Nihal Atsız

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Nihâl Atsız in the 1930s

Nihâl Atsız ( Ottoman حسين نيهال آتسز Hüseyin Nihâl Atsız , born January 12, 1905 in Istanbul ; died December 11, 1975 ibid) was an anti-Islamic , racist , nationalist and anti-Semitic author, historian, poet and pioneer of the gray wolves movement in Turkey .

Origin and education

Nihâl Atsız was born in 1905 in the Kadıköy district of Istanbul . His father was Nail Bey, a naval officer from Gümüşhane , his mother was Fatma Zehra Hanım and came from Trabzon . He attended the French and German primary school in Kadıköy, the Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Paşa primary school in Kasımpaşa and a private school in Haydarpaşa . He attended middle school in Kadıköy.

After completing his schooling, he enrolled as a student at the military medical faculty, but was expelled from the third grade in 1925 for refusing to greet an Arab sergeant. Atsız then did his military service. In 1926 he enrolled at the Faculty of Literature Darülfünun in Istanbul and studied Turkish Studies at Mehmet Fuat Koprulu , whose assistant he was after completing his studies. In 1931 he married for the first time; the marriage was divorced again in 1935. In 1936 Atsız married a second time; This marriage resulted in two sons, including the future journalist and writer Yağmur Atsız . In 1975, nine months before his death, Nihâl Atsız also separated from his second wife.

Editor of Atsız Mecmua magazine

From 1931 to 1932 Atsız published the magazine Atsız Mecmua , in which he demarcated himself from widespread racial theories that assumed that the Turks, such as Kurds and Gypsies , were from white Aryans, and professed to have Mongolian roots there they would have had military talent just like the Turks themselves. Children should be raised knowing that their ancestors were perfect soldiers of a race called the Turan-Altay . In a further focus, his magazine disregarded the official government policy with regard to the Turkic peoples in the Soviet Union . Ilker Aytürk assumes that this attitude cost him his academic career. Umut Uzer mentions another incident, which is also related to Atsız's position on the question of the Turks in the Soviet Union. During the first Turkish Congress of Historians on July 2, 1932, there was a debate on this question, in the course of which Reşit Galip , who was soon appointed Minister of Education of Turkey, distanced himself from the historian Zeki Velidi Togan , in which he confessed to be proud of not having been Togan's student. The background to the dispute was Togan's support for the demand for territorial autonomy for the Turkic peoples living in Russia, while the other side only supported the demand for cultural autonomy. Atsız, who was close to Togan's position, subsequently sent a telegram to Galip declaring that he was proud to have been a student of Togan. This, according to Uzer, was his undoing a short time later, because Galip became Minister of Education in September 1932 and soon afterwards ensured that Atsiz was expelled from the university and that Atsız Mecmua was banned . After Atsız wanted to work as a teacher in 1933, Galip made sure that he was first transferred to a middle school in Malatya , and in the same year to a high school in Edirne . From 1934 he taught as a Turkish teacher in the Istanbul district of Kasımpaşa.

The magazine Orhun and the Thrace Pogrom 1934

So it was only a very short time that Atsız spent in Edirne in 1933/1934 (from September 11th to December 28th), but he used it to publish a new magazine, the Orhun , and with it his reputation even more to consolidate as a racist . It was named "after a Central Asian site that contains the monumental inscriptions of the Gök Turks - the 'Heavenly Turks', a Turkish dynasty from the 9th century".

In addition to his thoughts on race theory, Atsız published "numerous anti-Semitic inflammatory articles" in the Orhun . “The first edition of Orhun was published in November 1933. The journal contained many anti-Semitic papers attacking the Jews. On March 21, 1934, Atsiz described the Jews and Communists as the two enemies of the Turks. On May 25, he warned the Jews: 'Germany is the first country to have solved the Jewish question,' said Atsiz. If the Jews do not behave properly, 'And then if we get angry, we will not only destroy the Jews like the Germans, but we will intimidate them,' he added. Then he concluded: 'As the saying goes, it is better to intimidate the Jew than to kill him.'

The fact that these inflammatory articles - together with a inflammatory pamphlet by Cevat Rıfat Atilhan - are supposed to have triggered the anti-Semitic riots in Eastern Thrace is an allegation that conceals the true causes. Atsız 'articles were merely the ideological accompaniment to events that were based on measures by the Turkish government and were promoted and tolerated by the latter.

