Children's literature in Syria and Sulaiman al-'Isa as a children's literaturer

Syria, which has been the cradle of many civilizations and states throughout history, was ruled by the Ottoman Empire for a long time. Developments such as geographical discoveries, Reform and Renaissance movements, Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution caused many changes in the Western world that affected each other in political, military, economic, social and cultural areas; In this way, the Western world has made great progress in science, technique, art and economy. The developments in the West also affected the Ottoman Empire and all the peoples within the empire. The increasing need for raw materials, especially after the industrial revolution, made the lands ruled by the Ottoman Empire, which had rich underground and surface resources, a target of the West. The increasing raw material need of the West and the globalization goal of the materialist philosophy that guides the Western mind have been the cause of military and cultural wars in the world. Therefore, Western states occupied many parts of the world to meet their raw material needs; they tried to spread. The attitudes of the administrators and intellectuals of the countries, which were affected by the advances made by the West in science, technique, military and economic fields, and that lagged behind this progress, that they should follow the same path as the Westerners, facilitated the colonial activities of the Westerners. Because imitation of the West caused many young people, especially in the regions within the Ottoman Empire, to turn to schools opened by Westerners for education or to countries in the West, especially France. Thus, the idea that it was necessary to follow the Western culture and thought, which was presented as a solution in order to progress within the Empire, began to spread through the intellectuals who were educated in Western style. One of the means of disseminating Western culture and thought has been children's literature. Children's literature is a literature that aims to write literary works for children according to the principles that emerged as a result of developments in fields such as psychology and educational sciences in the West, where the role of the child in social development was discovered in the 18th-19th century, and to raise children according to the values presented in those literary products. Children's literature, which emerged in the West, later spread to geographies affected by Western culture and thought. It is understood that modern children's literature products began to be written in the regions under the domination of the Ottoman Empire (first in Egypt and then in Syria) after the middle of the 19th century. In Syria, which was founded in 1920 as a result of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, there were many writers who wrote in the field of children's literature. It is not possible for literati who argue that literature exists for society, not to be affected by the developments in the world, not to have a unique worldview, to not seek solutions to the problems of the society they live in and remain unresponsive to them. However, it is not possible for all solutions to problems to be the same; While some of the solutions were original and national, some of them were imitation and non-national reactions. The idea of nationalism, which spread to the world after the French Revolution of 1789, was the most defended idea among the people, writers and intellectuals for independence and development in Syria, which began to be governed under the French mandate in 1920. One of the Arab nationalist writers who wrote works in the field of contemporary Arabic literature after Syria got rid of the French mandate and gained its independence in 1946 is Suleiman al-Isa. Suleiman al-Isa is one of the writers who argues that it is possible to reach the level of independence and contemporary countries through Arab nationalism. Al-Isa, who initially wrote works for adults, gave up hope from adults as a result of the backwardness, fragmentation, defeat, oppression and suffering experienced in the Arab geography and directed him to write for children. He wrote works defending the ideas that Arab nationalism and Western thought should be taken as an example in order for the Arabs to get out of the situation they are in. He constantly emphasized in his works that Arabs should have an Arabist identity and a Western way of thinking in order to return to their bright days in the old times. Keywords: Süleyman el-İsa, Children's Literature, children's literature in Syria, Arab nationalism.