Ömer Seyfettin

Ömer Seyfettin
Ömer Seyfettin
	Ömer Seyfettin
Born	March 11, 1884; Gönen, Balıkesir Province, Ottoman Empire
Died	March 6, 1920 (aged 35); Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Occupation	Author, teacher, military officer
Nationality	Turkish

Ömer Seyfettin (11 March 1884, Gönen – 6 March 1920, Istanbul), was a Turkish writer from the late 19th to early 20th century, considered to be one of the greatest modern Turkish authors. His work is much praised for simplifying the Turkish language from the Persian and Arabic words and phrases that were common at the time.

Biography

Ömer Seyfettin was born in Gönen, a town in Balıkesir Province, in 1884. The son of a military official, he spent his early life travelling around the coast of Marmara Sea. He also began a military career and graduated from the Military Academy (Harp Okulu) in 1903.^[1] He was assigned as a Lieutenant and posted to the Western Border units of the Ottoman Empire Army, including Kuşadası.^[2] It was in İzmir where he became familiar with writing.^[1] In 1909, he served as an officer of the Hareket Ordusu (Action Army) which suppressed the Istanbul Irtica uprising, the religious groups opposing the newly formed constitutional monarchy in Istanbul. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an officer of the Hareket Ordusu.^[3] Promoted to First Lieutenant, Seyfettin was posted as an instructor in a military school in İzmir. This position was an opportunity for Seyfettin to improve his French and interact with like-minded writers.

In 1911, Ömer Seyfettin cofounded a literary and cultural magazine entitled Genç Kalemler (Young Pens) with Ziya Gokalp and Ali Canip^[4] in Salonica.^[5] Seyfettin began the early efforts in using colloquial Turkish in his literary output as opposed to Ottoman Turkish, as he outlined to Ali Canip in a letter.^[6] He was recalled to the army under mobilization orders at the beginning of the Balkan War and after his units were defeated in Yanina in January 1913, he spent approximately 12 months in Greece as a prisoner of war.^[7] After his release from captivity at the end of 1913, he returned to Constantinople, and was nominated the executive editor of the Türk Sözü, a publication which was associated with the ruling Committee for Union and Progress.^[7] In 1914, after leaving the army for the second time, Ömer Seyfettin became a literature teacher in an Istanbul high school. He became, also in 1914, the chief author (başyazar) of the magazine Türk Yurdu.^[3] Between the years 1914 and 1917 he mainly wrote turanist poems, which were published in outlets such as Tanin, Türk Yurdu or Halka Doğru.^[7] In 1917 he published most of his literary work, which included a wide array of short stories.^[8] From 1919 to 1920 he published articles in Büyük Mecmua, which was a supporter of the Turkish independence war.^[9] He died of diabetes in 1920, at the age of 36.

Novels

Ashâb-ı Kehfimiz (1918)
Efruz Bey (1919)
Yalnız Efe (1919)
Kaşağı (1919)
Yarınki Turan Devleti

Short story collections

Harem (1918)
Yüksek Ökçeler (1922)
Gizli Mabed (1923)
Beyaz Lale (1938)
Asilzâdeler (1938)
İlk Düşen Ak (1938)
Mahçupluk İmtihanı (1938)
Dalga (1943)
Nokta (1956)
Tarih Ezelî Bir Tekerrürdür (1958)

Poetry collections

Ömer Seyfettin’in Şiirleri (Poems written by Ömer Seyfettin, 1972)

References

^ ^a ^b Köroğlu, Erol (July 21, 2007). Ottoman Propaganda and Turkish Identity: Literature in Turkey During World War I. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 153. ISBN 978-1-84511-490-9.
^ Bacğı, Rıza (1996). Baha Tevfik'in Hayatı Edebi ve Felsefi Eserleri Üzerinde Bir Araştırma. p. 17.
^ ^a ^b Phil, HB Paksoy, D. Essays on Central Asia. Carrie/EUI. p. 229.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ Meyer, James H. (July 18, 2019). Turks Across Empires: Marketing Muslim Identity in the Russian-Ottoman Borderlands, 1856-1914. Oxford University Press. p. 159. ISBN 9780192586339.
^ Murat Belge (2010). "Genç Kalemler and Turkish Nationalism". In Celia Kerslake (ed.). Turkey's Engagement with Modernity. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 27–37. doi:10.1057/9780230277397_3. ISBN 978-1-349-31326-6.
^ Köroğlu Erol (21 July 2007), p.41
^ ^a ^b ^c Köroğlu, Erol (21 July 2007), p.154
^ Köroğlu, Erol (21 July 2007), p.159
^ Hülya Semiz (2008). İkinci Dünya Savaşı Döneminde Gazeteci Sabiha Sertel'in Döneme İlişkin Görüşleri (PDF) (MA thesis) (in Turkish). Istanbul University. p. 20.