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HIS EVALUATION OF OTHER ARTISTS
Tevfik Fikret (1867-1915)
"Fikret, in a period of his life, wrote poetry saying 'God is almighty' but then later on he became a revolutionary, albeit a metaphysical materialist who said, 'There is not a sigh in nature as you go down with your heaven and with your brightness'. Fikret fought for liberty in his writings but when the bourgeoisie, capturing liberty, abused liberty for its youthful lusts, he screamed and said 'eat, gentlemen, eat'. This poem by Fikret has the potency to give those classes that came into power after the bourgeois revolution, a resounding slap. Fikret longed for utopian socialism¾it cannot be otherwise since the proletarian class that would carry the flag of socialism was weak in our country at the time. And Fikret himself inherited all small weaknesses and the power of the petit bourgeoisie as a result of his social roots. Likewise, after the defenders of İttihat came into power and protected the benefit of the classes they represented rather than the great liberty Fikret had in mind, Fikret on the one hand attacked them and on the other he turned his back upon the world and retired to the top of a hill. Fikret believed in abstract morality and abstract good and evil and he could not grasp that these are concrete things that change essence and shape according to time and place. Despite all, he had seen that people tend toward progress both in his country and in the world and thus he believed in and trusted human beings and in general, he never fell into hopelessness."
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