Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar studied at Istanbul University Faculty of Letters, Halkalı Ziraat Mekteb-i Âlisi and Istanbul University. The recorded working language is Turkish. Employment is recorded with Istanbul University. Positions recorded include member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Works named in the authority record are A Mind at Peace, The Time Regulation Institute and Suat'ın Mektubu.

• Name — Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar • Born — 23 June 1901 • Birthplace — Istanbul, Ottoman Empire • Died — 24 January 1962 • Place of death — Istanbul, Turkey • Resting Place — Aşiyan Asri Cemetery • Occupation — Writer, poet, scholar • Movement — Modernism • Notable Works — A Mind at Peace The Time Regulation Institute • Education — Istanbul University • Period — 1921–1961

Tanpınar was born in Istanbul on 23 June 1901, the youngest of three children. His father, Hüseyin Fikri Efendi, was a judge. Hüseyin Fikri Efendi was of Georgian origin, his family having roots in the city of Maçahel. Tanpınar's mother, Nesime Bahriye Hanım, died of typhus in Mosul in 1915, when Tanpınar was thirteen. Because his father's vocation required frequent relocation, Tanpınar continued his education in several different cities, including Istanbul, Sinop, Siirt, Kirkuk, and Antalya. After quitting veterinary college, he resumed his educational career at the Faculty of Literature at Istanbul University, which he completed in 1923.. During his time at the university, Tanpınar was tutored by Yahya Kemal, whose views deeply influenced the pupil's intellectual development and ideas about aesthetics, literature, Turkish history and culture. Between the years 1921 and 1923, Tanpınar published 11 poems in the literary publication Dergâh, which was founded by Yahya Kemal. He graduated from Istanbul University in 1923 after defending his thesis on Şeyhî's Hüsrev ü Şirin, a widely influential 15th-century masnavi frequently recomposed by various poets in subsequent periods, sometimes with the title Ferhad ü Şirin.

After graduating, Tanpınar began to teach. Throughout his academic career, he taught at high schools in Erzurum (1923–24), Konya, Ankara, Istanbul, the Educational Institute of Gazi and the Fine Arts Academy. At the Fine Arts Academy, besides teaching literature, Tanpınar lectured on branches of aesthetics in arts, history of art and mythology (1932–39). As an educator, he provoked debate and a degree of controversy in the 1930s after arguing for the elimination of pre-Tanzimat literature from national school curricula. In 1939, despite not having obtained a doctorate, Tanpınar was appointed to the newly founded chair of 19th-Century Turkish Literature, as professor of New Turkish Literature, at the Istanbul University Literature Faculty by the minister of education, Hasan Âli Yücel, and was tasked with writing a history of post-Tanzimat Turkish literature. He published this study as XIX. Asır Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi in 1949. He also contributed to several publications, including Yedigün. The 1940s marked a period of great productivity for Tanpınar. Beş Şehir (Five Cities, 1946), a collection of essays on the cities of Erzurum, Konya, Istanbul, Bursa and Ankara, followed the publication of his first novel, Mahur Beste in 1944. Huzur (translated to English as A Mind at Peace) appeared in 1949 and Sahnenin Dışındakiler (Those Who Stand Outside the Stage) in 1950. Together, these three novels constitute a trilogy. In 1953, he made an extensive journey to Europe over the course of six months, traveling to many countries including France, Belgium, Holland, England, Spain and Italy. In 1954, Tanpınar published Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü, translated as The Time Regulation Institute. The book explores, in an often absurd and sardonic style making heavy use of symbolic imagery, topics as Turkey's troubled transition to a modern society and the departure from old values (and sometimes from reason) that it entails. Şiirler (Poems), a selection of 37 poems of the 74 Tanpınar published in his lifetime, appeared in print in 1961, the year before his death. Scholars have traced his "path to modernism" to a letter he wrote that same year to a child in Antalya.

Between the years 1944 to 1946, Tanpınar served as a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey representing Kahramanmaraş (then known as Maraş). He was a member of the Republican People's Party, at the time the only party with seats in parliament.

• Poetry: Şiirler, 1961 • Stories: Abdullah Efendinin Rüyaları, 1943; Yaz Yağmuru, 1955; Hikâyeler, 1983 • Novels: Huzur 1949; Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü, 1962; Sahnenin Dışındakiler, 1973; Mahur Beste, 1975; Aydaki Kadın, 1987 • Essays: Beş Şehir, 1946; Yahya Kemal, 1967; Edebiyat Üzerine Makaleler, 1969; Yaşadığım Gibi, 1970 • Monographs: XIX. Asır Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi, 1949; Tevfik Fikret, 1937

• A Mind at Peace (Huzur, serial novel, 1948), trans. Erdağ Göknar (Archipelago Books, 2008). (a story of the people of Istanbul, set at the beginning of World War II) • The Time Regulation Institute (Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü, serial novel, 1954), trans. Ender Gürol (Turko-Tatar Press, 2001). Trans. by Alexander Dawe and Maureen Freely (31 Dec 2013) • Tanpinar's Five Cities (Beş Şehir, 1946), trans. Ruth Christie (Anthem Press, 2018)