Nazim Hikmet

• Born: January 20, 1902
• Birthplace: Salonika, Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloniki, Greece)
• Died: June 3, 1963
• Place of death: Moscow, Soviet Union (now in Russia)

Other literary forms

Although he is remembered primarily for his poetry, Nazim Hikmet (HIHK-meht) also became known early in his career for his plays; among the most notable of these are Kafatası (pb. 1931; the skull) and Unutulan adam (pb. 1935; the forgotten man), which deal with the practice of psychology and the conflict between worldly recognition and inner dissatisfaction. Other works in this genre, however, have been criticized for a facile identification of personages with political and social standpoints that they were meant to represent. Hikmet subsequently moved in other directions in his dramatic writing, first with works such as Bir aşk masalı (pb. 1945; a love story), which attempted a modern interpretation of traditional Middle Eastern characters. Other plays involved experiments with old and new technical forms, as a part of the author’s effort to adapt classical literary themes to contemporary concerns. Among later plays, by far the most widely known was İvan İvanoviç var mıydı yok muydu? (was there or was there not an Ivan Ivanovich?), which was written in exile and was first published in a Russian translation in 1956. In this contribution to the literary “thaw” in the Soviet Union, the author took issue with the personality cult and rigid, unswerving norms of criticism that had dominated creative writing under dictator Joseph Stalin.

Hikmet’s narrative fiction is rather uneven; there is some moving and effective writing in Sevdalı bulut (1968; the cloud in love), which brings together short pieces, including children’s stories, written over many years. His novels tend to display his ideological concerns. Of these perhaps the most interesting is Yeşil elmalar (1965; green apples), which deals with crime, corruption, and penal detention. Also of interest as a semiautobiographical effort is Yaşamak güzel şey bekardeşim (1967; The Romantics, 1987). Works of political commentary furnish direct statements of the author’s views on leading issues of his time; his treatises on Soviet democracy and on German fascism, both originally published in 1936, are particularly revealing in this regard. Other insights into the writer’s thought may be gathered from his collected newspaper columns and compilations of his personal letters.

Achievements

Throughout his creative lifetime, Nazim Hikmet was regarded as a politically controversial figure whose poetry expressed ideological concerns that situated him well to the left among Turkish writers of his generation. Although officially he was almost invariably out of favor in his own country—indeed, much of his adult life in Turkey was spent in prison, and work from his later years was composed under the shadow of Soviet cultural standard-bearers—his experiments with versification produced poetic forms that, more than any other works, announced the introduction of modern techniques into Turkish writing in this genre. During the last years of the Ottoman Empire, major innovations had been attempted by leading literary figures; language reform movements proceeded alongside the development of literary vehicles suitable for wider circles of readers among the masses. Enlarging on the earlier efforts of Mehmet Tevfik Fikret and other important writers, Nazim Hikmet devised new and strikingly resonant verse patterns that in their turn pointed to the possibilities that could be achieved with the use of free verse. Moreover, while admittedly experimental, his verse was distinctive in the unusual confluence of models chosen: Hikmet’s poems show the influence of Soviet post-Symbolists while, in some notable works, recalling classical Islamic traditions in modern, reworked guises. Hikmet’s poetry is alternately strident in its political declamations and intensely personal in its evocations of the writer’s sufferings and innermost wants. Many of his prose works, while never really descending to the level of Socialist Realism, are somewhat more narrowly symptomatic of the ideological persuasions that guided him.

Apart from his literary fame, Hikmet became well known from the political charges for which he served an aggregate of seventeen years in Turkish prisons. In 1949, an international committee was formed in Paris to press for his release; among others, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, Louis Aragon, and Paul Robeson petitioned for the reopening of the Turkish government’s case against him. In 1950, the Soviet Union conferred its World Peace Prize on Nazim Hikmet, an award he shared with Pablo Neruda. During the last years of Hikmet’s life, he made a number of public appearances in Moscow, Warsaw, and capitals of other Soviet bloc countries. After his death, his work became the subject of lively discussion, much of it favorable, in his native Turkey, and important writings once more were published. Students of and specialists in Turkish literature have widely acknowledged his leading position among modern poets.

