In Quest of Ourselves a Highly Important Matter

Journal of World Literature 3 (2018) 442–447 brill.com/jwl In Quest of Ourselves A Highly Important Matter Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Translated and introduced by Evren Akaltun Yaşar University Department of English Language and Literature [email protected] Trevor Hope Yaşar University Department of English Language and Literature [email protected] Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (23 June 1901–24 January 1962), is considered to be one of the greatest modern Turkish novelists, with works such as Mahur Beste (1944), Huzur (1948; translated into English as A Mind at Peace in 2008), Sah- nenin Dışındakiler (1950) Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü, (1954, translated as The Time Regulation Institute in 2001 and 2013) as well as Aydaki Kadın, left incom- plete but published in 1987. He is also a very significant poet, an anthology of whose poems was published in 1961, and a writer of non-fiction prose, such as Beş Şehir (1945) and of essays like those gathered in Yaşadığım Gibi (2000) and Mücevherlerin Sırrı (2002), a collection mainly of pieces of criticism originally published in newspaper form. In his early writings Tanpınar argued that Turkish modernity, following the Western example, necessitates a reconciliation with the past, a critical engagement with tradition and history, and the revitalization of elements of the past within the present. The following essay, from Mücevherlerin Sırrı, elaborates on the processes whereby Turkey could give rise to a “modernity of its own.” While Tanpinar emphasizes the necessity for historical continuity as part of the project of elaborating a sense of cultural specificity, the mode of historical engagement he envisages is selective and critical, requiring the active re- inscription of the past within the present. The optimistic component of Tanpınar’s early thoughts on Turkish modernity was qualified in his later essays and novels as, after the 1950s, he came to perceive that the objectives associated with his ideal of modernity had only been imperfectly realized. Rather than the continuity with the past that he © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/24056480-00304004 tanpınar: in quest of ourselves 443 had promoted, Turkish modernity came to be internally riven between the legacy of the Ottoman past and visions of Western modernity in such a way that the experience of a constant temporal threshold became a specifically Turkish experience. Tanpınar perceived, then, a crisis of modernity in the interaction between two uneven temporalities, one autochthonous and one characteristic of the West and its literature, a temporal discrepancy that functions as the key extended metaphor of Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü, The Time Regulation Insti- tute. Accordingly, his thought and aesthetics can be seen as caught between two conflicting visions and imperatives: a drive for historical and cultural continuity associated with formal wholeness and completion and notions of a unique self, on the one hand, and figurations of temporal and historical crisis, duality, fraught co-existence and discord, on the other. We can infer that Tanpınar’s contemporary readers found in him a kindred spirit, feeling sympathy for his attempts to re-connect with the past even as such efforts seemed increasingly doomed to lead to an impasse. We can also see how Tanpınar’s vision of a creativity driven by the inner tensions and con- tradictions of modernity became popular again through its increasing appeal in Turkish literary and academic circles after the 1990s. ∵ One of the striking and persistent features of literature since the Tanzimat period is its indifference towards our traditional culture. It is quite easy to trace step by step in all genres of our literature the various aspects of this attitude which was spurred by the need toWesternize, a need that dominates all aspects of our collective life. This mentality has perhaps reached its apex in recent times and thus eliminated a duality that has been continually haunting our lives. Those generations of artists and intellectuals who took the new as their ideal were justified in assuming this stance towards the past. They, very rationally, were engaged in the struggle to realize their own ideals.Those who, surrounded by the meaningless remnants of a bankrupt aesthetic, wished to import the beauty they found in the European books they read along with the lifestyle of the European cities they visited, would naturally begin from a somewhat hasty rejection, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the matter. As a result of this rejection, our entire society changed both its lifestyle and its artistic styles. European fashion, mentality, etiquette, technique, European taste and art all made their appearance in our culture. In terms of literature, we under- Journal of World Literature 3 (2018) 442–447.

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