Nâzım Hikmet

Greece, 1902-63

Born in Salonika in the Ottoman Empire, now part of Greece, Hikmet was a celebrated Turkish poet and political radical. Having studied economics and political science at the University of Moscow, he returned to his native country in 1924 as a devoted Marxist, promoting Soviet propaganda in the new Turkish Republic. Having been jailed for his activities, he fled Turkey in 1951 and lived in the Soviet Union for the rest of his life.

Hikmet has been referred to as the first modern Turkish poet and claimed his aim was to “depoetize” poetry