Are You Also Among Those We Can Polarize in the Plagiarism Case?

This week, let us step away from global politics and look at Turkey, specifically at a court ruling that has caused a great uproar in Turkish literary circles over the past two weeks. The ruling was issued on December 14, 2023, by the Istanbul Anadolu 1st Civil Court of Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights in a lawsuit filed on October 19, 2021, by Mine G. Kırıkkanat against Elif Şafak, alleging that the latter's novel titled Bit Palas (The Flea Palace), first published in 2002, was produced by committing plagiarism from her own novel titled Sinek Sarayı (The Palace of Flies), first published in 1990. The court found Kırıkkanat to be in the right, and Kırıkkanat joyfully announced the decision on her X account ten days later. The uproar began after this, and many writers, especially from the literary front, did not delay in taking their place on one of the two halves of this watermelon, which was split in two with great noise.

The court, not content with the expert opinions submitted to the file by Kırıkkanat, had a new expert report prepared, and based on this report finally presented to the court, it decided “to DETERMINE that the defendant party has violated the rights of the plaintiff party arising from the FSEK (Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works), and to REMOVE THE INFRINGEMENT on the financial and moral rights of the plaintiff by the defendant.”

Because the report in question, when comparing the two works, concluded that when certain points highlighted “are evaluated together, it is accepted that the defendant's work, in terms of title similarity, plotting, characters, unity of place and time, and looking at the plot and the ending, goes far beyond inspiration, that the name and content of the plaintiff's novel were utilized, and that this utilization is at the level of plagiarism, and it is accepted that the plaintiff's rights arising from the FSEK have been violated.” The court also ordered that compensation be paid to Kırıkkanat by both Şafak and her publisher. The FSEK here is, of course, the Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works.

While Elif Şafak and her publisher rejected the allegation again and condemned the decision, 124 writers, especially from the left-liberal and liberal circles, defined the decision and the subsequent reactions as a “lynching campaign.” Some writers also provided rebuttals containing a detailed examination of the plagiarism allegations. In contrast, another group of writers, including those whose opinions Kırıkkanat submitted to the court, drew attention to the nature of the similarities, which they argued could not be coincidental. Meanwhile, others like Oray Eğin wrote that this was not the first plagiarism accusation Elif Şafak had faced, giving examples of previous allegations.

It is certain that literary debates cannot be conducted in courtrooms. On the other hand, it is much more dire that in every discussion topic in Turkey, many intellectuals automatically adopt the stance they calculate to be in line with their own "neighborhood" before the concrete reality is meticulously examined. It is particularly horrifying that among the supporters of both writers, there are those who can express an opinion while noting that “they have not read the books.” In addition to this general negativity, the arrogance that can be clearly sensed when the liberal writer-journalist team, which has a hegemonic network in global politics and therefore in literary circles, questions the report on which the court decision is based, or the novelist identity of Kırıkkanat, who is not in that network, or the “literary expertise” of those who support Kırıkkanat, is quite repulsive. All of this causes the Turkish people to become weary, mentally lazy, and trapped in molds, not only regarding literature but also in the face of debates in other areas of life.

If the Turkish intellectual—if one questions how much this description is deserved and is crushed under it—or at least Turkish writers, and of course all Turkish "ink-stained" individuals including social scientists, were to face such a case, the first thing they should do would undoubtedly be to subject these two novels to a serious reading. While the new generation of Turkish "ink-stained" individuals, who have begun to settle for films, series, and podcasts rather than reading, are becoming increasingly passive, reading itself—which requires being active, even if not as much as criticizing, which is an extremely active action—has come to be considered a burden. Unfortunately. As if there could be a “non-social” version of “the media,” those "ink-stained" individuals who are content with posing as “opinion leaders” on “social media,” a term I dislike, do not seem very eager for such a task. Believing that this needs to be broken, I immediately read the two novels, of course, first the one published earlier, Sinek Sarayı, and then the other.

