[HipHopRocK]

Turkish Literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Turkish literature (Turkish: Türk edebiyatı or Türk yazını) is the collection of written and oral texts composed in the Turkish language, either in its Ottoman form or in less exclusively literary forms, such as that spoken in the Republic of Turkey today. The Ottoman Turkish language, which forms the basis of much of the written corpus, was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and used a variant of the Perso-Arabic script.
The history of Turkish literature spans a period of nearly 1,500 years. The oldest extant records of written Turkic are the Orhon inscriptions, found in the Orhon River valley in central Mongolia and dating to the 8th century. Subsequent to this period, between the 9th and 11th centuries, there arose among the nomadic Turkic peoples of Central Asia a tradition of oral epics, such as the Book of Dede Korkut of the Oghuz Turks—the linguistic and cultural ancestors of the modern Turkish people—and the Manas epic of the Kyrgyz people.
Beginning with the victory of the Seljuks at the Battle of Manzikert in the late 11th century, the Oghuz Turks began to settle in Anatolia, and in addition to the earlier oral traditions there arose a written literary tradition issuing largely—in terms of themes, genres, and styles—from Arabic and Persian literature. For the next 900 years, until shortly before the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, the oral and written traditions would remain largely separate from one another. With the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the two traditions came together for the first time.


The two traditions of Turkish literature

Throughout most of its history, Turkish literature has been rather sharply divided into two rather different traditions, neither of which exercised much influence upon the other until the 19th century. The first of these two traditions is Turkish folk literature, and the second is Turkish written literature.
For most of the history of Turkish literature, the salient difference between the folk and the written traditions has been the variety of language employed. The folk tradition, by and large, was oral and remained free of the influence of Persian and Arabic literature, and consequently of those literatures' respective languages. In folk poetry—which is by far the tradition's dominant genre—this basic fact led to two major consequences in terms of poetic style:

• the poetic meters employed in the folk poetic tradition were different, being quantitative (i.e., syllabic) verse, as opposed to the qualitative verse employed in the written poetic tradition;
• the basic structural unit of folk poetry became the quatrain (Turkish: dörtlük) rather than the couplets (Turkish: beyit) more commonly employed in written poetry.

Furthermore, Turkish folk poetry has always had an intimate connection with song—most of the poetry was, in fact, expressly composed so as to be sung—and so became to a great extent inseparable from the tradition of Turkish folk music.
In contrast to the tradition of Turkish folk literature, Turkish written literature—prior to the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923—tended to embrace the influence of Persian and Arabic literature. To some extent, this can be seen as far back as the Seljuk period in the late 11th to early 14th centuries, where official business was conducted in the Persian language, rather than in Turkish, and where a court poet such as Dehhanî—who served under the 13th century sultan Ala ad-Din Kay Qubadh I—wrote in a language highly inflected with Persian.
When the Ottoman Empire arose early in the 14th century, in northwestern Anatolia, it continued this tradition. The standard poetic forms—for poetry was as much the dominant genre in the written tradition as in the folk tradition—were derived either directly from the Persian literary tradition (the gazel غزل; the mesnevî مسنوى), or indirectly through Persian from the Arabic (the kasîde قصيده). However, the decision to adopt these poetic forms wholesale led to two important further consequences:

• the poetic meters (Turkish: aruz) of Persian poetry were adopted;
• Persian- and Arabic-based words were brought into the Turkish language in great numbers, as Turkish words rarely worked well within the system of Persian poetic meter.

Out of this confluence of choices, the Ottoman Turkish language—which was always highly distinct from standard Turkish—was effectively born. This style of writing under Persian and Arabic influence came to be known as "Divan literature" (Turkish: divan edebiyatı), dîvân (ديوان) being the Ottoman Turkish word referring to the collected works of a poet.
Just as Turkish folk poetry was intimately bound up with Turkish folk music, so did Ottoman Divan poetry develop a strong connection with Turkish classical music, with the poems of the Divan poets often being taken up to serve as song lyrics.

[HipHopRocK]

Turkish folk literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Turkish folk literature is an oral tradition deeply rooted, in its form, in Central Asian nomadic traditions. However, in its themes, Turkish folk literature reflects the problems peculiar to a settling (or settled) people who have abandoned the nomadic lifestyle. One example of this is the series of folktales surrounding the figure of Keloğlan, a young boy beset with the difficulties of finding a wife, helping his mother to keep the family house intact, and dealing with the problems caused by his neighbors. Another example is the rather mysterious figure of Nasreddin, a trickster figure who often plays jokes, of a sort, on his neighbors.

An aşık performing in Anatolia, from an 18th-century Western engraving

Nasreddin also reflects another significant change that had occurred between the days when the Turkish people were nomadic and the days when they had largely become settled in Anatolia; namely, Nasreddin is a Muslim imam. The Turkish people had first become an Islamic people sometime around the 9th or 10th century CE, and the religion henceforth came to exercise an enormous influence on their society and literature; particularly the heavily mystically oriented Sufi and Shi'a varieties of Islam. The Sufi influence, for instance, can be seen clearly not only in the tales concerning Nasreddin but also in the works of Yunus Emre, a towering figure in Turkish literature and a poet who lived at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century CE, probably in the Karamanid state in south-central Anatolia. The Shi'a influence, on the other hand, can be seen extensively in the tradition of the aşıks, or ozans[1], who are roughly akin to medieval European minstrels and who traditionally have had a strong connection with the Alevi faith, which can be seen as something of a homegrown Turkish variety of Shi'a Islam. It is, however, important to note that in Turkish culture, such a neat division into Sufi and Shi'a is scarcely possible: for instance, Yunus Emre is considered by some to have been an Alevi, while the entire Turkish aşık/ozan tradition is permeated with the thought of the Bektashi Sufi order, which is itself a blending of Shi'a and Sufi concepts. The word aşık (literally, "lover") is in fact the term used for first-level members of the Bektashi order.
Because the Turkish folk literature tradition extends in a more or less unbroken line from about the 10th or 11th century CE to today, it is perhaps best to consider the tradition from the perspective of genre. There are three basic genres in the tradition: epic; folk poetry; and folklore.

