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Vâlâ Nureddin’s Comic Materialism and the Sexual Revolution: Writing across Turkey and the Soviet Union

Vâlâ Nureddin’s Comic Materialism and the Sexual Revolution: Writing across Turkey and the Soviet... Focusing on the life and work of the Turkish novelist and translator Vâlâ Nureddin (1901–67), this article provides a historical overview of Turkish and Soviet literary entanglement in the early twentieth century. A collaborator of the globally acclaimed Turkish communist poet Nâzım Hikmet, Vâlâ was educated at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East from 1922 to 1924. Returning to Turkey in 1925, he launched his career in the daily Akşam (Evening), bringing Soviet and Turkish literature into conversation in his serialized translations and literary adaptations of Soviet erotic fiction. In reading Vâlâ’s neglected 1928 erotic historical comedy Baltacı ile Katerina (Baltacı and Catherine), unique among Vâlâ’s writings in its direct and explicit imagination and specification of an entangled revolution, this article suggests, by way of specific attention to this work’s comedic elements, that Vâlâ imagined the collapse of both Russian and Ottoman imperial sovereignty in terms of sexual revolution. It argues that a study of this unjustifiably neglected erotic comedy not only deepens our knowledge of early republican Turkish literature and culture, but provides a more nuanced understanding of the Moscow-centered transnational literary space produced in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution, or what scholars in Slavic studies have called the “Soviet republic of letters.” http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Literature Duke University Press

Vâlâ Nureddin’s Comic Materialism and the Sexual Revolution: Writing across Turkey and the Soviet Union

Ertürk, Nergis
Comparative Literature , Volume 73 (3) – Sep 1, 2021
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Copyright
Copyright © 2021 by University of Oregon
ISSN
0010-4124
eISSN
1945-8517
DOI
10.1215/00104124-8993951
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Abstract

Focusing on the life and work of the Turkish novelist and translator Vâlâ Nureddin (1901–67), this article provides a historical overview of Turkish and Soviet literary entanglement in the early twentieth century. A collaborator of the globally acclaimed Turkish communist poet Nâzım Hikmet, Vâlâ was educated at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East from 1922 to 1924. Returning to Turkey in 1925, he launched his career in the daily Akşam (Evening), bringing Soviet and Turkish literature into conversation in his serialized translations and literary adaptations of Soviet erotic fiction. In reading Vâlâ’s neglected 1928 erotic historical comedy Baltacı ile Katerina (Baltacı and Catherine), unique among Vâlâ’s writings in its direct and explicit imagination and specification of an entangled revolution, this article suggests, by way of specific attention to this work’s comedic elements, that Vâlâ imagined the collapse of both Russian and Ottoman imperial sovereignty in terms of sexual revolution. It argues that a study of this unjustifiably neglected erotic comedy not only deepens our knowledge of early republican Turkish literature and culture, but provides a more nuanced understanding of the Moscow-centered transnational literary space produced in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution, or what scholars in Slavic studies have called the “Soviet republic of letters.”

