Hüseyin Cöntürk Collection

Hüseyin Cöntürk (b. 1918, İzmir- ö. 22nd of June 2003, Ankara) Turkish Literary Critic

He completed his first and secondary education in İzmir. He graduated from İstanbul University Department of Civil Engineering. He worked as an engineer and manager in various state institutions. Cöntürk, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s, became the pioneer of “objective criticism” in Turkey by opposing the essayist attitude in literary criticism through his writings in literary journals such as Yenilik, Pazar Postası, Türk Dili, Yeni Ufuklar, Varlık, Ataç, and also Dönem and Yordam which he had founded.

The young poet became known with his support for authors and critics; he played an important role in the 1960 generation’s development as a generation of criticism. Through his “Wednesday Meetings” he brought together young people with diverse interests and he enabled various topics to be investigated and discussed in depth.

In his first book “Eleştirmeden Önce”, he was influenced by the New Criticism movement and he focused on the theory of what he called “to criticize”.

In his second book he worked on the theory of poetry. In his later works he shifted from theory to practice: in his “Günlerin Götürdüğü’nde” (1962) he reviewed the literary critic Suut Kemal Yetkin, in “Turgut Uyar” (1961) and “Behçet Necatigil ve Edip Cansever Üstüne” (1964) he reviewed these poets. After the 1960s he became distanced towards literature but his interest in young authors and poets as well his support for them continued. His books, together with his papers, discussions, essays, and his works which were not turned into a book such as “Eleştirme Sözlüğü” and “Şairler Sözlüğü”, were turned into books with the contributions of Haluk Aker and Nuran Tezcan. These were published by Yapı Kredi Yayınları in two volumes.