Reflections of the Marshall Aid and the USA: Fakir Baykurt’s Amerikan Sargısı (American Bandage)

This paper attempts to analyze how Fakir Baykurt depicts his own ideas and feelings through the peasants' reactions in a village in Ankara, Turkey towards the aids provided by the Marshall Plan and American culture in his novel Amerikan Sargs (1967). He draws the picture of Turkey in the 1960s which faces the Democratic Party ruling Turkey and the acceptance of the Marshall Plan, officially named the European Recovery Program within the scope of which Turkey was provided with assistance. Baykurt focuses on nationalism from his ideological perspective, and the importance of keeping national sources safe because he is worried about Turkey to become Americanized. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining Turkish national identity from the risk of dissolution in the American culture. Baykurt considers the Marshall Aid as a threat to the national values and independence of the country. The novel will be explored under the light of some major ideas of developmentalism and dependency theories and these concepts will be discussed. These theories, the Plan and the Party era will be briefly introduced to have a background for the discussion the novel.