Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Turkiyat Mecmuasi, cilt.30, sa.2, ss.505-530, 2020 (Scopus)
In this study, some of Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem's letters to Sadullah Pasha that have not been included in the sources until today will be published and evaluated in the context of literary history. In a general overview, it is seen that the content of these letters is not limited to personal matters, they conduct a negotiation on literary modernization, and there are some considerations on the main matters of debate on the history of literature. Concordantly, these letters in question have a documental value. As Sadullah Pasha's unpublished poems, writings and translations are lost, information about his literary personality and scope remained limited. Therefore, the data in these letters will shed further light on his portrait today. Moreover, the dialogue and interaction between Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem and Sadullah Pasha, whose influence on other important writers is known, are identified and evaluated via these letters. One of Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem's poems that is not included in his books was also revealed owing to these letters. In the exchange of ideas between these two figures, Recaizade specifies that the most important obstacles to modernization in literature are the absence of literary criticism in the Ottoman cultural world, the lagging of language of poetry behind the developments in the language of prose, the contradiction between the aruz prosody and the nature of Turkish language, and inadequate research conducted on ancient Ottoman literature. On the other hand, Sadullah Pasha suggests that Turkic tribes improved Turkish literature by imitating Arabian and Persian poets on the way to civilization, but could not preserve the “national characteristic” of Turkish poetry in the meanwhile.