Tevfik Fikret
Tevfik Fikret was the pseudonym of Mehmed Tevfik, an Ottoman educator and poet, who is considered the founder of the modern school of Turkish poetry.
Biography
Family
Mehmed Tevfik was born in Istanbul on December 24, 1867. His father, originally from the district of Çerkeş in the sanjak of Çankırı, was mostly absent, as he was exiled for being a political foe of the ruling regime; while his mother, a Greek Muslim convert from the island of Chios, died when he was very young.Education
He received his education at the prestigious Galatasaray High School and graduated in 1888 as the valedictorian with the highest grades. He later became the school's principal. His sister suffered a tragic early death. In 1890 he married his cousin Nazime, and the couple had a son named Haluk in 1895. He left Galatasaray in 1894 and started teaching at another prestigious institution on the Bosphorus, Robert College, in 1896, where he kept working until his death. In 1906, he built a house inside the Robert College campus for his wife and son. Named Aşiyan, the house is now a museum.Career
In 1894 he published the literary magazine Malûmat. In 1896 he became the chief editor of the Servet-i Fünun, a magazine that aimed for the simplification of the Ottoman language, where he worked with other Ottoman writers including Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil, İsmail Safa, Mehmet Rauf, Samipaşazade Sezai and Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın. He continued his contributions to Servet-i Fünun until 1901, when his works were banned by the Ottoman government.In 1908, after the Young Turk Revolution, he began publishing the newspaper Tanin, which became a strong supporter of the ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress. In the same period he also contributed to a women's magazine, Mehâsin. He was eventually disappointed with their politics, and returned to Galatasaray High School as the principal; however, during the anti-CUP reactionary 31 March Incident of 1909, he chained himself to the school gates as a protest and resigned the same day.
He had projects for a new school and magazines, however, due to complications from diabetes he refused to treat, he died in 1915 and was buried in the family plot at Eyüp. Fikret's volumes of verse include Rubab-ı Şikeste from 1900, and Haluk'un Defteri from 1911.