Freedom, Power, People, and Territory: Nâzım Hikmet from the Perspective of a Jurist
Tolga ŞirinNâzım Hikmet Ran (1902-1963) is one of Turkey’s most influential names in the world of literature and politics. The article examines how the basic concepts of constitutional law took place in the poems of this great poet. For this purpose, the concepts of freedom, which is the most used concept in his poems, and power, people and territory, which Jellinekian doctrine considers state elements. According to the findings in the study, Nâzım Hikmet used the word freedom in a Republican sense, not a liberalist sense. Understanding the concept of power in the light of Marxist-Leninist doctrine, the poet implicitly supported Kemalism to the extent that it was anti-imperialist and anti-feudalist. In this context, his approach to military intervention on 27 May 1960 was positive. He understood the concept of nation in a subjective sense and did not ignore the Kurdish question. However, he either did not include ethnic identities other than Turks in his poems or included them as secondary. On the other hand, the territory element of the state has been the subject of the concepts of longing and patriotism in the poems. The conclusion reached in the study is that Nâzım Hikmet’s poems reflect the thesis of the international communist movement about Turkey precisely.
Hürriyet, Hükûmet, Millet ve Memleket: Hukukçu Gözüyle Nâzım Hikmet
Tolga ŞirinNâzım Hikmet Ran (1902-1963) Türkiye’de edebiyat ve siyaset dünyasının en önemli isimlerinden biridir. Makale, bu büyük şairin şiirlerinde anayasa hukukunun temel kavramlarının nasıl yer bulduğu incelemektedir. Bu amaçla, şairin şiirlerinde en çok işlediği kavram olan “hürriyet” ile Jellinekyen öğretinin devletin ögeleri saydığı “halk” (millet) “iktidar” (hükûmet) ve “ülke” (memleket) kavramlarıdır. İncelemedeki bulgulara göre Nâzım Hikmet, hürriyet sözcüğünü, liberal değil genellikle Cumhuriyetçi anlamda kullanmaktadır. İktidar kavramını Marksist-Leninist doktrin ışığında kavrayan şair, Kemalizme anti emperyalist ve feodalizm karşıtı olduğu denli zımnen destek vermiştir. Bu çerçevede 27 Mayıs 1960’daki askeri müdahaleye de olumlu yaklaşmıştır. Büyük şair, millet kavramını sübjektif anlamda kavramış ve Kürt sorununu reddetmemiştir. Fakat şiirlerinde Türklerin dışındaki etnik kimliklere pek yer vermemiş veya tali olarak yer vermiştir. Devletin ülke ögesi ise özellikle hasretlik ve yurtseverlik kavramlarıyla ilgili olarak şiirlere konu olmuştur. İncelemede ulaşılan nihai sonuç, Nâzım Hikmet’in, şiirlerinde, uluslararası komünist hareketin Türkiye hakkındaki tezlerini birebir yansıttığıdır.
The article focuses on the poems of the famous poet Nâzım Hikmet Ran and tries to answer how four fundamental concepts of public law are conceived in his verses. These are “freedom”, “government”, “nation” and “county”.
The first concept that the article deals with is freedom. The English word freedom has two equivalents in Turkish: Özgürlük and Hürriyet. Of these, özgürlük is a word derived after the Turkish Language Revolution in 1934. On the other hand, hürriyet has been used for a much longer time. Although these two words are considered synonymous, the word hürriyet has multiple connotations. For example, the revolution carried out by the Young Turks in 1908 is referred to as the “Hürriyet Devrimi (“Revolution of Hürriyet”). Likewise, Nâmık Kemal, one of the most important figures of the constitutionalist movements in the Ottoman Empire, is known as the “Poet of Hürriyet” for his writings on freedom. This old meaning of the concept largely means “absence of domination”. In this respect, it has a republican dimension in the sense used today by authors such as Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit. As it is known, the republican idea of freedom, which stands in a different place from the liberal idea of freedom in the sense of “absence of interference”, seems to be adopted by Nâzım Hikmet. The author sometimes uses the word freedom in the sense of freedom from the despotic domination of the Democratic Party, but more often in the sense of freedom from the economic domination of the bourgeoisie, that is, socialism. These are exemplified in the article.
