what are the important people of turkey?

Answer 1

Though if you ask me personally then I would say "Common people" of Turkey are most important people of Turkey as they are one who make the country great.

However if you are looking for important people of Turkey in text book meaning then also there is a long list and that too differ depending on publications. Some of them are:

Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi
Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi (1609-1640), an inhabitant of Istanbul in the 17th century Ottoman Empire is credited with the first appropriate flight with artificial wings in the history of aviation. The event took place in the year 1638 during the tenure of Sultan Murad IV. Hezarfen took off from the 183-foot tall Galata Tower near Bosporus and landed successfully at Uskudar, on the other side.

This feat was 200 years ahead of its time. Evliya Celebi, historian and chronicler and an eyewitness, recorded vividly in his Seyahatname (a book of travel), the jubilation that followed. Sultan Murad IV was inordinately pleased. Hezarfen was awarded a thousand gold pieces.

He was bound for greater glory when religious intolerance and political asininity cut him down. Palace advisors and religious heads forced Sultan Murad to do otherwise. Hezarfen was exiled to Algeria. (In this irony of fate, he had another illustrious contemporary as company. Galileo had been sentenced for life and put under house arrest in 1633 for unmitigated brilliance that religion and politics found hard to digest.)

After two years Hezarfen died. He was thirty-one.

Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi is an unforgettable name. His trials and tribulations have the shadow of genius. Hezarfen airstrip-one of the three airports in Istanbul-is a reminder that dreams do not die.


Mimar Sinan
Mimar Sinan was the frontrunner among the architects of the Ottoman Era. He was the Chief Architect to many a Sultan. His numerous creations that dot the Turkey skyline still evoke wonder and appreciation and many of the architectural trends he had set are followed till date.


Mustafa Kemal Ataturk


Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is universally acknowledged as the founding father of the modern state of Turkey. He was also his country’s first President. He was a visionary statesman and a military leader par excellence. His surname, Ataturk, means the ancestor of Turks. This name was given to him by the first Turkish parliement for his accomplishments and for his invaluable contributions to the birth and modernization of the Turkish Republic.


Nazim Hikmet Ran


Nazim Hikmet or Nazim Hikmet Ran (1902-1963) is the most widely recognized among all Turkish poets and one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century and his works have been translated into several languages.

A pioneer of the free flowing verse style in Turkish poetry, Nazim Hikmet was oft persecuted in his homeland for his revolutionary and rebellious writings.

Nazim Hikmet was a poet and a dramatist par excellence and though he stirred controversy all throughout his life, he belongs to that rare breed of visionary artists who wrote for a cause. That his works were heavily censored and he was often prosecuted bears ample testimony to the profound influence they exerted over the Turkish people.


Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk is one of the most talented and renowned writers in today's world of literature. Pamuk won many awards and was even considered for the Nobel Prize Award in literature in the year 2005. His original and rich writing style as well as intellectually stimulating ideas make him a best-selling author in Turkey and abroad. Born in Istanbul in 1952 as a child of a wealthy family, he was educated in an American high school and continued to study in the Istanbul Technical University to become an architect. After three years he dropped out of the program in order to study at the Institute of Journalism in Istanbul University in order to follow his dream of becoming an artist. He graduated in 1977. Pamuk spent almost all his life in Istanbul with the exception of the three years which he spent in New York (1985-1988) visiting a scholar at Columbia University.

Pamuk's talent is obvious right after he published his first novel Cevdet Bey and His Sons which brought him an award. The book depicts life of a wealthy Istanbul family, much like his own. In 1983 follows publishing of The Silent House which later brings him new awards. The first internationally renowned novel is The White Castle, published in 1985. It depicts a story of a friendship of an Ottoman scholar and a Venetian slave. While in New York, Pamuk starts writing The Black Book in which he explores artistic expressions through the story of a lawyer searching for his missing wife. The novel again brings him an award. In 1991 The Black Book received a film production in a movie named Hidden Face. In 1994, Pamuk publishes another novel The New Life – about young students influenced by a book. 1998 sees the novel My Name Is Red about the Western world seen through the eyes of Ottoman artists. The novel brought Pamuk two awards. In the following work, a novel Snow, Pamuk decided to express his views on political matters – human rights and the freedom of thought, published in 2002. The action takes place in a northeastern city Kars and tells a story about problems and tension between political Islamists, soldiers, secularists, and Kurdish and Turkish nationalists. The latest book - Istanbul-Memories and the City – is more of a poetical work of the authors memoirs and an essay about the city of Istanbul.

Orhan Pamuk is known for his talent in using the past in describing the intensity of the present. He combines religious and historical themes while being a post-modern writer. Pamuk stays not free of controversies among Turkey's Islamic intellectuals as well as among the secular readers for his irreverence of the state ideology. Pamuk's books have been translated into 32 languages.

Rumi (Mevlana)

Rumi’s vibrant call of love still resonates. It touches the universe with the same fervor as it did seven hundred years ago. Passionate and spiritual, theologian and mystic, Rumi sought God everywhere and in everybody. He has become one in his verses.