The epic tradition

The Turkish epic tradition properly begins with the Book of Dede Korkut, which is in a language recognizably similar to modern Turkish and which developed from the oral traditions of the Oghuz Turks, that branch of the Turkic peoples which migrated towards western Asia and eastern Europe through Transoxiana beginning in the 9th century CE. The Book of Dede Korkut continued to survive in the oral tradition after the Oghuz Turks had, by and large, settled in Anatolia.
The Book of Dede Korkut was the primary element of the Turkish epic tradition in Anatolia for several centuries. Another epic circulating at the same time, however, was the so-called Epic of Köroğlu, which concerns the adventures of Rüşen Ali ("Köroğlu", or "son of the blind man") to exact revenge for the blinding of his father. The origins of this epic are somewhat more mysterious than those of the Book of Dede Korkut: many believe it to have arisen in Anatolia sometime between the 15th and 17th centuries CE; more reliable testimony[2], though, seems to indicate that the story is nearly as old as that of the Book of Dede Korkut, dating from around the dawn of the 11th century CE. Complicating matters somewhat is the fact that Köroğlu is also the name of a poet of the aşık/ozan tradition.
That the epic tradition in Turkish literature may not have died out entirely can be seen from the Epic of Shaykh Bedreddin (Şeyh Bedreddin Destanı), published in 1936 by the poet Nâzım Hikmet Ran (1901–1963). This long poem—which concerns an Anatolian shaykh's rebellion against the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed I—is a sort of modern, written epic that nevertheless draws upon the same independent-minded traditions of the Anatolian people that can be seen in the Epic of Köroğlu. Also, many of the works of the 20th-century novelist Yaşar Kemal (1923– ), such as his long 1955 novel Memed, My Hawk (İnce Memed), can be considered modern prose epics.

Folk poetry

The folk poetry tradition in Turkish literature, as indicated above, was strongly influenced by the Islamic Sufi and Shi'a traditions. Furthermore, as partly evidenced by the prevalence of the aşık/ozan tradition—which is still alive today—the dominant element in Turkish folk poetry has always been song.
There are, broadly speaking, two traditions of Turkish folk poetry:

• the aşık/ozan tradition, which—although much influenced by religion, as mentioned above—was for the most part a secular tradition;
• the explicitly religious tradition, which emerged from the gathering places (tekkes) of the Sufi religious orders and Shi'a groups.

Much of the poetry and song of the aşık/ozan tradition, being almost exclusively oral until the 19th century CE, remains anonymous. There are, however, a few well-known aşıks from before that time whose names have survived together with their works: the aforementioned Köroğlu (16th century CE); Karacaoğlan (1606?–1689?), who may be the best-known of the pre-19th century aşıks; Dadaloğlu (1785?–1868?), who was one of the last of the great aşıks before the tradition began to dwindle somewhat in the late 19th century; and several others. The aşıks were essentially minstrels who travelled through Anatolia performing their songs on the bağlama, a mandolin-like instrument whose paired strings are considered to have a symbolic religious significance in Alevi/Bektashi culture. Despite the decline of the aşık/ozan tradition in the 19th century, it experienced a significant revival in the 20th century thanks to such outstanding figures as Aşık Veysel Şatıroğlu (1894–1973), Aşık Mahzuni Şerif (1938–2002), Neşet Ertaş (1943– ), and many others.

Kaygusuz Abdal

The tradition of tekke literature shared a similar basis with the aşık/ozan tradition in that the poems were generally intended to be sung, generally in religious gatherings, making them somewhat akin to Western hymns (Turkish ilahi). One major difference from the aşık/ozan tradition, however, is that—from the very beginning—the poems of the tekke tradition were written down. This was because they were produced by revered religious figures in the literate environment of the tekke, as opposed to the milieu of the aşık/ozan tradition, where the majority could not read or write. The major figures in the tradition of tekke literature are: Yunus Emre (1240?–1320?), who is one of the most important figures in all of Turkish literature; Süleyman Çelebi (?–1422), who wrote a highly popular long poem called Vesiletü'n-Necat ("The Means of Salvation", but more commonly known as the Mevlid), concerning the birth of the Prophet Muhammad; Kaygusuz Abdal (1397–?), who is widely considered the founder of Alevi/Bektashi literature; and Pir Sultan Abdal (?–1560), whom many consider to be the pinnacle of that literature.

Folklore

Nasreddin Hoca

The tradition of folklore—folktales, jokes, legends, and the like—in the Turkish language is very rich. Perhaps the most popular figure in the tradition is the aforementioned Nasreddin (known as Nasreddin Hoca, or "teacher Nasreddin", in Turkish), who is the central character of thousands of jokes. He generally appears as a person who, though seeming somewhat stupid to those who must deal with him, actually proves to have a special wisdom all his own:

One day, Nasreddin's neighbor asked him, "Teacher, do you have any forty-year-old vinegar?"—"Yes, I do," answered Nasreddin.—"Can I have some?" asked the neighbor. "I need some to make an ointment with."—"No, you can't have any," answered Nasreddin. "If I gave my forty-year-old vinegar to whoever wanted some, I wouldn't have had it for forty years, would I?"

Similar to the Nasreddin jokes, and arising from a similar religious milieu, are the Bektashi jokes, in which the members of the Bektashi religious order—represented through a character simply named Bektaşi—are depicted as having an unusual and unorthodox wisdom, one that often challenges the values of Islam and of society.
Another popular element of Turkish folklore is the shadow theater centered around the two characters of Karagöz and Hacivat, who both represent stock characters: Karagöz—who hails from a small village—is something of a country bumpkin, while Hacivat is a more sophisticated city-dweller. Popular legend has it that the two characters are actually based on two real persons who worked for Osman I—the founder of the Ottoman dynasty—in the construction of his palace at Bursa in the early 14th century CE. The two workers supposedly spent much of their time entertaining the other workers, and were so funny and popular that they interfered with work on the palace, and were subsequently put to death.