Referring to a report for the Turkish Ministry of the Interior by İbrahim Tali, the then General Inspector for Thrace, Rıfat Bali names three reasons for the excesses against the Jewish population.

“Mainly and first, from Tali's point of view, the Jews had the economic upper hand; they were seen as causing problems for the Muslims because of lending money to the locals with high interest rates and dominating the local economy; and, secondly, they had not Turkified themselves; they were still speaking Ladino, and acting as a distinct community rather than interacting with the Muslim population. Also, the tentative conclusion I came to at the end of the book is that, along with these two reasons (for the events) there was another one, which so far has not been dealt extensively: namely, the militarization of the Thrace region. In 1934 the Joint Staff wanted to re-militarize the Dardanelles and the whole Thrace region. This was a re-militarization that, as we all know, ended up successfully with the Montreux agreement (1936). From their point of view, Jews and the Bulgarians who were still living in Thrace were potential fifth columns (as İbrahim Tali states). So, they had to be moved from this region without making too much trouble. All these reasons - economics, being seen as potential fifth agents, and finally, to a lesser degree, not being sufficiently 'Turkified' - converged. And it suited all parties to force the Jewish communities to leave. It suited the Joint Staff requirements to move these people, and it suited the local Muslim population and the Republican elites who were angry and upset at the Jews for, as they saw it, having the upper hand in economic matters. From their perspective it was the right thing to do if this 'project' could be achieved without causing too much trouble. But as we have seen, the plan went out of control and at that point the government was obliged to interfere and take charge. "

“Mainly and first of all, from Tali's point of view, the Jews had the economic upper hand; they were seen as problematic for Muslims because they loaned local people money at high interest rates and dominated the local economy; and second, they had not turkized themselves; they still spoke Ladino and acted as a community of their own instead of interacting with the Muslim population. Also, the preliminary conclusion that I came to at the end of the book is that in addition to these two reasons (for the events) there was another one that has not been discussed in detail: the militarization of the Thrace region. In 1934 the General Staff wanted to re-militarize the Dardanelles and the entire Thrace region. This was a remilitarization that, as we all know, was successfully completed with the Montreux Agreement (1936). From the [General Staff] point of view, Jews and Bulgarians who were still living in Thrace were potential fifth columns (as İbrahim Tali says). Therefore, they had to be relocated from this region with little effort. All of these reasons - the economy, which is seen as a potential fifth actor and ultimately, to a lesser extent, not sufficiently "turkized" - converged. And it suited all parties to force the Jewish communities to leave. It was in line with the requirements of the General Staff to get these people away, and it was in line with the local Muslim population and republican elites who were angry and angry with the Jews for seeing them as having the upper hand in economic affairs. From their perspective, it was right to do that, if this 'project' could be carried out without too much difficulty. But as we have seen, the plan got out of hand, and at that point the government was forced to interfere and take responsibility. "

Bali evaluates these reasons differently. First for him are the requirements of the General Staff, second are the Jewish traders and their economic dominance, and last for him is the Turkization of the Jews, which he believes was only a pretext. In the course of the interview he added “ And in addition to the reasons I have mentioned, there were the cases of two leading publicists at that time - Cevat Rıfat Atılhan and Nihal Atsız - who had, before the events, been given free rein to make crude anti-Semitic propaganda with no interference from the state. Their journals were closed down only after the events. ”(German:“ The cases of two leading publicists - Cevat Rıfat Atılhan and Nihal Atsız - who had been given a free hand before the events to carry out gross anti-Semitic propaganda without state interference. Their magazines were only closed after the events. “) In particular, however, he denies Cevat Rıfat Atılhan a key role, while he attributes a certain influence to Atsız, as he had many admirers among his students. Nevertheless: “ But I don't think the anti-Semitic propaganda was the main reason. The main reason, as mentioned before, was the Joint Staff requirement, and, secondly, the local Muslim population, which was fed up with the Jews, who were seen as dominating the economy. They were their competitors. The 'grassroots,' so to speak, was ready for some kind of provocation. ”(German:“ But I don't think that the anti-Semitic propaganda was the main reason. The main reasons were, as already mentioned, the demands of the general staff and, secondly, the local Muslim population, who were fed up with the Jews, who were considered to be dominant for They were their competitors. The 'base' was ready for a kind of provocation, so to speak. ”) And from Rıfat Bali's point of view, the Thrace pogrom is not a singular event in Turkish history, but is part of the politics of the State and republican elites against the three non-Muslim communities ( Armenian , Jewish and Greek). And so Corry Guttstadt, despite the many ideological borrowings that Cevat Rıfat Atılhan and Nihal Atsız took in Nazi propaganda, comes to the conclusion: “The events of Thrace are in no way related to the anti-Semitic acts of violence and state persecution of the 1930s To put Nazi Germany or in states of Eastern Europe on a par. No Jew had been killed in Thrace. The only fatality was a Turkish gendarme cavalier. "

