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Nâzım Hikmet, one of Turkey's most influential modern poets, spent years in prison for his political writing and communist ties before fleeing Turkey in 1951. That year the government revoked his citizenship. He died in exile in Moscow in 1963, and in January 2009 Turkey restored his citizenship posthumously.

Nâzım Hikmet

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In 1938 military courts convicted Hikmet of inciting mutiny, after naval cadets were found reading his poems, and his sentences added up to 28 years and 4 months. From 1949 an international committee including Pablo Picasso, Paul Robeson and Jean-Paul Sartre campaigned for his release. In 1950 he went on hunger strike, and the poets Orhan Veli, Melih Cevdet Anday and Oktay Rifat joined him. He was freed that May under a general amnesty. In 1951 he escaped across the Black Sea to Romania and settled in the Soviet Union. He died of a heart attack in June 1963 as he went to fetch the morning newspaper, and is buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery.

Türkçe oku
Türkiye'nin en etkili modern şairlerinden Nâzım Hikmet, siyasi yazıları ve komünist bağlantıları yüzünden yıllarca cezaevinde kaldıktan sonra 1951'de ülkeden kaçtı. Aynı yıl hükümet onu vatandaşlıktan çıkardı. Hikmet 1963'te Moskova'da sürgündeyken öldü; Türkiye vatandaşlığını ancak Ocak 2009'da, ölümünden 46 yıl sonra geri verdi.

1938'de askerî mahkemeler, deniz harp okulu öğrencilerinin şiirlerini okuduğu gerekçesiyle Hikmet'i orduyu isyana teşvikten mahkûm etti; cezaları toplam 28 yıl 4 ayı buldu. 1949'dan itibaren Pablo Picasso, Paul Robeson ve Jean-Paul Sartre'ın da aralarında bulunduğu uluslararası bir komite serbest bırakılması için kampanya yürüttü. 1950'de açlık grevine başladı; şairler Orhan Veli, Melih Cevdet Anday ve Oktay Rifat da ona katıldı. Aynı yılın mayısında genel afla serbest kaldı. 1951'de Karadeniz üzerinden Romanya'ya kaçtı ve Sovyetler Birliği'ne yerleşti. Haziran 1963'te sabah gazetesini almaya çıktığında kalp krizinden öldü; Moskova'daki Novodeviçi Mezarlığı'nda yatıyor.

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