Biography

On January 20, 1902, Nazim Hikmet was born in Salonika, the port city in Thrace that was then part of the Ottoman Empire. His father was a physician who had held government appointments; his mother was a painter, and his grandfather, Nazim Paşa, was a poet and critic of some note. As a boy, Hikmet was introduced to local literary circles. His first poems were written when he was about seventeen. He was educated in Istanbul, at the French-language Galatasaray Lycée and at the Turkish Naval Academy. Although poor health precluded a military career, he went oxn to Moscow during the early period of Soviet-Turkish friendship; between 1922 and 1924, he studied at the University of the Workers of the East. He derived inspiration from the events of the Russian Revolution and probably was influenced as well by the bold new literary ventures of Soviet poets such asSergei Esenin andVladimir Mayakovsky. Upon his return to his native country, Hikmet joined the Turkish Communist Party, which by then had been forced into a clandestine existence; in Izmir, he worked for a left-wing publication and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He fled to the Soviet Union and returned only after a general amnesty was proclaimed in 1928. By that time, his first book-length collection of poems had been published in Soviet Azerbaijan. In Turkey, the Communist Party had been formally outlawed, and Hikmet was arrested forthwith. Nevertheless, Turkish publishers brought out verse collections such as 835 sat r (835 lines) and others; his works were deemed inflammatory by the authorities, who claimed that they incited workers against the government. He was imprisoned twice and later was able to find work mainly as a proofreader, translator, and scriptwriter. Indeed, some of his early poems refer to the tedious routine of his daily work, to which he was effectively restricted because of his political convictions. Although his plays won critical recognition and some acclaim for their introduction of new, unconventional dramatic forms—here Hikmet may in some ways have followed the technical innovations of Bertolt Brecht—political writings and newspaper columns had to be published under a pseudonym. He turned to historical topics, which nevertheless allowed range for his leftist populist outlook: The last work published in Turkey during his lifetime was The Epic of Sheik Bedreddin, and Other Poems, which includes a long poem narrating events surrounding the life and death of the leader of a fifteenth century peasant revolt.

In January, 1938, new charges were brought against Hikmet; because copies of his poems were found in the possession of military cadets, he was arraigned for inciting unrest in the armed forces. A military court found him guilty, though the original sentence of thirty-five years was reduced to twenty-eight. During his imprisonment in Bursa, Hikmet embarked on his poetic magnum opus, Human Landscapes, which was to be published only after his death, in a five-volume edition of 1966-1967. This monumental, and sometimes disjointed, work was circulated in parts among the poet’s friends, family, and confidants; some portions of it were confiscated by the Turkish police or otherwise disappeared. Much of the writing Hikmet produced in prison has a musing, poignant, indeed bittersweet quality that was not so pronounced in his earlier works. On the other hand, some poems alight on world events of which he had heard in passing: Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, in 1941, and the United States’ use of an atom bomb against Hiroshima at the end of World War II, are discussed in his verse from this period. In 1949, in spite of having suffered a heart attack, Hikmet undertook a hunger strike that lasted seventeen days. In response to international pressure, the Turkish government released him from prison in 1950, but shortly thereafter, to curb the expression of his political views, he was made liable for conscripted military service. The following year, Hikmet fled the country alone in a small fishing boat; he was taken on board a Romanian ship in the Black Sea and eventually made his way to Moscow.

