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Nazım Hikmet, citizen again!
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It was 1951. The Adnan Menderes of the Democrat Party, or DP, was the prime minister of the country for about a year after decades of single party rule of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, came to an end.
Not only Turkey moved on pluralistic democracy with the 1950 elections, that year as part of a general amnesty saw as well the release from prison of Nazım Hikmet Ran, the communist poet who wrote "The Epic of the Liberation War," the best-ever epic on the Turkish War of Liberation. Nazim was in prison since 1938, coincidentally also the death year of modern Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Nazım was serving a 28.4 years imprisonment on conviction that he had incited the military to revolt.
Nazım was 48-years-old when he was discharged from prison. He was still facing charges that he was a member of the then banned Communist Party. As is now, there was conscription practice in the country and military service was a duty for all male Turks. At the age of 48, Nazım was asked to join the military. His health not suitable for conscription, bored with the judicial investigations against him under the notorious articles 141 and 142 of the former Penal Code which regulated penalties against both communist or fascist propaganda and attempts to change the democratic order in the country with a communist or fascist dictatorship, Nazım left the country secretly for a self-imposed exile in the Soviet Union.The Council of Ministers, meeting under the chairmanship of late Premier Adnan Menderes on July 25, 1951 decided to strip Nazım of his Turkish citizenship.
Forty-five years have passed since that decision of the Turkish Cabinet. Several governments have served in the country. Many of them were coalitions in which social democrats were senior partners. Still, no one ever thought that Nazım could be given back his citizenship the way he was stripped of citizenship: With a Council of Ministers decision annulling the 1951 decision. The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government said there was no need to legislate a new law and give back Nazım his citizenship. The government said it was odd to think that only with the individual’s application citizenship could be given back and since Nazım was long dead his citizenship could not be restored. If the cabinet decision that stripped him of citizenship is annulled, Nazım’s citizenship would be automatically restored. That was what the government did. A disgrace to the biggest master of Turkish language, to a poet who described best the War of Liberation, a man who proved his love for this country and nation with his volumes of poetry every line of which were smelling a strong longing for the homeland he was deprived of came to an end 45 years after his death.
For this simple, but great achievement, we have to express our gratitude to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who ordered Culture Minister Ertuğrul Günay to "find a way and finish off this problem," and to Günay, who worked out the formula of annulling the first cabinet decision. Otherwise, if the established procedure was to be applied and since Nazım would not raise from grave to sign a petition to request his citizenship be restored, this problem would never ever be solved and the disgrace would continue forever.
Bringing back Nazım
It was the will of Nazım. He wrote that he wanted to be buried in Turkey, at a village, under an oak tree. He did not say he wanted to be buried at a "prestigious" grave in Moscow. Culture Minister Günay is now saying that the government is decided to undertake whatever possible to arrange the return of Nazım’s remains to Turkey and buried at a village cemetery under an oak tree as he had stressed in his will. Should we really? According to Murat Germen, the grandson of Nazım’s sister, Samiye Yaltırım, remains of Nazım should not be brought to Turkey and he should be allowed to rest in his Moscow grave, though a symbolic grave could be built for him at a place considered appropriate by the government. As for this moment, we have no idea what Nazım’s son, Mehmet thinks on the issue.
However, the will of Nazım must be respected and the great poet must be reburied at a village cemetery, under an oak tree in Turkey and perhaps through an agreement between the two governments the Moscow grave might be maintained as the "First Burial Site of Great Turkish Poet Nazım." We owe this to Nazım.
Nazım was 48-years-old when he was discharged from prison. He was still facing charges that he was a member of the then banned Communist Party. As is now, there was conscription practice in the country and military service was a duty for all male Turks. At the age of 48, Nazım was asked to join the military. His health not suitable for conscription, bored with the judicial investigations against him under the notorious articles 141 and 142 of the former Penal Code which regulated penalties against both communist or fascist propaganda and attempts to change the democratic order in the country with a communist or fascist dictatorship, Nazım left the country secretly for a self-imposed exile in the Soviet Union.The Council of Ministers, meeting under the chairmanship of late Premier Adnan Menderes on July 25, 1951 decided to strip Nazım of his Turkish citizenship.
Forty-five years have passed since that decision of the Turkish Cabinet. Several governments have served in the country. Many of them were coalitions in which social democrats were senior partners. Still, no one ever thought that Nazım could be given back his citizenship the way he was stripped of citizenship: With a Council of Ministers decision annulling the 1951 decision. The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government said there was no need to legislate a new law and give back Nazım his citizenship. The government said it was odd to think that only with the individual’s application citizenship could be given back and since Nazım was long dead his citizenship could not be restored. If the cabinet decision that stripped him of citizenship is annulled, Nazım’s citizenship would be automatically restored. That was what the government did. A disgrace to the biggest master of Turkish language, to a poet who described best the War of Liberation, a man who proved his love for this country and nation with his volumes of poetry every line of which were smelling a strong longing for the homeland he was deprived of came to an end 45 years after his death.
For this simple, but great achievement, we have to express our gratitude to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who ordered Culture Minister Ertuğrul Günay to "find a way and finish off this problem," and to Günay, who worked out the formula of annulling the first cabinet decision. Otherwise, if the established procedure was to be applied and since Nazım would not raise from grave to sign a petition to request his citizenship be restored, this problem would never ever be solved and the disgrace would continue forever.
Bringing back Nazım
It was the will of Nazım. He wrote that he wanted to be buried in Turkey, at a village, under an oak tree. He did not say he wanted to be buried at a "prestigious" grave in Moscow. Culture Minister Günay is now saying that the government is decided to undertake whatever possible to arrange the return of Nazım’s remains to Turkey and buried at a village cemetery under an oak tree as he had stressed in his will. Should we really? According to Murat Germen, the grandson of Nazım’s sister, Samiye Yaltırım, remains of Nazım should not be brought to Turkey and he should be allowed to rest in his Moscow grave, though a symbolic grave could be built for him at a place considered appropriate by the government. As for this moment, we have no idea what Nazım’s son, Mehmet thinks on the issue.
However, the will of Nazım must be respected and the great poet must be reburied at a village cemetery, under an oak tree in Turkey and perhaps through an agreement between the two governments the Moscow grave might be maintained as the "First Burial Site of Great Turkish Poet Nazım." We owe this to Nazım.
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