Authors

Yunus Emre
Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli
Köroğlu
Pir Sultan Abdal
Karacaoğlan
Dadaloğlu
Gevheri
Seyrani
Erzurumlu Emrah
Aşık Veysel Şatıroğlu

[HipHopRocK]

Ottoman literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The two primary streams of Ottoman written literature are poetry and prose. Of the two, poetry—specifically, Divan poetry—was by far the dominant stream. Moreover, it should be noted that, until the 19th century, Ottoman prose did not contain any examples of fiction; that is, there were no counterparts to, for instance, the European romance, short story, or novel (though analogous genres did, to some extent, exist in both the Turkish folk tradition and in Divan poetry).


Ottoman poetry

The poetry of the Ottoman Empire, or Ottoman Divan poetry, is fairly little known outside of modern Turkey, which forms the heartland of what was once the Ottoman Empire. It is, however, a rich and ancient poetic tradition that lasted for nearly 700 years, and one whose influence can still—to some extent—be felt in the modern Turkish poetic tradition.
Even in modern Turkey, however, Ottoman Divan poetry is a highly specialist subject. Much of this has to do with the fact that Divan poetry is written in Ottoman Turkish, was written using a variant of the Arabic script, and is as vastly different from the Turkish language of today as it was from the standard spoken Turkish of its own day.

History

The Ottoman Divan poetry tradition embraced the influence of the Persian and, to a lesser extent, Arabic literatures. As far back as the pre-Ottoman Seljuk period in the late 11th to early 14th centuries CE, this influence was already being felt: the Seljuks conducted their official business in the Persian language, rather than in Turkish, and the poetry of the Seljuk court was highly inflected with Persian.
When the Ottoman Empire arose in northwestern Anatolia, it continued this tradition. The most common poetic forms of the Ottoman court, for instance, were derived either directly from the Persian literary tradition (the gazel; the mesnevî), or indirectly through Persian from the Arabic (the kasîde). However, the decision to adopt these poetic forms wholesale led to two important further consequences

• the poetic meters (Persian: beher; Turkish: aruz) of Persian poetry were adopted
• Persian- and Arabic-based words were brought into the Turkish language in great numbers, as Turkish words rarely worked well within the system of Persian poetic meter

Out of this confluence of choices, the Ottoman Turkish language—which was always highly distinct from standard Turkish—was effectively born. This style of writing under Persian and Arabic influence came to be known as "Divan literature" (Turkish divân edebiyatı), as divân was the Ottoman Turkish word referring to the collected works of a poet.
Beginning with the Tanzimat reform period (1839–1876) of Ottoman history and continuing until the dissolution of the empire in the early 20th century, the Divan poetic tradition steadily dwindled, and more and more influence from both Turkish folk literature and European literature began to make itself felt.

Divan

Mesnevi

Mesnevi (masnavi) in literary term "Rhyming Couplets of Profound Spiritual Meaning" is style developed in Persian poetry which Nizami Ganjavi and Jami are the famous poets of type. In Turkic literature first mesnevi was Yusuf Has Hajib's Kutadgu Bilig. Generally social concepts Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, Fuzuli's Leyla ile Mecnun'u, military events, educational concepts such as Nabi's Hayriye or related to religion or philosophy such as Mevlana's Masnavi is covered.
A peculiarity of the masnavi of the Ottoman period is that they almost always possess, beneath the literal meaning, a subtle spiritual signification. Many poems, of Mesnevi of Mevlana and the Divam of Aşık Paşha examples of confessedly religious, moral, or mystic but a much larger number are allegorical. To this latter class belong almost all the long romantic mesnevis of the Persian and mid Ottoman poets; in the stories of the loves of Leyla and Mecnun, Yusuf and Zuleykha, Kusrev and Shavin, Suleyman and Ebsal, and a hundred of like kind, can see pictured, if we look beneath the surface, the soul of man for God, or the yearning of the human heart after heavenly light and wisdom. There is not a character introduced into those romances but represents the passion not an incident but has some spiritual meaning. In the history of Iskender, or Alexander, we watch the noble human soul in its struggles against the powers of this world, and, when aided by God and guided by the heavenly wisdom of righteous teachers, its ultimate victory over every earthly passion, and its attainment of that point of divine serenity whence it can look calmly down on all sublunary things.

Kaside

Kaside is generally about God, religious or government leaders and their values. Most famous poets are Ahmed Paşa, Necati, Bâkî, Nedîm, most importantly Nef'i.

Terminology:

• Tevhid: About Unity of the God.
• Münacaat: Pray to the God
• Naat: About religious leaders and profit.
• Methiye: About sultan and government leaders.
• Nesip or teşbib: Nature and location descriptions.
• Girizgah: Prelude to the topic.
• Fahriye: Praising the poet himself
• Dua: Prayer and well wishing for the subject of the poem

[HipHopRocK]

Early Ottoman prose

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Until the 19th century, Ottoman prose never managed to develop to the extent that contemporary Divan poetry did. A large part of the reason for this was that much prose was expected to adhere to the rules of sec' (سجع, also transliterated as seci), or rhymed prose, a type of writing descended from the Arabic saj' and which prescribed that between each adjective and noun in a sentence, there must be a rhyme.
Nevertheless, there was a tradition of prose in the literature of the time. This tradition was exclusively nonfictional in nature—the fiction tradition was limited to narrative poetry. A number of such nonfictional prose genres developed:

Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682?), an Ottoman travel writer

