Urkiye Mine Balman, one of the first female poets of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, will be commemorated on the 4th anniversary of her death with a panel held at the Near East University on Thursday, April 28, at 11:00, at the Near East University Grand Library. The session chair of the panel to be held in Ümit Hassan Republic Hall at the Grand Library will be Prof. Dr. Şevket Öznur, Near East University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Department of Turkish Language and Literature Lecturer, and Cyprus Research Center and Cyprus Turkish Writers Union President. Before the panel, Ömür Alibaba will play the song composed by Kamran Aziz from Urkiye Mine Balman’s poem “Violin” on the piano. In the panel where the students will also read the poems of Urkiye Mine Balman, Director of Culture Department and poet Şirin Zaferyıldızı Zaimağaoğlu, writer and poet Havva Tekin and writer and researcher Eralp Adanır will also attend as speakers.

The first Cypriot woman poet whose book was published
Urkiye Mine Balman, one of the first female poets from Cyprus, started writing poetry at school and wrote her first poem in 1940. Balman’s first poetry book was published 70 years ago, in 1952, under the title “Roads to My Country”. The first poems of Urkiye Mine Balman, one of the most influential writers of the “Syllabic-Romantic” movement, which is considered to be the first contemporary poetry movement and manifested itself prominently in the 1940s and 1950s, were included in the first anthology “Çığ Seçkisi – Avalanch Selection” published in 1943. Balman, who made great contributions to the Turkish Cypriot community as a teacher as well as as a poet, never broke away from poetry while continuing her teaching job.

Many of the poems of Urkiye Mine Balman, one of the most important names in contemporary Turkish Cypriot poetry, have been published in magazines such as Çağdaş (Contemporary) and Yeşilada (Green Island) in Cyprus, and Yedigün (Seven Days) and Türk Dili (Turkish Language) in Turkey. Balman, who generally writes free-form poems, was honored with the Leading Poet Award at the Ali Nesim Literature Awards in 2017. The thesis of “Urkiye Mine Balman’s life and analysis of poetry”, prepared by Halide Civil from Near East University by interviewing the poet, was published in 2012. Urkiye Mine Balman passed away in 2018 at the age of 91.

Urkiye Mine Balman’s bust is in the Turkish Cypriot Authors Bust Collection of the Walled City Museum
Urkiye Mine Balman, one of the first female Cypriot poets, is one of the names in the “Cypriot Turkish Writers Bust Collection”, which includes Turkish Cypriot writers who contributed to Turkish Cypriot literature, history and culture. The bust of the author is currently on display at the Walled City Museum.

Prof. Dr. Şevket Öznur: I invite all our people and literature lovers to the panel we shall hold in memory of Urkiye Mine Balman, one of the most important names in Turkish Cypriot Literature.”
Chairing the panel to be held in the fourth year of Urkiye Mine Balman’s death, Near East University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Department of Turkish Language and Literature Lecturer, Cyprus Research Center and Cyprus Turkish Writers Union President Prof. Dr. Şevket Öznur emphasized that apart from the theme of longing for Turkey in Balman’s poems, she is a poet who can reach people’s feelings by using people, nature and the environment effectively.

Prof. Dr. Öznur said, “While evaluating or reading Urkiye Mine Balman’s poems, it is necessary to know very well the period when she wrote these poems. Because each poet writes according to the environment of his own period, reflects the feelings of that period. At the time our poet lived, the island was under the rule of the British and people were living in a period of oppression. Almost all of the people who wrote at that time were expressing their feelings by writing Kemalist, folkloric and romantic poems.” Prof. Dr. Şevket Öznur also said, “I invite all our people and literature lovers to the panel we shall hold in memory of Urkiye Mine Balman, one of the very important names of Turkish Cypriot Literature.”