Ömer Seyfettin

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Ömer Seyfettin (* 1884 in Gönen ( Balıkesir Province ), † March 6, 1920 in Istanbul ) was one of the most important writers of the late Ottoman Empire . He is considered a classic of Turkish literature and became famous above all for his short stories ( Hikayeler ), which are characterized by the fact that they use the Turkish vernacular in its Istanbul dialect as a literary language.

Ömer Seyfettin's grave

Life

Ömer Seyfettin was born in Gönen in the province of Balıkesir near the southern bank of the Marmara Sea in 1884 . His father Ömer Şevki Bey was an officer in the Ottoman army and originally came from the Caucasus , possibly from a Circassian family from the Hatkoy tribe . He is said to have had a strict and authoritarian character, perhaps due to his expulsion after the end of the Russo-Caucasian Wars in 1864. His mother, Fatma Hanım, came from a family of intellectuals in Istanbul, was very religious and often read to him from the Koran. It remained a constant reference point for the writer in later life.

Because of the father's job, the family had to move frequently. From 1893 Ömer was given to Istanbul in the care of his uncle Koca Mustafa Paşa, where he received most of his education at military schools (including the famous Mekteb-i Harbiye-i Şahane ). From 1906 he taught at the Izmir Jandarma Okulu (Izmir Military School). During this time he learned French and came into contact with European-Western ideas through his friends Baha Tevfik and Necip Türkçü . In 1909 he was transferred to the third army, which was stationed in Selanik ( Thessaloniki ) and mainly fought Christian nationalist guerrilla units in the Balkans. In addition, his army unit formed a mainstay of the second constitutional order. The experiences of this time are reflected in many of his stories.

He began publishing in magazines in 1910 and resigned from the army in 1911 to devote himself to writing. He quickly became a contributor to the magazine Genç Kalemler (Young Pens) in Selanik, which initially appeared under the name Hüsn-ü Şiir (Beauty and Poetry). It was part of the flourishing press landscape after the censorship was relaxed in 1908. Although principally dedicated to literature, it was a place of diverse, highly political debates in the context of the crisis years of the empire. Central intellectual figures of Turkish nationalism, including Ziya Gökalp , Ali Canip Yöntem and Fuat Köprülü, belonged to the network of the magazine .

When the First Balkan War loomed in September 1912, he was drafted back into the military. After the Ottoman defeat against Serbia in the Battle of Kumanovo, in which he had fought, Ömer Seyfeddin took part in the defense of the fortress city of Yanya (Ioannina). After the fall of his position, he was taken prisoner of war in Greece on January 18, 1913, from which he was only released in November 1913. During this time he wrote several short stories that appeared in the magazine Türk Yurdu (Turkish Homeland) that same year . After his release from captivity, he went to Istanbul - Selanik had been awarded to Greece in the Bucharest Peace Treaty . He then taught literature at the Kabataş Mekteb-i Sultanisi (Kabataş High School) in Istanbul until his death . The years from 1917 were the most productive of his life: he published numerous essays, short stories and poems in magazines such as Türk Sözu (The Voice of the Turks), Donanma (The Fleet, official journal of the Ottoman Navy) and Vakit (The Time). Particularly important at this time was a series of short stories from a propaganda campaign entitled Eski Kahramanlar (Old Heroes), which he wrote at the instigation of General Enver Paşa (1881-1922) for Yeni Mecmua (New Magazine). He died at the age of 36 on March 6, 1920 after a brief, serious illness.

plant

Ömer Seyfettin's fame is primarily based on his short stories - although widespread as a literary form since the 19th century, he was the one who did the most to promote the genre in Turkish literature. They are characterized by the use of the Turkish vernacular. Compared to the Ottoman state language , this meant, above all, a simplification: Persian and Arabic loanwords, which had long characterized Ottoman literature, were dispensed with in the vocabulary; In the grammar, Arabic plurals and Persian genitive connections have been replaced by corresponding Turkish slang elements.

Altogether more than 130 stories have been documented by him so far, some of them unfinished. Since he often wrote under pseudonyms, this number is likely to increase. Thematically, the stories are mainly based on folk themes and can be divided into five groups: autobiographical writings, fables, historical stories, war stories and contemporary everyday topics. The leitmotifs of his stories and other writings are the social change in late Ottoman society and his downright pedagogical impetus, with which he wanted to convince the readers of the political necessity of a national unification of the Turks. They have been credited with being "almost a library of Turkish nationalism in themselves ."

Work editions

(in modern Turkish transcription)

  • Seyfettin, Ömer (2007ff): Bütün Eserleri [Complete Works]. 2nd edition, 6 volumes. Ed. V. Hülya Argunşah. İstanbul: Dergâh Yayınları.