During his years in exile, the last period of his life, Hikmet lived for some time in the Soviet capital and in Warsaw; he took out a Polish passport under the name Borzęcki, after a family to which he had traced some of his ancestors. Sometimes he also used the added surname Ran. He traveled widely and attended literary congresses in other Soviet bloc countries; he also spent much time in Paris. He visited China, Cuba, and Tanganyika. Once he was refused a visa to enter the United States. Although he was not a literary conformist, he continued to uphold Soviet positions on international security. Some of his works from this period did him little credit, though they dealt with issues similar to those of his earlier activist poems. He suffered from angina pectoris, which had developed during his longest prison term, and other chronic health complaints arose later. While he lived in Turkey, he had married three times; his imprisonment had made settled family life impossible. In Moscow, he took up residence with a fetching young “straw blonde” Vera Tuliakova. Some of his later poems wistfully call back images of the women in his life or point to the hopes he still cherished in spite of his advancing age and his problematical physical state. After a final heart attack, Hikmet died in Moscow on June 3, 1963. Homage was rendered him from leading literary figures in many countries. Since his death, his reputation among Turkish writers has grown apace.

Analysis

According to some estimates, the poetry of Nazim Hikmet has been translated into at least fifty languages. Perhaps more than that of any other Turkish writer, his work transcended the bounds of stylized Ottoman versification. At their best, his poems call to mind settings the author knew well, while extending a universal appeal on behalf of his social beliefs. Lyrical and rhetorical passages occur alternately in some of his major works; his epics exhibit narrative powers that in some segments are used to depict events from the distant past or to evoke those from the author’s lifetime.

Moreover, though early in his career he came to be known as much for his outspoken ideological positions as for his literary achievements, Hikmet’s poetry conveys the sudden dramatic impact of historical occurrences; social issues are depicted in ways that can be felt beyond the strict limits of party politics. On a more personal level, romantic yearnings, whimsical observations of street scenes and travel, and indeed nature and the weather are discussed in simple yet deeply felt lines that complement Hikmet’s more directly expressed political concerns. Some of his poems communicate the loneliness and anxiety he felt as a political prisoner, without indulging particularly in self-pity. On the whole, he cannot be classified purely as a rationalist or a romantic; rather, his works combine elements of both inclinations.

Language

From the outset, Hikmet’s poetry was brash, vibrant, and politically engaged; defiantly casting aside traditional poetic styles, the author’s work exuberantly mixed ideology and amorous inclinations in lines that at first glance resemble dismembered declarative sentences punctuated by crisp, staccato repetitions of phrases and nouns. Statements begun on one line are carried forward, with indentations, to the next, and sometimes further indentations are inserted before the thought is concluded. Question marks and exclamation points enliven stirring passages in which the author seems to be carrying on a dialogue with himself, if not with nature or society.

The vowel harmony characteristic of the Turkish language is used to impart added force and velocity to some passages; moreover, the author’s writing drew from folk songs, time-honored national sagas, and other sources in eclectic and distinctive combinations. Colloquial expressions, lower-class idioms, and outright vulgarisms appear from time to time. This approach, which seems ever fresh and lively in the hands of a talented practitioner, is notably well suited to Hikmet’s subject matter. One early poem, evidently composed in a devil-may-care mood, contrasts the author’s straitened and difficult circumstances—his many monotonous hours as a lowly proofreader were rewarded with a pittance—and the effervescent sensations of springtime, with Cupid urging him after a comely girl.

Jokond ile Si-Ya-U

Considerable powers of creative imagination were called on in early poetry of a political character. In the long poem Jokond ile Si-Ya-U (the Gioconda and Si-Ya-U), various narrative transitions are conjoined with abrupt changes of setting, from Paris to the open sea to Shanghai under the white terror; eventually the author’s summary is presented from his vantage point in Europe. Some of Hikmet’s experiences during his travel—he had met Chinese revolutionaries during a visit to France—appear in an ultimately fictional and somewhat fantastic form. The author, who is bored and chafing at what he regards as hidebound aesthetic classicism in the Louvre, comes upon a modern Gioconda in a most unusual guise. Her modern incarnation is exotic and remote, but deeply concerned about mass upheaval that aims at the transformation of traditional Asian society. Still inscrutable, she is made to stand by as the soldiers of nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek execute a Chinese Communist spokesperson. Ultimately the Gioconda is tried and found guilty by a French military court; hers is a fate quite different from spending centuries on canvas as a creation of Leonardo da Vinci. Other works express Hikmet’s proletarian views of art: Beethoven’s sonatas, he maintains, should be played out on wood and metal in the workplace. The raw power of the industrial age is reflected in his taut descriptive lines about iron suspension bridges and concrete skyscrapers. However, the workers in his native Turkey were invariably badly off: They were bound to an unthinking routine and could afford only the lowest quality of goods.

