There are not many, it is true, but there are Turkish writers and
Turkish women writers. For so long, however, it has been the habit to
condemn wholesale everything Turkish that most European nations have
come to the inconsequent conclusion that there is no Turkish literature.
Say to the average European that you have started to study the Turkish
language, and he will ask, “Unless you are to live in the country of
what use is it? They have no literature.” How many times has that
remark not been made to me! Yet there are some very fine masterpieces,
and it is to an English Professor, Professor Browne, of Cambridge,
that we owe a five-volume study of the history of Ottoman poetry, an
intensely interesting and fascinating book, which has followed me into
the houses of my Turkish friends.
It seems extraordinary to make such sweeping assertions without giving
chapter and verse. “Had the Turks had an Omar Khayyam, long ago Europe
would have known it,” says the Western critic; “Most certainly, had the
Turk had the supreme good fortune to be translated by a Fitzgerald,”
one might reply.
But it is not for one without an accurate knowledge of Turkish to
compare the relative values of the Turkish and Persian poets. The Turks
for a long period of their literary history bowed before the Persian
culture, and once having accepted their methods, without, perhaps, any
really particular reason for doing so, they remained loyal and faithful
to the Persian culture, as they remained loyal and faithful to Islam.
I wonder, however, since I have been studying some of the masterpieces
of this language with my Turkish friend, whether often the disciple
did not become greater than the master--great enough, at least, to
require no longer the master’s example. And then, as Browne and Gibbs
have written, “it was when the Ottoman Muse had flung off her golden
apparel, which for centuries the Persians had embroidered with gold and
precious stones, as a present for her, and put on the Turkish chalvar
(pantaloons) and enturi (tunic), that she assumed an air of youth,
which suited her perfectly, and all the poets of the time admired her.”
When last I visited Turkey five years ago I felt the time was very
near when the Turkish woman of culture would have to find some art by
which to express herself. Beauty’s characteristic is a desire for
self-manifestation. The eternal blue of the sky and sea, the glorious
sunsets, the silence, the solitude of an existence lived amongst people
of another century; the strong draught of idealistic pantheism there is
in the religion of Mahomet--all give birth to beautiful thoughts; the
difficulty is to find a form of expression.
The Turkish woman is modest, as I have said in other chapters, and
her modesty leads her into a lack of self-confidence which has been
detrimental to her cause. Unlike the women of Western Europe, she has
not inherited the tired brain of tired ancestors; she has now awakened
after centuries of rest, with a brain fresh and ready for work, and it
is astonishing to see the ease with which she can learn.
And so it is in literature. Many of my friends can write verse, but
they have not yet written prose, and the five Turkish women who can now
lay claim to a place in the world of letters all began by writing verse.
Of the work of these five writers it is really unfair of me to speak,
seeing I can judge their work only by translation, and that not at
all well done. My object rather is to draw attention to the fact
that they exist, and to induce those Turkish women, as, for example,
Zeyneb Hanoum, who have a thorough knowledge of French, to save their
compatriots’ literary honour in the eyes of Europe by giving us good
translations of their work.
Halidé-Hanoum’s “Handan,” which has been so widely circulated in her
own land, is an interesting study of the Turkish woman’s mind and
life told in a series of letters. But how could this writer let her
work make its bow to the Western world in its inaccurate, and often
indelicate French translation? I have read no other work of this
writer, and I believe “Handan” is not Halidé-Hanoum’s best work. But
the writer herself! what an interesting person! A slight, tiny little
person, with masses of auburn hair and large, expressive Oriental eyes,
she has opinions on most subjects, and discusses the problems of the
day in a manner which charms one not so much on account of what she
says, but because it is so different from what one expected. Strange
it does seem that these women who have been bound and fettered for
centuries, when once they begin to think, acknowledge in the world of
thought no boundaries and restrictions. Again we and they are at the
antipodes. We Englishwomen, who have a liberty of action the world
envies, think, as a rule, in conventional grooves. With how many of
my feminist countrywomen could I have discussed the subjects I have
discussed with my Turkish friends?
It would not be without interest, perhaps, to notice how many Turkish
women are to-day reading Ellen Key. Ellen Key in a Turkish harem
naturally sounds a little alarming! But this herald of feminism
to come cannot do as much harm as she might in an English home,
for I very much doubt whether they--except, of course, women like
Halidé-Hanoum--understand what she means. It is true the titles “Love
and Marriage,” “The Century of a Child,” are especially attractive to
those women to whom the sentimental side of Western life appeals as
being an unexplored territory, and I feel sure many have ordered the
works of Ellen Key on the strength of their titles, and then cast them
aside, to be read some other time.
