Abstract:

Known as the first historian of the Turkish press, the first compilation director, and the writer of pioneering works especially in press and drama history, Selim Nüzhet Gerçek, serialised his novel titled Meçhul Kuvvetlere Kurban in 24 episodes in İleri newspaper in 1922. This study first aims to analyse the novel, which has been kept in the background for almost one hundred years, within the scope of “The Features of Ottoman-Turkish Detective Fiction” as part of Seval Şahin’s book titled Cinai Meseleler (2017). A second aim of the study is to examine the novel in terms of the main features of fantastic narration and to determine which features the novel contains in light of the arguments made by prominent scholars in the domain of the fantasy genre. In order to achieve this goal, the opinions of various scholars such as Rabkin, Jackson, Todorov, and Atterbery have been utilised. As a result of this two-dimensional investigation of the novel Meçhul Kuvvetlere Kurban, it is demonstrated that the novel is an original work that can be connected to the detective tradition in Ottoman-Turkish literature with its subjects, characters, and fiction. In addition, the fact that the novel contains various fantastic elements and has certain characteristics of the fantastic genre contributes to the originality of the work.