Nazım Hikmet commemorated with ceremony

MOSCOW - Doğan News Agency

During the Nazım Hikmet commemoration events, Turks living in Moscow carried banners and posters to show their support for Gezi Park protesters. DHA photo

Nazım Hikmet Ran, modern Turkey’s greatest poet, has been honored at his final resting place in Moscow, a half-century after he passed away.

Musical stars such as Zuhal Olcay, Edip Akbayram and Zülfü Livaneli all performed at an event on June 3, which drew more than 80 people, including artists like Rutkay Aziz, Tarık Akan and Selçuk Yöntem, journalist-writers Hıfzı Topuz, Güvenç Dağüstün and Coşkun Aral, as well as Turks living in Moscow.

Nazım Hikmet Commemoration Committee Chairman Ali Galip Savaşır said Turkish society in Moscow had succeeded in many things for almost 25 years, adding: “In this, there has been a factor that gave us strength: we are in the Moscow of Nazım Hikmet.”

Nazım has always been a common denominator and light, he said. “As a Turkish society in this country, perhaps our biggest success is to try to deserve Nazım Hikmet. We struggled for years for him to [posthumously] regain his Turkish citizenship and make his voice heard in Turkey.”

The event was organized by the Union of Russian Turkish Businessmen (RTIB).

Livaneli said he felt excited for Nazım every time he came to Moscow for a concert. “My heart beats when I hear his name. He played the biggest role in my being a musician and composer.”

Commemoration at grave

Another commemoration ceremony was held yesterday at the Novodevichy Cemetery, where Nazım buried. “As the Nazım Hikmet Foundation, we said ‘not now’ to discussions of bringing his grave to Turkey. If we think about the recent destruction of poet Can Yücel’s grave in Muğla’s Datça and the shooting of the grave of Ruhi Su in Istanbul’s Zincirlikuyu, these conditions are not ready in Turkey. But we want [his] grave to come to the Anatolian land when the winds of peace begin to blow freely in our country,” Aziz said.

RITP head Naki Karaaslan said the love for Nazım would bring together everyone’s children and grandchildren in another half-century.

Touching on the clashes that have broken out in Taksim, Karaaslan said Turkey had been undergoing a difficult process for a few days. “But every country will experience its fate. Countries acquire a healthy structure thanks to these democratic debates.”

At the end of the ceremony, Savaşır said it had become a tradition for Turks living in Moscow to gather at Nazım’s grave every year in June. “For Turkish society in Russia, Nazım Hikmet continues to be a uniting bridge between the two nations,” he added.