Taranta Babu’ya mektuplar

One early composition took up the cause of striking transportation workers in Istanbul in 1929. At times Hikmet considered events that were not too far removed from his own experience; his sojourns in Russia during the early years of the Soviet government probably furnished impressions recaptured in verses about the revolutionary events of 1917. Poems collected in Taranta Babu’ya mektuplar (letters to Tarantu Babu) raised another problem in world politics; they are letters in verse purportedly written by a young Italian to a native woman caught up in the Ethiopian war launched under Benito Mussolini. The author’s commentary on the brutal excesses of fascism reveals a measure of political prescience as well as an expanded sense of solidarity with like-minded people in many nations.

The Epic of Sheik Bedreddin

Historical dimensions of class struggle are explored in The Epic of Sheik Bedreddin. Government pressure by this time had restricted Hikmet’s choice of subject matter, making it almost impossible for him to publish work on contemporary issues, so the author turned to more remote ages with the avowed intent of rescuing major events from the antiquarian dust that had gathered around them. This epic, based on a book he had read during one of his early prison terms, was given added intensity by the author’s experience of seeing a man hanged outside the window of his cell. While set in the early fifteenth century, Hikmet’s work underscores the solidarity that brought together Turkish peasants, Greek fishermen, and Jewish merchants. In places, he suggests that though historical works had depicted this era as the prelude to an age of imperial greatness, it in fact was rife with social unrest and discontent provoked by inequality and injustice. Ten thousand common people took up arms to oppose the sultan before the rebellion was finally put down. The eventual execution of his protagonist, one of the insurgents’ leaders, was a grim, bloody business that Hikmet recounts in unsparing detail but with impassioned sensitivity. This long poem, one of the most celebrated in Turkish literature of the twentieth century, is also notable for the author’s broadening concern with different verse techniques, which reached fruition with his works combining modern usage with classical Persian meters.

Prison poems

During Hikmet’s longest period of imprisonment, between 1938 and 1950, works displaying other facets of his poetic consciousness were composed. His outlook seemed to become more deeply personal, though perhaps not so brash and self-assertive as in some of his first poems. His meditations on the springtime reveal a sense of yearning and melancholy that was previously absent. For a time, he was held in solitary confinement. He wrote of singing to himself and watching shadows on the wall; simple things began to matter more to him. There are a number of touching passages in prison poems that he addressed to Piraye, his second wife; brief, bittersweet phrases recall their shared joys together, aspects of her appearance, and simple pleasures that mattered most to him.

The long period of his incarceration led to some brooding reflections on the transitory and changeless issues of this life. In some poems, there is speculation on the seasons that have come and gone, children who have been conceived and grown since he entered prison; mountains in the distance, however, remain fixed points separated by specific spatial intervals. There are also some ironic musings on the fates of common criminals from among his fellow prisoners: One of them was held for murder but was paroled after seven and one-half years; after a second, much shorter, sentence for smuggling, he was released for good and eventually married. The couple’s child would be born while much of Hikmet’s term, as a political prisoner, still remained to be served.

Angina pectoris, followed by a heart attack, aroused uncertainty about the author’s physical condition. He wrote poems reaffirming the necessity to go on living, particularly with half his heart devoted to social concerns in Turkey or to political struggles in Greece and China. Some works that begin by marking the passage of time in prison contain brief but intense reactions to events of World War II, including bombing raids, the liberation of concentration camps at Dachau, and the dawn of the nuclear age.