To Thrace

After his guest performance in Edirne, Atsiz taught at a grammar school in Istanbul from 1934 to 1944. The Orhun was banned in 1935. In 1944 he was charged and arrested for his turanist ideas. The background to this was that Atsiz had defamed leading members of the state apparatus and celebrities as communists in his reactivated magazine Orhun and had asked Education Minister Hasan Ali Yücel to resign, which prompted one of the accused, the writer Sabahattin Ali , to file a lawsuit against Atsiz. The trial was soon expanded to include charges against other leading nationalists, including Alparslan Türkeş , who were accused in the Racism-Turanism Trial of plotting a coup against the government. On March 29, 1945, the aforementioned Zeki Velidi Togan and Atsiz were sentenced to ten years and six months in prison. After a year and a half, all of the defendants were acquitted because the military appeals court overturned the sentence. For the Turanist Atsiz, it must have been particularly reprehensible that the prosecutor had accused him of being of Greek origin.

Between 1947 and 1949 Atsiz was unemployed. In 1949 he joined the Suleymaniye library and remained so until his retirement in 1969. He continued to make a name for himself through articles in Orhun and Ötüken magazines and had to go to prison again in 1973 because he had several parliamentarians accused of being Kurds . This time he was pardoned by President Fahri Korutürk ; he died on December 11, 1975 of complications from a heart attack.

Atsız's tomb with the banner “Hail of the Turkish Race”

ideology

With his writings, Hüseyin Nihâl Atsız had a great influence on the Turanist movement in Turkey. He believed in the superiority of the Turkish "race" . In his view, Turkism was the ideal of the superiority of Turkism over all other nations. He openly described himself as a racist. In his defense speech in the so-called "Racism and Tourism Procedure" in 1945, he made the following comments on the accusation of racism:

“At the end I say it quite frankly: Turkishism is nationalism. Racism and tourism are part of it. Either the land will rise or fall in these two terms. Racism and tourism do not contradict the constitution. Since I am a racist and a Turanist, a possible conviction for racism and Turanism will be the greatest honor of my life. "

- Translation from Turkish to Cenk Saraçoğlu: Nihal Atsız's World-View and Its Influences on the Shared Symbols, Rituals, Myths and Practices of the Ülkücü Movement, Leiden 2004

Kurds polemically characterized Atsız as “predatory goat drivers”. Atsız wrote about the Kurds:

“Yes ... you can leave if you insist on staying Kurdish and want to speak your primitive language with its 4,000 to 5,000 words and if you want to publish and found a state. We conquered this land by pouring blood and exterminating the Georgians , the Armenians and the Greeks ; and we also defended it against the Crusaders by again shedding rivers of blood. "

In the "Testament" to his son Yağmur, Nihal Atsız names his enemies in 1941:

"Yağmur my son,

Today you are exactly 1.5 years old, I have written my will and I am closing it. I'll leave you a picture of myself as a keepsake. Take my advice and be a good Turk. Communism is a job that is hostile to us, remember that well. The Jews are the secret enemy of all peoples. The Russians , Chinese , Persians and Greeks are our historical enemies. The Bulgarians , Germans , Italians , English , French , Arabs , Serbs , Croats , Spaniards , Portuguese and Romanians are our new enemies. The Japanese , Afghans and Americans are our future enemies. The Armenians, Kurds, Circassians , Abkhazians , Bosniaks , Pomaks , Lasen , Lesghians , Georgians and Chechens are our internal enemies. You have to be well prepared to face so many enemies. May 'Tanrı' (God) help you. "

Atsız's ideology was anti- Islamic , so he referred to the old Turkish Tengrism / Shamanism . In particular in the last years of his life he denied the revelation of Muhammad and called Koranic traditions "Sumerian fairy tales". Nevertheless, he considered Islam to be a Sumerian and thus - according to his view - originally an old Turkish religion. He ridiculed the prophet for marrying the underage Aisha .

