TRANSLATION ACTIVITIES IN TURKEY IN 19th CENTURY AND AN ANTHOLOGY OF FRENCH LITERARY TEXTS TRANSLATED INTO TURKISH

Abstract

The Westernization movement in the 19th century had many effects on Turkish thought.Turkey found a model of modernization in French science and culture. The French languageoffered them the possibility to enter in a civilized world and to find solutions while Turkey and theOrient retired within themselves.In Müntehabât-› Terâcim-i Meflâhîr (1890), an anthology of the most famous French literary texts translated into Turkish, Ibrahim Fehim and Ismail Hakkı meant to show the importance of translation for the renewal of Turkey and for the establishment of communication between different cultures. Their opinions are also important because they tried to systematize the translation activity while the discussions on the Orient-Occident contrast were gaining momentum in Turkey as well as in France