The Book of Dede Korkut is a highly important work which incorporates Turkish culture, beliefs and traditions. Therefore, this book became the subject of academic studies from different scientific disciplines. Although some of these studies touched upon certain aspects of Alevism in the Book of Dede Korkut, there is not any academic research which directly analyses the Book of Dede Korkut within the context of social life, rituals, hierarchical structure, social recognition, traditional and cultural elements of the Alevi belief system. Taking into consideration mentioned inadequacies, this paper analyses the Book of Dede Korkut, within the context of social, cultural, hierarchical and ritual structure of the Alevi belief system. During our fieldwork done on Alevi “dede” and aspirant communities in Turkey, Iran and Balkans, we ascertained that many elements in the Book of Dede Korkut such as lifestyle, rituals, social recognition, motifs, idioms and social hierarchy, have been kept alive by Alevi communities. This paper tries to read the Book of Dede Korkut through the perspective of Alevism by undergirding it with our findings on both written and oral tradition of Alevism and visual data collected on our fieldwork.

Anahtar Kelimeler
Dede Korkut, Alevi, Dede Korkut-Alevism, Qizilbash, Oghuz, Ritual.