Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu'nun ünlü romanı Ankara'nın Türk edebiyatında önemli bir yeri vardır. Kitap Ankara'nın Sakarya Savaşı öncesi tarihinden başlayıp, Cumhuriyetin ilan edildiği dönemde ve bu dönemden sonraki yıllarda geçirmiş olduğu dönüşümü sosyo-kültürel ilişkiler ve mekânlar üzerinden tartışmaktadır. Roman temelde üç bölüm şeklinde kurgulanmıştır. Birinci bölüm, 1922 Sakarya savaşı öncesi dönem ile başlamakta, Nazif Beyin ve eşi Selma Hanım'ın Ankara'ya gelişleri ve yerleşmelerini konu almaktadır. İkinci bölüm Cumhuriyetin ilan edildiği 1922- 1926 yılları arasında yaşanan değişim ve yenilikçi döneme vurgu yapmaktadır. Son bölümde ise Cumhuriyetin ilanından sonraki yıllarda yaşanan toplumsal değişim, sosyal ilişkiler ve mekânsal dönüşüme değinilmektedir. Bu makale temelde, sosyo kültürel ilişkilerin kurulmasında önemli bir rol oynayan kamusal mekânlar ve bu mekânlarda yer alan aktiviteleri kitaba referansla incelemektedir. Özelde ise bu makale, sosyal yaşamı da biçimlendiren rekreasyonel faaliyetlerin neler olduğu ve nasıl şekillendiği, romanın geçtiği dönemde kişiler tarafından ne şekilde algılandığı ve kişilerin yaşam biçimlerine etkini tartışmaktadır. Makale, Cumhuriyetin ilan edildiği dönemde sıfırdan bir "Başkent"in yaratılması süreci ve bu sürecin kentleşme boyutunu incelemektedir. Bu bağlamda yeni kurulmakta olan, gelişmemiş bir kentte yaşamanın getirdiği sorunlar ve sıkıntılar ile bunların roman kahramanlarının edilmektedir. Bu makalenin özgünlüğü, bir kentin gelişimini ve dönüşümünü roman karakterlerinin yaşamlarını temel alarak tartışabilmesidir. Kentsel dönüşüm, rekreasyon alanları ve rekreasyon olanaklarına dair çıkarımlar, romandan yapılan alıntılar üzerinden tartışılmış ve bütünsel bir kurgu içerisinde aktarılmaya çalışılmıştır

Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu’s famous novel called Ankara has a significant place in Turkish literature. The book discusses the transformation of the city of Ankara from the period of pre-Sakarya War, through the declaration of Turkish Republic to the early Republican era with regard to socio-cultural relations and spatial concerns. The novel is structured in three parts. The first part starts with picturing the preSakarya War (pre-1922) period and tells about Nazif Bey and his spouse Selma Hanim’s arrival to and settlement in Ankara. The second part emphasizes the changes and reforms experienced between the years 1922 and 1926. The last part portrays social change, social relations and spatial transformation in the aftermath of the declaration of the Republic. This article mainly examines public spaces and activities taking place therein which are crucial for the formation of socio-cultural relations within the context of the book. In particular, it discusses what recreational activities that shape social life are, how they are shaped, in what way they are perceived by the people of the novel and their impacts on their lifestyles. The article examines the creation of a capital city in the early Republican era and the urbanization dimension of this process. In this regard, problems and difficulties associated with living in a newlyestablished and underdeveloped city and their impacts on the heroes’ daily lives are analyzed. The originality of this article lies in its ability to discuss the development and transformation process of the city by focusing on the lives of the characters. Inferences regarding urban development, recreational areas and recreational facilities are made through the examination of quotations from the novel and an overall comprehensive evaluation is provided Urbanization and recreation are two concepts that have been in interaction with each other since ancient times. As settlements develop and begin to grow resting and socialization understandings of individuals change in parallel with this process, and their leisure time activities start to vary. In this article, Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu’s Ankara Novel, in which this processes and changes are experienced, is examined. The novel is a significant work where the urbanization process, the social and cultural changes individuals experienced and the development of urban life and recreational opportunities came along with these changes during the foundation of the Republic and the proclamation of Ankara as the capital city in the aftermath can be traced. Having this in mind, the relationship between urbanization and recreation and the perception of recreation in the Republican period are examined in the first chapter. In the second chapter, urbanization process and changing recreation concerns are tried to be analyzed through the periods covered by the novel and experiences of the characters of the novel. In the last chapter, based on the inferences made from the novel, the necessity of having a holistic perception of the relationship between development and urbanization is emphasized together with the impact of constituents and socio-cultural reflections of this process. Recreation is a concept which has developed