Türk modernleşmesi ve muhafazakârlığı serüveni: Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

Ottoman society, which is accepted to have entered the process of westernization and modernization with the Tanzimat, also entered literary genres that were not in its own tradition, such as theatre and novels, during this process. With these translation activities, the world of culture and thought of the period was shaken by new concepts and ideas. The Young Turk movement started to shape Ottoman literary life in the 1890s, and it became possible for young people to somehow understand what was going on in Europe by reading articles in the foreign press. In the first quarter of the 20th century, perspectives criticizing modernism from within the West emerged in European political thought. One of these critics, Bergson, advocated continuity in change by using the concepts of reason versus intuition and time versus duration with his views outside the central axis of Western thought. Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, who was affected by this situation, also wrote articles against the radical transformations of the Turkish Republic in his literary writings—referring to the necessity of living in peace with the past, maintaining the historical heritage, and protecting the values that makeup society, Tanpınar believes in the correctness of continuing by changing and transforming by continuing. Tanpınar has emphasized in almost all his works that modernization divides the minds of Turkish society into two and that this division creates a duality problem in the lives of individuals. This shift in civilization, as well as being trapped between the East and the West, has resulted in mental hybridity and depression in the individual. Reading and evaluating Tanpınar's works in this way will be instrumental in a better understanding of Turkish society. Therefore, it would be proper understanding to accept Tanpınar as a "thinker" beyond or blended with his artist/poet personality.