A Trip to Çorum and City History Accompanied by Kemal Tahir's Works
Dr. Bekir Cantemir wrote about his hometown trip based on Kemal Tahir's Çorum trilogy and the intersection of the locations in the novel with today's geography.
Dr. Bekir Cantemir shared with readers his city tour, conducted alongside author Kemal Tahir's Çorum trilogy written between 1945-1949, and the aspects of the novel's geography that overlap with the present day.
The Çorum Trilogy and Provincial Life
Consisting of the novels Yedi Çınar Yaylası, Köyün Kamburu, and Büyük Mal, the Çorum Trilogy conveys the major transformation extending from the Tanzimat era to the early periods of the Republic through the Anatolian provinces.
Addressing the relations between the center and the provinces, local powers, and the situation of the peasants, these works lay bare the social structure of the period.
Kemal Tahir's Impartial Realism
In the author's approach to his characters, no one is reflected solely as good or bad; everyone from the tax farmer to the peasant is evaluated within their own reality.
The texts, which skillfully use Anatolian speech forms and idioms, give the reader the feeling of strolling through the bazaars of that era.
Reading Novels Accompanied by Maps
By comparing old Ottoman maps, 1930 sectional maps, and today's relief maps, the locations, streets, and buildings mentioned in the novels were meticulously tracked.
The places where the fictional characters tracked their paths intertwined with locations in real geography, enabling the city to be viewed through a different lens.
The Tour After Reading 1200 Pages
For the Çorum trip carried out in the first week of September 2026, participants were required to have read the approximately 1200-page trilogy.
Visitors, suitcases in hand, practically walked within the geographical and cultural heritage created by Kemal Tahir.
The Story of Industry and Economic Development
Despite difficult transportation conditions, Çorum's economic story of achieving development through its own means encompasses a process stretching from soil industry to flour mills.
This success story, listened to from the city's industrialists and business people, laid bare the developmental economy established by the city through its own capability.
Historical Sites and City Tour
During the city tour conducted under the guidance of the deputy mayor, important points such as Çorum Castle, old mansions, the Grand Mosque (Ulu Cami), and Paşa Bath were visited.
Library buildings and historical bazaars on the tour route were among the stops carrying the traces of the past into the present.
Yedi Çınar Yaylası and the Sıklık Locality
The team, ascending to the Sıklık locality with relief maps from the General Directorate of Mapping, compared the villages and roads in the novel with today's topography.
While it was observed that local names largely remained the same, it was determined that certain elements like Yedi Çınar Yaylası were fictionalized in line with the needs of the novel.
Reading Anatolia from Past to Present
The issues of the trilogy set in the geography of Çorum retain their relevance for understanding provincial dynamics during periods when central authority weakened.
This journey offered by literature provides readers with the opportunity to re-evaluate both the Çorum of the past and today's Turkey.