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Why did modern Turkish poets rediscover Turkish folk poetry after 1923?

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This map shows the territorial expansion of the Ottoman Empire from 1300 to its greatest extent in 1683-99, highlighting different periods under rulers such as Mehmed II, Selim I, and Süleyman the Magnificent, and marking key cities, seas, and geographical boundaries in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. — Turkish literature Map showing the expansion of the Ottoman Empire from about 1300 to 1700. The empire reached its greatest extent between 1683 and 1699.

Following the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, modern Turkish poets rediscovered folk poetry as part of a broader national effort to move away from the Ottoman past and its heavy reliance on Arabo-Persian prosody and vocabulary.123

During the Ottoman period, this branch of literature had been largely neglected by the urban elite. However, the new republican government actively promoted language reforms and a return to pre-Islamic roots, encouraging writers to adopt a simpler, more authentic idiom. By turning to the unadulterated language of the people and the Anatolian village—which had been previously overlooked—poets sought to forge a new national identity.123

This rediscovery became a significant influence on modern lyric poetry, as writers began to reject neo-Ottomanism in favor of simplified language, folkloric forms, and themes relevant to the modern urban and rural experience. This shift allowed poets to bridge the cultural gap between the Ottoman era and the new republican period, ultimately shaping the trajectory of 20th-century Turkish literature.142