Rubaiyat

One collection of poems, Rubaiyat, written in 1945 but published posthumously in 1966, reveals the author’s search for further literary forms that would express the ideological and philosophical content of his thought. Beginning with the example of the thirteenth century Sufi poet and religious thinker Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Hikmet took up the position in effect that mysticism is merely a veiled means of approaching material and social reality. Hikmet purposely adopted the quatrain, on a pattern similar to that used by Omar Khayyám, specifically to take issue with the Persian poet’s supposed hedonism. In some lines, counsel to take wine and be joyful is contrasted with the harsh, inescapable routines of working-class life. Elsewhere the philosophical idealism of classical writers is challenged by Hikmet’s own commitment to dialectical materialism; in poems dedicated to Piraye, the poet asks whether the images he retains of her correspond to the material reality he remembers. On a technical level, this work is notable as well for the author’s provocative insertion of colloquial language in passages that otherwise conform to time-honored standards of versification.

Human Landscapes

Contemporary history on a panoramic scale is taken up in Human Landscapes, which was written during the author’s prison years but was published several years after his death. Beginning with an epic study of Turkish history during the twentieth century, at intervals the poet’s narrative also turns to major events in adjoining regions, notably naval action of World War II in the Mediterranean and the work of Soviet forces against Nazi invaders. His commentary on the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1922) stands in stark contrast to the heroic national themes repeatedly invoked by other writers of that period. In Hikmet’s view, it would seem that the people as a whole contributed to final victory but only through an inchoate mass rising that did not also lead to a social revolution. Indeed, many passages suggest that class differences remained acute but were altered by Turkey’s changed status in the world economy. There are a number of brief sketches of individual lives, both from the wealthy and from the lower orders, often to state unpleasant truths about the people’s living situation. Some characters, it is recorded, died of disease at early ages; farmers retained their land but lost all means of production. Many of the personages are war veterans from one conflict or another. There is much attention to dates, but not in the sense of commemorating events with patriotic connotations; important occurrences in individual lives are accorded the same emphasis as major developments in the nation’s history. There is also a fair amount of random, seemingly senseless violence: Family quarrels lead to murder; after a man kills his wife, children use the head as a ball in a macabre game. A wrenching, gripping scene records the lynching of a Turk who had collaborated with the British occupation forces. There are some sardonic religious references that call to mind folk superstitions; in some later passages, Turks of a pro-German inclination speculate about whether Adolf Hiler could be a Muslim. Leading Turkish statesmen and thinkers figure as portraits on the walls of business offices; the memories associated with them are quirky bits of characterization that are far from flattering.

The work as a whole darts about and circumambulates historical epochs as they affected different, indeed opposing, social classes. After nearly fifteen years of national independence, homeless and desperately hungry men are to be found outside a newspaper office; if wealthy businessmen cannot turn a profit in some branches of the export trade because of government restrictions, they move readily to other sectors where their fortunes can be augmented. Some of them end up dealing with both the Allied and the Axis powers during World War II. The incidence of suicide on either side of the class divide is fairly high; among the poor, childbirth is difficult, painful, and sometimes ends in tragedy. Although this exercise in historical realism, based on the author’s own observations of Turkish life, does not seem to hold out any immediate hopes for a better future, the poet’s descriptions of nature and simple joys serve to leaven an otherwise grim and unsentimental saga.

Some later segments of this work are essentially similar to portions of The Moscow Symphony, and Other Poems, an imaginative lyrical reconstruction of German-Soviet fighting that in the first instance was probably based on news stories that Hikmet received in prison. After allowance for the different languages, it may be argued that some passages would do credit to a Soviet wartime poet: the anxiety of the war’s first year, the vast human drama of armies locked in combat, and the camaraderie of soldiers brought together in common struggle are evoked in brisk, telling lines. Hikmet’s own allegiances are discussed in another section, which depicts the execution of an eighteen-year-old Russian girl for partisan action against the Nazis. He wrote, “Tanya,/ I have your picture here in front of me in Bursa Prison,” and, before returning to the Turkish settings where his epic had commenced, he added:

Tanya,I love my country  as much as you loved yours.

