Turkish Poetry and Novelism in Turkish Republic

Ottoman Period Movements and Their Effects on Literature:

The Tanzimat Edict, which was declared under the pressure of the Western states in 1839, resulted in the wounding of the Ottomanist view, which aimed to keep all citizens in the state together, regardless of religion, language and ancestry, and the acceptance that especially the Christian population was taken under Western protection in the multicultural-multilingual Ottoman society. Afterwards, with the encouragement and help of Western states, the nationalist movements that extended to the Balkan Wars ended Ottomanism.

The Ottoman sultans of the period, as an antidote to nationalism, considered it necessary to turn to the Islamist state policy that centered the Muslim elements as the mainstay of the state. Mehmet Akif Ersoy has been the most prominent representative of the Islamist movement, which has a policy of gathering Muslims under a flag, in our literary world. This understanding, along with the break-up of the Arabs, who were injured by the rupture of the Albanians, the Muslim element under the Ottoman rule, before the First World War, and who did not hesitate to carry out treacherous attacks against the Muslims of Turkish origin under the strong influence of the British policies after the war, the Islamist-based thought trend was largely shelved towards the 1920s. has risen.

Although Islamism was the official policy of the state in the last period of the Ottoman Empire, the majority of intellectuals turned to a Western-based understanding of reformism in the administrative system and social order in order to get rid of the deadlock the country was in. Thus, Westernism came to the fore as a great intellectual movement of this period.

Turkism, on the other hand, initially aimed to gather the Turks all over the world under one roof, but in the following period, especially with the Republic, it has continued to exist successfully as a current of thought that was limited to Anatolian lands but formed the basis of the nation-state. In this respect, the majority of the works given in our literature reflected the understanding of Turkism. Hamdullah Suphi, Refik Halit, Yakup Kadri, Yahya Kemal, Faruk Nafiz, Yusuf Ziya, Enis Behiç, Rıza Tevfik, Ziya Gökalp, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Ahmet Kutsi Tecer and others became the leading poets and writers who laid the foundations of national literature. Among them, Tanpınar became famous with his work named Mahir Beste, making the issue of civilization the subject of his novel.

A Look at Literature Based on Turkism and Westernism in the New Republic Period:

With the Young Pens (1911) published by Ömer Seyfettin, Ali Canip and Ziya Gökalp, the Turkist Movement adopted the simplification of language and the use of syllabic meter instead of aruz meter in Turkish society. This Turkist movement, which had a great influence on the Committee of Union and Progress, included a large part of the country's intellectuals, as a result of the disappearance of Ottomanism with the Balkan wars and the end of the end of the First World War, and the revival of the understanding of Turkism in the Ottoman remnant Anatolian lands and the struggle against the invaders. As a mainstream in the awakening of the high spirit of the War of Independence throughout the country and ultimately in the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, it gave the Turkish society the identity of nation building, the consciousness and power of re-existence. Thus, Turkism, which is at the forefront of the basic ideas on which the newly established Turkish State is based, became the main stream that formed the backbone of the state with the support of Atatürk, together with Westernism that guided the national goal of "reaching the level of modern civilization" that Atatürk showed.

Turkism, which gained an Anatolian identity rather than Turanism with the Republic, was consolidated in the new Republican society with the works of Ziya Gökalp, who was seen as the father of ideas of this movement and whose ideas were valued by Atatürk. We see that Gökalp's works, which previously reflected his views on Turanism, evolved into a Turkism reflecting the philosophy of Anatolianism over time.

Reflections of Nationalism and Nationalist Romanticism on Literature:

In the first years of the Republic of Turkey, writers and poets based on the understanding of national literature created works that reflect Anatolia, the characteristics of the people and homeland living in this geography, and Turkish revolutions. Especially the writers and poets of the early Republican period, who aimed to spread and adopt the revolutions to the public, gave priority to reflecting the excitement of the revolutions and the visions of the future, which were written under the influence of Westernism, with a romantic understanding in their works. In their works, which are detached from realism, they preferred to stay away from the reality of Anatolia in a ruined state and wrote their longing for an Anatolia that will change/will change only with the revolution they have imagined. For this reason, this period was later called the period of patriotic and nationalist romanticism.

