Post your articles online and promote your website for free! Boost your sites ranking by linking it from the ArticleZap database! Free Article directory and instant translation publishing!
Hikmet, Nazim, also called NAZIM HIKMET RAN (b. 1902, Salonika, now in Greece—d.
June 2, 1963, Moscow), poet who was one of the most important and influential figures in 20th-century Turkish literature.
The son of an Ottoman government official, Naztm Hikmet grew up in Anatolia; and, after briefly attending the Turkish naval academy, he studied economics and political science at the University of Moscow. Returning home in 1924, after the advent of the new Turkish Republic, he began to work for a number of journals and started Communist propaganda activities. In 1951 he left Turkey forever after serving a lengthy jail sentence for his radical and subversive activities. From then on he lived in Russia and eastern Europe, where he continued to work for the ideals of world Communism.
His mastery of language and introduction of free verse and a wide range of poetic themes strongly influenced Turkish literature in the late 1930s. After early recognition with his patriotic poems in syllabic metre, in Moscow he came under the influence of the Russian futurists, and, by abandoning traditional poetic forms, indulging in exaggerated imagery, and using unexpected associations, he attempted to “depoetize” poetry.
Later his style became quieter and he published eyh Bedreddin destare (1936; “The Epic of Shaykh Bedreddin”), about a 15th-century revolutionary religious leader in Anatolia; and Memleketimden insan manzaralart (“Portraits of People from my Land”), a 20,000-line epic. Although previously censored, since his death in 1963 all his works have been published and widely read. His poems, expressing the plight of the common man and his suffering and oppression at the hands of the tyrannical ruling elite,have truly made Naztm Hikmet a poet of the people and a revolutionary hero of the Turkish left. Many of his poems are translated into English by Taner Baybars in Selected Poems (1967) and The Moscow Symphony (1970). Nazim Hikmet is also known for his plays, which are written in vigorous prose and are also mainly Marxist inspired.