Journal

Comparative Literature – Duke University Press

Published: Sep 1, 2021

References

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    Ahmet, Haşim Enginün, İnci Kerman, Zeynep
  • Rusya’da 1917 Şubat ve Ekim Devrimlerinin Türkiye’ye Etkileri/Yansımaları
    Akal, Emel Gültekingil, Murat
  • Yeni Neşriyat
  • Kemalism and Turkish Women
    Arat, Zehra F.
  • Imagining Women at the Movies: Male Writers and Early Film Culture in Istanbul
    Balan, Canan Gledhill, Christine Knight, Julia
  • The Basic Concepts of Historical Materialism
    Balibar, Étienne Althusser, Louis Balibar, Étienne Brewster, Ben
  • Foreword: World Revolution
    Banerjee, Anindita Presto, Jenifer
  • Dreams of a Dual Birth: Socialist Lebanon’s World and Ours
    Bardawil, Fadi Ertürk, Nergis Serin, Özge
  • European and Russian Cultural Interactions with Turkey: 1910s–1930s
    Clark, Katerina
  • The Soviet Project of the 1930s to Found a ‘World Literature’ and British Literary Internationalism
    Clark, Katerina
  • The Red Apostles: Imagining Revolutions in the Global Proletarian Novel
    Djagalov, Rossen
  • The Spectator in the Making: Modernity and Cinema in Istanbul, 1896–1928
    Erdoğan, Nezih Göktürk, Deniz Soysal, Levent Türeli, İpek
  • Nâzım Hikmet and the Prose of Communism
    Ertürk, Nergis
  • Marxism, Communism, and Translation: An Introduction
    Ertürk, Nergis Serin, Özge Ertürk, Nergis Serin, Özge
  • ‘The Orijinal Turkish Spirit.’
    Gürbilek, Nurdan Holbrook, Victoria
  • Double Discourses and Romantic Ottomanism: The Ottoman Empire as a ‘Foreign Country.’
    Gürpınar, Doğan
  • Rasathanede Bir Vak’a
    Nureddin, Vâlâ Wells, H. G.
  • Anti-Westernism on the European Periphery: The Meaning of Soviet-Turkish Convergence in the 1930s
    Hirst, Samuel J.
  • Soviet Orientalism across Borders: Documentary Film for the Turkish Republic
    Hirst, Samuel J.
  • Transnational Anti-imperialism and the National Forces Soviet Diplomacy and Turkey, 1920–23
    Hirst, Samuel J.
  • Lahuti: Persian Poetry in the Making of the Literary International, 1906–1957
    Hodgkin, Samuel Gold.
  • Cinselliğin İnkârı: Büyük Toplumsal Projelerin Nesnesi Olarak Türk Kadınları
    Kadıoğlu, Ayşe Hacımirzaoğlu, A. B.
  • Mazinin Edebi Temsili: Tarihsel Romanda Fatih’in Karakterizasyonu
    Kara, Halim Uysal, Zeynep
  • Central Asia between the Ottoman and Soviet Worlds
    Khalid, Adeeb
  • Writing Revolution across Northeast Asia
    Lee, Steven S.
  • Dillerin ve Ulusların Ayrılması ve Türk Şivelerinin Ana Vatanı Meselesi
    Marr, N İnan, Abdülkadir
  • Ağabeyime ait biografik malûmat
    Nureddin, Sündüs
  • Domesticated Souls: Vâlâ Nureddin (Vâ-Nû) on Womanhood
    Özman, Aylin
  • The Image of ‘Woman’ in Turkish Political and Social Thought: On the Implications of Social Constructionism and Biological Essentialism
    Özman, Aylin
  • The Sexual Revolution
    Stites, Richard.
  • Türk Kanunu medenisi
  • Neşriyat Davası
  • Ahlâk Telâkkilerindeki Müteharriklik
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Biz Ahlâkı Nasıl Anlarız
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Edebî Mevzular
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Edebiyatta Ahlâk
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Maksim Gorki ile Mülâkat
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Örümceklerin Hücumu
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ Wells, H. G.
  • Seyahat Mektupları: Milli Ahlâklar [Fransa’da ve Rusya’da Aşk]
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Venüs’e Don Giydirilir mi?
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Beyond Comparison: Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity
    Werner, Michael Zimmermann, and Bénédicte
