ÜLKÜ TAMER AS AN AGENT OF CHANGE IN TRANSLATOR HISTORY
ÜLKÜ TAMER AS AN AGENT OF CHANGE IN TRANSLATOR HISTORY

Summary/Abstract: Over the last decade, theoretical research in translation studies has focused on human translators and contributed to the emergence of “human turn” as an extension of “humanization” in translation history. In this article, we postulate that Ülkü Tamer, a renowned Turkish poet and translator, was an “agent of change” who crucially impacted the expansion of culture repertoire during the 1960s and 1980s. To identify Tamer as an agent of change, we first analyzed the core elements of his personal history and synthesized them into his sociological biography. We also analyzed the socio-cultural context, political events, literary movements, and historical developments between the 1960s and 1980s. to reveal the effects of external forces on his internal dispositions. We conducted qualitative content analysis of primary and secondary sources about his professional work to investigate his translator identity. In conclusion, Tamer distinguished his poet-translator identity by constructing his internal dispositions upon the external dispositions of his time. As an agent of change, he contributed to the definition of the established canon, prevalence of popular narrative forms, enlargement of the poetic genres in the Turkish language and wider access to global cultural heritage, which results in the expansion of Turkish literary repertoire.

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