CHAPTER 4 – HALIDE EDIP AND YAKUP KADRI
136
1897 received an unfavourable response from Ahmet Cevdet and from the editor
Cenab Şahabettin
72
.
Yahya Kemal and Yakup Kadri in their turn expressed their ideas to Tevfik Fikret
who did not object but suggested they seek advice from Cenab Şahabettin. In the
meeting with the latter in which Rıza Tevfik was present too, they encountered
objections.
In 1949 Rıza Tevfik, responding to Hasan-ÂliYücel’s request to tell him about the
meeting with Yahya Kemal and Yakup Kadri on the Nev Yunanîlik movement,
responded with a long letter written in an old fashioned and difficult language
73
. In
short, to paraphrase him, he held Greek and Latin literature in great esteem but he
could not see how a hellenising or Mediterranean movement could take root in
Turkey. He did not support the idea of a literary movement which could be called
collectively Mediterranean either. He could only see it as a movement which had a
Hellenic heritage. Even if there are concrete examples of Mediterranean types of
people (
charactère physionomique
), Rıza Tevfik argued that such examples do not
exist in poetry. The area of Southern Italy, all of Western Anatolia, Sicily and Crete
together with all the Aegean islands could be considered as one cultural source and
cultural field. The new poetry’s model and ideal could be something neo-Hellenic
but there was no way we could recreate the sublimity of the Ancients.
72
Yücel, 252-5
73
Yücel, 270-276 for the whole letter.
CHAPTER 4 – HALIDE EDIP AND YAKUP KADRI
137
In a supplementary short letter he added that
74
:
Türkiye’de, daha doğrusu Osmanlı şiirinde birçok hellenizm
fikirleri ve hayalleri var. Hattâ bütün tasavvuf felsefi neo-platonizmin
İran’a aksetmiş olan gölgesinin gölgesidir. Hâlâ merbut bulunduğumuz
bâzı âdetler, hurafeler eski Yunan’dan intikâl etmiş şeylerdir. Yalnız
evellâ İran’a, İran’dan Selçukîlere, onlardan bize miras kalmış şeyler
olduğu için nereden geldiğini bilmiyoruz.
In Turkish, more precisely in Ottoman poetry there are some Hellenic
thoughts and ideas. In essence all the mystic philosophy is the shadow of
neoplatonism’s shadow on Iran. Some customs or superstitions to which
we are still attached to are things transmitted to us from ancient Greeks.
But because it is an inheritance which reached us having first been left to
Iran and then to the Selçuk Turks we do not know where it came from.
In short, Rıza Tevfik thought that the only element of Hellenism in Ottoman or
Turkish literature could be detected in the mystics which in their turn have
influenced innovators and proponents of Nev Yunanîlik like Yahya Kemal and
Yakup Kadri.
Ömer Seyfettin, the advocate of a simple Turkish language and Turkism, for his part,
not only ridiculed the idea of a neo-Hellenic movement but went as far as to imply
its treacherous character. This position is not difficult to understand at a time when
the Ottoman empire was losing territory to the neo-Hellenes! In the satirical short
story “Boykotaj Düşmanı” (Damaging Enemy) (
Tanin
1952, 17 May 1330 / 30 May
1914)
75
Ömer Seyfettin ridiculed Yahya Kemal and his poorly timed admiration for
the Greek civilisation. This short story was written in the aftermath of the Balkan
74
Yücel, 276
75
Polat. 2011, 417-25
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |