1500 Years of Turkish Literature

The Turks were a nomadic people who, over the centuries, moved from Mongolia through Central Asia to Anatolia and beyond. The Orhon inscriptions, found in a river valley in Mongolia, bear witness to the first written literary attempts and date back to the 8th century. Thereafter, oral epics developed and the two traditions of written literature and oral literature existed and expanded side by side. It wasn't until the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 that the two combined.

The oral literature, which forms a considerable part of Turkish folklore, was dominated by the actual local language different people and tribes spoke at the time. Folk tales in the form of epics recounted the adventures, dramas and problems of their hero. An example are the stories of Keloglan, a young boy having trouble finding a wife, trying to help his mother and settling neighbor disputes. The poetry of folk literature has always had a close connection to song and was often created as lyrics to music before being separately recited as poems.

Written literature, as opposed to the spoken variety, leaned heavily in language, composition and themes on the influence of Persia and Arabia. That influence mingled with the original Turkish words to the extent that the particular language of the Ottoman Empire emerged. Poetry written during that period is known as Divan Literature, meaning the collected works of a particular poet.

Poetry was the mainstream written literature, with prose taking the second seat. Not until the 19th century did Turkish prose include fiction. In prose were instructions, descriptions of events and history. In the 17th century, Evliya Celebi wrote an extensive travelogue.

In addition, the conversion of the Turks to Islam around the 9th or 10th century accounted for a strong influence of religious themes and thoughts in poetry, particularly the mysticism of the Sufi. A famous poet of the 13th century was Yunus Emre. Poetry can basically be devided into secular poems (asik) which were recited at festivities and often contained quite erotic elements, and religious poems (tekkes).

The tradition of epics continued with a widespread oevre, titled "Epic of Köroglu." The tales desribe the adventures of Rüsen Ali, the son of a blind men in his quest for revenge for the blinding of his father. The epic originates from Anatolia.

With the decline and finally demise of the Ottoman Empie came a change in literature and an influence of French styles started to emerge. At the beginning of the 20th century, a collective literary movement arose, which emphazised the inherent Turkish roots of the country's literature. A magazine, called Servet-i-Fünun was one the first of its kind to be founded in Turkey.

Further movements followed, including the National Literature Movement. The founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) initiated the creation of a modified version of the Latin alphabet to replace the Arabic based script of the Ottomans. Fiction in the form of novels, often referred to as "village novels" because of the themes depicted, and short stories entered the world of literature.

Two famous modern Turkish writers are Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize laureate of 2006, who also became known for the political controversy surrounding his person and opinions. He was charged with "insulting Turkishness" when he criticized Turkey's treatment of minorities and its record on human rights. The charges were ultimately dropped.

The other is Elif Shafak, a French born acclaimed female Turkish writer and novelist, who also wrote the foreword to an interesting book called: "Tales from the Expat Harem - Foreign Women in Modern Turkey", which is an anthology by 32 expatriate women from 7 nations and 5 continents about their lives in modern Turkey. The book is published in Turkey as well as in the US.

Reading in modern day Turkey is not yet overly popular, perhaps not least because average wages are low and book prices are high. Turkey does have two prestigious awards: the Mevlana Prize and the Union of Turkish Writers Prize.