Millennium of Turkish Literature : a concise History

Âs¸ık Veysel
(1894–1973)
The Turkish minstrel is referred to as 
âs¸ık
—meaning both “ lover” and “ folk 
poet.” Popular belief is that the poet is a man of love: love of beauty, of God, of 
nature, of the nation, of justice, of humanity. Âs¸ık Veysel uttered the eloquence 
of love. “Love and passion and the loved one are all in me” was his declaration 
of all-embracing love. Like his mystic predecessors, he proclaimed: “God’s exis-
tence is embedded in Man.”
He expressed his profound devotion to his country in the following two memo-
rable lines:
You are closer to me than myself.
I would have no life if you did not exist.
This Turkish Muslim folk poet was a humanist with boundless religious toler-
ance and an ecumenical vision:
The Koran and the Bible are God’s grace
Which is what all four holy books embrace;
To scorn and segregate this or that race
Would be the darkest blemish on one’s face.
He made a plea for universal brotherhood and unity:
Come, brother, let us unite in harmony.
Let us love each other like brothers, heart to heart.

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Many Turkish poets were absorbed by a concern for world aff airs. 
Th
eir motivation was ideological or humanistic; nonetheless, they com-
mented on international events with telling eff ect. Th
ey poured out elegiac 
poems for John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Ho Chi Minh, and 
Salvador Allende, along with indictments of the war in Vietnam, celebra-
tions of man’s conquest of the moon, and moving accounts of the tragedies 
of Algeria, Cyprus, Palestine, and elsewhere.
Th
e most encompassing poetic achievement of contemporary Turkey 
belongs to Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca (1914–2008), the winner of the Award 
of the International Poetry Forum (Pittsburgh) and the Yugoslav Golden 
Wreath (Struga), previously won by W. H. Auden, Pablo Neruda, and 
Eugenio Montale and later by Allen Ginsberg and others. His range is 
bewilderingly broad: metaphysical poetry, children’s verse, cycles about 
the space age and lunar ventures, epics on the conquest of Istanbul and 
the War of Liberation, aphoristic quatrains, neomystical verse, poetry of 
social protest, travel impressions, books on the national liberation strug-
gles of several countries, and humorous anecdotes in verse. Dağlarca 
published only poetry—more than a hundred collections in all. “In the 
course of a prestigious career,” writes Yaşar Nabi Nayır, a prominent 
critic, “which started in 1934, Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca tried every form of 
poetry, achieving equally impressive success in the epic genre, in lyric 
and inspirational verse, in satire, and in the poetry of social criticism. 
Since he has contributed to Turkish literature a unique sensibility, new 
concepts of substance and form, and an inimitable style, his versatility 
and originality have been matched by few Turkish literary fi gures, past or 
present.”
10
Dağlarca’s tender lyric voice fi nds itself in countless long and 
short poems:
Sparkle
Clearly death is not a loss.
Regardless the brooks
Will fl ow.
10. Yaşar Nabi Nayır, “Dağlarca and His Poetry,” translated by Talat S. Halman, in 
Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca: Selected Poems
(Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), xix.

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Republic and Renascence
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With faith
Weeds will turn green and roses will grow.
Clearly death is not a loss.
Dağlarca’s protest poetry, however, can oft en be described as 
a verbis ad 
verbera.
Beating
How about it, let’s join our hands.
You hit twice, and I’ll belt two.
Has he stolen
Or sucked the nation’s blood and sweat?
You belt four, and I’ll strike four more.
Twenty sent abroad to buy ships, thirty to select tea . . .
Did the Foreign Minister get a cut,
While our hairless children starve in adobe villages,
And our baby dolls sell their pure fl esh night aft er night?
You hit seven times, and I’ll belt seven more.
How about it, eh, let’s join hands.
Has he sold a plate of beans, eight cents’ worth for two dollars eighty,
Or did he shake his camel’s head at your petition to squeeze 500 out of 
you?
Elected to Congress did he invest in his own future, trample on progress?
You belt nine, and I’ll belt nine more.
In 
Toprak Ana
(Mother Earth, 1950), Dağlarca gives poetic expression 
to the same tragic deprivations, as in the poem “Village Without Rain”:
I’m hungry, black earth, hungry, hear me.
With the black ox I’m hungry tonight.
He thinks, and thinking feeds him,
I think, and thinking makes my hunger grow.
I’m hungry, black earth, hungry, hear me.
One can’t hide it when he’s hungry.
Th
e wind sleeps on the hills of gluttony
In the sleep of bird and beast.

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