ATİLLA, Osman

Poet (b. 1922, Afyonkarahisar - d. 20 April 1978, Ankara). He attended Gedik Ahmet Paşa Primary School and Afyon High School (1946) and worked at the review Taşpınar, which was published by the Afyon Public House for a while; at the review Ülkü, the journal of the General Directorate of People’s Houses in Ankara and at the Directorate of the Printing House of Ankara University. For sixteen years, he was the secretary of the review Türk Dili, the journal of the Turkish Language Association.

He was elected the Afyonkarahisar parliamentary deputy for the Justice Party at the general elections in 1965. He was not re-elected at later elections. He served as a consultant at various governmental ministries. In 1969, he was appointed as the Press Consultant of the Ministry of Industry and Technology. Later on, he was appointed as the Press Consultant at the Ministry of Culture. He published his articles on folklore and his poems in the style of troubadours in several reviews such as Ülkü, Yücel, Çağır, Türk Dili, Hisar, Çağrı. He donated his entire library collection to the Afyon Gedik Ahmet Paşa Library. His body was brought to Afyonkarahisar and was buried at the Asri Graveyard. He got married at fifty but did not have any children.

WORKS:

POETRY: İnaz Köyü Eğitmeni Hasan Koçak’ın Türküsü (Song of Hasan Koçak, the Teacher of İnaz Village, 1945), Sabahleyin (In the Morning, 1950), Gözlerimin Söylettiği (What My Eyes Made me Say, 1975), Güpegündüz (In Daylight), Baştanbaşa (Through out).

ANTHOLOGY: Memleket Şiirleri Antolojisi (An Anthology of Poems on the Country, 1950), Türk Kahramanlık Şiirleri (Turkish Epic Poems, 1967).

RESEARCH-STUDY: Afyon Karahisar Türküleri (Songs of the Afyonkarahisar Region, 1957), Atatürk 30 Ağustos’u Anlatıyor (Atatürk Tells the Story of 30th August), Afyon’un Hazineleri (Treasures of Afyon, unpublished).