NÂZIM HİKMET AND HIS BORDER-CROSSING GENERATION, JAMES H. MEYER

Nâzım Hikmet has been the subject of literally hundreds of books published in Turkey and elsewhere. While these works typically focus upon Nâzım’s writing and politics, James H. Meyer’s new biography of Nâzım Hikmet, Red Star over the Black Sea: Nâzım Hikmet and his Generation, takes a different approach, situating Nâzım Hikmet’s life within the of context of late-imperial border-crossing. Drawing upon archival materials collected in Moscow, Istanbul, Amsterdam, and Washington, DC, Meyer’s new book examines Nâzım Hikmet’s experiences alongside those of a broader generation of border-crossing Turkish communists. Born at the turn of the twentieth century and coming of age in the early 1920s, the women and men of Nâzım Hikmet’s generation were the last of the Ottomans. Children of empire, they had grown up amid an era of porous frontiers. By the time this generation had reached its third decade, however, the doors had already begun to close behind them.

Bio: James H. Meyer is associate professor of Islamic World History at Montana State University. He works on issues pertaining to the cross-border connections of the Russian and Ottoman empires, as well as between Turkey and the Soviet Union. His first book, an examination of late imperial pan-Turkism called Turks Across Empires, was published by Oxford University Press in 2014, and was released in Turkish translation in 2021. Meyer’s second book, Red Star over the Black Sea: Nâzım Hikmet and his Generation,was published by Oxford University Press in March of 2023.