Ömer Seyfettin (11 March 1884,

Gönen Gönen is a district of Balıkesir Province of Turkey, in the southern part of Marmara Sea. The town is mostly known for its therapeutic hot springs, leather processing and rice production. Location The town is surrounded by Bandırma in the nort ...

– 6 March 1920,

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

), was a Turkish 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 Turkish ( , ), also referred to as Turkish of Turkey (''Türkiye Türkçesi''), is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 80 to 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Significant sma ...

from the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

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 The Sea of Marmara,; grc, Προποντίς, Προποντίδα, Propontís, Propontída also known as the Marmara Sea, is an inland sea located entirely within the borders of Turkey. It connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea via the ...

. He also began a military career and graduated from the

Military Academy A military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps. It normally provides education in a military environment, the exact definition depending on the country concerned. ...

(''Harp Okulu'') in 1903. Following he was assigned as a Lieutenant and posted to Western Border units of the Ottoman Empire Army. It was in

İzmir İzmir ( , ; ), also spelled Izmir, is a metropolitan city in the western extremity of Anatolia, capital of the province of the same name. It is the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara and the second largest urban aggl ...

where he became familiar with writing. In 1909, he served as an officer of the ''Hareket Ordusu'' (Action Army) which suppressed the ''Istanbul Irtica'' uprising, the religious groups opposing the newly formed constitutional monarchy in Istanbul. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an officer of the ''Hareket Ordusu''. Promoted to First Lieutenant, Seyfettin was posted as an instructor in a military school in

. This position was an opportunity for Seyfettin to improve his French, and interact with like-minded writers. In 1911 Omer Seyfettin cofounded a literary and cultural magazine entitled '' Genç Kalemler'' (Young Pens) with Ziya Gokalp and Ali Canip in

Salonica Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

. 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 The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defea ...

and after his units were defeated in Yanina in January 1913, he spent approximately 12 months in Greece as a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...

.Köroğlu, Erol (21 July 2007), p.154 After his release from captivity at the end of 1913, he returned to Constantinople, and was nominated the executive editor of the ''Türk Sözü,'' a publication which was related to the Committee for Union and Progress. In 1914, after leaving the army for the second time, Omer Seyfettin became a literature teacher in an Istanbul High school. He became, also in 1914, the chief-author (''Bashyazar'') of the magazine '' Türk Yurdu''. Between the years 1914 and 1917 he mainly wrote

turanist Turanism, also known as pan-Turanianism, pan-Turanism, or simply Turan, is a pseudoscientific pan-nationalist cultural and political movement proclaiming the need for close cooperation or political unification between people who are claimed by ...

poems, which were published in the outlets such as ''Tanin'', ''Türk Yurdu'' or ''Halka Doğru''. In 1917 he was to publish most of his literary work, which included a wide array of short stories. From 1919 to 1920 he published articles in '' Büyük Mecmua'' which was a supporter of the Turkish independence war. 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)

References

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

Online �
''Biography of Omer Seyfeddin''
* Biyografi.info �
''Biography of Ömer Seyfettin''

External links