Mehmet Akif Ersoy

Mehmet Akif Ersoy

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (born December 20, 1873 in Istanbul ; † December 27, 1936 there ) was an Ottoman poet. He wrote the text of the Turkish national anthem , the "Independence March " İstiklâl Marşı by Edgar Manas . Âkif Ersoy is considered to be the pioneer of popular Turkish poetry of the 20th century, in which everyday language and lyrical expression merge.

Life

His father was of Albanian descent and came from the region of today's Kosovo in what was then the Ottoman Empire . His mother's name was Emine Şerîfe. Her family originally came from Bukhara . In Shushice (in today's Kosovo), the birthplace of his father - from whom the family was evicted - the Shkolla Mehmet Akif Ersoy primary school is named after him. His father's original last name was Mulaj. During his time at middle school, his teachers noticed his proficiency in Turkish , Arabic , Persian , French and Albanian . When he studied at the school for administration at high school level, he occupied himself with poetry. The pair rhymes ( Mesnevi ), poems that he wrote on the trail of his literary teacher, received positive reviews. From 1889 to 1893 he studied veterinary science at the College of Administration.

During his 20 years as a veterinarian at the Ministry of Agriculture, he was able to establish closer relationships with the farmers during his business trips through Thrace , Anatolia and Arabia . He published his first poems in a newspaper. In 1906 and 1907 he taught at agricultural schools. In 1908 he was appointed professor of literary studies. After publishing his first poems, he did not publish anything for ten years. After the constitution was reinstated in 1908, he published writings, poems and translations by Egyptian-Islamic poets in two magazines.

In 1913 he went on a two-month trip to Egypt . On the way back he stopped in Medina . During these trips his views on the material equipment, the level of development of the Islamic countries and their weaknesses in relation to the West were formed. At the end of the same year, he resigned as deputy director at the Veterinary Office and continued to teach literature. Upon joining the Committee on Unity and Progress ( Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti ), he swore that he would only obey orders from the party that he considered reasonable.

During the First World War he was sent to Berlin by the secret organization of his party Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa . Here he carried out investigations in German prison camps that had been built for Islamic prisoners. He followed the course of the Dardanelles War here in the news that reached Berlin . He was very impressed by western civilization. In the last years of the war, he traveled with Prof. Ismail Hakkı Izmirli to Lebanon . After his return he became general secretary at an Islamic institution. After giving a speech in Balıkesir in support of the nationalists, he was dismissed from his service at this institution in 1920.

When the Istanbul government declared the resistance in Anatolia unlawful, Mehmet Akif continued his efforts to promote popular resistance. One of his Friday sermons was copied in Diyarbakır and distributed across the country. He was elected as a member of the Great National Assembly (TBMM) from Burdur in 1920 . After none of the 724 poems were accepted in a first round of competition for the Freedom March text, he wrote the text of the İstiklâl Marşı Freedom March on February 17, 1921 , which was accepted by Parliament on March 12th. After the secular Turkish Republic was founded in 1923 , Mehmet Akif, who spent his winters in Egypt, decided to live permanently in Egypt. From 1926 he was professor of Turkish studies there . He fell ill with cirrhosis and traveled to Lebanon in 1935 and to Antakya in 1936 for climate change . Desiring to die in his own country, he returned to Turkey and died in Istanbul.

Importance as a poet

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy on a 100 lira banknote

The work Safahat (Phases), which he published in 1911 at the age of 38, indicates an independent literary personality. Nevertheless, traces of Tevfik Fikret can be found in the work . Mehmet Akif confessed that he loved Lamartine , Alexandre Dumas and French romanticism as much as Fuzuli and chose the stories in poetry as his style of poetry. On the other hand, the Islamic thought is decisive for the spiritual development of Mehmet Akif. His poems are based on everyday language and therefore seem to be carelessly written down. However, they are the result of disciplined formal work. He coped with Aruz metrics on the one hand, and paid attention to the poem's inner musicality on the other.

Mehmed Akif accepted the influence of Islam, the traditional literatures as well as the western cultural values, but resisted imitating the East or the West. He was of the opinion that literature was connected to the country in which it was created and that this was the only way to gain its vitality and that it had to fulfill a certain function, otherwise it would be of no value. Mehmet Akif is the first poet in Turkish literature who, in his poems, lets poor people speak with their true faces. As an innovative poet, he tries to limit the negative effects of the excessive renewal tendencies of his time with moderate rules in the poem.

Works

His main works are:

• Safahat (phases), 1911
• Süleymaniye Kürsüsü ( Süleymaniyes lectern ), 1911
• Hakkın Sesleri (The Voices of God), 1912
• Fatih Kürsüsünde (at the pulpit Fatihs ), 1913
• Hatıralar (Memories), 1917
• Âsım , 1919
• Gölgeler (shadow), 1923

Quotes

• “Mankind surpassed hyenas in unscrupulousness; if a person was defenseless, his own siblings would eat him. "(from Safahat )

• “O you believers, know that there are no nations in Islam. Our exceedingly magnanimous Prophet and Lord said: 'Anyone who divides into tribes is not one of us.' Should some of you refer to your Arabism, some to your Albanianism, some to your Turkishness and still others to your Kurdishism; and should you neglect the brotherhood of faith, which has bound you with the strongest of ties, then God have mercy on us all! ”(Mehmet Akif, 1912; Sebilürreşâd)

Web links

Commons : Mehmet Âkif Ersoy  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Mehmet Akif Ersoy on the 75th anniversary of his death ( Zaman Austria , December 22, 2011)
• Digital full text from Safahat at Canadian Libraries