Poor and sick people, ruined neighborhoods, burnt crops, etc., seen in artists such as Tevfik Fikret, Mehmet Akif and Yahya Kemal, the leading names of the period before them. themes do not appear in the works of artists of this period. Dozens of Anatolia is the home of silver rivers, green plains, fertile crops, poetic shepherds, hardworking and cheerful people. As can be seen, these writers based on romantic nationalism longing instead of rational nationalism. It is interesting that great poets who left their mark with their literary dimension did not appear in this period.

Social Realism in Poetry: Nazım and Necip Fazıl

With the 1940s, the values ​​of the Republic were settled and romanticism began to leave its place to social realism. It can be said that this movement was born as a reaction to the understanding of the artists of the early Republican period, who saw and showed everything in rosy color. Nazım and Necip Fazıl, who brought a new perspective to things and events in the field of poetry, pioneered this reactionary generation under different ideologies, and with these aspects, they became the founders of the understanding of Turkish Poetry that has survived until today. The period of National Literature, which left works based on plain language and syllabic meter and started to take shape in the 1930s, presented powerful works to the Turkish people with Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Ahmet Kutsi Tecer, Ahmet Muhip Dıranas, as well as Nazım and Necip Fazıl.

While the pioneers of the nationalist romanticism movement were trying to adapt to the innovations and social change brought by the Republic, the National Authors, since they opened their eyes to the world with the Republic, have now easily reached an understanding that can produce literary works in the real sense as a generation that has a close understanding of the Republic.

Nazım Hikmet has attracted attention as a poet who successfully uses the rhythmic structure of the Turkish language, writes poems reflecting a socialist worldview, and stands out with his ideological stance that appeals to the left. Necip Fazıl, who is in a way the antithesis of Nazım, is famous as a poet who oriented towards the right audience, scrutinized the depth of people, society and things, and wrote poems in a mystical atmosphere. In the same years, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar wrote poems reflecting our common history and culture based on a European culture. Ahmet Kutsi Tecer is known for his folk poetry style that he reinterpreted. Ahmet Muhip Dıranas, who stood out from the others as a personality who used the poetic technique differently in this period, wrote beautiful poems with a strong aesthetic aspect, loaded with modern symbols, and prepared Turkish poetry for modernist movements with Tanpınar and Tecer.

Strange Movement of Orhan Veli and His Friends:

Poets such as Cahit Sıtkı, Orhan Veli, and Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca, who followed these poets, shaped Turkish poetry with their more innovative poems. In particular, the Garip Movement, initiated by Orhan Veli, Melih Cevdet Anday and Oktay Rifat Horozcu in 1941, greatly expanded the content of Turkish poetry, reflecting daily life, ordinary relationships, ordinary people's lives, language and daily conversations in a plain way.

The common feature of this trio in Turkish social life, which started to be reshaped after the Second World War, was that they reflected socialist ideas written by making use of folk language and folk literature. In fact, the Garip Movement is seen as the reflection of the revolutionary poetry movement that started in the Western society in the 1920s, albeit late, in Turkey. Strange Poets; They kept the "working person" typology alive in their poems written in spoken language.

In the same period, Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı, Ziya Osman Saba wrote personal and lyric poems, while Ceyhun Atıf Kansu, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu and Necati Cumalı left contemporary works with socialist features. Cahit Külebi, on the other hand, wrote original modern poems based on folk songs.

After 1955, the Blue Stream started by Atilla İlhan and his friends; This period left its mark on Turkish poetry. Ilhan is famous for reflecting the bohemian understanding of life, romanticism and male-female relations even in his ideological and socialist poems. In the same years, Metin Eloğlu, who set out from the poetry of Orhan Veli, brought the life of the people of the suburbs to the world of poetry. Behçet Necatigil, on the other hand, preferred to write poems with philosophical depth.

The Effect of Left Winds in Turkish Poetry and Its Reflections on Today's Poetry:

In the meantime, the emergence of many left-wing poets who followed the path of Nazım, the demonstration that the society liked Nazım-style poems, the acceptance and compulsion that poets must be leftist when it comes to Turkish poetry until almost the 80s, as a 'social perception'. brought with it. Making good use of the Cold War period and the effects of the 1968 generation on literature throughout the world, the Turkish left in these years and the Turkish literature that developed along with it, led many literature readers and enthusiasts throughout the society to see having leftist ideas as a condition of art. This Turkish type of 'leftism' understanding dominates poetry; It played a major role in the emergence of a result that alienated the conservative part of Turkish society and the majority of the people, who could not break away from the traditional life philosophy, from being literary readers.