• the târih (تاريخ), or history, a tradition in which there are many notable writers, including the 15th-century historian Aşıkpaşazâde and the 17th-century historians Kâtib Çelebi and Naîmâ
• the seyâhatnâme (سياحت نامه), or travelogue, of which the outstanding example is the 17th-century Seyahâtnâme of Evliya Çelebi
• the sefâretnâme (سفارت نامه), a related genre specific to the journeys and experiences of an Ottoman ambassador, and which is best exemplified by the 1718–1720 Paris Sefâretnâmesi of Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi, ambassador to the court of Louis XV of France
• the siyâsetnâme (سياست نامه), a kind of political treatise describing the functionings of state and offering advice for rulers, an early Seljuk example of which is the 11th-century Siyāsatnāma, written in Persian by Nizam al-Mulk, vizier to the Seljuk rulers Alp Arslan and Malik Shah I
• the tezkîre (تذکره), a collection of short biographies of notable figures, some of the most notable of which were the 16th-century tezkiretü'ş-şuarâs (تذكرة الشعرا), or biographies of poets, by Latîfî and Aşık Çelebi
• the münşeât (منشآت), a collection of writings and letters similar to the Western tradition of belles-lettres
• the münâzara (مناظره), a collection of debates of either a religious or a philosophical nature

The 19th century and Western influence

Further information: Poetry of the Ottoman Empire, Prose of the Ottoman Empire
By the early 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had become moribund. Attempts to right this situation had begun during the reign of Sultan Selim III, from 1789 to 1807, but were continuously thwarted by the powerful Janissary corps. As a result, only after Sultan Mahmud II had abolished the Janissary corps in 1826 was the way paved for truly effective reforms (Ottoman Turkish: تنظيمات tanzîmât).
These reforms finally came to the empire during the Tanzimat period of 1839–1876, when much of the Ottoman system was reorganized along largely French lines. The Tanzimat reforms "were designed both to modernize the empire and to forestall foreign intervention"
Along with reforms to the Ottoman system, serious reforms were also undertaken in the literature, which had become nearly as moribund as the empire itself. Broadly, these literary reforms can be grouped into two areas:

• changes brought to the language of Ottoman written literature;
• the introduction into Ottoman literature of previously unknown genres.

The reforms to the literary language were undertaken because the Ottoman Turkish language was thought by the reformists to have effectively lost its way. It had become more divorced than ever from its original basis in Turkish, with writers using more and more words and even grammatical structures derived from Persian and Arabic, rather than Turkish.Meanwhile, however, the Turkish folk literature tradition of Anatolia, away from the capital Constantinople, came to be seen as an ideal. Accordingly, many of the reformists called for written literature to turn away from the Divan tradition and towards the folk tradition; this call for change can be seen, for example, in a famous statement by the poet and reformist Ziya Pasha (1829–1880):

Ziya Pasha (1829–1880), Ottoman poet and reformist

Our language is not Ottoman; it is Turkish. What makes up our poetic canon is not gazels and kasîdes, but rather kayabaşıs, üçlemes, and çöğürs[11], which some of our poets dislike, thinking them crude. But just let those with the ability exert the effort on this road [of change], and what powerful personalities will soon be born!

At the same time as this call—which reveals something of a burgeoning national consciousness—was being made, new literary genres were being introduced into Ottoman literature, primarily the novel and the short story. This trend began in 1861, with the translation into Ottoman Turkish of François Fénelon's 1699 novel Les aventures de Télémaque, by Yusuf Kâmil Pasha, Grand Vizier to Sultan Abdülaziz. What is widely recognized as the first Turkish novel, Taaşuk-u Tal'at ve Fitnat (تعشق طلعت و فطنت; "Tal'at and Fitnat In Love") by Şemsettin Sami (1850–1904), was published just ten years later, in 1872. The introduction of such new genres into Turkish literature can be seen as part of a trend towards Westernization that continues to be felt in Turkey to this day.
Due to historically close ties with France—strengthened during the Crimean War of 1854–1856—it was French literature that came to constitute the major Western influence on Turkish literature throughout the latter half of the 19th century. As a result, many of the same movements prevalent in France during this period also had their equivalents in the Ottoman Empire: in the developing Ottoman prose tradition, for instance, the influence of Romanticism can be seen during the Tanzimat period, and that of the Realist and Naturalist movements in subsequent periods; in the poetic tradition, on the other hand, it was the influence of the Symbolist and Parnassian movements that became paramount.
Many of the writers in the Tanzimat period wrote in several different genres simultaneously: for instance, the poet Nâmık Kemal (1840–1888) also wrote the important 1876 novel İntibâh (انتباه; "Awakening"), while the journalist Şinasi (1826–1871) is noted for writing, in 1860, the first modern Turkish play, the one-act comedy "Şair Evlenmesi" (شاعر اولنمسى; "The Poet's Marriage"). In a similar vein, the novelist Ahmed Midhat Efendi (1844–1912) wrote important novels in each of the major movements: Romanticism (حسن ملاح ياخود سر ايچيكده اسرار Hasan Mellâh yâhud Sırr İçinde Esrâr, 1873; "Hasan the Sailor, or The Mystery Within the Mystery"), Realism (هﻨﻮز اون يدى يشکده Henüz On Yedi Yaşında, 1881; "Just Seventeen Years Old"), and Naturalism (مشاهدات Müşâhedât, 1891; "Observations"). This diversity was, in part, due to the Tanzimat writers' wish to disseminate as much of the new literature as possible, in the hopes that it would contribute to a revitalization of Ottoman social structures

[HipHopRocK]

Early 20th-century Turkish literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most of the roots of modern Turkish literature were formed between the years 1896—when the first collective literary movement arose—and 1923, when the Republic of Turkey was officially founded. Broadly, there were three primary literary movements during this period:

• the Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde (ادبيات جدیده; "New Literature") movement
• the Fecr-i Âtî (فجر آتى; "Dawn of the Future") movement
• the Millî Edebiyyât (ملى ادبيات; "National Literature") movement

