Istanbul in the poems of Yahya Kemal bayatlı: a mirror of culture

Abstract

Yahya Kemal Bayatlı is considered one of the most prominent representatives of 20th century Turkish poetry. The deep love and admiration for Istanbul in his poems is a characteristic feature of his works. Istanbul appears in Yahya Kemal's poems not just as a city, but also as a symbol of a culture and a history. Yahya Kemal represents Istanbul as the capital of the Ottoman Empire and attaches great importance to the city's historical and cultural heritage. In his poems, he expresses his longing and admiration for
Istanbul's past. In particular, mosques, tombs, palaces and other historical buildings belonging to the Ottoman period often become objects of description and praise in his poems. Yahya Kemal believes that it is important to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of Istanbul and shows sensitivity on this issue. The article analyzes the poems dedicated to Istanbul by Yahya Kemal Bayatlı, one of the main leading figures of 20th century Turkish literature. The research is important not only for studying Turkish literature, its flow of ideas in a certain period, etc., but also for Azerbaijani literature. First of all, Istanbul is valuable as a place where Eastern and Western cultures meet, but on the other hand, there are enough poetic examples dedicated to individual cities in Azerbaijani literature, and in the future, a mutual comparative analysis of works on this topic may be necessary to create a clear picture of the thematic directions of our poetry. During the research, work was carried out on the texts, the possibilities of the hermeneutic research method were used. In addition, we also benefited from historical-comparative, inductive and deductive methods.
Keywords: Yahya Kemal, Istanbul, city, history, culture, poetry