Homes in Crisis: Exploring Narratives of Loss and Homelessness in Leo Spitzer’s “En Apprenant le Turc” [Heimat zwischen Berlin und Istanbul. Exil, Verlust und Heimlosigkeit in Leo Spitzers „En Apprenant le Turc“]

Abstract

In this article, I propose a reconsideration of the German concept of home in transnational and translational contexts. I centralize Leo Spitzer’s essay “En Apprenant le Turc” and its Turkish translation, “Türkçeyi Öğrenirken,” which details his endeavors to learn Turkish and the various lingual and socio-cultural encounters made in the exilic context of Istanbul in the early 20th century. Navigating theories of translation as developed by Benjamin and Venuti and tracing translational discrepancies between the French and Turkish texts, I explore an alternative discourse of Heimat that allows to rethink this term beyond its conventional and conceptual strictures. I argue that Heimat emerges as a multivectoral and multidirectional concept and intersects with various geographies, languages, and histories. By placing Heimat within a new frame of reference, I demonstrate how this notion demands to be regarded through new vectors: (although seemingly counterintuitively) Turkish nationalism, for one, which appears extraneous, but holds, in point of fact, considerable significance.