Turkish society after 1980; Instead of the ideological division, it has left itself to the global economic winds, conservative and liberal views, with the undeniable influence of the September 12 administration. Thus, as in everything else, individualistic works, economic world, materiality, diversity and multiculturalism began to come to the fore in art, and ideological poems remained in the background. Despite this, it was not possible for a deep-rooted understanding of poetry and literature to emerge in the Turkish society structure, where the "Turkish-Islamist" and sometimes only "Islamist" mentality, which rose towards the 2000s, tried to dominate.

The Effects of the Republic in Novel Writing:

The social changes that shaped the art of poetry were similarly reflected in the Turkish Novel.

In most of the novels written in 1920-1946; We see that Turkish novelists include opinions and thoughts that judge the past, highlight the distortions that caused the collapse of the late Ottoman social order, and examine the reasons for its collapse. During this period, Yakup Kadri, Reşat Nuri, Refik Halit, Peyami Safa, Abdülhak Şinasi and Mithat Cemal came to the fore as prominent novelists. Most of these novelists tend to describe high ideals in their novels. They saw the future of society in the acquisition of these ideals, reflected the Anatolian common denominator in their novels, and even left works that were close to scientific socialism.

Village Novelism and the Kemals Period:

After the Second World War, as in poetry, Turkish novelists began to reflect their ideological views in their novels. The novels of this period, which developed under the influence of socialism, became famous as village novels. Starting from the assumption of feudal structure in Anatolia, these novelists 'peasantized' Turkish novel writing as if it were the only and indispensable style. In the peasant novel school, in which Kemal Tahir and Orhan Kemal joined them to find a place for themselves, the works of Sabahattin Ali in which he describes village life with his Marxist ideas come to the fore. Likewise, this type of novelism matures with Yaşar Kemal, who mainly focuses on banditry stories and blood feuds. However, when Fakir Baykurt and Talip Apaydın started to write simpler works compared to the 'Kemaller' period, Kemal Tahir broke away from this team and turned to history-themed novels.

In this period, when the peasantry and the 'Kemaller' movement were dominant in Turkish novel writing, some novelists began to write works that included Dostoyevsky-style psychological realism. The most famous among them is Peyami Safa. Dokuzuncu Dışye Kağısu, written by him, is considered the first contemporary and genuine novel in Turkish literature of the Republican period.

Kemal Tahir, who developed a novel of his own style as a rebellion against village novelism, started to bring his novels, which were rewritten with a cold-blooded realism during the establishment years of the Ottoman Empire and the National Struggle and before, to Turkish society since the mid-1960s. In this area, Kemal Tahir's Tired Warrior and Tarık Buğra's Küçük Ağa draw attention. Atilla İlhan joined the same wind with his novel The Tip of the Knife. In the same years, the shantytown and suburban life that surrounded Turkish cities like a gangrene in the 1950s was also reflected in Turkish novels and managed to become one of the main themes until the end of the 1980s. Sevgi Soysal's novel A Lunch Time in Yenişehir is known as one of the best examples written in this context.

One of the female novelists, especially Alev Alatlı, came to the fore with her novels containing sociological analysis. Women writers such as Tomris Uyar, Pınar Kür, Latife Tekin and Adalet Ağaoğlu have also produced beautiful works on different themes like her.

Fundamental Change in Turkish Novelism and Orhan Pamuk:

In the 1970s, novelists who started to do more technical studies as fiction emerged. For example, Adalet Ağaoğlu, who wrote her works based on flashbacks and connotations in a narrow time period, has been a pioneer in this respect. Likewise, Oğuz Atay reflected the inner depressions of the generations after 1940, who had to constantly navigate between culture and civilization preferences, with Tutunamayanlar, which is considered one of the greatest novels in the history of the Republic.

While diversity increased in Turkish novels after 1980, social realism and village novelism were replaced by modernist assertive novels, works advocating close views to communities and groups, national, heroic and intrigue novels dealing with history, Islamic, populist and ideological novels, completely scattered, cryptic and detective novels. and so on.

Thus, from the 1980s and 1990s to the present, exotic medieval times in Turkish novels and past lives based on legends have been brought together with the reader. This understanding and technique from the West was used in Orhan Pamuk's novels, which contributed to his great popularity and his Nobel Prize.