and changed since primitive societies and it has been transformed with the current living conditions and technologies. While being effected by the spatial set-up and socio-cultural structuring of the city, recreation also shapes the individuals in terms of their personal development. When recreational activities first started to develop, they were shaped by the individuals’ daily life activities rather than spatial impacts and they were mostly celebration occasions. Nevertheless, in time, these activities transformed into time-demanding activities, particularly when spatial set-ups started to affect the process. Development level of the societies became a determining factor in terms of recreation - as the welfare of the individual increased, ordered lifestyles started to shape recreational preferences. In the establishment period of the Republic, various changes and innovations can be observed in urbanization and recreation as well as in many other subjects in Turkey. The revolutions carried out under the leadership of Atatürk also influenced the traditional life styles (Zorba, 2007) and individuals entered a new transition process from a traditional life style to the one that was designed for them. In this period, construction of Ankara, which had been a town-like settlement, as a modern capital city was taken on the agenda and the city reconstruction and planning processes accelerated. With the effect of the period and as a result of the “westernization and modernization” efforts, the European capitals were taken as examples and a new development period was initiated. However, when the economic and social situation of Turkey in that period is evaluated, it is seen that the famine and economic distress experienced in the country were reflected on the urban life and that there were no infrastructure networks such as electricity, water, etc. and transportation facilities were very limited in many cities in the 1930s (Uludağ, 1998). It is anticipated that the recreation opportunities were very limited during such a transition period. While there were only vineyard houses, gardens, and highlands as recreation areas in Ankara before the Republic (Uludağ, 1998), the definition of recreation began to change with the transformation in the social structure after it became the capital city (with the migration of diplomats, bureaucrats, and high-ranking members to Ankara), and new places and facilities emerged according to the needs of the new social classes (Tiken, 2013). Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu’s Ankara Novel examines the social and spatial reflections of this change in terms of different groups living in the city and refers to the expectations, disappointments, and unhappiness of those who migrated from Istanbul (a relatively more developed city) to a newly-urbanizing and modernizing capital city and draws attention to spatial differences. In the novel, conflicts, disagreements and differences in perspectives of different social groups are narrated through the characters. The three different periods mentioned in the novel and the transformation experienced in these periods present a rich content in terms of observing the spatial effects of the social and cultural characteristics of the citizens and discussing the reflections of this process on the urban space. The novel is composed of three separate chapters - the period before the Sakarya War (1921-1922), the period of the proclamation of the Republic (1923-1926), and the period after the proclamation of the Republic (between the years 1937 and 1943). In the first chapter, the arrival of Nazif Bey, chief of banking transactions, and his wife Selma Hanim to Ankara in 1921, their settlement to a small house in Tacettin District, and their experiences of establishing a relationship with the city and socialization for the first time are told. In the second chapter, the change in the social environment of Selma Hanim after a new marriage and her adaptation processes to the new social environment while comparing her old and new lives are elaborated on. Changes explained in this chapter through the life of Selma Hanim, is to a certain extend reflect the evaluation of the Republic and the changes it brought about with special emphasis on the lives experienced in the capital city of Ankara (Sevinç, 2009). The third chapter begins with the 14th year following the proclamation of the Republic and it reflects the changes since then. This chapter actually bears the traces of a transformation which was dreamed by the author. In this last chapter where he reflects his revolution dream (Karaosmanoğlu, 2002), the author refers to the changes in the lives of the characters of the novel, transformation experienced in social relations, reflections of the change on the perception of space and integration into urban life with the westernization process (Tiken, 2013; Yalçın Çelik, 2014). In the first of the three periods covered in the novel, the preRepublican years of war and social distress experienced in this period are narrated. Daily lives and social