The directory «Plots»

ŞInasi İbrahim
(1826—1871)

Ottoman intellectual. İbrahim Şinasi's father was an army officer for the Ottoman Empire, and Şinasi himself became an army scribe after completing elementary school. He learned French, and in 1849 he was sent to Europe by the leading Tanzimat reformer, Mustafa Reşid Paşa. There he was influenced by such luminaries as Ernest Renan and Albert Lamartine, but when he returned to Turkey, he was unable to advance in the government and devoted himself to literary endeavors. The author of several plays and books of poetry, he was also a prominent journalist and the editor of Tasvir-i Efkar (Description of ideas), which began in 1862 and acted as a clearinghouse for the liberal Young Ottoman ideas then in vogue. Like many of the Young Ottomans, Şinasi found himself at odds with the more autocratic Tanzimat officials of the day, including Ali Paşa and Fuad Paşa, and he was forced to leave Istanbul in 1864. He remained in Paris until his return to Istanbul shortly before his death.

Turkey, 1959, Şinasi