Reflections of Servet-i Funun Literature in the Press: the Edebiyat-i Cedide Library

Abstract

Servet-i Fünun literature represents one of the most celebrated periods in Turkish literary history, both for the innovations it introduced and the stages it skipped. The Edebiyat-ı Cedide Library constituted a book series that assembled printed works by prominent authors of the Servet-i Fünun literary circle. This series has a unity of purpose that clearly presents the worldview, expectations from life and art, aesthetic perceptions, and thinking of the Servet-i Fünun generation at the level of the press. Significantly, the series also offers important clues about the social and political conditions of the period. The practices surrounding the publication of the books in this series directly reflect the pattern of censorship during these same years and the Sultan of this period, Abdülhamid II. Over the 16 years from 1899 to 1915, 35 individual volumes in the series were published. In this article, the origin of this series, the titles and authors of individual works, the characteristics of the published volumes, and the relationship of the series with its own period will be examined. As will be seen, the series bears traces of the dynamics of today’s sociology of literature, but also has parallels with conditions at the time of its publication.

Keywords

• servet-i fünun
• edebiyat-ı cedide
• abdülhamid ii
• censorship
• preface