Poet, writer and translator
(b. 16 April 1916, İstanbul – d. 13 December 1979, İstanbul). He used the names
of Behçet Necati, Necati Gönül until 1943, after 1943 he used the name of
Behçet Necatigil. The reason why he used the surname Necatigil is because of
the respect he felt for the Divan* poet Necati and for his father. Also he used
the pen names Küçük Muharrir, Bedri Tezgit and İzzet Geyve. He changed his
surname Gönül to Necatigil by deed poll in 1951. He was from a family from Kastamonu.
His father Hacı Mehmet Necati Gönül was educated as a hafiz (knowing the Koran
by heart) and then went to İstanbul to study at the Madrasah, worked as a
professor of religious preaching, inspector of the Singer Company, he was the
Mufti of Beşiktaş and Sarıyer and then he retired. His mother Fatma Bedriye
Hanım was born in 1896 and two years after she gave birth to her son Mehmet
Behçet, she died because of fever in 1918. He had two sisters from his father’s
second marriage, Sıdıka Sebahat (1921) and Ayşe Fehamet (1923).
He attended Beşiktaş Cevri
Usta Primary School for four years in 1923. After his father moved to Kastamonu
because of his job as an inspector for the Singer sewing machine company, he
completed his education at Kastamonu Teacher Training School for Boys in 1927.
But in the same year he caught tuberculosis and couldn’t go to school for two
years. His father, who returned to his job as a religious preacher, moved back
to İstanbul. So he continued his secondary school education at Kabataş High
School in 1931.
He finished Kabataş High
School Literature Class as the top student in 1936. He graduated from Istanbul
University, Faculty of Literature, Department of Turkish Language and
Literature where he entered as a student from İstanbul’s Teacher Training
School in 1940. He studied German at the faculty and went to Germany to improve
his language several times. During this period he studied with the well-known
literature scholars Cahit Külebi, Mehmet Kaplan, Tahir Alangu, Ahmet Ateş,
Fahir İz, Samim Kocagöz, Salah Birsel and Sabahattin Kudret Aksal.
The first place at which he
worked as a literature teacher was Kars High School in 1940. When he became ill
because of the cold and severe weather conditions of the city, he was
transferred to Zonguldak Çelikel High School. He worked there together with
Rüştü Onur and Muzaffer Tayyip Uslu who were poets and writers. His poems and
essays were published in Karaelmas
magazine. But when adenitis tuberculosis appeared again because of the polluted
and damp weather in Zonguldak, he was appointed to İstanbul Pertevniyal High
School as a literature teacher in 1943 at his request.
After working for two months
at Pertevniyal High School, he did his military service in Ankara and İstanbul
as a reserve officer between 1943 and 1945. After, he was appointed to Kabataş
High School as a literature teacher. In the same year his first poetry book Kapalıçarşı (The Grand Bazaar) was
published. He continued doing his job and he entered İstanbul University,
Faculty of Literature, and Department of German Philology. He left there after
two years when he got his German Language Certificate. He met his wife Huriye
(Korkut) in 1948 and they got married in 1949. They had two daughters, Selma
(1951), Ayşe (1957).
He worked as a literature
teacher at various secondary and high schools in İstanbul and at İstanbul Çapa
Institute of Education, Department of Literature between 1960 and 72. He
officially retired in 1972. After retirement, he studied at İstanbul Universty,
Faculty of Economics, Institute of Journalism and Public Relations and at
Yıldız Technical High School. In 1979, he died at Cerrahpaşa Hospital where he
was diagnosed with lung cancer. He is buried in Zincirlikuyu Graveyard.
He began to be interested in
literature in Kastamonu in 1927 when he was a secondary school student. He
published the magazine Küçük Muharrir in his own handwriting, so his
first readers were his friends and relatives. The person who motivated him was
his Turkish teacher, the poet Zeki Ömer Defne. He used the name Küçük Muharrir (Little Writer) in the newspaper Akşam in which his poems, short stories and anecdotes were
published between 1931 and 32.
His first poem “Gece ve Yas” (Night and Mourning) was published in the magazine Varlık when he was a high school
student. In the following years, his poems and translations were published in
the famous magazines Varlık, Türk Dili,
Yeditepe,Oluş, Gençlik, Yeni Dergi, Yeni Edebiyat, Yelken, Ataç, Yenilikler,
Yeni İnsan and his articles were published in the newspaper Cumhuriyet.
Besides being a poet, he was
also known as a biography and radio playwright. He adapted twenty-two novels
and short stories from Turkish and foreign writers for radio.
