Millennium of Turkish Literature : a concise History

Servet-i Fünun
10. Niyazi Akı, 
XIX. Yüzyıl Türk Tiyatrosu Tarihi
(Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi 
Basımevi, 1963), 42–43.
11. Although such practices as adaptation without acknowledgment or outright pla-
giarism were more common in the writing of comedy, careful students of early Ottoman 
tragedies, in particular Akı, have docu mented the specifi c debts to non-Turkish models 
(Akı, 
XIX. Yüzyıl Türk Tiyatrosu Tarihi,
61–70).

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Occidental Orientation
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movement stood on its laurels, the 
Fecr-i Âti
group introduced new aes-
thetic principles based mainly on individualism and introspection. Th
e 
members revealed Parnassian, symbolist, and impressionist infl uences.
Other notable groups included the 
Nev Yunaniler
(Neo-Graecians) 
poets and novelists, principally Yahya Kemal Beyatlı (1884–1958) and Yakup 
Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, who incorporated into their work many themes and 
aesthetic values from the Greek and, to a lesser extent, Roman traditions. 
Emerging as an alternative and in opposition to the 
Nev Yunaniler,
another 
group embraced the heritage of the entire Mediterranean basin and sought 
to create a synthesis of the West and the East. Th
ey called themselves 
Na-
yiler,
literally “Reed-Flute Players,” but fi guratively “Virtuosos of Music.” 
Making melodiousness a prime creative asset, they stressed the ideal of 
“inner harmony” through Yahya Kemal Beyatlı’s infl uence.
Th
e closing decades of the Ottoman state witnessed an abundance of 
translations and adaptations from Europe. Th
is period was also the heyday 
of polemics and criticism. With great energy, the stage was set for the revo-
lutions that the young Republic of Turkey would launch.

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Republic and Renascence
W
hen the Ottoman state collapsed aft er nearly 625 years and gave 
way to the Turkish Republic in 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 
devoted his prodigious energies to the creation of a homogeneous nation-
state dedicated to modernization in all walks of life, vowing to raise Turkey 
to the level of contemporary civilization (meaning the West) and higher. 
In image, in aspiration, in identifi cation, the offi
cial and cultural estab-
lishment became largely Europeanized. Education was made secular, and 
reforms were undertaken to divest the country of its Muslim orientation. 
Th
e legal system adapted the Swiss Civil Code, the Italian Penal Code, and 
German Commercial Law. Perhaps the most diffi
cult of all reforms, the 
Language Revolution, was undertaken with lightning speed in 1928, and 
since then it has achieved a scope of success unparalleled in the modern 
world. Th
e Arabic script, considered sacrosanct as Koranic orthography 
and used by the Turks for a millennium, was replaced by the Latin alpha-
bet. Th
is procrustean reform sought to increase literacy, to facilitate the 
study of European languages, and to cut off the younger generations from 
the legacy of the Ottoman past. Atatürk also launched a “pure Turkish” 
movement to rid the language of Arabic and Persian loanwords and to 
replace them with revivals from old Turkish vocabulary and provincial 
patois as well as neologisms. Reforms and all, the single common denomi-
nator of Turkish identifi cation has signifi cantly been the language. It has 
provided for social cohesion, cultural continuity, and national allegiance.
Although many of these sweeping reforms did not have a strong 
impact in the rural areas until the latter part of the twentieth century, in 
the urban centers drastic changes took place: the political system, religious 
faith, national ideology, educational institutions and methods, intellectual 

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