Namık Kemal

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Namık Kemal
Namık Kemal
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Poetry · Prose

Namık Kemal, born as Mehmed Kemal (December 21, 1840 - December 2, 1888) was a Turkish nationalist poet, novelist, playwright, journalist, translator and social reformer. Namık Kemal greatly influenced the Young Turk and Turkish nationalist movements and contributed to the Westernization of Turkish literature. He is among the most prolific authors of language materials for foreign students of the Turkish language.

Biography

Namık Kemal was born in Tekirdağ, to the west of Constantinople (Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire, as the son of an aristocratic family. He received a private education, learning Persian, Arabic, and French, which contributed to his later career at the Ottoman government translation bureaus in 1857–58. Kemal became acquainted with the leading poets of the day and began to write poetry in the classical Ottoman style. Later, he was influenced by the writer and editor of the newspaper Tasvir-i Efkâr, İbrahim Şinasi, who had spent much time in Europe and was greatly enamoured of Western ways and ideas. Kemal became the editor of the Tasvir-i Efkâr in 1865, when Şinasi fled to France. By 1867, however, the highly political nature of the publication caused trouble with the Ottoman government, and he, together with other Young Ottomans (as this group of reforming young writers came to be known) fled to London, and then to Paris and Vienna. Kemal spent his time studying and translating works of such great French authors as Victor Hugo, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Charles-Louis Montesquieu into Turkish. He also published the newspaper Hürriyet (Liberty). When the Young Ottomans returned to Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1871, Kemal continued his revolutionary writings as editor of the newspaper İbret and also wrote his most famous play, Vatan yahut Silistre (Fatherland; or, Silistria), a drama evolving around the siege of Silistria in 1854, in which he expounded on the ideas of patriotism and liberalism. Vatan Yahut Silistre was staged at the Gedikpaşa Theatre in Istanbul on April 1, 1873, and was considered dangerous by the Ottoman government, for it promoted nationalism and liberalism. The play was denounced by the government and on April 9, 1873, led to Namık Kemal's imprisonment in Cyprus (1873–76). He was pardoned by Murad V on June 3, 1876, and returned to Istanbul on June 29, 1876. After his release and another period of virtual exile, he became the governor of Sakız (Chios), where he died in 1888.

Some of his most famous works are "Rüya", "Zavallı Çocuk", "Kerbela", "Akif Bey", "Gülnihal", "İntibah" and "Emir Nevruz". Some were published with pseudonyms, while others were published anonymously.

Namık Kemal, the social reformer, is best-known as the propagator of two basic ideas: vatan (fatherland) and hürriyet (freedom); ideas modeled after European concepts that he virtually introduced into the Turkish language. Although a liberal thinker, Kemal never rejected Islam in his plan of reform. He believed that the religion was compatible with a thoroughly modernized Turkey having a constitutional government modeled after that of the English. His best-known novels include İntibah yahut Ali Beyin sergüzeşiti (Awakening; or, Ali Bey’s Experiences, 1874) and Cezmi (1887-88), a novel based on the life of the 16th-century khan of the Crimean Tatars, Adil Giray. A widely read social work is Rüya (The Dream), expressing his desire for a Turkey free from oppression.

Kemal's patriotic writings became a source of inspiration for Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the leader of the Turkish nationalist movement and the founder of the Republic of Turkey.

Sources

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam%C4%B1k_Kemal"

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