Of course the thing that made
him famous besides being a poet was his works Edebiyatımızda İsimler Sözlüğü ve Edebiyatımızda Eserler Sözlüğü
(The Dictionary of Names in Our Literature and The Dictionary of Works in Our
Literature). These skillfully written books attracted interest from literature
researchers and were very useful in spite of their deficiencies and they
established themselves as resources that were the first of their kind.
Since he knew German and
French well, he did perfect translations. The writers whose works he translated
most were K. Hamsun, M. De Unamuno, H. Heine, T. Dorst, S. Zweig, R. M. Rilke
and H. Hesse.
With his
work Eski Toprak (Ancient Land) he received the 1956 Yeditepe Poetry Award,
with his book Yaz Dönemi (Summer
Season) he received the Turkish Language Association Poetry Prize, with his
poem Kurtlar (Wolves) that he
translated from Carl Zuetmayer, he received the first prize at the
Turkish-German Association Poetry Awards. After he died, the Behçet Necatigil
Poetry Award was named after him. This award is given every year on 16 April,
which is the anniversary of his death.
All his works were collected and
published between 1981-1989 by Hilmi Yavuz and Ali Tanyeri after his death.
Yapı Kredi Publications also published all his works from 1993.
WORKS:
POETRY: Kapalı Çarşı (The Grand Bazaar, 1945), Çevre (The Environment, 1951), Evler (Houses, 1953), Eski Toprak (Ancient Land, 1956), Arada (In the Middle, 1958), Dar Çağ (Narrow Age, 1960), Yaz Dönemi (Summer Season, 1963), Divançe (Small Collection of Lyric
Poems, 1965), İki Başına Yürümek
(Walking in Two, 1968), En / Cam (The
Most / Glass, 1970), Zebra (Zebra,
1973), Kareler Aklar (Squares Whites,
1975), Sevgilerde (In Love,
selections from his poems, 1976), Beyler
(Gentlemen, 1978), Söyleriz ( We Say,
1980), Yalnızlık Bir Yağmura Benzer
(Loneliness Looks Like Rain), his translated poems, published and prepared by
Ayşe Sarısayın and Selma Esemen, 1984).
DICTIONARY: Edebiyatımızda İsimler Sözlüğü
(Dictionary of Names in Our Literature, 1960, 13th edition, 1989), Edebiyatımızda Eserler Sözlüğü
(Dictionary of Works in Our Literature, 1979, 3. edition. 1989).
ESSAY-RESEARCH: Bile / Yazdı (Even / Wrote, 1979), Ertuğrul Faciası (The Ertuğrul Disaster,
1995), 100 Soruda Mitologya
(Mythology in 100 Questions, published and prepared by Hilmi Yavuz, new edition
2002).
ANTHOLOGY: Atatürk Şiirleri (Poems about Atatürk, 1963).
LETTER: Mektuplar (Letters, prepared by A. Tanyeri H. Yavuz, 1989).
RADIO PLAY: Yıldızlara Bakmak (Looking at the Stars,
two plays with Kadın ve Kedi (Woman
and Cat, 1965), Gece Aşevi (Night
Soup Kitchen, five plays with Son Tren
(The Last Train), Emekli (Retired), Araştırma Salonunda (In the Research
Room), Kutularda Sinek (Fly in the
Boxes, 1967), Üç Turunçlar (Three
Seville Oranges, six plays with Yol
(The Way), Uzak Yol Kaptanı (The
Captain of Faraway), Hayal Hanım
(Lady Dream), Süslü Karakol Durağı (Ornamented Police Station), İki Çapraz Çizgi (Two Crossed Lines,
1970), Pencere (The Window, four
plays, 1975), Ertuğrul Faciası (The
Ertuğrul Disaster, 1995)
SIMPLIFICATION: Musullu Süleyman (Mussullu Süleyman, by Ahmet Mithat Efendi, 1971). Bütün Eserleri (All His Works) which was prepared by Hilmi Yavuz and Ali Tanyeri, was published by Cem Publication House: I-II: his published poetry books (1981, 1982); III, IV: his unpublished poems (1985), V, VI: his prose (1984), VII: Radio Plays (1985), Şiirler-Bütün Yapıtlar (Poems-All His Works, 2001). His translated poems were collected in the book Yalnızlık Bir Yağmura Benzer (Loneliness Looks Like Rain, 1984).
Besides these, he translated from K. Hamsun, M. De Unamuno, H, Heine, T. Dorst, S. Zweig, R. M. Rilke and H. Hesse.