WHAT DID THEY WRITE ABOUT HIM?



Afşar Timuçin (b.1939)

"The poetry of Nâzım Hikmet is really the poetry of a search. Every kind of art is a search; each work of art is related to a human research. However, while some works of art consider human beings from a more general perspective, in their habitual aspect, others strike a more fundamental and radical attitude toward the human. The characteristic of a genius is to split hairs in order to reveal the human being. The poetically genuine Nâzım Hikmet is not content with perceiving the human roughly; he considers the human with wisdom and discusses him philosophically. It is certain that this is a matter of knowledge. It is also for certain that an artist cannot be content with routine, everyday knowledge. The greatness of Nâzım Hikmet derives from the fact that he attained the state of consciousness that makes him benefit from the inheritance of humanity at the utmost level. In order to understand, one has to know; in order to know, one has to understand. An artist cannot get away from this obligation. Nâzım Hikmet discerned this obligation at an early point and thus, before anything else he searched for ways of raising himself up as a human full of knowledge.
"Nâzım Hikmet is not only an impassioned admirer of knowledge but is also open to influence. Those who sneer when influences on Nâzım Hikmet's art are discussed are so dim-witted that they are not even aware of the fact that an artist is someone who is capable of receiving influence to the utmost level. Not everyone becomes affected and similarly, not everyone assimilates the effect in a sound manner. In order to become influenced by Mayakovski, Baudelaire or Aragon, one has to be on the same level of consciousness as they. The real and the high level of influence in art cannot be attained with a low level of consciousness composed of common knowledge. Therefore, we can bravely and sincerely say that Nâzım Hikmet's poetry has greatly been influenced. His poetry is thoroughly conscious and there is no space for contingencies. Some artists use their inner-world, like letting a fish line out into the sea, so as to pick up any sensations, thoughts and any intuition to make up their work. Nâzım's poetry is far from such randomness. In his poetry everything is being argued for the sake of a high level of consciousness and explanation. [...]
"Every artist produces his art and aesthetics in his own context and develops it according to his own life conditions.
"The art experiments of the artist gain importance only when they become strong and join up with other artists' art experiments. This is the guidance of other art efforts. It is at this point that influence gains in importance and acquires establishing meaning. The artist is someone who knows how to be open to the influence of not only of a number of artists he has loved but also to the entire history of humanity. The greatness of an artist derives from the greatness of the influences he has got. Utilising the strong inheritance of the humanity¾it is not useless to repeat¾is only possible with a high level of knowledge. This high level of knowledge, as we see also in Nâzım Hikmet, is a level of continuous debates. In a world in which everything is constituted by lengthy and elaborate debate as a result of vital obligations, art would exist with and as these debates. This debate is included in the nature of the work of art, penetrates into its existence and reflects from it. Every work of art, even at the first step, proclaims to us the fact that there cannot be human life without debate. That is why the artist's view and the monist's view and the artist's eye and the totalitarian human eye constitute two poles that are far from being compatible. In other words, one who wants to see everything in the same form is someone who does not and will not have any relationship to art.
"Nâzım Hikmet knows and since he knows, he is an artist who sees the good. His gaze is not slippery; on the contrary, he gazes with certainty. But this certainty does not derive from unilateralism. A number of artists look at the world from a wide perspective that is ready to accept everything. This kind of artist announces not certainties but slipperiness. Artists like Nâzım Hikmet who have a definite worldview stay away from the slippery.
"He, both as an artist and as a real intellectual, before anything else, teaches us the greatness of the human being and the value of being a human. His poetry is human from head to toe. Another thing we have learned from him is the fact that the artist should be learned and knowledgeable. [...] Solely sensitivity, intuition or foresight is not enough to constitute complete works of art. Sensitivity, intuition and foresight can only be developed with knowledge. Nâzım Hikmet also taught us that true knowledge is the knowledge of society and history and that human life is necessarily social and historical; thus the real human being is someone who feels himself as a social existence. A human becomes an human being only in the presence of other human beings.
"This point of view, naturally, provides the principal meaning to Nâzım Hikmet's aesthetics and forms its main characteristic. His poetry is not uniform, unilateral, monotonous, didactic, informative, enlightening, maturing, deceptive or directing those in the right direction; in his poetry various elements coincide in harmony, even in a conflicting harmony as it is the case in society and in human life. When you look at the world through him, you see the entire wide world. [...]
"Nâzım Hikmet, in fact, is the creator of a uniformity that is composed of many structures. 'According to me, one is great when he walks ahead of his job, from art to politics, and takes the turning-points first, comprehends what has happened and perceives what is going to happen and thus creates depending on this comprehension and perception'. Nâzım Hikmet, with his personality that conforms to this description, is the greatest monument and the climax of our poetry. We always find in him the humanistic essence of a vast history, the constitution of today in all its aspects and pain and a complete belief in the future." (From "Nâzım Hikmet's Poetry," September 1990)