Namık Kemal

Namık Kemal

Turkish literature
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Epic tradition
Orhon Dede Korkut · Köroğlu
Folk tradition
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Ottoman era
Poetry · Prose
Republican era
Poetry · Prose

Namık Kemal, born as Mehmed Kemal (December 21, 1840 - December 2, 1888) was a Turkish nationalist poet, translator, journalist, and social reformer.

Biography

Kemal was born in Tekirdağ to an Albanian^[1] mother Fatma Zehra and father Yenişehirli Mustafa Asım in the Ottoman Empire. He was influenced by the growing national sentiment of his day, and published a politically controversial newspaper. When the government cracked down on the newspaper he fled to Western Europe and worked there as a translator. When he returned, his most famous work, "Vatan Yahut Silistre", was staged at the Gedikpaşa Theatre in Istanbul on April 1, 1873. The play promoted nationalism and liberalism, and was considered dangerous by the Ottoman government. Immediately afterward, on April 9, 1873, he was sent into exile by the Ottoman Sultan and imprisoned in Cyprus. He was pardoned by Murat V on June 3, 1876, and returned to Istanbul (Constantinople^[2][3]) on June 29, 1876. He later became the governor of Sakız (now Chios, Greece), where he died in 1888. He was laid to rest in Bolayır, Çanakkale Province on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Some of his most famous works are "Rüya", "Zavallı Çocuk", "Kerbela", "Akif Bey", "Gülnihal", "İntibah" and "Emir Nevruz". Some were published with pseudonyms, and others were published anonymously.

In 1867, he published an article in which he ascribed the Muslim world's inferiority to the West to its norms for relations between the sexes: "The reason for backwardness is the way we treat our women, treating them only as suitable for producing children and nothing else."

Kemal's patriotic writings became a source of inspiration for Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the leader of the Turkish nationalist movement and the founder of the Republic of Turkey.

See also

• Namık Kemal University
• Namık Kemal House Museum, Tekirdağ

References

• Information from Turkey
• Namik Kemal dungeon and museum
• Encyclopedia Britannica article

1. ^ Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, Oxford U.P., 1968, p 141.
2. ^ The Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol.7, Edited by Hugh Chisholm, (1911), 3; Constantinople, the capital of the Turkish Empire...
3. ^ Britannica, Istanbul:When the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, the capital was moved to Ankara, and Constantinople was officially renamed Istanbul in 1930.

External links

• Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Namık Kemal article
• Encyclopedia Of Nations - List Of Famous Turkish People
• Namık Kemal Home

Persondata
Name	Kemal, Namik
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	December 2, 1840
Place of birth
Date of death	December 2, 1888
Place of death