Ömer Seyfettin

Ömer Seyfettin
Ömer Seyfettin
Born (1884-03-11)March 11, 1884
Gönen, Balıkesir Province, Ottoman Empire
Died (1920-03-06)March 6, 1920
Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Occupation Author, teacher, military officer
Nationality Turkish

Ömer Seyfettin, also Omer Seyfeddin (March 11, 1884 – March 6, 1920), was a Turkish nationalist 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. Son of a military official, he spent his early life travelling around the coast of Marmara Sea. While he was a cadet at the Military Academy (Harp Okulu) in Istanbul, his class was graduated early in 1903 as part of emergency measures and he was assigned as a Lieutenant, posted to Western Border units of the Ottoman Empire Army. In 1909, he was an officer of the Hareket Ordusu (Action Army) which suppressed the Istanbul Irtica (Recidivist) uprising, the religious groups opposing the newly formed constitutional monarchy in Istanbul. Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) was a ranking staff officer of the Hareket Ordusu. 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, after resigning his commission, Omer Seyfettin began publishing Genc Kalemler (Young Pens) with Ziya Gokalp and Ali Canip. Seyfettin began the early efforts in using Turkish in his literary output as opposed to Ottoman Turkish as he outlined to Ali Canip in a letter. He was recalled to the army under mobilization orders at the beginning of the Balkan War and spent approximately 12 months during 1912-1913 in Greece as a prisoner of war. In 1914, after leaving the army for the second time, Omer Seyfettin became a literature teacher in an Istanbul High school. He died of diabetes in 1920, at the age of 36.

Novels

  • Ashâb-ı Kehfimiz (1918)
  • Efruz Bey (1919)
  • Yalnız Efe (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)

See also

References


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