In at least 150 words, describe how Nazim Hikmet was connected to the avant-garde, and how this connection was developed in his poetry.

Avant-garde

The above word has it's origins in French language which means to “vanguard” or “fore-guard” or "to protect".

It was as a military term used to describe a small troop of highly skilled soldiers who went before the rest of the army to survey the terrain and communicate any dangers perceived.

Hikmet was introduced to the world of rhymes and verses at a very early age, his grandfather being one of the major influences.

By the time he was seventeen, he had published the first volume of his poems. Soon after this, he joined the Naval War School during the First World War and worked as a teacher in an school located in the eastern parts of Turkey. It was during this period that he started nursing the avant-garde ideas.

He was attracted by the promises by the Russian Revolution of egalitarianism.  Nazim Hikmet went to Moscow in 1922. There he got himself admitted into  the University of Moscow and where he studied Sociology and Economics.

In 1924, after the Turkish Liberation War, he returned to Turkey in 1924 but was arrested shortly afterwards for his writings in a Communist magazine. In 1926, two years later, he managed to escape to Moscow where he continued writing.

Cheers!