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Kemal Tahir (March 13, 1910 - April 21, 1973) was a prominent Turkish novelist and intellectual. Tahir spent 13 years of his life imprisoned due to political reasons and composed some of his most important novels during this time. His most important novels include Esir Şehrin İnsanları (1956), Devlet Ana (1967) and Yorgun Savaşçı (1965), all in which Tahir uses historical background to support his characters and settings. Some of his novels were adapted into popular films. Tahir also wrote pulp fiction under pseudonyms for economical reasons.
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Biography
Kemal Tahir was born in March 13 1910. His father Tahir Bey was a navy captain and an adviser to Sultan Abulhamit II. After graduating from Hasan Paşa Rüşdiyesi, Kemal Tahir enrolled to Galatasaray Sultanisi; but after his mother's death he dropped out high school at 10th grade and began working as a lawyer's clerk, and later as a journalist. He worked as a journalist, editor and a translator at Vakit, Haber and Son Posta newspapers in İstanbul. He worked as a page editor at Karikatür and Yeni Gün newspapers. He became lead writer for Karagöz newspaper nad later he worked as the editor-in chief at Tan newspaper. He married to Fatma İrfan in 1937.
In 1938, Kemal Tahir and Nazım Hikmet was accused of "sedition of soldiers" by Navy Command Court Martial and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He served time in Çankırı, Malatya, Çorum, Nevşehir and Kırşehir prisons. 12 years later, he got his freedom by general amnesty in 1950.
After prison, KemalTahir returned to İstanbul and started working as İstanbul correspondent of İzmir Commerce newspaper. He married hissecond wife Semiha Sıdıka. he wrote romance and adventure novels and scenarios, using aliases like Körduman, Bedri Eser, Samim Aşkın, f. m. ikinci, Nurettin Demir, Ali Gıcırlı. He also made translations from french. He was tekn to custody after 6-7 October incidents and served 6 months in Harbiye prison. After that he ran Düşün Publishing which he and Aziz Nesin co-established.
He worked on movie scenarios with directors like Metin Erksan, Halit Refiğ and Atıf Yılmaz
Kemal Tahir travelled to USSR at 1968.
After having a lung operation at 1970, Tahir worked on vernacularizing Marxist terminology and creating a national left ideology which suits Anatolian Turkish socio-cultural identity. Doing so, he was often critized by most left wing intellectuals because of his thoughts. During one such heated discussion, Kemal Tahir had a heart attack and passed away at April 1973.
Ideology
Base of Kemal Tahir's ideology is the problematic of Marxism, which is a european idea, and Turkish reality. As a writer and a political activist, he saw a contradiction between socio-cultural and political structure of Turkey and solutions that Marxism offers. Because of his belief that Westernization is not suited for Turkish society, he was finding Marxism inefficient. Marxist historical theory was based on existence of a bourgeois class, and there was no such class in Turkish history. So base point of his reasoning was overcoming marxist historical theory that was based on a euro-centric historical understanding.
After studying Marx and Engel's opinions about eastern societies, Kemal Tahir worked on historical theories of historians and sociologists like Ömer Lütfi Barkan, Mustafa Akdağ, Halil İnalcık, Niyazi Berkes and Şerif Mardin. His conclusion was that Ottoman-Turkish society does not follow euro-centric primitive/slavery/feodality/capitalism socio-historical model. İt has its own special evolution process, structural differences, dynamics and conditions based on its cultural and social structure.So Westernization, whether in form of capitalism or communism, is trying to bring an abstract and formal superstructure to a society which does not have the necessary substructure. Without a fundamental economic and social revolution this kind of exercises would be nothing but an absurd mimickry.
İn frame of this ideology, Kemal Tahir aimed to describe the Ottoman society in his works which was based on a humanist foundation which was very different from european feodalist and later capitalist society. He tried to emphasize a "Turkish reality" in his novels.
In his writing career, which was in socio-realist line, he used a simple language that was enriched with dialogues and charismatic chraacters. He was one of the most productive novelists of Turkish literature.
Works
Kemal Tahir started to literature with poetry. His first poems were published on "İçtihad" magazine at 1931. He got published poems on Yeni Kültür, Geçit, Var and Ses magazines.
His first major work was a four-part novella that was published at Tan newspaper and later published as a book at 1955, titled Göl İnsanları(People of The Lake). Again at 1955 he became famous with his novel Sağırdere(Deaf River).
Esir Şehrin İnsanları(People of the Captive City), first of his city novels that he took İstanbul as a frame to observe Turks' transition from Ottoman Empire to the Republic, was published in 1956. İn this novel, Tahir described İstanbul under occupation after the World War I. Sequels to this novel, Esir Şehrin Mahpusu(Prisoner of the Captive City)was published in 1961 and (People of the İndependent City)was published in 1976.
At first Kemal Tahir focused on problems of peasents. Then, he dealt with Turkish history, especially events of recent history. İn his novel Devlet Ana(Mother State)he described govermental and social stucture of Ottoman society at its beginnings; in Kurt Kanunu(Law of Wolf)he narrates the İzmir assasination incident which was a failed attempt to kill Ataturk; he analysed banditry phenomenon in Rahmet Yolları Kesti(Rain Closed the Roads) and "ağa" system in Yedi Çınar Yaylası(Seven Plain Tree Plateau). İn his historical novel Yorgun Savaşçı(Tired Warrior) Tahir narrates the period that leaderless national resistance forces Anatolia came together and started the Turkish İndependence War.
Because of fifnacial difficulties Kemal Tahir wrote pulp fiction novels under pseudonyms. He also translated Mike Hammer novels and even wrote original new novels for that series.
Some of his novels (like Karılar Koğuşu, Haremde Dört Kadın, Esir Şehrin İnsanları and Kurt Kanunu) later adapted in to movies.
References
- Nurettin Pirim, ed. (2001). "Kemal Tahir". Tanzimat'tan Bugüne Edebiyatçılar Ansiklopedisi. II (1st ed.). Yapı Kredi Yayınları. pp. 591-594.
- "Kemal Tahir" (in Turkish). Atatürk Enstitütüsü. Retrieved on March 12 2008.
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 15 December 2008, at 20:03.
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