The New Literature movement

Tevfik Fikret (1867–1915), poet and editor of Servet-i Fünûn

The Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde, or "New Literature", movement began with the founding in 1891 of the magazine Servet-i Fünûn (ﺛﺮوت ﻓﻨﻮن; "Scientific Wealth"), which was largely devoted to progress—both intellectual and scientific—along the Western model. Accordingly, the magazine's literary ventures, under the direction of the poet Tevfik Fikret (1867–1915), were geared towards creating a Western-style "high art" in Turkey. The poetry of the group—of which Tevfik Fikret and Cenâb Şehâbeddîn (1870–1934) were the most influential proponents—was heavily influenced by the French Parnassian movement and the so-called "Decadent" poets. The group's prose writers, on the other hand—particularly Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil (1867–1945)—were primarily influenced by Realism, although the writer Mehmed Rauf (1875–1931) did write the first Turkish example of a psychological novel, 1901's Eylül (ايلول; "September"). The language of the Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde movement remained strongly influenced by Ottoman Turkish.
In 1901, as a result of the article "Edebiyyât ve Hukuk" (ادبيات و ﺣﻘﻮق; "Literature and Law"), translated from French and published in Servet-i Fünûn, the pressure of censorship was brought to bear and the magazine was closed down by the government of the Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid II. Though it was closed for only six months, the group's writers each went their own way in the meantime, and the Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde movement came to an end.

The Dawn of the Future movement

In the 24 February 1909 edition of the Servet-i Fünûn magazine, a gathering of young writers—soon to be known as the Fecr-i Âtî ("Dawn of the Future") group—released a manifesto in which they declared their opposition to the Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde movement and their adherence to the credo, "Sanat şahsî ve muhteremdir" (صنعت شخصى و محترمدر; "Art is personal and sacred"). Though this credo was little more than a variation of the French writer Théophile Gautier's doctrine of "l'art pour l'art", or "art for art's sake", the group was nonetheless opposed to the blanket importation of Western forms and styles, and essentially sought to create a recognizably Turkish literature. The Fecr-i Âtî group, however, never made a clear and unequivocal declaration of its goals and principles, and so lasted only a few years before its adherents each went their own individual way. The two outstanding figures to emerge from the movement were, in poetry, Ahmed Hâşim (1884–1933), and in prose, Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu (1889–1974).

The National Literature movement

Cover page from an issue of Genç Kalemler

In 1908, Sultan Abdülhamid II had instituted a constitutional government, and the parliament subsequently elected was composed almost entirely of members of the Committee of Union and Progress (also known as the "Young Turks"). The Young Turks (ژون تورکلر Jön Türkler) had opposed themselves to the increasingly authoritarian Ottoman government, and soon came to identify themselves with a specifically Turkish national identity. Along with this notion developed the idea of a Turkish and even pan-Turkish nation (Turkish: millet), and so the literature of this period came to be known as "National Literature" (Turkish: millî edebiyyât). It was during this period that the Persian- and Arabic-inflected Ottoman Turkish language was definitively turned away from as a vehicle for written literature, and that literature began to assert itself as being specifically Turkish, rather than Ottoman.
At first, this movement crystallized around the magazine Genç Kalemler (کنج قلملر; "Young Pens"), which was begun in the city of Selânik in 1911 by the three writers who were most representative of the movement: Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924), a sociologist and thinker; Ömer Seyfettin (1884–1920), a short-story writer; and Ali Canip Yöntem (1887–1967), a poet. In Genç Kalemler's first issue, an article entitled "New Language" (Turkish: "Yeni Lisan") pointed out that Turkish literature had previously looked for inspiration either to the East as in the Ottoman Divan tradition, or to the West as in the Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde and Fecr-i Âtî movements, without ever turning to Turkey itself. This latter was the National Literature movement's primary aim.
The intrinsically nationalistic character of Genç Kalemler, however, quickly took a decidedly chauvinistic turn, and other writers—many of whom, like Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, had been a part of the Fecr-i Âtî movement—began to emerge from within the matrix of the National Literature movement to counter this trend. Some of the more influential writers to come out of this less far-rightist branch of the National Literature movement were the poet Mehmet Emin Yurdakul (1869–1944), the early feminist novelist Halide Edip Adıvar (1884–1964), and the short-story writer and novelist Reşat Nuri Güntekin (1889–1956).

Post-independence literature

Following the Ottoman Empire's defeat in the First World War of 1914–1918, the victorious Entente Powers began the process of carving up the empire's lands and placing them under their own spheres of influence. In opposition to this process, the military leader Mustafa Kemal (1881–1938), in command of the growing Turkish national movement whose roots lay partly in the Young Turks, organized the 1919–1923 Turkish War of Independence. This war ended with the official ending of the Ottoman Empire, the expulsion of the Entente Powers, and the founding of the Republic of Turkey.
The literature of the new republic emerged largely from the pre-independence National Literature movement, with its roots simultaneously in the Turkish folk tradition and in the Western notion of progress. One important change to Turkish literature was enacted in 1928, when Mustafa Kemal initiated the creation and dissemination of a modified version of the Latin alphabet to replace the Arabic-based Ottoman script. Over time, this change—together with changes in Turkey's system of education—would lead to more widespread literacy in the country.

[HipHopRocK]

Prose of the Republic of Turkey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Stylistically, the prose of the early years of the Republic of Turkey was essentially a continuation of the National Literature movement, with Realism and Naturalism predominating. This trend culminated in the 1932 novel Yaban ("The Wilds"), by Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu. This novel can be seen as the precursor to two trends that would soon develop: social realism, and the "village novel" (köy romanı).
The social realist movement is perhaps best represented by the short-story writer Sait Faik Abasıyanık (1906–1954), whose work sensitively and realistically treats the lives of cosmopolitan Istanbul's lower classes and ethnic minorities, subjects which led to some criticism in the contemporary nationalistic atmosphere. The tradition of the "village novel", on the other hand, arose somewhat later. As its name suggests, the "village novel" deals, in a generally realistic manner, with life in the villages and small towns of Turkey. The major writers in this tradition are Kemal Tahir (1910–1973), Orhan Kemal (1914–1970), and Yaşar Kemal (1923– ). Yaşar Kemal, in particular, has earned fame outside of Turkey not only for his novels—many of which, such as 1955's İnce Memed ("Memed, My Hawk"), elevate local tales to the level of epic—but also for his firmly leftist political stance. In a very different tradition, but evincing a similar strong political viewpoint, was the satirical short-story writer Aziz Nesin (1915–1995)and Rıfat Ilgaz(1911-1993)