“To the pure, all is pure,” we say. The Turkish women generally, to
my mind, are more pure-minded, perhaps, than the women of any other
nation. This will certainly come as a surprise to many, who, with their
erroneous ideas as to what a harem really is, still consider the women
as beautiful, idle, intriguing creatures, and “passion” as the only
drama that is played within its mysterious walls. How is it, then,
that Turkish women have acquired this purity? I am not speaking of the
ignorant women, who are innocent rather than pure, but the women who
read and think. The explanation, I believe, is to be found in the fact
that from the age when they begin to think the Turks are taught that
nature must be respected.
As soon as children begin to ask what we call “embarrassing questions,”
they are told the truth. Mothers do not speak in whispers about
subjects which are “perfectly natural”; from a very early age children
know exactly what “maternity” means. All nature, then, being taken
as a matter of course, the _arrière-pensée_ does not even come into
existence; hence purity. When first I arrived in Turkey, however, I
must confess I was surprised to hear the conversations which took place
before the children. Now I see its advantages. Natural curiosity,
unsatisfied, becomes morbid curiosity; morbid curiosity becomes
degeneracy.
I heard the following conversation between a mother and her
six-year-old son: “Mother,” asked the little boy, “would it be very
wicked of me if I didn’t want to marry?” “Yes,” replied the mother, “it
is the duty of all men to marry.” “Why is it the duty of all men to
marry?” next he asked. “So that mothers may have dear little boys like
you,” she replied.
Of the work of Fâtima Alié Hanoum I have read only one book, “Oudi”
(The Lute Player), in a French translation, which has kept none of the
Eastern grace and charm of this writer’s work, for her compatriots,
men and women, universally pay homage to her fine talent, her subtle
perception, her clear and poetical style, and her endless historical
knowledge. Fâtima Alié Hanoum is no longer a young woman. She has a
kind face, which shows at once her good heart; she is small, pale,
thin, and exceedingly active, and her eyes sparkle with enthusiasm as
she discusses with you the subjects which interest her most. Fâtima
Alié is a feminist. She is strongly in favour of women leading an
active, useful life, and working at a profession if necessary, but she
is decidedly opposed to the adoption of European fashions in literary
style, as well as in clothing and furniture.
To her the picturesque stuffs of Broussa are worth more than all the
wares in shops of Paris put together, and to her neat compromise
between a dressing-gown and a dress which covers her uncorseted form
and to her easy, if not elegant, slippers, she will remain faithful
to the end of her days. But feminist though she is, she strongly
opposes any attempt to modify the veil, not because the veil has to
her a religious meaning, but to her it is one of the traditions of
her race, and therefore sacred. No woman in Turkey has made a more
thorough study of the Koran than she, and I am grateful to her for
the pleasant moments spent in her “real Turkish” house whilst she has
explained to me the position of women in Islam. The daughter of Djevdat
Pasha, the celebrated Turkish Patriot, Fâtima Alié Hanoum has inherited
documents which will make her work particularly valuable to those who
are interested in the history of the Ottoman Empire. She is shortly
to publish a history of the last four reigns, and she is particularly
qualified to do this, since she worked for so many years as her late
father’s secretary.
It is interesting, but nevertheless sad, to find in studying the
history of the women of Islam that they, as we of the West, have lost
so much of the power they once possessed. Let us imagine for an instant
those olive-skinned, perfumed women of Arabia in their gaudy raiment
(much in the fashion we are wearing to-day), half-gipsy, half-empress,
even though they were in rags, listening to the preaching of Mahomet in
the desert. Was it not to them particularly that he was preaching?
During the war they took their place beside their husbands, to whom
they were faithful and devoted, and their deeds of daring would make
our hair stand on end, we, the super-sensitive creatures of this
century of half-tones and half-emotions! In time of peace these women
were faithful and sweet creatures, kind to the stranger who sought the
hospitality of their tent, the stranger who, unknown the night before,
received from them enough to satisfy his hunger and to continue his
journey. And the fact that they were women did not prevent their taking
part in the great outer life around them. Mahomet’s own daughter, known
as the “Lady of Paradise,” was one of the finest orators of the East.
