Abstract
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy and Turkey: His Influence on Turkish Literature
In his youth years L. N. Tolstoy chose Arabic-Turkish literature as his future specialty. He enrolled in the Department of Arabic-Turkish Literature at Kazan University. In 1860’s he published a booklet called Muhammed. He spoke of the lives of the Turks in this booklet. Tolstoy visited Turks in Tula who were taken captive to the Russians in the 1878 Turkish-Russian war and talked to them about Turkish culture. He also talked to the Russian villagers who were captured by the Turks and then later returned to Russia about the life and moral structures of the Turks. Tolstoy corresponded with the translator Olga Lebedeva who came to Turkey in 1881. She wanted to translate Tolstoy’s works into Turkish language. Tolstoy received information about Turkey from her. Tolstoy reflected the gained information the lifestyle of Turks and Turkish culture in his works like Russian Reading Books, Reading Circle, Life Path etc. In the early 1900’s Tolstoy started correspondences with Turkish writers. Turkish writers such as Baha Tevfik, Raif Necdet, Vahdet Gültekin, Nazım Hikmet, Zeki Baştimar etc. translated Tolstoy’s works into Turkish. Like Reşat Nuri Güntekin, Halit Fahri Ozansoy, Sabahattin Ali confessed that Tolstoy had a profound impact on them.
Keywords
L. N. Tolstoy’s works in Turkish, his translators, correspondence with the Turkish writers, influenc
