Berç Keresteciyan Turk

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Berç Keresteciyan Turk 1935

Kigork Berç Keresteciyan (Turk) (* 1870 in Istanbul ; † 1949 in Büyükada , Istanbul) was a polyglot Ottoman - Turkish banker and politician of Armenian origin. He supported Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his war of liberation and received the Independence Medal ( İstiklâl Madalyası ) with a white ribbon. In 1935 he received one of the four seats in the Grand National Assembly reserved by Ataturk for non-Muslims .

Life

Berç Keresteciyan was born the son of the chairman of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, Mıgırdıç Keresteciyan. Berç was raised by his uncle Bedros Keresteciyan , graduated from Galatasaray High School and studied at Robert College . Initially director of the branch of the Ottoman Bank in Saloniki , he then became general director of the branch in Istanbul. After the bank robbery of Taschnaken on August 26, 1896 Keresteciyan was a precautionary measure by the European supervisory as a manager after Cairo in Egypt sent, along with other non-Muslim employees. He also worked in the Izmir branch.

When the Turkish Red Crescent was re-established for the third and final time in 1911, Berç Keresteciyan was a co-founder, the only non-Muslim member of the Executive Committee, and later became its vice-president.

With the entry of the Ottoman Empire into World War I , the French and British employees of the Ottoman Bank became citizens of hostile countries. The Ottomans threatened to expropriate the bank, whereupon the general director and his deputy had to leave their posts. The administration was taken over by non-Muslim Ottomans, including Berç Keresteciyan. He became vice president and eventually director general of the central bank.

In 1919 Berç Keresteciyan warned the lawyer of the later Turkish state founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk against a British plan to sink the SS Panderma , on which Ataturk left Istanbul , in the Black Sea . As Vice President of the Turkish Red Crescent, Keresteciyan supplied medicines and weapons to the Kemalist troops during the Turkish Liberation War and personally participated in their financing.

In January 1923 he became a founding member and honorary president of the Association for Turkish-Armenian Progress ( Türk-Ermeni Teali Cemiyeti ) - together with the Governor of Istanbul, Ziya Bey, and the Vicar of the Armenian Patriarch, S. Kazazian.

After the founding of the Republic of Turkey, he worked for Ziraat Bankası .

When the Surname Act came into force on June 21, 1934, Ataturk Keresteciyan gave the surname Türker (the brave Turk). In the parliamentary elections in 1935 he was elected independent MP for Afyonkarahisar and became the only Armenian MP on March 7th of that year. He became a member of Parliament's Economic Committee. In the parliamentary elections in 1939 and the elections in 1943 he was re-elected and retired in 1946 from political life back.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stanford J. Shaw , From Empire to Republic. The Turkish War of National Liberation, 1918-1923. A Documentary Study , Angora, TTK, 2000, volume III-1, p. 1050.
  2. ↑ Salahi R. Sonyel, Turkey's Struggle for Liberation and the Armenians , angora, SAM, 2001, p 219th
personal data
SURNAME Turk, Berç Keresteciyan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Keresteciyan Turker, Berc
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Turkish banker and politician
DATE OF BIRTH 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Istanbul
DATE OF DEATH 1949
Place of death Buyukada , Istanbul