Atsız was hardly active in party politics. There was an open break with the right-wing extremist politician Alparslan Türkeş, who was co - accused in 1945 , when he emphasized the Islamic element of the party of the nationalist movement . Nihâl Atsız is still held in high regard within the party. His memory is also honored in circulars from today's party leadership.

Works

Atsız's most famous works include the three novels

  • Bozkurtların Ölümü . Istanbul 1946 ("The Death of the Gray Wolves")
  • Bozkurtlar Diriliyor . Istanbul 1949 ("The Resurrection of the Gray Wolves")
  • Deli Kurt . Istanbul 1958. ("The crazy wolf")

Nihâl Atsız also wrote Z Vitamini ("Vitamin Z"), a political satire on İsmet İnönü about a vitamin that gives a dictator immortality. He was also the author of numerous poems.

literature

  • Güven Bakırezer: "Nihal Atsız" Tanıl Bora (Ed.): Milliyetçilik. İstanbul: 2002 (Modern Türkiye'de siyasi düşünce; 4) pp. 352–357.
  • Mehmet Doğan: Alparslan Türkeş ve Gölgedeki Adam. Ankara, 2002 (“Alparslan Türkeş and the Man in the Shadow”).
  • Umut Uzer: Racism in Turkey: The Case of Huseyin Nihal Atsiz. In: Journal of Muslim Affairs. Volume 22, No. 1, 2002, pp. 119-130.
  • Murat Altun: Extracting Nation out from History: The Racism of Nihal Atsiz. In: Journal of Historical Studies. 3, 2005, pp. 33-44.
  • Corry Guttstadt: Turkey, the Jews and the Holocaust. Association A, 2008, ISBN 978-3-935936-49-1 .
  • Ilker Aytürk: The Racist Critics of Ataturk and Kemalism from the 1930s to the 1960s. In: Journal of Contemporary History. Volume 46, No. 2, 2011, pp. 308-335.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ömer Faruk Akün : ATSIZ, Hüseyin Nihal. In: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi , Vol. 4 (1991), pp. 87-91 ( online , PDF, 4.26 MB).
  2. ↑ Cenk Saraçoğlu: Nihal Atsız's World-View and Its Influences on the Shared Symbols, Rituals, Myths and Practices of the Ülkücü Movement ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / edoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de
  3. ↑ Orhun 1934, No. 7 ( Memento of the original dated December 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nihalatsiz.org
  4. ↑ Ilker Aytürk: The Racist Critics of Atatürk and Kemalism from the 1930s to the 1960s. P. 314
  5. ^ Murat Altun: Extracting Nation out from History. P. 34.
  6. ^ Murat Altun: Extracting Nation out from History. P. 35.
  7. ^ Umut Uzer: Racism in Turkey: The Case of Huseyin Nihal Atsiz. P. 121.
  8. ^ Rıfat Bali: The 1934 Thrace events. Note 9.
  9. ↑ Diana Mishkova, Marius Turda, Balazs Trencsényi: Hüseyin Nihal Atsız: Turkish Unity
  10. ^ Corry Guttstadt: Turkey, the Jews and the Holocaust. P. 185.
  11. ^ Soner Çağaptay : Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk? Routledge, New York and London, 2006, ISBN 0-415-38458-3 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  12. ↑ It must be pointed out at this point that the Thrace pogrom is not mentioned in the already cited works by Umut Uzer, Murat Altun and Ilker Aytürk, all of whom deal extensively with Atsız's racism .
  13. ↑ a b c Rıfat Bali: The 1934 Thrace events.
  14. ^ Corry Guttstadt: Turkey, the Jews and the Holocaust. P. 125.
  15. ^ Umut Uzer: Racism in Turkey: The Case of Huseyin Nihal Atsiz. P. 123.
  16. ↑ Süleymaniye Library (Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi), the largest manuscript library in Turkey
  17. ^ Umut Uzer: Racism in Turkey: The Case of Huseyin Nihal Atsiz. Pp. 123-124.
  18. ↑ a b nihalatsiz.org ( Memento from December 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ Translation from the website ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nihalatsiz.org
  20. ^ Jacob M. Landau: Exploring Ottoman and Turkish history. London 2004, p. 60.
  21. ↑ Aischa bint Abi Bakr ( Memento from May 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Atsız, Nihal
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Atsız, Hüseyin Nihâl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Turkish author, racist and thought leader of the ülkücü movement in Turkey
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Istanbul
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1975