Here, in accordance with the honesty of a social scientist, it is useful to make a “disclosure statement,” which we could perhaps call a “declaration of clarification” in Turkish. In scientific articles, such statements are for the author to declare that they are not in any “conflict of interest” regarding the subject they are addressing. Making such statements is considered important for academic honesty and to achieve as much impartiality as possible. For this reason, regarding our subject, it is useful to state that I do not have close worldviews with either Kırıkkanat or Elif Şafak. While it is certain that I could find more common ground with the former on many current issues, and although I have been with Kırıkkanat at a few events, I do not have an acquaintance with either writer that goes beyond this situation.

Aside from these, if I move on to the essence, if it weren't for the noise caused by this latest lawsuit process, I would never have thought that there was any idea theft between these two novels that I read one after the other. I must admit this clearly. Kırıkkanat's novel titled Sinek Sarayı is a novel that can be read quickly, is fluent, and is based on simple word choices, totaling only 151 pages in the Milliyet Kitap edition I read. On the other hand, Elif Şafak's Bit Palas is a novel that is 379 pages in the 2009 Doğan Kitap edition, uses old words at a disturbingly high level as in Şafak's other novels, takes care to go much further back even in the descriptions of the apartment buildings, which is the first of the similarities established between the two novels, and handles the characters much more extensively.

While the similarities between the two novels, which focus on an “art nouveau” style apartment building in Beyoğlu, Istanbul, are striking, they are also overly limited. After reading the two novels, when you go back and look at the court decision again, or when you rethink the similarities that Ahmet Yıldız and Haluk Şahin drew attention to in detail, it seems quite difficult not to agree with Kırıkkanat's sentiment. On the other hand, aside from the issue of committing a crime legally, it is also extremely difficult to argue that there are similarities at a level that could suggest an abuse at the level of literary idea theft. However, when you re-evaluate these similarities and weigh the novels again, it becomes very difficult not to think that Elif Şafak must have read Sinek Sarayı and was quite influenced by it. Especially when you consider that both novels end with a finale that could be less coincidental, such as the admission, from the mouths of the authors, that the person who wrote the novel is actually someone else. Still, all of these remain as similarities that perhaps no reader would have noticed if they were not aware that there was a claim in court.

As someone who has been sufficiently disciplined for years, with a bit of social science and a bit of life experience, not to make angular judgments, I do not see myself in a position to make a final determination on this matter either. However, if I must state my inclination, I believe that Kırıkkanat's feeling that there are similarities between the two novels and that there is a high probability of inspiration from the first in the second is inwardly correct, but only that much. Perhaps if an explicit reference had been made, there would be no problem, but even in this state, there is no provable idea theft. Since delving into the content of the novels or making a literary critique of both would make the subject much more complicated, and also due to my lack of competence in this regard, I refrain from doing so. Still, if a few words are to be said on these matters, it should be noted that even the titles of both novels do not reflect their main knots, and their main knots, one being the Dimitra or Gülfiliz riddle, and the second being the garbage pile or the university professor's inconclusive relationships with women and especially with the Blue Mistress, cannot be connected to a meaningful place.

It should also be added that many descriptions in both Kırıkkanat's and Şafak's novels, which we cannot understand why they are included and which cannot be given much meaning in terms of the main knots of the novels, create disappointment, or more accurately, a void in the reader at the end of the day. Aside from Kırıkkanat's simple and fluent language, I can add that Şafak's novel only gains fluency after the halfway point, and words such as “mutantan” (ostentatious), “penha” (lonely/hidden), “gülibrişim” (silk tree flower), or “camgöbeği” (turquoise), which are used many times as if they were newly learned by the author, only create weariness in the reader. The side of Şafak that can balance this is that the generalizations and classifications she frequently resorts to are extremely interesting where they are not stretched to the point of distraction. In some places, certain details and interesting elements in the author's observations emerge as pleasant passages where the reader can establish identities with their own observations. On the other hand, neither novel goes beyond individual-focused novel writing. As novels that engage very little with the fundamental social, socioeconomic, or class issues of society, they cannot go beyond a superficial literary quality.

In short; a plagiarism case, and on the other hand a literary issue, reveals once again how ready we are to emerge with angular judgments and how mentally lazy we are. Once again.