Operetta in Turkey: A case study of Gün’s translation of Strauss’s Die Fledermaus

Abstract

The genre operetta has long found itself a place in the musical polysystem of Turkey and become one of the borrowed forms of art symbolizing modernity through Turkey’s Westernization process. It was the main goal of the Republic to carry the young republican nation to the level of civilized societies like those of the West. Western ideological, cultural, scientific and literary works were examined and translated, paving the way to emergence of national ideologies, literary works, and cultural legacies. In this context, our study aims to examine Aydın Gün’s translation into Turkish of Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus, under the title Yarasa. In order to do this, we draw on Peter Low’s Pentathlon Principle. © 2020 John Benjamins Publishing Company.