
1980s and transformation processes took place in both form and content components. The
inevitability of the collapse of the Soviet empire led to the strengthening of national thought in Tatar literature, as in other leading Turkic people. The changes in Tatar prose from the beginning to
the end of the 1980s is studied on the basis of the novels such as “Bird's-Eye View”, “The Cursed
of Times” by Rafkat Karami, “The Volga River Flows”, “Whistling Arrows” by Nurikhan Fettah,
“Whose Hand Holds the Ax?” by Ayaz Gilyazov and “Kolyma Prisoners” by Ibrahim Salahov.