Millennium of Turkish Literature : a concise History

Don 
Kişot’tan Bugüne Roman
(Th
e Novel from Don Quixote to Our Day).
Dilek Doltaş (b. 1945), Yıldız Ecevit (b. 1946), Sibel Irzık (b. 1958), 
Nurdan Gürbilek (b. 1956), and Nüket Esen (b. 1949) are among accom-
plished academic critics.
Enis Batur (b. 1952), who also enjoys fame as a poet and publisher, 
possesses one of the most interesting literary minds of his generation and 
in many respects stands as the ideal symbol of and spokesman for the cul-
tural synthesis that modern Turkey has been striving to create.
A salutary observation about literary criticism is that it has never 
been more evenhanded or objective, never as free from ideological bias or 
polemics. It benefi ts from Turkey’s widest freedom heretofore for writers. 
It is probably more refi ned than ever and will most likely take impressive 
strides if its practitioners rely less on the literary theories that abound in 
the Western world and create some of its own that will serve more eff ec-
tively in evaluating the sui generis identity and authentic aesthetic values.
Th
e past millennium of Turkish literature can justifi ably be character-
ized as many-splendored. Its oral tradition in verse and narration as 
well as its written legacy in all genres stand as testaments to the nation’s 
imagination and creativity. In a thousand years, it stretched from Central 

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130
A Millennium of Turkish Literature
Beacon
Jutting far into the high seas, the promontory,
Cherished as the lazulite and silver night, smolders.
A terrestrial love starts in the dark
While the beacon shines
Despite destiny on the boulders.
Clouds fuse in crepuscular dimensions,
From distant harbors fogs descend,
And sadness stirs in the darkness of fate;
Blazing and blinking, the beacon inquires:
Where in life do you stand, where in love do you stand?
If the heart cringes in the starlight,
Memories might recede and recoil.
Time may tread on without the soul’s cargo
As the beacon has stood for ages
With patience on this same soil.
It witnessed sea battles and ancient pirates,
Caught the wind asleep and the waves in fl ight,
As blue and black as a single eye,
And vacant as the vast seas;
Ill-fated fi shermen struggled in its sight.
In your hair a cool air smells of salt and death.
On your face a cyclone’s tastes linger.
You stand weary and forlorn,
Suddenly fl ickering, quivering with joy:
Something, perhaps life, is now longer.
Dolorous as the widows’ indomitable desires,
Upon its prowess the gargantuan night lies.
Insane, taciturn, and awake,
It craves from disaster the charity of end-all;
It is wise.

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Republic and Renascence
131
Asia to the Caucasus, the Middle East, the Balkans, and points beyond. 
It embraced infl uences from the East and the West, the North and the 
South. As a consequence, it created its own synthesis, which came to 
include the aesthetic strategies of Europe and the Americas. Its explora-
tions and diversity of accomplishments are admirable. Its universal work 
was “certifi ed” when the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to the 
novelist Orhan Pamuk in 2006.
Th
e second millennium of this time-honored and vigorous literature 
will probably be marked by countless impressive achievements.
Our drunken vessels roll and sway.