During Charlemagne’s reign, too, when Haroun-al-Rachid was Khalif of
Baghdad, a woman, Zeyneb, was appointed professor of the University of
Baghdad, and five hundred young men daily listened to her lectures on
philosophy. Her reputation was so great that she was known throughout
the East. Then there was Leyla, the famous poetess, and Hind, the
famous wit, who was asked to define the worst of women (her answer has
stood the test of time and become proverbial). “The worst of women is
she,” she said, “who when begged to speak holds her tongue, and when
begged to hold her tongue speaks.”
There was about the fifteenth century, too, a poetess, Mihri, to whom
we owe the following lines: “One day the loved one who was near me
questioned me about my love. I gave him my soul, and he never spoke of
it again.” There was the poetess Fituat, also, whose work is full of
sorrow and feeling, and who made for herself so great a reputation as
a woman of letters. To understand her work, I am told, is like “taking
part in the death of the whole world and the awakening of another.”
What an original criticism! And if you question the people of Asia
Minor even to-day they will tell you history cannot find a greater
attachment given to a woman of letters.
And so on through the ages. I could quote names of women who have
done great work, women who have taken their place beside men. How is
it they lost their power, and gradually sank down to the state of
the poor nonentities whom Lady Mary Montagu visited? “Islam alone is
responsible,” says the Western critic. But this is false. Mahomet’s
mistake, perhaps, as a legislator, was that he gave too many rights to
the mothers, and not enough to women who were not mothers. Perhaps,
I repeat. At any rate, all that has most oppressed and crushed the
Turkish woman comes, not from Islam, but from, I was going to say,
Christianity; I prefer the word Byzantium. The latticed windows, the
wrong meaning of the veil, the harem, the eunuchs, the fez, the very
Crescent itself, are all survivals of that Byzantium which has stifled,
for a while, the life and soul of this people of the desert.
There are three more women of whom I must speak as modern Turkish women
writers: Leyla Hanoum, an old lady now, whose verses were several times
recited to me. I cannot judge her as a writer, except to repeat that
the Turks themselves admire her work, and that when told they have no
literature they indignantly ask, “And Leyla Hanoum?”
There is also the poetess Niguar Hanoum, Niguar, whose acquaintance I
made at Monte Carlo after the proclamation of the Constitution. A woman
of great charm and intelligence and an exceedingly hard worker, it is
she herself who will translate her own beautiful lyrics into French and
German.
Another woman whose talent has been very much appreciated in her own
land is Eminé Semié, a sister of Fâtima Alié Hanoum. Her novels have
not been translated. Her political articles have been of no little
assistance to Young Turkey. I met this famous authoress first in
Paris; it was during the recent war. Not one luxury would she allow
herself, not even a cab in the pouring rain, and all her beautiful
jewels she sold in order to send the money to the Red Crescent Society.
She had worn herself almost to skin and bone as a Red Crescent nurse,
and had been sent to Paris to recuperate. Her impressions of the gay
capital were all so charming and original.
But I cannot close this chapter on the women writers of Turkey without
speaking of “Kadinlar-Dunyassi” (“The Feminine World”), a weekly
illustrated paper devoted to women’s interests, whose pages are open to
any woman writer who cares to contribute. It was started, first of all,
as a daily illustrated paper--rather an ambitious idea, but as such it
was a failure, and was therefore quickly converted into an illustrated
weekly.
[Illustration: A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE NEW TURKISH WOMAN’S PAPER
“KADINLAR-DUNYASSI” (“THE FEMININE WORLD”)]
The proprietor and editress of the paper, Oulvyé Mevlane Hanoum, had
had no experience whatsoever either of editing or of the business
side of running a paper; therefore, the result of her effort is
doubly interesting. She understood that if a serious society for the
advancement of women was to be founded they must have an organ in which
to explain their views. She saw the need, and she supplied it.
The publication of this paper is a very happy omen for all those who
take an interest in the woman question. It shows what Turkish women
can do when they have confidence in themselves and a determination
to succeed--unfortunately two qualities they rarely possess. I do not
mean to say they are lazy, but they lack concentration certainly, and
are too proud to risk a failure. But all this will change. Only by
measuring ourselves against the great can we understand how they, too,
have tried and failed over and over again, then we take courage.
