Abstract
TURKS IN EUROPEAN ORAL CULTUR
All nations in the world have produced legends about communities who are foreign to them. They have turned the origins, traditions and uses of these communities into narratives at the mythic level. They produced legends about each other and made foreign tribes the subject of their own folk tales, tales and epics. While these stories show the feature of getting to know the stranger first, they diversify after getting to know the foreigner. This is especially common in neighboring tribes. In various periods of history, Turks, too, frequently flocked to Europe and became neighbors with European nations, lived together and fought with them with the intention of being permanent and plundering. This long interaction process pushed the European people to create legends about the Turks. However, these creations are not positive as they are mostly the result of wars. On the contrary, they are legends made from scratch that the Turks are conveyed as enemies while the victories won againts the Turks are valued as legendary, and it sometimes mixed with the old stories of the nations or it was completely about the Turks. In this essay, the legends and memorats will be examined. Subsequently, how the Turkish perception developed in the European oral culture and how the Turks affected the social life of the European people will be discussed.
Keywords
Turks, oral culture, Europe, legend, folklore.