Last poems

Hikmet’s last poems in some ways chronicled the tribulations of exile; many works had to do with his travels about the Communist world, as well as into Switzerland and to Paris. The impression arises that he considered many of his destinations as way stations; hotel balconies, train depots, arrivals and departures are recorded repeatedly and almost mechanically. His political works from this period, albeit written in countries that were openly receptive to his views, were lacking perhaps in the combative spirit that had distinguished the poems written in Turkey. Among such productions, there may be found some caustic observations in verse on the Korean War—he deplored Turkey’s participation in that conflict—as well as more positive and uplifting efforts composed for May Day celebrations or in response to the Cuban revolution. One poem was meant to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the foundation of the Turkish Communist Party. His personal concerns, perhaps, were handled more effectively in his later works. One poem describes his meeting with a young blonde woman in an express train; as the sights pass by outside afterimages of her hair and eyelashes and of her long black coat repeatedly appear before his eyes. Some poems expressed his desire to be reunited with his lover, Tuliakova, after journeys about various East European countries. In other works, there are somewhat sour comments on his physical condition, which continued to deteriorate during his years in exile. Although he continued to cherish the values of this existence, some passages became dour and premonitory. Toward the end of his life he speculated:

Will my funeral start out from our courtyard?How will you take me down from the third floor?The coffin won’t fit in the elevator,and the stairs are awfully narrow.

Legacy

For many years, Hikmet was regarded as Turkey’s best-known Communist; his conspicuously partisan poetry on behalf of the working classes created more controversy than the pronouncements of many political figures. His importance as a poet, however, may be measured by the extent to which his works have been read even as interest in his ideological agitation, the long-standing scandal of his imprisonment, and his life in exile have become past concerns. While it is possible to distinguish major phases in his career as a poet—and arguably within those periods he was subject to variable moods—there are also elements of continuity that in their turn point to the enduring features of his work. Although some of his efforts may have aged more gracefully than others, his concerns with social justice and with the struggle against fascism in Europe certainly would find sympathy with many subsequent readers. He maintained that Marxism interested him largely for its literary possibilities and that his work was involved largely in the basic human issues of his time. His poems are quite possibly the most readily recognized of those from any Turkish writer of the twentieth century. Aside from his political fame, or notoriety, it may be contended not only that he had discovered forms by which modern free verse might be composed in Turkish but also that he had come upon themes and techniques that have been found to be intrinsically appealing on a much wider level.

Bibliography

Başak, Ergil. The Image of Nâzim Hikmet and His Poetry: In Anglo-American Literary Systems. Istanbul: Nâzim Hikmet Culture and Art Foundation, 2008. The work, from the Turkish perspective, looks at how Hikmet is portrayed in Europe and America.

Göksu, Saime, and Edward Timms. Romantic Communist: The Life and Work of Nazim Hikmet. 1999. Reprint. New York: Gardners Books, 2006. The authors propose in this biography of Hikmet that his life and career form a microcosm of twentieth century politics. Göksu and Timms explore Hikmet’s life chronologically through ten well-researched chapters. The clear structure helps the narrative to flow from one chapter to the next and allows the reader to grasp both the detail and the broad picture. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Halman, Talât Sait. Rapture and Revolution: Essays on Turkish Literature. Edited by Jayne L. Warner. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press/Crescent Hill, 2007. This study on Turkish literature contains a chapter that notes Hikmet’s importance in Turkey and sees him as the voice of iconoclasm.

Kinzer, Stephen. “Turkish Poet Is Lauded, but Stays Exiled in Death.” The New York Times, February 27, 1997, p. A4. As Turkey settles into what is likely to be an extended confrontation between secular and pro-Islamic forces, symbols take on exaggerated political importance for both sides. Perhaps no individual crystallizes the conflict better than Hikmet, atheist and Communist and also one of the greatest literary figures ever to emerge from this country.