Basîretçi Ali Efendi

Ali Efendi (born 1838, died 1910/1912 in Istanbul ) or Basîretçi Ali Efendi , as he was called after the newspaper he published, was an early Ottoman journalist of the 19th century.

Little is known about its origin. His father belonged to the class of İlmiye , the scholars traditionally trained in the madrasas , and was Naib in Vidin in 1872 . After Ali Efendi had successfully completed training in the palace schools of Enderun by 1860 , he became a tax officer in the Ministry of Finance in 1863.

From 1866 he tried to get a license for a newspaper project. After the end of the Cretan uprising, he finally got his license in 1870 and founded his newspaper Basîret (Weitblick). Basîret was one of the first newspapers in the Ottoman Empire. With authors such as Subhipaşazade Ayetullah Bey , the Polish renegade Ferik (Marshal) Subhi Celaleddin Paşa , the Polish émigré Karski, Halet Bey and Ahmed Midhat Efendi , who wrote under the pseudonym Hayreddin , the paper, which appeared 5 times a week (except Friday and Sunday), met with great interest . Ali Efendi, who first used the word millet (nation) in the subtitle of his newspaper , represented the ideas of the Young Ottomans with his newspaper and took the line of the emerging German Empire during the Franco-German War of 1870/71 .

Because of this, the German Chancellor Prince Bismarck became aware of him and in 1871 had him invited to Germany via the legation in Istanbul at state expense, where he was received by the Chancellor in Berlin . During his stay in Berlin the Sadrazam (Grand Vizier) Mehmed Emin Ali Pascha died , who had provided him with instructions before his trip. On the way back, Ali Efendi bought two printing presses in Augsburg with Bismarck's letters of recommendation, and Bismarck arranged the payment for them. Ali Efendi succeeded in further expanding his newspaper and from 1874 he also published the satirical magazine Kahkaha (Laughter), which was soon to be discontinued . The political climate became increasingly hostile to the press and the pressure of censorship increased. Basîret was confiscated three times and fined several times until, on May 20, 1878, after a failed attempt to free the deposed Sultan Murad V from the Çırağan Palace and reinstate him as ruler, the newspaper was finally banned and Ali Efendi was arrested.

After several months of trial for involvement in this coup, Ali Efendi was exiled to Jerusalem in November 1878 and only pardoned in 1884 with the condition that he would no longer work as a journalist. However, he was soon transferred back to Syria as Nahiye Müdürü. He received promotions and awards as a civil servant and was appointed Kaymakam in Latakia in 1897. This was followed by posts as Kaymakam from 1898 in Haifa , from 1903 in Karaburun , from 1904 in Söke and from 1907 in Erdek . After the revolution of the Young Turks in 1908, Ali Efendi left the civil service, went back to Istanbul and tried to re-establish Basîret, which was not crowned with success. In 1910, according to other sources, in 1912, this pioneer of Turkish journalism died.

Works

• Yıldız'ın Hatası: Devlet-i Aliyye-Rusya Muharebesi 1293 , İstanbul 1324 (A memorandum on the Russo-Ottoman War 1877–1878 )
• İstanbul'da Yarım Asırlık Vekayi-i Mühimme , İstanbul 1325 (= 1909/10), memoirs ( Half a century of important events in Istanbul )
  • Reprint: İstanbul'da Elli Yıllık Önemli Olaylar , İstanbul 1976

swell

• Ingeborg Böer et al. : Turks in Berlin 1871-1945. A metropolis in the memories of Ottoman and Turkish contemporary witnesses. W. de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 2002, ISBN 3-11-017465-0 , pp. 23-27
• Ebüzziya, Ziyad: Ali Efendi, Basîretçi (1838–1912) In: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Araştırmaları Merkezi (ed.): İslâm Ansıklopedisi, Cilt 2, pp. 388–389, online