Another novelist contemporary to, but outside of, the social realist and "village novel" traditions is Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901–1962). In addition to being an important essayist and poet, Tanpınar wrote a number of novels—such as Huzur ("Tranquillity", 1949) and Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü ("The Time Regulation Institute", 1961)—which dramatize the clash between East and West in modern Turkish culture and society. Similar problems are explored by the novelist and short-story writer Oğuz Atay (1934–1977). Unlike Tanpınar, however, Atay—in such works as his long novel Tutunamayanlar ("The Disconnected", 1971–1972) and his short story "Beyaz Mantolu Adam" ("Man in a White Coat", 1975)—wrote in a more modernist and existentialist vein. On the other hand, Onat Kutlar's İshak ("Isaac", 1959), composed of nine short stories which are written mainly from a child's point of view and are often surrealistic and mystical, represent a very early example of magic realism.
The tradition of literary modernism also informs the work of novelist Adalet Ağaoğlu (1929– ). Her trilogy of novels collectively entitled Dar Zamanlar ("Tight Times", 1973–1987), for instance, examines the changes that occurred in Turkish society between the 1930s and the 1980s in a formally and technically innovative style.


Prose of the Republic of Turkey covers the "Turkish Prose" beginning with 1911 with the national literature movement.

National Literature (1911-1923)

• Ömer Seyfettin, short story author (1884-1920)
• Halide Edip Adıvar, novelist (1884-1964)
• Reşat Nuri Güntekin, novelist (1889-1956)
• Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, novelist, poet, short story author (1889-1974)
• Fuat Köprülü, writer (1890-1966)

Republican Period Literature (1923- )


novel

• Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, novelist (1890-1973)
• Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, novelist and essayist (1901-1962)
• Sabahattin Ali, novelist, poet, essayist (1907-1948)
• Kemal Tahir, novelist (1910-1973)
• Orhan Kemal, novelist (1914-1970)
• Orhan Hançerlioğlu novelist (1916-1991)
• Samim Kocagöz, novelist (1916-1993)
• Semiha Ayverdi, novelist (1916-1993)
• Tarık Buğra, novelist (1918-1994)
• Yusuf Atılgan, novelist (1921-1989)
• Yasar Kemal, novelist (1923- )
• Fakir Baykurt, novelist (1929-1999)
• Bilge Karasu, novelist (1930-1995)
• Oğuz Atay, novelist (1934-1977)
• Tomris Uyar, novelist (1941-2003)
• Ahmet Altan, novelist (1950-)
• Murathan Mungan, novelist, poet, playwright (1955-)
• Elif Şafak, novelist (1971- )

short story

• Memduh Şevket Esendal, short story author (1883-1952)
• Kenan Hulusi Koray, short story author (1906-1943)
• Sait Faik Abasıyanık, short story author (1906-1954)
• Haldun Taner, short story author and dramatist (1915-1986)
• Aziz Nesin, humorist (1915-1995)

journalism

• Falih Rıfkı Atay, journalist (1894-1971)
• Peyami Safa, journalist and novelist (1899-1961)

essay

• Suut Kemal Yetkin, essayist (1903-1980)
• Kemal Bilbaşar, essayist (1910-1983)
• Cemil Meriç, essayist (1916-1987)
• Ruşen Eşref Ünaydın, essayist (1892-1959)
• Nurullah Ataç, essayist (1898-1957)

[HipHopRocK]

Poetry of the Republic of Turkey

Poetry of the Republic of Turkey covers the "Turkish Poetry" beginning with 1911 with the national literature movement.

In the early years of the Republic of Turkey, there were a number of poetic trends. Authors such as Ahmed Hâşim and Yahyâ Kemâl Beyatlı (1884–1958) continued to write important formal verse whose language was, to a great extent, a continuation of the late Ottoman tradition. By far the majority of the poetry of the time, however, was in the tradition of the folk-inspired "syllabist" movement (Beş Hececiler), which had emerged from the National Literature movement and which tended to express patriotic themes couched in the syllabic meter associated with Turkish folk poetry.
The first radical step away from this trend was taken by Nâzım Hikmet Ran, who—during his time as a student in the Soviet Union from 1921 to 1924—was exposed to the modernist poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky and others, which inspired him to start writing verse in a less formal style. At this time, he wrote the poem "Açların Gözbebekleri" ("Pupils of the Hungry"), which introduced free verse into the Turkish language for, essentially, the first time. Much of Nâzım Hikmet's poetry subsequent to this breakthrough would continue to be written in free verse, though his work exerted little influence for some time due largely to censorship of his work owing to his Communist political stance, which also led to his spending several years in prison. Over time, in such books as Simavne Kadısı Oğlu Şeyh Bedreddin Destanı ("The Epic of Shaykh Bedreddin, Son of Judge Simavne", 1936) and Memleketimden İnsan Manzaraları ("Human Landscapes from My Country", 1939), he developed a voice simultaneously proclamatory and subtle.

