Social issues in the poems by Mehmet Akif Ersoy and Hüseyin Cavid

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy is our most successful poet, who exposes social content in Turkish poetry in accordance with artistic expression. Throughout his life, he prioritized the social self over his own, and he adopted Islamism, one of the currents of thought that formed during the Ottoman Empire's final decades. In both his poems and proses, Âkif addressed and proposed solutions to social problems in harmony with Islamist philosophy and a sociologist mentality. An important part of Hüseyin Cavid's life coincides with the years when Azerbaijan was under Russian occupation. During the Tsarist Russia and Soviet Union periods, he was exposed to pressure from both administrations, but he still did not give up on his ideals, expressed his people, the problems of his people, and insisted on the necessity of establishing a national literature and language. During his time in Istanbul (1905-1909), Huseyin Cavid met Mehmet Âkif. He also attended Mehmet Âkif's lectures in Darülfünun and had some of his poems published in Sırât-i Müstakim. Social issues in the poems of Mehmet Âkif Ersoy and Hüseyin Cavid were compared in this study. The poems of both authors were emphasized in the comparison, and the theaters of Hüseyin Cavid were excluded, except for his works named Uçurum, Peygamber, Şeyda and Şeyh Senan. In addition to their poems, the two poets' articles and letters were taken into consideration as they are primary sources and these sources were partly used. When comparing them, the titles of "The Idea of Working and Criticism of Laziness", "An Approach to Religion and Customs", "An Approach to Education, Educational Institutions and Teachers", "A View to Imperialism and Civilizing", "The Destruction of Wars and the Necessity of Struggle", "A View to Political Authority and Nationalism" and "Social Landscape" were focused on and similarities and differences were identified.