(in German translation)

  • Frank, Carl (1920): Turkish storytellers: translated and provided with introductions. Munich: Roland Verlag.
  • Frese, Frank (ed.) (1947): Turkey. Gauting near Munich: Bavaria-Verlag (voices of the peoples. Master novels of world literature, issue 10).
  • Spies, Otto (1927): Turkish storytellers of the present: introduced and translated. Berlin: Weltgeist books.
  • Spies, Otto (1942): Das Blutgeld, and other Turkish novels: selected translations from modern Turkish literature. Leipzig: F. Meiner.
  • Spies, Otto (1949): The Haunted House Turkish and Egyptian Novels. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker.
  • Seyfettin, Ömer (2010): The lonely rebel, Darmstadt: Manzara Verlag. ISBN 978-3-939795-05-6
  • Seyfettin, Ömer (2008): Primo, the Turkish boy, (2008) Darmstadt: Manzara Verlag. ISBN 978-3-939795-02-5
  • Seyfettin, Ömer (2012): Falaka Die Prügelstrafe, (2012) Pfungstadt: Manzara Verlag. ISBN 978-3-939795-17-9
  • Seyfettin, Ömer (2012): The high paragraphs, (2012) Pfungstadt: Manzara Verlag. ISBN 978-3-939795-16-2
  • Seyfettin, Ömer (2013): Das Spukhaus, (2013) Pfungstadt: Manzara Verlag. ISBN 978-3-939795-21-6
  • Seyfettin, Ömer (2013): Spring and Butterflies, (2013) Pfungstadt: Manzara Verlag. ISBN 978-3-939795-43-8
  • Seyfettin, Ömer (2017): The diary of a young Armenian, (2017) Offenbach: Manzara Verlag. ISBN 978-3-939795-73-5

literature

  • Alangu, Tahir (1968): Ömer Seyfeddin. Ülkücü bir yazarın romanı [novel by an idealistic writer]. Istanbul: May Yayınları.
  • Arai, Masami (1992): Turkish Nationalism in the Young Turk Era. Suffering u. a .: Brill.
  • Argunşah, Hülya (2007): Önsöz [foreword]. In: Ömer Seyfettin: Bütün Eserleri [Complete Works], Vol. 1. 2. Ed. Ed. Hülya Argunşah. İstanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, pp. 15–47.
  • Berktay, Halil (2008a): Kenan'ın fazilet ve insaniyetten kopuşu [Kenan's farewell to virtue and humanity]. In: Taraf, September 18, 2008.
  • Berktay, Halil (2008b): Bir İttihatçı ön-faşistinin insaniyet düşmanlığı [A unionist's pre-fascist hatred of humanity], in: Taraf, September 20, 2008.
  • Canip Yöntem, Ali (1935): Ömer Seyfeddin. Hayatı ve eserleri [His life and work]. Istanbul: Muallim Ahmet Halit Kitaphanesi.
  • Dikici, A. Ezgi (2008): Orientalism and the Male Subject of Turkish Nationalism in the Stories of Omer Seyfeddin. In: Middle Eastern Literatures 11 (1), 85-99.
  • Enginün, Inci (2007): Sunuş [Introduction]. In: Ömer Seyfettin: Bütün Eserleri [Complete Works], Vol. 1. 2. Ed. Ed. Hülya Argunşah. İstanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, 5-14.
  • Karpat, Kemal H. (2002): Social Environment and Literature. The Reflection of the Young Turk Era (1908-1918) in the Literary Work of Omer Seyfeddin (1884-1920). In: ders. (Ed.): Studies on Ottoman social and political history. Selected articles and essays. Leiden / Boston: Brill, 822-846.
  • Köroğlu, Erol (2007): Ottoman propaganda and Turkish identity. Literature in Turkey during World War I. London / New York: Tauris Academic Studies.
  • Spies, Otto (1943): The Turkish prose literature of the present. In: The World of Islam 25 (1/3), 1–120.
  • Uzer, Umut (2019) Ömer Seyfettin — The Balkan Wars, World War I, and His Criticism of Ottomanism and Minority Nationalisms, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 39: 3, pp. 356–371.

Web links

Bibliography

  1. ↑ Spies 1943: 17
  2. ↑ Argunşah 2007: 15; Karpat 2002: 825
  3. ^ Karpat 2002: 826
  4. ↑ Argunşah 2007: 15ff
  5. ↑ Arai 1993: 24f
  6. ↑ Ibid .: 40f; Argunşah 2007: 18
  7. ↑ Alangu: Ömer Seyfeddin . S. 212, 258, 262 .
  8. ^ Mazower 2005: 289
  9. ↑ Argunşah 2007: 17f
  10. ↑ Canip Yöntem 1936: 21f
  11. ↑ Köroğlu 2007: 153
  12. ↑ Spies 1943: 17
  13. ↑ Argunşah 2007: 35
  14. ↑ Enginün 2007: 11ff
  15. ↑ Berktay 2008a
personal data
SURNAME Ömer Seyfettin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Turkish writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Gönen
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1920
Place of death Istanbul