Laurent Mignon Talks on Rabindranath Tagore in Turkey - 14Th March 2013

Laurent Mignon talks on Rabindranath Tagore in Turkey - 14th March 2013

Laurent Mignon, a Luxembourger and University Lecturer in Turkish and a Fellow of Saint Antony’s College, Oxford spoke on the reception of Rabindranath Tagore in Turkey.

A century ago in 1913 the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in literature. In the following decades, he was one of the most popular poets in Turkey, an exceptional case in a country where little attention was being paid to literary developments beyond eastern borders. Among Tagore’s earliest translators were some outstanding names of Turkish cultural and political life, such as İbrahim Hoyi, Bülent Ecevit and Orhan Burian. Mignon discussed the reception of Tagore in Turkey and his place in the Turkish literary world. A coincidental connection with Luxembourg comes through André Gide. Gide and W.B. Yeats were the two European writers to have recognised Tagore and to have popularised him in Europe. In fact it was through Gide and Yeats that Tagore became known in Turkey. Those of us who attended the tour of the Château de Colpach and talk given by our Cultural Advisor, Jean-Claude Müller in 2004 ( know that Gide had himself been a frequent visitor to Luxembourg. He was the guest of Emile Mayrisch, head of ARBED and his wife Aline who bought the Château in 1917. It seems unlikely that Tagore was not discussed. It may of course be taking coincidence too far to note that ARBED now forms the core of Arcelor Mittal the Indo-European steel company.

When you explore the reception of the works of a writer as diverse and exalting as Tagore, you learn more of those who take up his works than you learn of the works themselves. Laurent Mignon spoke elegantly, and with deep learning, about the response of Turkish thinkers of the first quarter of the last century to the writings of the great man. They saw in his works principles to inspire a new Turkish culture, freed from a repressive Islam and from the acquisitiveness and ill-informed derision of Western powers. Like him, they were drawn to absolutist political doctrines, which aspired to reunite the alienated and free the people from their economic and cultural shackles. Like him, they were drawn to the cult of the strong leader. Like him, they needed a pole to set against a rejectionist Western culture, and like him they saw education as the path to the fulfilment of every man’s and every woman’s potential. As Mignon told us, they conceptualised him, contextualised him and relativised him. In short, they adapted and harnessed his works to help further their literary and political aims. Tagore embodied a universal culture, for he knew and drew inspiration from many streams. Since the emergent nationalism of Turkey had to find its voice through ideals and literary forms drawn from many sources, Tagore gave them a rich material, broad in its scope and profound in its implications.

Dr. Mignon’s research interests include modern Turkish literature and intellectual history, minority literature, socialist literature, biblical themes in Turkish literature and modern Jewish intellectual history. He is currently working on the emergence of Judeo-Turkish literature and on an alternative history of modern Turkish literature. He is also a member of the research group The Yogi and the Dervish. New Religious Movements in Turkey at the Orient-Institut Istanbul. His latest book is Ana Metne Taşınan Dipnotlar (Footnotes Moving to the Main Text, 2009).

His highly learned talk will form the basis of a published academic article. A summary of the talk will be posted shortly.

Rod Dunnett and David Clark , March 2013