1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 He was continuing the hunger strike but the Grand National Assembly had ended the current session without discussing the general amnesty which had been long awaited. There were new elections on 14 May 1950. He had to interrupt the hunger strike until he had the results of the election and the new cabinet was established. Besides the hundreds of telegraphs and letters, signed applications were also coming in. Nâzım Hikmet informed his trustee and lawyer Irfan Emin Kösemihaloğlu, who was reading the letters with great excitement, that he stopped his hunger strike at 17: 03 on 19 May 1950. He was very beat. Even under the close scrutiny of hospital doctors, his treatment was taking too long. He stayed at the Cerrahpaşa Hospital for nearly two months, up to the day he was released. During the debates in the Grand National Assembly concerning general amnesty, which was declared by the Democrat Party that had come to power on 14 April 1950, numerous extremely unpleasant speeches were made in behalf of not releasing Nâzım Hikmet. Finally, the law which was declared under great tension, did not directly pardon him but he was included within the extent of those whose sentences were decreased by 2/3. He had stayed in prison for twelve years and seven months and the remainder of his sentence, which was 28 years and 4 months, was pardoned. On 15 July 1950, the lawyers told him at the Cerrahpaşa Hospital that he was free at last. Nâzım Hikmet had fallen in love with Münevver Berk who was his uncle's daughter and who had regularly come in to see him in the last two years of his imprisonment. He divorced Piraye upon his release. He started to live with Münevver Berk first at his mother's house in Cevizlik in Kadıköy and then in an apartment flat. He started to work again at the Ipek Film Studios. They had a son on 26 March 1951. They called him Mehmet. Although he was out, he was followed continuously by the police. There was a jeep in front of his house and it followed him wherever he went. It seemed it was impossible to publish his books and to stage his plays. Although one publishing house had purchased the publishing rights to Kuvay-i Milliye, it did not publish the book. During this time, he was called to the Kadıköy Conscription Office, and was told that he had not completed his military service so he had to finish his military service immediately. He explained that he had completed Military High School and worked as a deck officer, but he was discharged as unfit for duty. They released him after having him submit a signed petition. A few months later he was called again to the military office and was told to prepare to go to Zara, Sivas. Upon his wish, he was consigned to the Health Council of the Haydarpaşa Military Hospital. Even though he showed them the reports about his heart disease and liver illness obtained from Cerrahpaşa Hospital, the Council decided that there were no obstacles for military service. One of the doctors in the mean time whispered to him that his state forebode no good. He obtained a week's permission to make his preparations. On the morning of 17 June 1951, he left home saying he was going to Ankara in order to correct the error in his military-service file, but on 20 June1951 the Bucharest Radio announced that Nâzım Hikmet had arrived in Rumania. According to later writings, Nâzım Hikmet had sailed up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea in a motorboat steered by one of his relatives, Refik Erduran. Originaly intending to reach the Bulgarian coast, he had found a Rumanian freighter and he thus gone to Rumania. After he proceeded to Moscow from Rumania, by decree of the Council of Ministries, Nâzım Hikmet was stripped of his Turkish citizenship on 25 July 1951. The police continued to spy on Münevver Hanım and his son Mehmet. They were certainly not permitted to go on foreign travel. Nâzım Hikmet attended a lot of international congresses and visited several countries and became a world famous poet. His writings were translated into several languages. His many books were printed. But he soon realised that the country where he now found himself was not the same Soviet Union that had hopefully looked toward a brilliant future. There was nothing in the journals about Mayakovski and nobody talked about Meyerhold or Tairov. When he inquired about his old friends, people told him they had not seen them for a long while. He was depressed by the erroneous and perhaps deliberate alterations in the translation of his poems. He was rebuked for pointing out the futility of ceaselessly repeating, especially in works of art, Stalin's meaningless and trivial sayings as if they were views worthy of exaltation. It is said that in order to prevent him from committing a faux pas, he was made to visit Malenkov, not Stalin. Nâzım Hikmet reached Moscow in June 1951. He attended the World Youth Festival with Fadayev in Berlin in August 1951. He went to Bulgaria in September. There he met Fahri Erdinç and a friend of his from prison, Beethoven Hasan. He visited Turkish villages, listened to people's problems and spoke Turkish. He went also to Vienna with Fadayev, and there attended the World Peace Congress on 1-6 December 1951. - Top - Next ->   1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9