Marta ANDRIĆ
While speaking about Turkish literature, one has to bear in mind the various identities in which it develops. In fact, the group identity of the Turks is based on a great number of dichotomies, which continuously, again and again, need to be brought closer and linked in the everyday life of the society: "Asian or European; Muslim or secular; settled or nomadic; grandchildren of Mehmet the Conqueror or children of Atatürk"; "the sword of Islam or a Christian punishment"; "Ottoman orphans or Turkish citizens; conquerors or conquered; warriors or civilians; part of the West or defenders of the West; army, community, or nation; contemporary society or historical bridge" (M. Todorova Imagining the Balkans, Belgrade, 1999; p. 92).
The first important layer of Turkish literature is the period developing parallel with the foundation, the climax and the stagnation of the Ottoman Empire, until the 19th century. The literature of that period, the so called Divan literature, developed in the courts of Sultans and rich people. Its characteristic was the language, a hardly comprehensible amalgam of Turkish, Arab and Persian languages, three languages stemming from three different language families. In form development it was modelled after the Persian poetry tradition. At the same time outside the Court, among the people, flourished a rich folk literature composed in Turkish and likewise the Sufi literature cultivated by the mystic orders.
Towards the end of the 18th century, when the first western intellectuals started to emerge, the European influence began unstoppably penetrating in all the fields. In the 19th century, during the Empire reforms, the Divan literature was no more able to respond to the demands of the time. Along with the opening of the universities, new western narrative forms started to be accepted and the first translations of European, especially French literature appeared, while the language started to become simpler and closer to the spoken language.
During the 20th century Turkish literature went through the National and the Republican period, it became socially engaged, realistic literature. The novels and the short stories treated mostly social themes: change of social structure and position of the individual inside of it and, very often, the lives of lower classes in urban, but especially in rural milieus. Until the 80ies the so called village novel prevailed, its most famous representative was Yaşar Kemal (b. 1923), a one-eyed bard coming from south-eastern Anatolia and a long-standing candidate for the Nobel Prize. In his novels he has shown, in an epic almost mythic style, the lives of peasants and former nomads who are adapting themselves to the new world. He has given a picture of the development of a multinational and a multilingual Ottoman Empire to a new and unique, but not nationally unitary Turkish state.
Today, two very respected writers of that period remain on the edge of the main, socio-realist movement: Ahmed Hamdi Tanpinar (1902-1962) and Oğuz Atay (1934-1977). Tanpinar is an early representative of urban literature, an erudite with poetical gift. In his novels and essays he analyses the process of modernisation of the Republic and the destiny of the Ottoman Empire vestiges. On the other hand Atay is a rebel, also for his own typical language and for the contents of his novels and short stories dedicated mostly to individuals unable to adapt themselves to the big city lives. Of course, both writers became known after death.
In a certain way Turkish writers have for a long period of time refused the possibility to be read outside Turkey. It seems as if they insisted on not becoming famous: though they wrote texts infrequently completely understandable just to their fellow-countryman, they regularly had enormous problems in their country, because they didn’t adhere to the government, but at the same time, it seems, they didn’t want or didn’t know how to "simplify" their texts and make them more acceptable to the readers in the West.
Often enthusiastic about communism, they wrote while serving time in jails, which were crowded with writers, poets, painters and scriptwriters. During some periods the jails became major art centres. The following writers hardly detached themselves from politic ideals: Nazim Hikmet Ran (1901-1963), the greatest Turkish poet, today resting in peace in Moscow where he died in exile; Yaşar Kemal whose name is associated with an anecdote according to which he scolded severely with swearwords an agent of the CIA suggesting him, if he wanted to become famous in the USA, to come out of the Turkish Workers’ Party, which he fervidly supported.
Orhan Pamuk (b. 1952) is the first contemporary Turkish writer who became famous in the West, among other things because ideologically and by parentage - he stems from a wealthy middle-class family and belongs to Istanbul’s urban, secular elite – he is, to a certain extent, a foreigner in his own country. His view of Turkey from Nişantaşi, a respectable quarter of Istanbul where he grew up, was somehow unexplainable and unacceptable to a large number of his fellow-countryman, but he thrilled the foreign readers. As no one before, he opened to the novel, which is an "invention of the West", the doors of the Turkish-Ottoman culture treasury. In this way he connected the East and the West and became soon one of the most famous names of contemporary world literature. In 2006 his success was confirmed by receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Prize draw attention to the entire Turkish literature and one could say that thanks to it Turkish literature acquired a new place in the world literary scene. Undoubtedly, new currents in the economic and social development of Turkey contributed to it as well.
Today, Turkish literature still reflects various dichotomies; currently the most important one refers to the conservative-religious tradition and the secular, modernist currents. Each of them has its own authors, among the contemporary writers and the classics. The expansion of the publishing sector that happened in the late 90ies is still progressing: there is a growing number of publishing houses and numerous magazines (most frequently with clear ideological signs), there are new names emerging who rather early have the chance to write not just for magazines, but also have the chance to publish their own books. Besides the bestsellers by Orhan Pamuk (whose books, as it is claimed to be, are well-sold and slightly read) and Elif Şafak (whose books are well-sold and well-read, especially by the women audience), there is a large number of young renowned writers attaining a growing interest outside Turkey as well. Some of them are going to be guest of this year’s Book Fair in Pula.