What matters it whether the articles of “Kadinlar-Dunyassi” are not
equal to those published in the daily papers! If every Turkish word
were badly spelt and every phrase badly constructed, and every article
poor, I should still rejoice at the publication of “Kadinlar-Dunyassi,”
because it is a co-operative effort--co-operative effort alone can save
Turkey.
And now where are those women who are seeking to express themselves
to turn for assistance? To the West naturally, and to France. It was
Shinasi Effendi who ended the Persian allegiance--Shinasi Effendi
who took his countrymen to the West, and is rightly considered the
founder of the modern school of Ottoman literature. The hazard which
turned him towards the West is interesting, as showing on how slender
a thread a great change may depend. Shinasi was born about 1826, in
the Top-Hané division of Constantinople. After attending the parish
school he entered the Imperial Arsenal, and when there made the
acquaintance of the Comte de Châteauneuf, who afterwards became a Turk,
embraced Islam, and became known as Rechid Bey. This Frenchman was the
grandfather of my friends Zeyneb[7] and Melek[8] Hanoums, the heroines
of Pierre Loti’s “Désenchantées.”
From Châteauneuf, who admired the intelligence of the youth, Shinasi
received the French lessons which created in him the strong desire to
become more and more intimately acquainted with the culture of the
West, and he never rested till his great desire was accomplished and
he finally went to Paris. An interesting study might be written of
the career of this extraordinary man, whose translation of the French
classics, especially of Voltaire and Rousseau, changed the whole
destiny of his country’s literature and history. Just as the French
expressed themselves in French, so the Turks, after Shinasi, learnt not
to express themselves in Persian construction, but to say what they
wanted to say in a Turkish construction.
After Shinasi came Ziva Pasha, the great Kemal, who was exiled after
the publication of “Vatran” (“The Fatherland”), and who in his writings
paid so high a tribute to England: and finally, the greatest of modern
Turkish poets and writers--Abdul-Hak-Hamid, for some time at the
Turkish Embassy in London. The publication of his “Makber” (“Tomb”)
completely revolutionized Turkish literature. Shinasi had shown the
way: Abdul-Hak-Hamid took it, and his verses are already Turkish
classics, recited in all the schools.
And now for the political side of Shinasi’s work. It is necessary for
me to point out that a careful study of Rousseau gave birth to the
Young Turk party, which overthrew the most terrible absolutism the
world has known, to my mind more terrible even than the absolutism of
Nero.
The absence of what we in the West call “social life” naturally makes
the Turks great readers, and the sale of French books in Turkey is
enormous. Books, good, bad, and indifferent, are read, and there are
some who blame the “French novel” for all the shortcomings of the
Turkish youth of to-day.
Unfortunately, the number of persons who read English is limited. I
say unfortunately, because the spirit of our literature is much better
suited to the Turkish character. It is astonishing to notice how many
qualities of the Englishman the “real” Turk possesses, and particularly
his _sangfroid_ in moments of difficulty and danger. In appearance,
too, many of them are so like my own countrymen (and particularly a
naval officer whom I met the other day), that one wonders often whether
they are not Englishmen in the Turkish service.
Although a translation is, after all, only the wrong side of an
embroidery, I have, wherever I can, urged my friends, since they
cannot read our masterpieces in English, to read them in the French
translation.
The Turks may not quite agree with me, but it has seemed to me
everywhere I went that our literature comes as a surprise to them.
We have the reputation of being a solid, matter-of-fact, honest
nation, with a mighty fleet. England still puts her hall-mark of
“all-rightness” on everything she touches, but somehow literature and
art are not expected of us. The Turks will tell you they have read our
masterpieces, they know our literature ... but I saw none in any of
the libraries of the colleges I visited. Voltaire, Rousseau, V. Hugo,
Vigny, Anatole France, Pierre Loti, and now a “promise” of Wells and
Kipling.
I must add, however, in defence of the Turks, that this neglect of our
literature is very largely our own fault. What have we done to spread
the knowledge of our language in the near East? And what has France
done? Les Dames de Sion, the Lazarists, and the innumerable other
orders who, when driven from France, sought the hospitality of the
kindly Turk, what have they not done to further the knowledge of their
language, not only in Constantinople, but throughout the East? And we?
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Zeyneb.--Co-authoress of “The Turkish Woman’s European Impressions.”
[8] Melek.--Co-authoress of “Adbul Hamid’s Daughter.”