namık Kemal

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Namık Kemal
Namık Kemal
Turkish Literature
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Namık Kemal (December 2, 1840 - December 2, 1888) was a Turkish nationalist poet, translator, journalist, and social reformer and Freemason. He is among the most prolific authors of language materials for foreign students of the Turkish language.

[edit] Biography

Kemal was born in Tekirdağ, 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 on June 29, 1876. He later became the governor of Sakız (now Chios, Greece), where he died in 1888.

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.

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