We were in Azerbaijan as the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States (TURKPA) delegation to attend the 100th anniversary events of Azerbaijan’s prominent poet, Bahtiyar Vahapzade. Vahapzade was not only a poet but also a thinker and statesman. We participated in the events held first in Baku and then in Shaki, the city where Vahapzade was born and lived, a place where history and natural beauty converge. At both gatherings, we had the opportunity to listen to his friends, academics and politicians speaking about Vahapzade’s views on Azerbaijan’s need to establish strong ties with its independence and culture, the central role of language in building such a bond, as well as his poems, interpretations and efforts in this regard.
On this occasion, I also recalled Vahapzade’s rejoinder titled “Yel Gayadan Ne Aparar?” published in 1973 in response to the article “Dead Literature” that appeared in the Turkish literary journal Varlık in 1972. In this rejoinder, Vahapzade explicitly underlines what legendary poets Nesimi and Fuzuli signify in our shared intellectual world and the disastrous consequences of severing this continuity of thought: "It is an undeniable reality that Fuzuli’s language contains many Arabic and Persian compounds. But this is not imitation. Should we not, then, take into account the historicity of language? Which nation in the world can claim that its language is completely pure?
On the other hand, is the contemporary English of the English, who are considered among the most conservative nations in the world, the same as the language of Shakespeare’s time? Has this language not developed since then? If poet Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu accuses Fuzuli of linguistic imitation, is he himself not appealing constantly to Europe and drawing examples from situations that are entirely different there? If Fuzuli borrowed certain words from the languages of other nations, and this is deemed a sin, then how should we regard Eyüboğlu’s imitation of European thought, ideas and doctrines? Imitation, indeed, is a bad thing. As I stated in one of my articles, imitation has never made anyone happy. Simply replacing the fez on one’s head with a European hat is not modernization, it is not "becoming European." The real issue is not changing the outside of the head, but changing what is inside, not changing the skull, but changing the mentality. What matters is to grasp Europe’s positive and beneficial aspects not superficially, but inwardly, spiritually. If this were the case, Eyüboğlu – who at every step cites examples from Western literature – would have learned the lesson of respect for the classics from Europe and would not have succumbed to denying them.
In fact, we are already quite familiar with the arguments and the fundamental approach of the text to which Vahapzade wrote his rejoinder. With the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of Western civilization’s dominance, the West’s primary emphasis was directed toward severing its continuity with its own cultural ties. Since we had been defeated, the cause of this defeat, it was argued, must have been our language, culture and religion. Thus, Western expansionism, supported by the rhetoric of Orientalism, sought to associate everything related to our past with defeat and backwardness. Consequently, the West’s Orientalist characterization of our past as “archaic” was not so much an objective assessment of the nature of our culture and language, but rather an ideological stance that regarded its own regime of knowledge as superior and universal.
This imposing approach aimed to devalue and ultimately eradicate alternative conceptions of thought and their unique modes of pursuing truth. In this way, a new language based on Western arguments and culture was promoted. By ensuring a constant confrontation with the past, generations were weakened and estranged from their historical connections. Of course, this was not carried out by Westerners alone; it was also perpetuated through local intellectuals and scholars who had internalized the Western language, with the production of local versions of Orientalist rhetoric being continuously encouraged and rewarded. Ultimately, by turning Western Orientalist rhetoric into the mainstream, the reflexes of interpreting the present through a living connection with the past were severely weakened.
Yet, it is impossible for such attempts – deprived of the experience and accumulation of the past – to truly take root in these lands. Vahapzade points to the same paradox: "So, should today’s Turkish youth not know the paths their fathers once walked? Should one not be acquainted with the intellectual history of a nation? And what ideas, what doctrines does Eyüboğlu wish to instill in today’s youth? Surely those very ideas that exist in Europe and America, to which he constantly appeals. But just as trees transplanted from other soils and climates do not bear fruit in foreign lands, you must understand that imported thoughts and doctrines will also not yield fruit in your own soil, under your own climate, as you wish. An idea does not only come alive on the pages of a book; it must sprout from the very soil itself. With his arguments above, Eyüboğlu separates the people from their own roots, from their own soil. He wishes to break off the newly sprouting branches and shoots (the youth) from the mother branch and graft them onto alien branches. But he forgets that even the most progressive ideas must be planted into the soil, nurtured with its water and sustenance, in order to grow. Just as a fruit-bearing tree cannot thrive if raised in a pot with foreign soil, so too can foreign ideas bear no fruit without people and without history."
As I have noted in my earlier writings, in her book "Avrupalı Şark'ı Bilmez: Eleştirel Bir Söylem," author Zeynep Çelik, while discussing late Ottoman and early Republican intellectuals’ responses to Orientalism, examines in detail how the intellectuals of the period resisted the new language that was being constructed. The intellectuals of the era did not merely oppose the Orientalist idiom in a bombastic manner; they also produced examples of how, in the light of historical accumulation, one could formulate answers in the language of their time to the questions and mental snares generated by Orientalism. For instance, while Austrian art historian Ernst Diez – who began working in 1943 at the chair of Turkish art at Istanbul University – reinforced, through an Orientalist rhetoric, the claim that “the Turks do not possess a national aptitude in the art of painting,” Turkish writer Süheyl Ünver, with his comprehensive studies, went beyond rebuttal and sought to build a new language in this field.
Thus, Vahapzade’s rejoinder, much like Ünver’s example, is not merely a rejection but a call to the possibility and necessity of re-establishing a dynamic bond with our own language and culture. Vahapzade was fully aware of the dangerous consequences of the project that was being attempted: "As a result, the son was separated from the father, the new generation from the old, the branch from the root. Youth became estranged from the great treasure inherited from their forefathers. As a consequence of all this, young Turkish poets and writers, cut off from their roots, fell into the decadence produced by the social crisis in Europe; they joined ‘abstract,’ ‘modern,’ and ‘surrealist’ movements that demanded neither art, labor, craftsmanship, nor talent, and began to create artificial ‘artworks’ that did not spring from the national ground and could not reflect the people’s sorrows. Yet when these ‘artists’ realized that such ‘works’ were not accepted by the broad masses, they began – under the slogan of ‘Smash the idols’ – to throw stones at the literary victories of the classics, to defame them and to deny them, all in an effort to justify their own scribblings."
Although such impositions may have a temporary effect, in the long run the branches will inevitably find their way back to reconnect with their roots – and indeed, they are already doing so. Vahapzade, by his own words, a man who fought all his life on the Azerbaijani front against the Orientalist rhetoric that sought to separate “the son from the father, the new generation from the old, the branch from the root,” was a valiant figure. His entire endeavor was devoted to uniting the son with the father, the new generation with the old, the branch with the root. In this respect, Vahapzade’s efforts in Azerbaijan intersect with those, for example, of Necip Fazıl, Kemal Tahir, Erol Güngör and Alev Alatlı in Türkiye. On this occasion, I once again remember Bahtiyar Vahapzade with mercy and gratitude, and I extend my thanks to TURKPA Secretary-General Mehmet Süreyya Er for organizing and hosting such an important event.
