Warrior Values and Society

Abstract

War as one of the instruments of the political system, plays a functional role in producing and maintaining the legitimacy of construction of a society. The discursive field of war which is shaped by historical and mythological narratives in social memory is one of the dynamic dimensions of this process. 'War as reality' experienced by society in the historical process and 'war as design' built by society's conceptions of today and shaped by the values attributed to war, play a role in the construction and continuity of this discursive field. Epic genre, which is a special category in mythology and is described as 'narratives of the founding ancestors' and 'hero cult', establish the basis for how a society assigns a meaning to war and how they legalize it. In this article, the way in which oral narratives produce a meaning for society as a political instrument will be discussed in the light of the Gallipoli campaign and of two narratives - A Ballad of Canakkale and the Hennaed Lamb - that are associated with the Gallipoli campaign in social memory. However, in the present study, the Gallipoli campaign is not analysed from a historical perspective but, rather, with reference to why it is the subject of oral narratives. The analysis is based on fieldwork conducted in the city of Canakkale, where the Gallipoli campaign battlefields are located.