The Entanglements of Modernization and Literary Modernism in Turkey

In this chapter, the editors of the volume Turkish Literature as World Literature (Bloomsbury 2021) work through the entanglements between modernization and modernism in Turkey in the fashion of a broad survey and present a framework to understand the various modernisms in the literary sphere as they convey the country’s unique dynamics. Alkan and Günay-Erkol discuss how various elements of modernism are utilized, appropriated, and transformed in the context of Turkey and examine how the term “modernist” gains different meanings in relation to modernity’s varying but constant powerful drive toward a radical break from the past. To this end, they first establish the essential premise of Ottoman Turkish modernization. They investigate the historical and cultural circumstances of literary production and the responses and reactions to modernity during this period. The chapter thus elaborates on how “modernist” works differ from the more broadly conceived “modern” ones in order to delineate a space for modernism as a literary mode in Turkey.