  • Moskova Edebiyat Kongrasında
    Yakup, Kadri Erdem, Özgür
  • Baltacı ile Katerina
    Ahmet, Haşim Enginün, İnci Kerman, Zeynep
  • Rusya’da 1917 Şubat ve Ekim Devrimlerinin Türkiye’ye Etkileri/Yansımaları
    Akal, Emel Gültekingil, Murat
  • Yeni Neşriyat
  • Kemalism and Turkish Women
    Arat, Zehra F.
  • Imagining Women at the Movies: Male Writers and Early Film Culture in Istanbul
    Balan, Canan Gledhill, Christine Knight, Julia
  • The Basic Concepts of Historical Materialism
    Balibar, Étienne Althusser, Louis Balibar, Étienne Brewster, Ben
  • Foreword: World Revolution
    Banerjee, Anindita Presto, Jenifer
  • Dreams of a Dual Birth: Socialist Lebanon’s World and Ours
    Bardawil, Fadi Ertürk, Nergis Serin, Özge
  • European and Russian Cultural Interactions with Turkey: 1910s–1930s
    Clark, Katerina
  • The Soviet Project of the 1930s to Found a ‘World Literature’ and British Literary Internationalism
    Clark, Katerina
  • The Red Apostles: Imagining Revolutions in the Global Proletarian Novel
    Djagalov, Rossen
  • The Spectator in the Making: Modernity and Cinema in Istanbul, 1896–1928
    Erdoğan, Nezih Göktürk, Deniz Soysal, Levent Türeli, İpek
  • Nâzım Hikmet and the Prose of Communism
    Ertürk, Nergis
  • Marxism, Communism, and Translation: An Introduction
    Ertürk, Nergis Serin, Özge Ertürk, Nergis Serin, Özge
  • ‘The Orijinal Turkish Spirit.’
    Gürbilek, Nurdan Holbrook, Victoria
  • Double Discourses and Romantic Ottomanism: The Ottoman Empire as a ‘Foreign Country.’
    Gürpınar, Doğan
  • Rasathanede Bir Vak’a
    Nureddin, Vâlâ Wells, H. G.
  • Anti-Westernism on the European Periphery: The Meaning of Soviet-Turkish Convergence in the 1930s
    Hirst, Samuel J.
  • Soviet Orientalism across Borders: Documentary Film for the Turkish Republic
    Hirst, Samuel J.
  • Transnational Anti-imperialism and the National Forces Soviet Diplomacy and Turkey, 1920–23
    Hirst, Samuel J.
  • Lahuti: Persian Poetry in the Making of the Literary International, 1906–1957
    Hodgkin, Samuel Gold.
  • Cinselliğin İnkârı: Büyük Toplumsal Projelerin Nesnesi Olarak Türk Kadınları
    Kadıoğlu, Ayşe Hacımirzaoğlu, A. B.
  • Mazinin Edebi Temsili: Tarihsel Romanda Fatih’in Karakterizasyonu
    Kara, Halim Uysal, Zeynep
  • Central Asia between the Ottoman and Soviet Worlds
    Khalid, Adeeb
  • Writing Revolution across Northeast Asia
    Lee, Steven S.
  • Dillerin ve Ulusların Ayrılması ve Türk Şivelerinin Ana Vatanı Meselesi
    Marr, N İnan, Abdülkadir
  • Ağabeyime ait biografik malûmat
    Nureddin, Sündüs
  • Domesticated Souls: Vâlâ Nureddin (Vâ-Nû) on Womanhood
    Özman, Aylin
  • The Image of ‘Woman’ in Turkish Political and Social Thought: On the Implications of Social Constructionism and Biological Essentialism
    Özman, Aylin
  • The Sexual Revolution
    Stites, Richard.
  • Türk Kanunu medenisi
  • Neşriyat Davası
  • Ahlâk Telâkkilerindeki Müteharriklik
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Biz Ahlâkı Nasıl Anlarız
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Edebî Mevzular
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Edebiyatta Ahlâk
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Maksim Gorki ile Mülâkat
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Örümceklerin Hücumu
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ Wells, H. G.
  • Seyahat Mektupları: Milli Ahlâklar [Fransa’da ve Rusya’da Aşk]
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Venüs’e Don Giydirilir mi?
    Vâ-nû Nureddin, Vâlâ
  • Beyond Comparison: Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity
    Werner, Michael Zimmermann, and Bénédicte
  • Moskova Edebiyat Kongrasında
    Yakup, Kadri Erdem, Özgür