Fuad Köprülü’s Evolution: From Cosmopolitan Thought to National Historiography (1909-1913)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15261091Keywords:
Fuad Köprülü, evolution, nationalism, Ottoman literature, literary historiographyAbstract
This article examines the conceptual transformation of evolution in Fuad Köprülü’s writings between 1909 and 1913, tracing his intellectual trajectory from cosmopolitan literary sociology to nationalist philology. Initially engaging with Darwinian, Spencerian, and Tainean models of cultural development, Köprülü deployed evolutionary discourse to articulate a comparative and transnational theory of literature. His early essays treat evolution as a gradual and pluralist unfolding of aesthetic and intellectual refinement. However, following the Balkan Wars and under the influence of nationalist thought, Köprülü reimagines evolution as a voluntarist and vitalist force for national rebirth. Drawing on mutationism, Bergson’s creative evolution, and Gökalp’s cultural sociology, he reframes evolution as rupture, will, and methodological foundation. The article demonstrates how this conceptual reorientation culminates in Köprülü’s “Türk Edebiyatı Tarihinde Usûl,” which institutionalizes literary history as a national science. By analyzing this shift, the article reveals how Köprülü transformed a European-derived concept into the epistemological core of Turkish literary historiography.
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