relations of individuals and spatial inadequacies in a city which was not yet developed (in the barren town of the period) are revealed with all their simplicity. In this period, the backwardness in the spatial development, inadequacy of the urban services and extremely limited recreational activities are perceived by the reader to be directly related to those difficult circumstances and to be an anticipated situation of the wartime period. When the political, physical and social situation of the city in this period is analyzed, the process in which the society was involved can be interpreted as it’s effort to survive and attain freedom. Recreational habits in the daily life of this period was carried out as the socialization of the individuals spending time with their acquaintances during weekends in order to become at least slightly distant from the barren and ruin view of Ankara and to meet their resting needs in touch with nature. However, these green and vineyard-like lands, where individuals could rest and be in touch with nature, started to disappear with the efforts of urbanization and westernization. While the second chapter examines the proclamation of the Republic, it deals with the spatial reflections of the social development, the transformation experienced by the individuals in this process, and the changing social relationships, at the same time, it effectively tells about the social disintegration created by such changes. How the urban development, innovation, and as called in the novel “westernization” were perceived by the individuals, the formation of different social classes in the society and different approaches by these classes to the change are among the important analyses of the novel. In this period while a group in the society used all the new opportunities offered by the Republic as the “elite class”, a group of “lower class” approached this elite class sometimes with envy and sometimes with hate, and evaluated all the innovations brought by the Republic as the “degeneration form the West”. During this period in which the reconstruction of Ankara also began, those who had grown up in old Ankara had difficulty in adapting to the new Ankara - the families around Ulus and Samanpazari (those were mostly low-income, crowded, and modest families) continued their traditional life styles and found the innovations and changes experienced strange (Yüce, 2010). In the last chapter, the six years lived after the fourteen years following the proclamation of the Republic meets the reader as a chapter that reflects the personal expectations of the author and it is where the modernization he wants to be experienced is put down. In that period, the society took its biggest steps towards westernization; wide boulevards, squares, and public spaces of a planned Capital that bore western traces, cultural opportunities and leisure time activities of the west took their places in the city as the services provided for the society. At the heart of the capital, construction of new public and cultural places and creation of open and green areas where individuals could spend time enabled everyone to access these areas, and different recreational activities were provided for all segments of the society. The fact that the author examined the social structure of the modern Turkey (gender and social equality), innovative spatial set-up (boulevards and avenues of Europe, luxurious residences etc.), and leisure time activities of the western societies (dance, ball, concert, theater, etc.) emphasizing the social and cultural transformation, makes this novel a work that is worth examining besides its literary qualifications and ability to reflect and analyze the basic qualities of the period. As a result, based on the novel examined it can be said that the spatial qualities, level of development, and socio-cultural structures of the societies are the determining key factors for social welfare, social relations, urban disintegration, provision of recreational activities and participation in these activities. Due to factors such as their economic situations, family structures, traditional social norms and occupations, individuals have different socio-cultural status. This differentiation shapes the life styles of individuals, determine their personal preferences and reveals the social impacts affecting these preferences. Urbanization and development are intricate concepts which have social, cultural, economic and spatial dimensions. Thus, they cannot be considered independent of each other. If one of these concepts is ignored, innovations and services offered to the communities will trigger social disintegration, and marginalization between those who can access the facilities provided and those who cannot will be inevitable. Therefore, attaining spatial, economic and social development together with proper evaluation of all the related components is a crucial process which has to be undertaken carefully in making the society internalize the change and transformation experienced and creating high quality settlements