Varlik
Existence and to exist
An article on the distribution problems of periodicals in Turkey and on the Ministry of Culture policies and practices in support of periodicals

Savas Kilic
Was a different literary modernization possible?
Kilic questions the role and attitude of the Turkish intellectual in the Westernization and post-Republic modernization movements in Turkey. He analyses the connections and conflicts between modernization and Ottoman accumulation, past and tradition. He argues that late Ottoman-era writers who dwelled on issues specific to the Ottoman tradition did this neither out of conservativeness nor out of a temporary sentiment of nostalgia. Their ulterior motive was rather to depict a different modernization. Kilic traces the depictions of modernization in Turkey in different works of literature.

Questionnaire: was a different literary modernization possible?

1. Considering that literary modernization in the Republican era focused on the distant past (pre-Islamic era) and locality (folklore) for identity, could modernization have sought a different path? What factors could it have embraced as its defining elements? What could the local components of an alternative modernization have been?
2. Do you believe that our modernization was able to find unique forms, genres and themes? In what ways does it represent a "league of its own"? Or, as it is still under debate, was our modernization unable to free itself from the influence of Western literature?
3. Could a literary modernization imagined differently have been the foundation of a different social modernization?

Hilmi Yavuz
"Turkish modernization did not allow a 'different literary modernization' because it not only embraced the capitalistic political power forms that Foucault cautions non-Western societies to avoid, but also internalized the terms and concepts of post-Enlightenment rationalist discourse, as advised against by Pattarjee."

Sabit Kemal Bayildiran
"The objective conditions would not have allowed a different modernity. The obscurity of the Turkish identity was a significant handicap."

Özdemir Ince
"The inclusion of laicism, which in the most simplistic sense calls for a segregation of the domination spheres of the state and the clergy in the constitution caused social separation at many levels. This is an irrevocable fact. Turkish literature was modernized parallel to the modernization in the state and the society, and therefore literature was also segregated."

Hulki Aktunc
"The influence of Western literature? No. There is an influence of the market, and we should call this the Western market, going forward."

Güven Turan
"Can you show me a 'French-style' novel that is different from an 'English-style' novel? Writers become the authors of a given country with their languages. Speaking of genres: what other genres do exist that are neither novel, short story nor poetry? If you are talking about the separation between 'sonnet' and 'gazel'... Well, these are not genres. These are forms."

Ömer Lekesiz
"Since our new literature followed in the footsteps of Western literature with a mixture of awe and imitation, it disregarded its unique genres, and fully embraced the inherent genres of Western literature. For example, it accepted the novel, posited "short story" as a modernized narrative, and refuted tales."

Ibrahim Yildirim
"Had we been able to overcome the dilemmas and contrarieties we had been experiencing since the Ottoman reform with a grassroots movement and through synthesis, of course a different modernization would have been possible."

Murat Gülsoy
"These discussions tend to strongly emphasize what is unique to us, and claim that our experience was very different from the European one. I disagree. The fact that the Republic chose the distant past as its identity is our version of what was experienced during the Western modernization. It is the natural consequence of the secularization that occurred as nation-states were being formed."

Bâki Ayhan T.
"The cultural problems arising out of the fact that the Turkish Republic is a newer nation-state compared to its European counterparts must be assessed within the historical migration of modernism from the West to Anatolia."

Bülent Usta
Interview with Gülseli Inal
An interview with Gülseli Inal whose poetry collections were published recently

Mehmet Rifat
Albert Camus revisited
Rifat writes an essay on Albert Camus on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the author's death and compares Sartre and Camus from various perspectives

Deniz Özbeyli
Appetite and literature
An essay on the eating scenes in various works of literature

Hasan Bülent Kahraman
A station, a train, a journey
Kahraman continues to publish his diary on Varlik, and comments on Malraux, Sartre and Brecht

Ceren Onay
Interview with Feridun Andac
An interview with Andac, who recently published his essay collection Paris Bir Yalnizliktir – Paris is solitude

Mustafa Serif Onaran
Layers of meaning that interpret time in Ahmet Ada's poetry
An essay on issues of narration and imagery in poetry with references to Ahmet Ada's poems

Ahmet Önel
My classics / 6
Short narratives inspired by world classics

Melike Belkis Aydin
Sexual books, obscenity, pornography
An essay on obscenity, the perception of beauty and censorship in works of literature

Hüseyin Yurttas
The notepad
Comments on current issues in art

Yusuf Cotuksöken
Can any writer write on anything?
An essay on the drive felt by writers to write on anything

Irfan Ciftci
A 75 year old monument in words: the writers union of Azerbaijan
An essay on the activities of the writers union of Azerbaijan which celebrates its 75th anniversary

Tozan Alkan
Scalding translations
An essay on the translation philosophy of Borges and his relationship with his English translator Thomas di Giovanni

Published 2010-02-18