Human Landscapes – Book I

Human Landscapes is the result of a 4 week workshop with Michiel Vandevelde and 7 dramastudents from KASK School of Arts, Ghent

“During Nazım Hikmet’s long stay in jail from 1938 to 1950, he not only composed the whole of his epic poem ‘Human Landscapes from My Country,’ but also translated Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ into Turkish. That he chose to translate Tolstoy’s great work is perhaps surprising – although Hikmet respected the “grand old man,” his own work reflected very different assumptions about human agency. While Tolstoy’s epic is shaped by his understanding of man’s essential helplessness in the face of the turning wheel of history, such a vision is anathema to Hikmet. Like all of his work, ‘Human Landscapes…’ is shot through with the optimistic conviction that human beings have the capacity to forge their own path upwards by sheer force of their own will. More than the Achilles heel of his communism, it is perhaps this generosity of spirit that forms the guiding philosophy across his oeuvre. As a student in the poem reflects at one point, ‘giving up hope in humanity’ is little more than ‘after-dinner philosophizing.” (William Armstrong)

#stagingrepertoire

This work begun in 1939 at the Istanbul House of Detention and completed ……………………Human Landscapes is the result of a 4 week workshop with Michiel Vandevelde and 7 dramastudents from KASK School of Arts, Ghent

“During Nazım Hikmet’s long stay in jail from 1938 to 1950, he not only composed the whole of his epic poem ‘Human Landscapes from My Country,’ but also translated Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ into Turkish. That he chose to translate Tolstoy’s great work is perhaps surprising – although Hikmet respected the “grand old man,” his own work reflected very different assumptions about human agency. While Tolstoy’s epic is shaped by his understanding of man’s essential helplessness in the face of the turning wheel of history, such a vision is anathema to Hikmet. Like all of his work, ‘Human Landscapes…’ is shot through with the optimistic conviction that human beings have the capacity to forge their own path upwards by sheer force of their own will. More than the Achilles heel of his communism, it is perhaps this generosity of spirit that forms the guiding philosophy across his oeuvre. As a student in the poem reflects at one point, ‘giving up hope in humanity’ is little more than ‘after-dinner philosophizing.” (William Armstrong)

#stagingrepertoire

This work begun in 1939 at the Istanbul House of Detention and completed ……………………