HOSTILITY AGAINST TURKS AND TURKISH - THE EXAMPLE OF TURKISH POETRY

Abstract

In this paper our aim to criticize a malevolent, biased and purposeful mentality and reveal how Turkishness and Turkish language have been subjected to insults and fabricated phrases. History tells us that it is composed of recurrences. There is a lot of evidence in history regarding the nations who forgot their national values and disappeared from history. We also witness that nations who do not own their values and let them be depreciated contract to the sickness of depreciating themselves and begin to hate themselves. Such attitudes lead people not to an honorable life but to conflict with a lot of costs and catastrophes and in turn to devastation. We wish the same error did not recur today. When sinicization was favored by the people connected to Köktürk State, the word Turk was depreciated and under the rule of Ottoman Government who tended to forget their Turkishness and Turkish language the phrase “Etrak-ı bî-idrak- Turks without wisdom” gained popularity. In the course of time, struggles to change or degenerate the meaning of Turkishness have been seen and Turkishness has been labeled with phrases it does not deserve. Even men of literature, poets and senior statesmen who reached higher positions in governmental offices uttered words involving insults to Turkishness and they were not embarrassed about it. In this paper we are going to investigate how some people who carry the titles of scholar or statesmen insulted Turkishness through poetry, and we are going to try to explain the reason of existence of those texts.

Keywords

• turk
• turkish
• ottoman
• poetry
• insult
• hostility.