Translated by Ülkün Tansel

 Oğuz Tansel has migrated away, you mean, like a mythical bird with three wings: With one of his wings touching the commoner, the other wing touched with sensitivity and a third wing moved by wisdom. His existence and his body were also in similar harmony. He would plunge deep in thoughts while trying utmost to minimize his body and with exhausted eyes behind his dark glasses he would go on relating…I have no way of knowing if he communicated in a similar manner with anyone else. With me he would reach a state of ecstasy as if expressing his state of mind.

Damned be the life abroad! Each time I came to think of Turkey, Oğuz Tansel –with his breath of wisdom- would also come before my eyes. Now too, he stands before my eyes; but having left behind a void and having carried away with himself the hope of meeting him once again…Each passing year one realizes a gradual lessening of one’s self and also feels a disappointment. You take for granted that you will be able find those you left behind the same as they were fifteen years ago. How strange it is: Distance does not allow friends to age. And then you are confronted with the physical changes in them and their losses. When I learned the news of Oğuz Tansel’s death from his daughter I experienced his loss in such a feeling of defeat.

İnspired by his taste for searching the unique in his narratives I compared Oğuz Tansel to “the mythical bird with three wings.” He truly is so. He stands out with his unique qualities, not his similarities. He did create his own wisdom through assimilation of his knowledge of the common people and contemporary human values. This is apparent especially in his poems. While his heart nourished on that grass green colored ideal of human equality, he started writing his early poems discussing the living conditions of the commoner. He reflected in his poems not only the problems of our own people; but, other people as well. It is by underlining this reality that he brings to forefront the connection between the permanent and the transitory.  In spite of all that wealth of nature in the neighborhoods where he grew up constituting the background of his poetry, the universal human misery of mankind that has fallen far from contemporary life, wrings his heart. What he has wanted to accomplish through his poetry has been to write the epic of humanity and of human civilization. As it shall occasionally be understood from his impressions, the cultural milieu where he grew up is an all people’s resultant where their folk tales, legends, laments flourish. The reason behind his adhering to the epic should be sought in such heritage.

His poetry is the sum of the components of imagery, realism and irony. In accomplishing this Oğuz Tansel resorts widely to the traditional narrative and his knowledge of nature. His poetry bears traces indicating his interpretation of poets in the same venue as Ziya Osman Saba, Melih Cevdet Anday, Orhan Veli Kanık and Cahit Külebi. And this too, is a result of his labor to search for poetics in the main artery. The fact that he is content with whatever is available in nature whenever he resorts to imagery and his employment of the repetition of a noun in the double to serve as adjective and adverb should be construed as a result of his poetic ecstasy.

Consequently, this “mythical bird” with three wings has one wing taking on its color from folklore. The commoner approaches the traditional heritage with deep feelings. The aggrandizement in the elegies, blues, legends and the fantasy in the folk tales attain a literary value because of that density of feelings. Oğuz Tansel’s adherence to folk tales can be explained by his experience of that depth in his feelings. Folk tales have been a source of nourishment in narration for him. By an equal measure, while creating a language of feeling within the folk tale narrative he did create his own fantasy.

Another one of the wings of this “mythical bird” is colored by this feeling which nurtures from the ancient times and turns into an adventure in narration. It is as if Tansel speaks of himself while narrating folk tales. In his folk tales, one experiences the reality of the present as much as one does the ancient. This is apparent in his fantasy as well as in his narrative style. Folk tales are the expressional world where Tansel breathes. He experiences sincerity, honesty, virtue and the world he dreams of inside that world. It will be noted that he is not moved by the folk tales; but rather, he tries to mold the tales in the image of his own world.

The fact that he turned to Bektashi narratives together with Metin Eloğlu who lived like a true Bektashi dervish gives us the opportunity to understand the insight dimension of Oğuz Tansel. The Bektashi jokes that are widely told among the common folk are the dissent of the Anatolian people against fanaticism (bigotry), intolerance and nonsense. The jokes generally emphasize paradoxes related to religious belief. The paradoxes are pointed out using logic and wisdom. The Bektashi sect represents the wisdom of Anatolia. Together with his friend Metin Eloğlu whom he describes in the lines of verse below he

“Never sold his freedom; he went hungry, without a penny

He would explode at injustice; companion to rage

Couldn’t stand remaining vexed; he hastened to peace

No longer will he harbor any moroseness in his mind

Seeks no benefit in friendship, humane, benevolent

Running after beauty in painting and in poetry.

he identified himself with this wisdom.

It would be fair to construe the Bektashi teachings as a fight of knowledge against those who want to impose Islam as frozen, rigid rules. Peaceful social sectors distant to fighting who wish to exist on the basis of knowledge, derive their power from their intellect. In this respect the Bektashi teaching is an epochal current which has carried to Anatolia reason, virtue and humanism. The connection between the reactionary poetry of Metin Eloğlu and the informed humor of Oğuz Tansel must have urged them to work on the Bektashi jokes. The Bektashi tolerance which developed along with the adventure in narration is the basis of the sources of understanding unique to the Anatolian people. The following must be well understood: The Bektashi teaching stems not from Arabic culture; but, from Anatolian culture. Therefore, it would be proper and fitting to underline the fact that Oğuz Tansel should be studied only in terms of this resultant of the common folk, sensitivity and wisdom. Tansel has seated himself on this seat of knowledge nourishing from custom  with the virtue of a wise Bektashi elderly.