Traces of Cyprus culture in contemporary Cyprus Turkish poetry

Near East University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Turkish Language and Literature, Nicosia 99138, North Cyprus

^* Corresponding author: sevket.oznur@neu.edu.tr

Abstract

The parallelism between language and culture emerges as a reality accepted by everyone. The individual living in a certain society carries the cultural elements of the society in his own life. The poet, who is in the society in question, reflects the cultural characteristics of the society to his poetry through language. When we look at the formation of Cypriot identity in Turkish Cypriot poetry, it appears as a result of the movement initiated against Turkish nationalism by the 1974 Generation or the Red Belt. In the poems of Fikret Demirağ, Feriha Altıok, Fatma Akilhoca, Saygın Akanyeti, Gür Genç (Gürgenç Korkmazel), Tamer Öncül, M. Kansu, Osman Türkay, Altay Burağan, Orbay Deliceırmak and Faize Özdemirciler, which are considered to have begun in 1943, Contemporary Turkish Cypriot poetry is included. There are many elements to Cypriot culture. In this study, many determinations about the Cypriot dialect, Cypriot life, Cypriot plants and Cypriot food and beverage culture are presented in the poetry books of the above-mentioned poets.