Polemics Debate of Old-New Kemal Ahmet's Case Against the Accusation That He Had Turned Bourgeois Against Leftist Pretenders Against the Accusation that He was a Nationalist This except from Peyami Safa's article on Nâzım Hikmet was published in "Resimli Ay" in December 1929. The article exceedingly upset Nâzım Hikmet's followers. The poet was shown to find himself in a milieu of consciousness which he neither liked nor could ever escape from. It is rumoured that a restaurant in Asmalımescit witness a rowe between the author and a number of young artists. Nâzım, on the other hand, did not attach too much importance to the article. Despite the fact that he was ceaselessly writing and explaining, it seemed that even among his friends were those who could not extricate themselves from enslavement to idealist philosophy and beliefs that needed of the everyday. For those, whose minds had become calcified for one reason or another, it was not easy to learn new things, or, for that matter, to grasp dialectical materialism. The conception, moreover, of realism as a way of holding up a mirror to life was widespread. This event did not cause a falling out between the two friends who were engaged together in the struggle against the old. In fact, when Peyami Safa's novel "Dokuzuncu Hariciye Koğuşu" was published, Nâzım published an article in the February 1930 issue of "Resimli Ay", highly praising it. But he did not fail to insert the following statement into the essay which described the novel as a "great" work: "Peyami's novel is realistic, but not the photographic realism of the traditional conception; it belongs rather with a dialectical realism that erects monuments to reality and, to that effect, constructs a composition made up of a series of analyses and syntheses." Thus contrary to general assumption, the cooling of the friendship Nâzım Hikmet felt for Peyami Safa was not triggered by the latter's publication of the article on Jokond ile Sİ-YA-U at the end of 1929. The cooling derived from a very brief conversation the two had a while after this event. Peyami Safa, who knew that Nâzım was always strapped for money, one day asked him, as if he were asking a most natural question, to whom the "incoming moneys" went. At first very much startled by this unexpected question, Nâzım then said that there was no such thing, there could be no such thing, and felt deeply offended by his friend, who had clearly not believed Nâzım's reply, changing the subject when he sensed that the air was getting tense. But their friendship continued, albeit not as warmly as before. Around this time, the right-wing movement in Germany began to show its effects in Turkey. Both the numbers and the aggressiveness of rightists in the press increased substantially. These writers were uneasy, if not downright wrathful about the fact that Nâzım's innovations had become accepted in the sphere of poetry, his work had been included in school textbooks, he was part of the government-published French-language anthology Des écrivains Turcs d'aujourd'hui. Those who claimed that, with his journalistic writing under the pseudonym of Orhan Selim, he had turned away from his cause and turned bourgeois, were joined by those who found that he did not know the rules of poetry, was a futile person without culture and without values, and that he was no role model for the young generation except for the "rabid" few who followed him. Even old friends on the staff of the periodical "Akbaba" like Yusuf Ziya Ortaç, Orhan Seyfi Orhon published articles that sought to corner Orhan Selim: "Orhan Selim, alias Nâzım Hikmet, expresses surprise by the increasing number of films on view in Istanbul, which are dedicated to the defence of capitalism. Yet does he feel no surprise at the fact that he is making a living by money received for articles published in capitalists' papers, in which he criticises capitalism?" This was tantamount to exposing him to Necmettin Sadak, owner of the paper "Akşam." Most writings by rightists had this expository aura. Some of them sought to diminish him in the eyes of his comrades and left-learning readers. They at least targeted rendering difficult for him to continue earning an income as Orhan Selim. Others suspected that when the avowedly communist writer wrote under a pseudonym, it was in order to convert readers through secret propaganda. They were trying to mobilise authorities against Nâzım. Orhan Selim published an article called "İt Ürür Kervan Yürür" in "Akşam" on 5 January 1935. The article showed that the proverb ('dogs bark but the caravan continues on its way') still had not lost its force. It ended with the following words: "İT ÜRÜR KERVAN YÜRÜR. This is a song so powerful that it is on the tongue of everyone who is committed to something, everyone who fights for what he believes in. It has been on the tongue of the vanguard fighters of every revolution as they launched into their action. The entire history of humanity in a way consists of a struggle between caravans that continue on their way and dogs barking at them." ^ Top | Next >