ABSTRACT
Alevilik bir sır değildir-“Alevism is no secret” declares an Alevi religious leader in the title of one of his recent books (Celasun 1993).1 Some ten years ago such a statement would hardly have come to the minds of those who were neither experts in the field nor Alevi religious authorities. Only now and then had Alevism or Bektashism been taken up publicly during republican times, and if ever, Turkish nationalism seemed to be the actual issue.2 They were always quite instrumentalist approaches, rather than serious attempts to keynote the substance of Alevi faith, rituals and morals. The statement cited indicates that in Turkey of our days some things have changed fundamentally: According to the official ideology the ethnic and religious heterogeneity of Turkey’s population had for long been evaded as a topic, or even denied in public. Then, in the second half of the eighties, taboos that had restricted the discourse so far, were broken. Suddenly Alevism appeared on the public agenda. Alevi and Bektashi started to reflect openly on the doctrines and ritual practices of their once esoteric religion-a transgression that would in former times have incurred the penalty of exclusion from the community. By way of contrast Alevism is nowadays no longer something mysterious, “Alevi reality” can no longer be avoided in Turkey’s social and political life, even if the enthusiasm that set the Alevi community into motion in the early nineties and which brought the topic to the fore has somewhat abated. The discussion on Alevism appears in countless publications. Prior to this, one can observe a scientific interest in Bektashism in particular for nearly a hundred years.3 Therefore I will first review the result of scientific studies. In contrast, most of what has appeared in Turkey in recent years must be qualified as more or less journalistic and popular works addressing a large reading public. As I will explain later, one has to take these publications not so much as first hand information, but for the light they shed on the social dynamics that have produced them, and which they in their turn fuel. Sure, the demarcation between the two categories is sometimes blurred, the position of the foreign
1 In the forties one Bektashi dared to publish a book on the order with a similarly scandalizing title, cf. Çavdarli 1944. There is a rumor that the author died under mysterious circumstances, as Bektashi circles might not have appreciated the communication he addressed to a wider public. 2 Mostly Sunni took up writing, e.g. Baha Said 1926a-c, 1927; Bardakçi 1970; Benekay 1967; Eröz 1977; Otyam 1964; Türkmani 1948. For a sympathetic presentation cf. Oytan 1970/1945-47; Sertoğlu n.d., 1966. For less politically biased theological studies cf. Erişen/Samancigil 1966; Şapolyo 1964; Sunar 1975. 3 Literature and manuscripts concerning the Bektashi order as well as the Alevi can be traced in a bibliography arranged by Mürsel Öztürk (1991). However, the collection is not exhaustive, especially not for the titles that have appeared in Western languages.