Garip (1941) revolutionized modern Turkish poetry

Another revolution in Turkish poetry came about in 1941 with the publication of a small volume of verse preceded by an essay and entitled Garip ("Strange"). The authors were Orhan Veli Kanık (1914–1950), Melih Cevdet Anday (1915–2002), and Oktay Rifat (1914–1988). Explicitly opposing themselves to everything that had gone in poetry before, they sought instead to create a popular art, "to explore the people's tastes, to determine them, and to make them reign supreme over art". To this end, and inspired in part by contemporary French poets like Jacques Prévert, they employed not only a variant of the free verse introduced by Nâzım Hikmet, but also highly colloquial language, and wrote primarily about mundane daily subjects and the ordinary man on the street. The reaction was immediate and polarized: most of the academic establishment and older poets vilified them, while much of the Turkish population embraced them wholeheartedly. Though the movement itself lasted only ten years—until Orhan Veli's death in 1950, after which Melih Cevdet Anday and Oktay Rifat moved on to other styles—its effect on Turkish poetry continues to be felt today.
Just as the Garip movement was a reaction against earlier poetry, so—in the 1950s and afterwards—was there a reaction against the Garip movement. The poets of this movement, soon known as İkinci Yeni ("Second New"), opposed themselves to the social aspects prevalent in the poetry of Nâzım Hikmet and the Garip poets, and instead—partly inspired by the disruption of language in such Western movements as Dada and Surrealism—sought to create a more abstract poetry through the use of jarring and unexpected language, complex images, and the association of ideas. To some extent, the movement can be seen as bearing some of the characteristics of postmodern literature. The most well-known poets writing in the "Second New" vein were Turgut Uyar (1927–1985), Edip Cansever (1928–1986), Cemal Süreya (1931–1990), Ece Ayhan (1931–2002), Sezai Karakoç (1933- ) and İlhan Berk (1918– ).
Outside of the Garip and "Second New" movements also, a number of significant poets have flourished, such as Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca (1914– ), who wrote poems dealing with fundamental concepts like life, death, God, time, and the cosmos; Behçet Necatigil (1916–1979), whose somewhat allegorical poems explore the significance of middle-class daily life; Can Yücel (1926–1999), who—in addition to his own highly colloquial and varied poetry—was also a translator into Turkish of a variety of world literature; and İsmet Özel (1944– ), whose early poetry was highly leftist but whose poetry since the 1970s has shown a strong mystical and even Islamist influence.

Book Trade

30 000 new titles are appearing yearly - in sometimes small numbers. Reading is not yet very popular; 70 000 of 71 Millionen inhabitants regularly read books. 9 verso 17 Euro (pro pocket book/hardcover) - at an averadge earning of less than 600 Euro monthly - are rather unattractive, where illegal copies at basars cost two thirds less. "Official Certificates" für legally published books do not definitely solve the problem (controlling stays difficult...).
5000 of 10 000 book shops are at Istanbul, with also the bookfair and growing licence trading. Turkey is guest of honour at the Frankfurt Bookfair in 2008.

Source

[Hi-LaL]

Children's Literature in Turkey

Fatih Erdogan, Library Science Department, Istanbul University, Galatasaray, Istanbul, Turkey

PAPER

Before we start discussing our children's literature, it is essential to take a look into the history of literature with its connections to sociological and political developments. Professor Meral Alpay, in her article Turkish Children's Publication/Yesterday and Today (1) divides the history of literature in Turkey into two main turning points. One of these is the acceptance of Islam by the Turkish population and the second is the influence of the West. According to Alpay, the diffusion of Islam into Turkish life helped an Islamic civilization to settle down and develop. The Westernization process had an influence on political, social, cultural and economical features. According to Alpay, we can group the history of literature in Turkey in three main historical periods:

1. Turkish literature until the acceptance of Islam.
2. Turkish literature under the influence of Islam.
3. Turkish literature under the influence of Western civilization.

Turkish literature for children starts around the first half of the XIXth century. The period 1839 1876 was a time of social, economic and political reformations in Turkey. Authors in this period, who were basically western oriented and inclined to French culture, began translating La Fontaine's animal stories. These were followed by the famous children's classics: Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, and almost all of Jules Verne's titles.

There were indeed, pieces of literature for children before this reformation period. The famous poet, Nabi, who lived in 1642 1712 for example, had written religious advice to his son, in his text in verses named Hayriye. A similar one was written by Sumbulzade Vehbi ( 1809) named Lutfiye. Besides these written pieces, there is a rich oral collection of tales, nursery rhymes, and anecdotes.

Magazines for children started in 1869. The first one that we can trace is Mumeyyiz (Examiner), which was subtitled Newspaper for Children. (2)

During the years following the Reformation Period, until the foundation of the republic, children's literature was accepted as a tool for education and the emphasis was mostly on poetry. Almost all of the modern poets of the time have written poems for children.
With the announcement of the republic, the themes were mostly selected to support the ideal of a new nation on the "ashes of the Ottoman Empire."

Novels and short stories appeared in which heroes were either idealistic historical warrior Turks, or poor village children who fight with their fate in the city.

After the 2nd World War, one of the most popular authors of novels for children has been Kemalettin Tugcu. This author has a very special importance in the history of children's literature in Turkey, because his style had been discussed widely by many critics until today. Some said his novels had no literary value, others said he gave children a pessimistic world view through his heroes who generally are from lower level sections of the society. Crippled beggars, fatherless or motherless children who are good, are put against "rich and ruthless" upper level people. The plot always ended up with the good being "saved," but you generally were to find yourself saddened as you read it. His novels on the other hand were also important in the sense that they were not written in the educative style of earlier authors.
Another turning point in children's literature is the period which started in 1975 and ended with the military coup in 1980. The political left had reached its highest popularity by 1975. Not only children's literature but literature in general was effected by this. This could easily be seen in the themes that authors chose as they wrote for children. Class struggle was the main theme and plot was set up so that the regime of the superior forces was destroyed by the ones who were oppressed until then. Animal heroes who worked for the superior animals were to make their revolution and set up their new regime of brotherhood and equality. This plot was the most commonly used plot of the period. It cannot be defended but, it was not surprising that the 1980 military coup had prohibited the sale of some children's books to children.

From the literary point of view, this period was a loss in the sense that the political tone highly determined the production of new titles. This resulted in having almost no titles with themes regarding children and their needs.

The other important feature of this period was a predominantly negative attitude towards fairy tales. This was partly an imported approach. As you know some Marxist authors like Jack Zipes had claimed that the feudal life style in fairy tales was not to be regenerated anymore. After the coup, on the other hand, publishing of fairy tales by Grimm and Andersen started to rise. This was partly because the political left approach was prohibited, and fairy tales were neutral material to publish. Also new pedagogical findings questioned the common negative attitude against fairy tales.

