İbrahim ŞİNASİ 1826-1871

He is a Turkish journalist, poet, and playwright.

İbrahim Şinasi was born on August 5, 1826 in İstanbul. He completed his primary education at Mahalle Sıbyan School and Feyziye School.

He entered the Müşiriyeti Mektubî Kalemi as a secretary candidate. He learned Arabic, Persian and French. In 1849, he was sent to Paris by the state for educational purposes. He continued his studies on literature and language there. In 1851, he was elected a member of the Société Asiatique. He returned to İstanbul in 1854. He worked at Tophane Kalem for a while. He was appointed as a member of the Meclis-i Maarif. He served in the Encümen-i Daniş. 
Seeing the newspaper as a tool to educate the broad masses of the people, Şinasi published the first Turkish private newspaper, Tercüman-ı Ahval, together with Agâh Efendi, and then established a printing house and published the newspaper called Tasvir-i Efkâr. He brought concepts such as serialization and subscription to the journalistic life of the country.

He is one of the first and most important authors of the Westernization process that started with the proclamation of the Tanzimat in Turkish society. Şinasi, who introduced Western poetry to Turkish society and gave the first examples of Western literary genres such as theater and articles, is an important name who influenced the intellectuals of his time with his innovative ideas and works in the field of literature. The artist also considered theater as a tool to contribute to education and wrote the first Turkish theater, Şair Evlenmesi (The Poet's Marriage).

He worked as a printer and publisher with his own economic capital in Tasvir-i Efkâr Printing House. He contributed to cultural life with the works he published.

He devoted the last years of his life to preparing Ottoman lexicons. He died in İstanbul on September 13, 1871.