Poet and writer (b. 1869,
Cesrimustafapaşa / Edirne - d. 31 December 1949, İstanbul). He attended a
Jewish primary school in İstanbul. He was educated for a while at Galatasaray
High School. He was dismissed from the School of Politics on the grounds of
contributing to student unrest (1890). After graduating from Medical School
(1899), he served as a doctor at the Quarantine Administration. He became a
member of Union and Progress Party and selected as parliamentary deputy of
Edirne.
During the Second Elections, he
disagreed with the Union and Progress Party and he was expelled to İstanbul.
There he joined the supporters of the Freedom and Unity Party, which was the
opposition party in İstanbul. In the council of ministers of Tevfik Paşa, he
became the Minister of Education (1918) and in the government of Damat Ferit
Paşa, he became the chief of the Council of State (1919). Due to his opposition
to the National Struggle and being one of the delegates that signed the Treaty
of Sevres, he was exiled aboard with those on the ‘hundred and fifty’ list. He
spent twenty-one years abroad in the Hejaz, the United States but mostly in
Jordan and Lebanon (Cünye). In 1939, those of the “hundred and fifty” list were
pardoned and he returned to İstanbul four years later. He is buried in the
Zincirlikuyu Graveyard.
In the beginning, with the influence of
Tevfik Fikret and Abdülhak Hamit he wrote in prosodic meter and later was
successful writing in the tradition style of love and dervish poems. Although he
is remembered as Philosopher Rıza Tevfik, he was not an important contributor
to philosophy. However, he was active in introducing philosophy to the high
school curriculum and held conferences on philosophy at İstanbul University and
served as a philosophy professor. He is not generally considered a philosopher,
but as a very important poet of Turkish Literature.
His articles on
various topics were published in the reviews of which he was also a founder, Ulûm-i
İktisadiyye ve İçtimaiyye Mecmuası, Bahçe (Thessalonica), Bilgi
Mecmuası, Düşünce, Edebiyat-ı Umumiye Mecmuası and İçtihad.
WORKS:
Abdülhak Hamid ve Mülahazât-ı Felsefiyesi (The Philosophy of Abdülhak Hamid and Mülahazât, 1909), Estetik (Aesthetics, 1920), Felsefe Dersleri-1. Kısım, Mebhas-ı Marifet, 1914, (Lectures on Philosophy- Volume 1. Skill of Science, 1914 - translated into modern Turkish by E. Semih Yalçın, 2003), Mabede't Tabiiyat Dersleri (Lessons in Metaphysics, 1920), Madede't Tabiyat Derslerine Vesâik (Documents of Lessons in Metaphysics 1919), Ömer Hayyam'ın Felsefesi (The Philosophy of Omar Khayyam, 1927), Mufassal Kamus-ı Felsefe (Philosophy of Mufassal Kamus, 2 volumes, 1914, 1919), Tevfik Fikret (Tevfik Fikret, 1945), Serâb-ı Ömrüm/şiirler (The Mirage of My Life/poems, first edition, Nicosia, 1934,; 2nd edition, İstanbul, 1949) Biraz da Ben Konuşayım/yakın tarihimizle ilgili anıları (Let Me Talk a Little/ his memoirs about contemporary history, published in a series in the newspaper Yeni Sabah; not published as a book) Rıza Tevfik/ antoloji, inceleme, fıkra yazıları ve şiirleri, (Rıza Tevfik /Anthology, research, his essays and poems edited by Hilmi Yücebaş, fourth edition,1968), Rıza Tevfik'in Tekke ve Halk Edebiyatı ile İlgili Makaleleri (Essays of Rıza Tevfik on Dervish Lodge and Folk Literature, edited by Abdullah Uçan, 1982).