The production of fairy tales by many publishers had helped in another way. Since some publishers have hired local illustrators, the importance of illustrating books had been emphasized more than before. (In fact, an Association of Illustrators has just been founded.)
It is not easy to cover all the issues regarding a part of the literature in a country in a short paper, but generally, it is important to note that the history of literature and the social history of a country must have parallel features. Or, literature in general, must be a reflection of a specific life style and culture expressed by the individuals who breath the same culture. Literature is the voice of these individuals' interpretation, their struggle to give meaning to their lives by using their ability in linguistic expression. In other words, literature gives us messages about the society in which it was produced.

In our case, during the period of Reformation (1839 1876) and afterwards, when the influence of the West was visible, the gap between life and the expression of life had been deepened. For example, the French influence, which made concepts like nation, country, freedom, law popularized after the French revolution, had effected Turkish authors. This means, the author was not only an individual who interpreted and expressed the life he lived, but was almost a "missionary" who interpreted and expressed some other life he wanted himself and his society to live in.

Of course, the difference of "what's in the book" and "what's on the street" is an eternal conflict that the authors must always experience. What's important here is not the typical gap between the common people and the intellectual that's almost universal, but the voluntary educative/directive role of the intellectual over the public. This gap probably has historical reasons but even with this gap, most of the literature has some sort of connection with the society.

When we look at children~s literature from this point of view, on the other hand, it is not easy to say this. Since the authors for children preferred to "educate" children with the dream of a so far not realized world, which is a world of happiness and beauty, rather than expressing the real life they live in. The motivation is that this world has many things to "correct" and the children (the grownups of tomorrow) will do this task. Therefore they have to be "prepared" for this job. There might be many reasons for this. And it was practiced all over the world as an historical process. The educative animal stories in the famous 3rd century Kelile and Dimne of the East influenced La Fontaine of the West. Turkish children had read these stories more from La Fontaine than they read it from Kelile and Dimne.
The history of educative children's literature is probably related with the history of the concept of "child." The meaning of child in a society influences what is given or not given to children in that society. The common factor is that children have to be prepared for life. Therefore we must educate them. And the style of this education differs related with the educational system in that society.

The first children's books of the West, namely the horn book, which was hung around the neck of the child and included religious verses and the alphabet, is a striking sign of how the child was seen then.

It is a big research project to derive one to one relationships between the social history of a country and its literature, children's or adults'. But, an overall view of the past ten years, shows that the children's literature in this period did not find its sources in the lives of the authors, of the culture that shaped him, but rather the imposing of an ideal value system from the top, in an easily understandable (by children) literary form. For this reason, our children's literature has difficulty in being accepted as an expression of our social life.
One of the main reasons for our lack of the reading habit for children is this traditional "educative mission" in books for children. This mission sometimes forces children to digest an ethical rule, or sometimes it may force them to choose a political attitude. No matter the direction, the attitude is the same: The author has a view and he wants the child to accept it. The number of children's books in which the author has no plan to shape the child is very few. In the time of the foundation of the Republic (1920s), this plan was to make every child the defenders of the ideals of the new republic. This plan was reshaped according to the disturbances and changes that the society experienced.

It is not easy to tell what the plan is now. According to my observation children don't have their own authors anymore. Different groups have their own authors. It is necessary to investigate how much these authors are read by their own readers and what these authors give to their readers.

After these general comments, it would be helpful to share some statistics. According to Turkish Books in Print, among the 821 publishers that are recorded so far, 88 publish for children also. The number of children's publishers were 60 in 1993. The total number of children's titles were 3300 in 1992, 3400 in 1993 and 5200 in 1994. That means a 54% increase from the previous year. Also, the number of co production projects with publishers from other countries has increased. This development has only one negative side: The local illustrators and authors had less chances to work for a publisher.

Problems:
Problems in the field of children~s literature can be grouped as: 1)problems of authors and illustrators, 2) problems of publishers, 3)problems of the reader (children and parents)
First, the problems of authors and illustrators basically are related with the economical situation of the country. A specific example can reveal this very well: I have read that, Maurice Sendak, when he was asked to illustrate Grimm's Fairy Tales, visited Germany and spent a few months there to feel the atmosphere that the Grimm Brothers had lived in. Then he went back to the United States and finished his work in more than a year. I don't want to say that everyone is a Maurice Sendak, but an illustrator (one of the best) in Turkey who would illustrate the same book, would get a payment that would only help him a few weeks, let alone help him to buy a plane ticket to Germany. This is related with the problems of the publishers. Authors also suffer from their lack of control over their work.

Second, let us consider the problems of the publishers. The average retail prices of books for children are very low in Turkey. This fact directs the publishers to lower the cost of production. That means cheap text, cheap methods of reproduction of the illustrations, and especially, the serious cost factor of paper in Turkey. There is no government support on paper, and a high cost of paper ends up with a low print run, and that reduces the profit margin.

In Turkey, the reading habit is low. Producing for a small sector of the population is not profitable. It's almost impossible for a publisher to exist by producing only for children.
Third, let's look at the problems of the readers. Children can't always find what they need to read. Television is easier to reach than libraries and bookshops. Parents have no guide in finding good books for their children. The education system doesn't promote reading other than schoolbooks.



1 Alpay, Meral. "Turkish Children's Publication/Yesturday and Today." 1983 Nesin Foundation Yearbook.
2 "Mumeyyiz: Newspaper for Children." Turkiye' de Sureli Cocuk Yayinlari (Periodicals for Children in Turkey). Ataturk Kultur, Dil ve Tarih Yuksek Kurumu Yayinlari, 1991, Ankara.
3 Turkish Books in Print (Turkiye Kitap Katalogu). Basis Yayin Birligi, 1994, Aralik.

Source >>>