📄 Abstract
Orhan Pamuk’s Nights of Plague (2021; English translation, 2022) presents a fictional account of a plague epidemic on the Ottoman island of Manchuria while simultaneously questioning the ways in which history is recorded and understood. This study examines how the novel problematizes the idea of historical truth by bringing together historical imagination, archival evidence, personal memory, political authority, and nationalism. Particular attention is given to Mina Mingerli, the fictional historian-narrator who reconstructs the history of Manchuria from letters, memoirs, official records, and other sources. Her attempt to piece together the past demonstrates that historical narratives are not simply discovered in documents but are shaped through selection, interpretation, and storytelling. The study also explores how contradictory accounts and personal memories challenge the authority of official historical records. Furthermore, the emergence of Mingherian nationalism illustrates how political communities can reinterpret the past in order to establish a shared national identity. The novel's representation of government control during the plague also reveals the close relationship between political power, information, and the production of historical knowledge. Using a qualitative and interpretive method of textual analysis, this study examines selected narrative elements and themes in Nights of Plague in relation to historiography, memory, nationalism, and political authority. The study argues that Pamuk deliberately destabilises the boundary between history and fiction and encourages readers to question the assumption that historical truth is singular, fixed, and completely objective. Ultimately, Nights of Plague suggests that history is shaped by the interaction of evidence, memory, interpretation, power, and narrative, while also drawing attention to the voices and experiences that may remain outside established historical accounts.
🏷️ Keywords
📚 How to Cite:
Dr. Harsha Viman , HISTORY, MEMORY, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF TRUTH IN ORHAN PAMUK’S NIGHTS OF PLAGUE , Volume 12 , Issue 8, August 2026, EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) , Pages: 996 - 1001 ,