The second concept the article deals with is government. The way Nâzım Hikmet deals with the concept of government in his poems is completely in line with the basic assumptions of Marxism/Leninism. The poet certainly does not view the dictatorship of the proletariat negatively. The poet includes names such as Marx, Engels and Lenin in his poems in a positive way, and he makes positive references to Robespierre, although he is not a socialist. Nâzım Hikmet’s approach towards Atatürk, changes according to time and context. Although he seems to complain about Mustafa Kemal in the case of the murder of Mustafa Suphi (the leader of the Communist Party of Turkey in 1920), which is still shrouded in fog today, the poet defends Kemalism as anti-imperialist and anti-feudal both in the Epic of Kuva-i Milliye and in his later statements. In this respect, Nâzım Hikmet’s criticism of the Kemalist government can be considered as coming from the left rather than the right, that is to say, towards overcoming it. Although it may be thought that Nâzım Hikmet’s favourable attitude towards Mustafa Kemal was due to the fact that he was in prison and was expecting a pardon/amnesty, the poet’s statements in support of Mustafa Kemal even during the years when he was released and abroad invalidate this argument. Although Nâzım Hikmet had a favourable view of Atatürk, he criticised the governments of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Democratic Party (DP) quite harshly. Most of these criticisms were directed against the DP and its leader Adnan Menderes. In his very courageous verses, Nâzım Hikmet criticised the government’s policy of participation in the Korean War from a Leninist ‘revolutionary defeatist’ perspective. The message in Nâzım Hikmet’s verses is that the DP had abandoned the antiimperialist line of Atatürk’s era and had acquired a collaborationist and counterrevolutionary character. In this respect, it can be inferred from the poet’s verses that he was in favour of the military coup d’état of 27 May 1960, which was carried out by the Turkish Armed Forces against the DP government.
The third concept analysed in this article is the nation. The word “Türk” in Nâzım Hikmet’s verses is similar to Atatürk’s understanding of nationalism, which is thought to have been grasped not with an objective understanding like the German Johann Gottlieb Fichte, but with a subjective understanding like Ernest Renan. In fact, this is more in line with the approach to nation in the work of Austrian Marxist Otto Bauer. Although in some contexts the word Turk is used in an ethnic sense, the dominant approach is to use the word Turk in the sense of ‘the people in Türkiye’. The poet, whose poems commemorate the Armenian deportation in 1915 with a negative connotation, does not emphasise a special emphasis on different ethnic groups such as Kurds or Laz people. Although his perspective is criticised by some scholars as a social chauvinist attitude, in our opinion, this approach can be considered as an extension of the TKP’s policy in line with the The Communist International (Comintern). Although the poet did not write a Kurdish-specific poem, in the late 1950s he made some statements on the Kurdish issue based on the right of nations to self-determination.
The last concept that the article focuses on is the country. The country that appears with great longing in Nâzım Hikmet’s poems is, of course, Turkey. Although this longing of the poet can be seen in many of his poems, this concept is also dealt with as a subject of anti-imperialist struggle.
In conclusion, Nâzım Hikmet’s constitutional theses overlap with the constitutional development theses of the international socialist movement. According to this thesis, which is based on the writings of names such as Lenin, Stalin and Mao on Turkey, the Kemalist movement has a bourgeois-revolutionary character with the momentum it derived from the 1908 Revolution. This revolution has the potential to rally the peoples of the east around it in the anti-imperialist struggle and to gain a more progressive character as long as it is realised, but to the extent that it fails to do so, it will be guided by imperialism by struggling with workers and peasants and cooperating with foreign capital. The volatile position of the 1930s was swung in the second direction with the DP government in the 1950s, but the just and patriotic struggle of the people put a stop to this.
