On the Story of Fatih Kerimi’s “Sultan Aşkı”

Abstract

One of the 20th century’s most important thinkers and the founder of Modern Tatar Literature, Fatih Kerimi, in addition to his activities within the Tatar community, fulfilled an important function as a cultural ambassador between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish communities living in the Idil Ural region. He was educated in Istanbul and between 1910 and 1912 he was in Istanbul as a war correspondent of Vakit Newspaper to follow the Balkan War. Kerimi, whose writings mainly emphasized the bleeding wounds of the society, constantly questioned the reasons for the backwardness of the Muslim Turkish society. Kerimi, whose main aim was to spread reading, especially among girls, on the basis of educational activities, took part in the modern schools put into practice by Ismail Gaspirali and called usulicedit for this purpose. Kerimi devoted his entire life to the fight against illiteracy and his works were built on the idea of modernization in this direction. Kerimi, who knew the society he lived in very well and was a good observer, considered it as a national duty to fight against every group that influenced people and directed them negatively. Kerimi, whose starting point was the issue of education, aimed to warn people by writing articles in this direction. He waged a determined struggle with his stance and thoughts against the oldstyle education system that opposed the education of girls. In this study, Fatih Kerimi’s “Sultan Love”, written in 1908, in which the inner world and emotions of the individual are emphasized, will be analyzed.

Ethical committee approval is not required for this research.

The author declares no conflicts of interest in this study.

This research received no external funding.